With a 2+ hour commute in the morning, I’ve discovered the dirty little secret of radio stations: they have about 10 songs that they just cycle through. I’ve also discovered that it’s not at all uncommon for all six of the presets on my radio to have nothing I want to listen to. There’s a huge swath of music I can tolerate. Unless the radio has completely faded from my conscious recognition, though, I can’t stand to sit in my car listening to commercials, and a couple dozen songs get under my skin enough that I change the station. So sometimes I just turn the radio off, enduring a really awkward silence by myself.

But then one day, I had an epiphany. I have an iPod, and it has some really good music on it. It’s kind of like listening to the radio, in that a lot of music on it gets the “Meh” designation I so desire in Pandora. It’s not bad (or it wouldn’t be on my iPod), but it’s not anything special, either. But one day I just let it play, and after a while I’d forgotten it was my iPod. And I found myself wondering what station I was listening to that had played so many good songs in a row.

One of the things I really like is music that was overplayed in years past, but has pretty much been forgotten since. And for reasons I’m not entirely sure of, I tend to accumulate really neat remixes of songs, including some great songs remixed into different genres. Nappy Roots’ “Awnaw Rock Remix” might not win any awards, but when was the last time Juvenile or Bawitdaba got played on the radio? I think both would elicit the reaction I had to when they come on: a sort of fond recollection of something I haven’t heard in years. Or maybe Blue (Da Ba Dee) is more your thing?

True, I’d probably end up overplaying songs from Guitar Hero, plus my own Top 50 list of songs.

I forget who, but I heard someone talking about how, when they retire, they want to start a radio station, more as a pasttime than a business. I want to do the same, but I don’t know if I can wait until retirement.

It turns out that a 50,000 Watt FM transmitter is pretty expensive, though, as is a set of FM bays capable of taking that power. And then you have music royalties, electrical costs (for a 50 kW transmitter), plus you have to actually buy all the music.

I really think a station playing songs from my iPod (and that of a few friends for diversity) could give some of the local stations a real run for their money. And a couple promises: the ads for our show, inexplicably advertising what you’re actively listening to, wouldn’t be sexually explicit or even profanity-laced, and our news would be spoken at a speed slow enough for mere mortals to comprehend.