Aargh

I called The Femur today to find out if their HD2 station will ever be available via a live stream and the very helpful person I spoke to said he’s not sure. Some stations stream their HD2 stations and some don’t, and The Femur hasn’t decided about this yet. But he put my mind at ease on one point: he said that if I got an HD radio, I’d be able to select either the HD1 or HD2 station, given my location in San Francisco. Specifically, he said to tune the HD radio to the correct frequency and wait for a few seconds and I should find that I’m listening to the HD1 station (i.e., Zeppelin) and then I should be able to tune up one notch to the HD2 station. I decided I’d have to get an HD radio, namely an Insignia NS-HDRAD.

I asked if, once I had it, I’d be able to see the artists and song titles and he said I would.

This afternoon I took another City CarShare Toyota Yaris back to Bed Bath & Beyond to return a couple of pillows and was able to use the method described above to listen to The Femur’s HD2 station the whole time, driving extra carefully now that I have something to live for. 

Next I went to Best Buy to get the aforementioned radio and when I was nearly there, I heard one of those two songs again! And after I left Best Buy, I heard the other one. Possibly this station only plays ten songs, but if two of them are fantastic, I guess that’s fine.

I brought the radio home and fired it up—it’s quite small, just 8.25” long and 4.25” tall, with a telescoping antenna—and it tunes in the HD2 station perfectly, but it doesn’t display the artists and song titles for The Femur’s HD2 station, though I can see the artists and song titles for other local HD2 stations. So I am now sitting less than two feet from my HD radio, listening to my HD ratio, and still having to Duck Duck the lyrics, still without success! 

There are apps (like Shazam) that will listen to music through the air and display the metadata of interest, but they are for smart phones only and not available online. I draw the line at getting an entire phone to find those songs. Not only do I not have a desire to have a smart phone, I have a strong desire not to have one, so my next move will be to call The Femur back and beg them to start transmitting this information.