KEARNEY, Nebraska — A two-minute grain bulletin has been heard at roughly 5:12 each morning on 840 AM in parts of Buffalo, Dawson and Phelps counties. It gives prices for corn and soybeans, offers a short weather note and ends without identifying a station. Local broadcasters say the signal does not come from their studios.
The voice is steady and plainly recorded. At the end of each bulletin, there is a brief pause that sounds like someone turning over a page. Most listeners have had trouble making out the name of the delivery point attached to the closing prices. The phrase is clearer in one recording than another.
The Federal Communications Commission has received interference complaints, according to numbers supplied by several complainants. The agency would not discuss an open inquiry. Engineers at two nearby stations said they had checked their transmitters and found no evidence that a scheduled program was reaching the wrong frequency.
For the people who hear it, the broadcast has mostly been a nuisance. A feed store employee played a phone recording for the Register while taking inventory. Her manager asked that the radio be left off before opening, because customers had begun calling to ask whether the prices were available at the counter.
They are not. The elevator named in the bulletin does not appear on the current list of local grain buyers, and the quoted basis is too low to use in a sale. An agricultural extension officer said farmers should consult their regular buyers and published market sources. Her office has not circulated the figures.
Retired broadcaster Thomas Vail listened to recordings from five mornings. He said their sound was consistent with a tape or a small transmitter operating at low power, though the recordings were too poor to identify either. The announcer’s name is not given. Vail recognized the music beneath the opening figures as a stock library cue that remained in use for decades.
On Saturday, there was no report. Several listeners said they heard only the usual static. A short program returned Sunday, including a correction to Friday’s soybean figure and an apology for a delivery notice that had gone out in error. None of the people interviewed by the Register had received a notice.
A photocopied price sheet arrived at the county extension office on Monday. It matched Sunday’s corrected figures and used a familiar market-report layout, with a blank space where a station’s address would usually appear. The office gave a copy to the Register but could not identify who had left it at the counter. Staff said the sheet was there when they unlocked the building.
The delivery point is printed on that sheet as the West Dike terminal. A county land-use map shows a drainage easement by that name but no rail siding or elevator. One farmer recalled hauling there with his father as a boy. Another said he had never heard the name before. Neither has a receipt that could settle the question.
Vail cautioned that the price sheet does not establish where the signal originated. Copies can circulate independently of broadcasts, he said, and a prank would not require specialized equipment. Still, he kept a copy for comparison with the next bulletin. He has marked the page with times from his own kitchen clock.
The extension office plans to retain recordings sent by residents until the interference inquiry is closed. Its staff asked callers to include the frequency, approximate time and location, rather than guesses about the announcer. By Tuesday, there were 17 recordings on file. The opening music was audible on eleven.