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Cable FM 70's-80's

G

gbranch

Does anyone remember cable FM? This was pre-Digital Music Express days when cable systems would import FM signals from usually nearby large markets to smaller markets with few stations and modulate them on the FM dial. Using a splitter, you could connect your FM radio to the cable and receive these signals. Classical WFMT from Chicago was what could have been considered an FM superstation, as it was carried on many cable systems across the country.

In Longview, TX, our cable system carried several stations from DFW.

90.5 KERA-FM 90.1 Public Radio
91.1 KZEW 97.9 AOR
94.7 KOAX 105.3 Beautiful Music
95.1 KVIL 103.7 Adult Contemporary
96.5 (then later moved to 97.1) WRR-FM 101.1 Classical

When MTV was added to the cable system in 1982, a stereo version of MTV's audio was added to 102.5. At that time few people had MTS stereo capable sets.

I can remember listening to KERA-FM on the cable system as late as 1994. Sometime after that the cable FM service was discontinued.

I lived in Austin 1986-1987 and Austin Cablevision carried WFMT and several San Antonio stations, including 99.5 KISS on 99.1. Austin Cablevision also carried FM stereo audio from MTV, HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, and The Movie Channel.
 
I do remember the service on then-Cablevision of Raleigh-Durham. I've been trying to locate an old cable guide detailing what, exactly, was offered. I seem to remember, as you mentioned below, an FM stereo version of MTV, as well as one of ESPN, but the local offerings were sparse, no big out-of-market FMs. I think the local Radio Reading Service (for the blind) may have been included.
 
In the mid-1990s TCI in Vancouver did that, right up until they were bought out by AT&T which, if I remember correctly, happened in the early 2000s. (And even then AT&T kept it going for at least a year afterward......)

I remember the Vancouver Cable FM service on TCI had feeds of KIG98 (the "local" NOAA statio in Portland), WWV, C-Span audio and a few other oddities (one freq had a continuous 400Hz tone!) TCI also had a few "radio stations" that they produced internally, but the programming on these stations was horses--t. They had a pop programme, a classical programme, a bizarre little "news/talk" programme and one of adult contemporary. There may have been others but I really don't remember. I don't ever remember hearing Golden Hours or Evergreen Radio Reading Service on it. The audio quality also wasn't really that great, being modulated at a significantly lower level than the over-the-air stations, and there always seemed to be a persistent "humming" and thermal white-noise effect which may have been introduced by their ancient in-line signal amplifiers every couple miles.

My parents still kept their stereo connected to the cable system, getting CaFM stations, for some years after they quit their "subscription" circa 1995. Mum does have a cable line at her current house, but she isn't using it right now.

Here is the CaFM list from an issue of "TV Host" magazine (a locally-produced "TV Guide" clone that went out of business some years back) from August 9-15, 1997~
Code: 
System: TCI Vancouver
KBPS 88.7 Classical
KWJJ 89.3 Country
WWV  89.7 Time
KBOO 90.1 Community
NOAA 90.5 Weather
KOPB 90.9 Public Broadcasting
KUPL 91.3 Country
KGON 91.7 Classic Rock
KKRZ 92.1 Rock Hits
KUFO 92.5 Rock
KMHD 92.9 Jazz
KPDQ 93.3 Christian Programming
KKJZ 93.9 Jazz
C-SPAN 94.5 Public Affairs
KXL  94.9 '80s & '90s Hits
KINK 95.3 Adult Contemporary
KKRH 95.7 Classic Rock
KIRO 96.1 News
MTV, HBO audio and TCI's own shtick were found above this point, but TV Host never bothered to include them in their FM list. I don't believe any of this stuff even exists on Comca$t Vancouver any more, instead (as I'm told) they opt to carry it over their (surprise!) scrambled QAM channels, thefore making you give them money for stuff you'd otherwise get for free.

(There's a rather interesting piece written by one of the WFMT people several years ago: http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/reports/cable-fm-wfmt-mcclain )
 
(There's a rather interesting piece written by one of the WFMT people several years ago: http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/reports/cable-fm-wfmt-mcclain )
Click to expand...

A very good read.

I've had a few experiences with FM cable, the first was Whitesbug, KY. The selection was at the mercy of the antenna and loss. They did offer a "Muzak" service as one of the offering. I'm not sure if they were licensed or just lifted a subcarrier and sold that service to stores. When the system added MTV in 1981 the FM stereo feed was added to the line up.

Lexington, Kentucky in the eighties had Telecable. They offered the audio of the movie channels, TMC was true stereo, MTV (stereo), NOAA and three FM's from Cincinnati. (92.5/94.1/101.9). Briefly they dropped Cincinnati and tried for Louisville (97.5/99.7/106.9) but since the antenna was aimed towards the North the signals were unstable. They also offered WFMT and KKGO Los Angeles. KKGO, like WFMT, was an FM satellite superstation offering Jazz. KKGO's format changed to Classical when KFAC Los Angeles left the format. Eventually the satellite feed was replaced with KLON Long Beach, CA. If I remember correctly, KKGO donated their jazz music collection to KLON. The station I worked for at the time had a spot on FM cable with AM Stereo. The problem was the receiver was located in absolute environment; a Faraday Cage of a building with TV monitors all around. The problem was made worse at night as the cable head end was near a null. If someone moved the receiver so the antenna was perpendicular to the station a listener would hear skywave in stereo.

Owensboro, KY cable was co-owned with the local radio stations. They offered WFMT and KKGO along with NOAA and WVJS-AM. However adjacent market FM's that were competition were covered on the FM service.
 
Longview Cable Television's cable FM stations came off a microwave link from DFW, the same link that supplied the television signals. Longview is roughly 140 miles from the Cedar Hill antenna farm that serves DFW, so receiving stable signals over the air was not an option. The FM signals were very clean except for a barely perceptible high frequency "whine" that was part of the stereo signal. I am not sure if the noise came from the microwave link or was somehow introduced at the cable company headend.

At the time our local FM stations were few and what we had were mostly country or top 40, so we would make mixtapes of the AOR station KZEW (The Zoo) and listen to those as we cruised around town.
 
In the Bay Area, Comcast has run the Music Choice channels for years, but recently (maybe 2 years ago) added back all of the local commercial FM stations.
 
I remember US Cable that served most of Lake County Indiana offering it. I don't remember all the stations offered, but I do know that WUSN (US 99) on 99.5 was not offered. Instead of US 99 on 99.5, WEFM 95.9 Michigan City was on 99.5. For the most part, all other commercial stations from Chicago were as they were on the dial for cable FM. I didn't have US Cable in those day, as I lived on the wrong side of the street. Instead, I had TCI Cable, & they were horrible then. A very limited TV channel lineup & service would go out a lot. It has not improved under AT&T or Comcast.
 
A very comprehensive listing here for the whole UK, from as late as 2003

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/altisuk/fm/

With the switch to digital cable I'm fairly sure this is no longer available


The line up for Derby (my home town) was fairly uninspring and offered nothing not already on a standard radio. It did however give Virgin 1215 (now Absolute Radio) and Radio 5 Live in FM stereo instead of mushy AM

Cambridge did pretty well, getting Kiss FM (dance) and Jazz FM (guess!) from London, about 50 miles away. At best, those stations would have been fringe on a regular radio
 
I remember my dad had cable FM from Storer cable at the time .it was great.I got it hooked up at home. from Rollins cable at the time now Comcast.it seems like it did not work.the stations a home were the same that i can get with out it.
 
I always found it interesting that Owensboro Cablevision got its audio for it's info channel (Cable 8) from a mono modulation monitor for WVJS, but fed the signal for the Cable-FM signal (I keep thinking it was available at 97.5) straight out of the WVJS-AM console, which was stereo.
 
We had cable FM installed in my home in the 70s and quickly discovered the reception was better with a dipole on the back of the receiver than the cable signal (we lived in the suburbs). I suppose cable FM made sense for folks in downtown areas with big buildings and lots of multipath -- or in between hills, for the same reason.
 
I loved using the headend's antenna when it got the entire band. Had wonderful DX from it! The systems that pre-selected the stations, not so much. Neither COmcast or Time Warner offer local FMs now, preferring their own music channels.
 
Keep in mind when cable systems used analog transmission it was a no brainer to pick up FM signals because of channel 6. In the Florida Keys, we would get the local signals from Miami and the FM signals were mixed in. It was a analog relay and the FM stations were part of the signal mix. All the FM station signals went away with digital and fiber technology.

Several people discovered these "hidden signals" with the promotion of MTV in Stereo (when TV sets were still mono) and from classical WFMT in Chicago, who took advantage of a FM tuner hookup.

and now you know.
 
In my area Time Warner has an information channel on 96 that uses a local radio station for its audio. They seem to switch the station every now and then. The audio carrier for channel 96 is 101.75 mhz so its possible to tune it on FM but its only in mono. We also still have analog signals from the headend for Canadian channels CJOH-6 and CKWS.
 
Does anyone remember a service called Super Audio? When I had cable in the late 80s-early 90s, our cable company didn't even mention having this feature. Was playing around with the cable & stereo one day, and there may have been 5 or 6 stations on my FM. What was unusual was that some were on "even" frequencies, and some spaced .3 MHz apart...doggone if I could remember the frequencies.....88.8 maybe, 89.1, 89.4?

I got permission from the cable co. to use a splitter.

One of the stations was KNOW out of Minneapolis, and another IIRC was a B/EZ station which, on Saturday night, featured "hits" of the 30s, 40s & early 50s. I do not think I had WFMT on this....although I was aware of its availability.

Did anyone ever get that service?

cd
 
Lafayette, Indiana's cable system brought in stations from Chicago. I'm told the cable was so leaky that people could hear Chicago radio stations in their car. I lived in Qicny, IL for a short time in the 80s, they brought St, Louis FMs in, presumably on the same microwave relay used to bring the St. Louis TV stations in.
 
Greg Branch said:
Does anyone remember cable FM? This was pre-Digital Music Express days when cable systems would import FM signals from usually nearby large markets to smaller markets with few stations and modulate them on the FM dial. Using a splitter, you could connect your FM radio to the cable and receive these signals. Classical WFMT from Chicago was what could have been considered an FM superstation, as it was carried on many cable systems across the country.

In Longview, TX, our cable system carried several stations from DFW.

90.5 KERA-FM 90.1 Public Radio
91.1 KZEW 97.9 AOR
94.7 KOAX 105.3 Beautiful Music
95.1 KVIL 103.7 Adult Contemporary
96.5 (then later moved to 97.1) WRR-FM 101.1 Classical

When MTV was added to the cable system in 1982, a stereo version of MTV's audio was added to 102.5. At that time few people had MTS stereo capable sets.

I can remember listening to KERA-FM on the cable system as late as 1994. Sometime after that the cable FM service was discontinued.

I lived in Austin 1986-1987 and Austin Cablevision carried WFMT and several San Antonio stations, including 99.5 KISS on 99.1. Austin Cablevision also carried FM stereo audio from MTV, HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, and The Movie Channel.
Click to expand...

Rogers and then Paragon Cable used to do that until I would say 1996. I would get Austin's KEY 103.5 KEYI, Froggy 94.7 KFGI, and 92.1 KNBT off of it. I heard they still do that in San Marcos.
 
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