Replaced the aerial again. Third replacement this winter, no storm damage either time. The new mast hums when the transmitter is cold — ██ ████ ██ █ █████ ███. Logged officially as wind.
AV-1 · 87.3 MHz · NO CARRIER DETECTED
SIGNAL LOST
A transmission from nowhere. Broadcast resumed after 34 years of dead air — tape damage at 00:04:13. Do not adjust your set.
TRANSMISSION LOG
Recovered from a U-matic cassette labelled only “again”. Timestamps relative to carrier acquisition.
- 00:00:07CARRIER ACQUIRED — ORIGIN UNRESOLVED
- 00:00:31a pattern in the static. it repeats every 47 seconds
- 00:01:12voice? [UNINTELLIGIBLE] — band-passed at 3 kHz, still nothing
- 00:02:03the test card is wrong. the clock in it runs backwards
- 00:03:44████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████
- 00:04:13TAPE DAMAGE — SIGNAL LOST
TEST CARD F
Reconstructed from 212 consecutive hours of recording. Note the clock. It runs backwards. It has always run backwards. Hold your cursor on the card — it will notice you.
CHANNEL GUIDE
Tonight's programming, as printed in a listings magazine dated three weeks after the station closed. All times local. All programs unverified.
- 00:00 TEST CARD F The girl, the blackboard, the clock. Broadcast continuously since 1992. The chalk marks change. STILL
- 01:30 WEATHER FOR THE INTERIOR Conditions for a region that appears on no map. Tomorrow: fog, moving inland. It is always moving inland. FORECAST
- 02:47 STATIC HOUR Sixty minutes of unmodulated carrier. Listeners are asked not to answer it. AUDIO
- 03:33 [SIGNAL INTRUSION] Duration unknown. Origin unresolved. Do not transcribe what the voice says. Previous transcribers— UNSCHEDULED
- 04:15 REBROADCAST The same episode as last week. The same episode as every week. Cast records were never located. REPEAT
- 06:00 SIGN-ON The national anthem, played in reverse. No nation has claimed it. ANTHEM
- 13:00 AFTERNOON FILM: “UNTITLED” (1961) Runtime listed as 34 years. The listings magazine prints this without comment. FILM
- 19:00 EVENING NEWS Tomorrow's headlines, read calmly. Accuracy to date: total. LIVE
- 23:47 CLOSEDOWN The announcer thanks each viewer by name. Please do not be alarmed when you hear yours. SIGN-OFF
THE STATIC
One percent of analog snow is fossil light from the birth of the universe. The rest of this one is something else. Drag across the noise to tune.
DECODED FRAGMENT
Ciphertext recovered from the 47-second repeat. Key unknown. Tune CH 04 to 87.30 MHz and hold the lock to acquire the demodulation key.
■ ENCRYPTED
KEY : —— · —— MHz
?0# ░8#N▒ 7█3 ░R3Q#3NC?.
7█3 70▒3R ▒4S N07 ▓3M8L1S█3D. 17 ▒4S 8#R13D.
3V3R? S37 7█47 3V3R 7#N3▓ 70 #S 1S S71LL 7#N3▓ 70 #S.
C█3CK ?0#R S7471C. ▒3 L3░7 4 L1G█7 0N.
SOURCE : CH 04 CARRIERSUBBAND : 3 kHzREPEAT : 47 s
RECOVERED LOGS
Four paper fragments found in the transmitter hut, filed by date. The redactions are original — someone inked them out before the building was sealed. Hover to read through the ink.
To whom it may concern. Our set has been unplugged since Tuesday and channel three is still coming through, clear as anything. My husband says it is the neighbour's aerial. But ███ ████████ ████ ███ ███████████ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ██. We would like someone to visit.
RE: archive tape 47. Do not rebroadcast. Do not copy. The fault is not in the tape. Playback engineers report the test card has changed since acquisition — ███ ████ ██ ███ ████ ██ █████ ███. Store upright. Store alone.
22:41 mains isolated. 22:43 standby generators off. 22:47 building dark, tower dark. 23:47 — ███ ███████ ██ █████ ██. ███████ ██ ████████ ██. ██ ██ █████ ██. End of log. End of station. 87.3 holds.
SPECTRUM
Whatever is broadcasting, it never flatlines. Move your cursor across the trace to bend the wave.
END OF TRANSMISSION
TX 87.3 MHz signing off. There is no tower at the coordinates. There never was. The static remembers everything.