AM 1710 Antioch: Old Time Radio at Its Best

The Lone Ranger rides again, thanks to OTR -- as do the Cisco Kid, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Shadow, Jack Benny, the gang down at Duffy's Tavern, and a multifude of other fondly remembered characters from the golden age of radio.

"OTR" is devotee-speak for Old Time Radio, and as you might guess, you can enjoy it any time day or night now via one of a number of Internet streams.

One of the best of the OTR audio outlets is AM 1710 Antioch, which is run by Jay Lichtenauer from his home in Antioch, Illionis, "a mile from the Wisconsin border and 20 miles inland from Lake Michigan," as he points out on his web site.

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Besides streaming his incredible collection (18,000 episodes!) of old radio shows over the Internet, Lichtenauer beams his programming through the air using a micro-power AM transmitter mounted on his roof. This is "part 15" broadcasting, a legal way to run an over-the-air station without a license ("part 15" refers to the relevant section of the FCC regulations).

According to Lichtenauer's own tests, this means that if you happen to be in Antioch, and as close as a mile from the tranmitter (though half a mile would be much better), you can pick up his OTR shows on your regular car radio. He figures there are several hundred neighboring households that could hear him if they tuned to 1710 AM.

Lichtenauer is also a licensed amateur radio operator, and a collector of antique radios. An all-around radio geek, in other words.

Aside from the sheer number of shows that are in rotation on AM 1710 Antioch, the station earns high marks for quality.

First of all, the Internet stream is crisp and stable -- for which Lichtenauer pays almost $3,000 a year, and for which he solicits listener donations. (If you have Flash on your system, you can listen via the embedded player that you should see just below.)

Second, though, he goes to a good deal of trouble and expense to make sure he has the best copy possible of every show he streams. This means not only locating a good, clean copy to begin with (and eschewing those junky re-re-re-recordings that are so easy to come across), but also doing his own audio processing before putting them in the queue.

Naturally, the audio quality of shows from the 1920s, '30s, '40s and '50s varies greatly, even with the best efforts at restoration. But AM 1710 Antioch perhaps comes closest of most OTR streams to providing a consistently even listening experience.

Lichtenauer has put the shows on an automated schedule designed to play them, to the extent possible, on  the same day of the year they were originally heard. I am listening right now to an episode of "Dangerous Assignment" that was first broadast April 10, 1950. You can view the current schedule here.

I enjoy listening not only to the old shows themselves, but also the vintage commercials that have been left in many of them (as opposed to being cut out, as is the case with some OTR re-issues that are sold on CDs, for example). Lichtenauer's station also plays Big Band era music to fill gaps between programs.