KDFC

Once upon a time there were two FM classical radio stations in the San Francisco Bay Area. KKHI was the predominant larger San Franciscio station, whose broadcasts I'd listend to the most. On the hand, KDFC was the Palo Alto - Stanford (south of San Francisco) station. Its classical selections, as I recall, had always been more obscured and eclectic. Whenever I tuned in, it either played Renaissance or Baroque period music. Boring.

There are no classical music stations in Modesto to this day. Before Comcast cable acquired our local cable company,there was a short-lived attempt for an AM station to broadcast some Boston Pops-like light classical music. That didn't work because the station also aired major leagues sports.

The residents had two choices to reliablity receive classical music broadcasts. One was to listen to KKHI on the radio band of the TV cable signal piped in to the house. This required the splitting of the TV cable into two. One connected the television and the other (if one knew how) connected to a radio or radio amplifier. The other choice was to listen to 3-hour segments of NPR classical music aired from the University of the Pacific (the alma mater of Dave Brubeck) Monday through Friday.

When KKHI went off the air several years ago, the local ATT cable company piped in KDFC in its stead. When Comcast bought out ATT, it substituted canned music programs. No more live connection to any radio stations. And the university station went to all talk shows to compete with the likes of Rush Limbaugh. It didn't last.

Enough of history.

KDFC has a makeover. Less stuffy and more varieties. NPR now also has KXPR from out of Sacramento State University (80 miles north of Modesto) as its 24-hour classical station.

Now the really good news: Since the first week of December 2004, both radio stations are streaming audio contents on the Internet.

My station of choice is KDFC.