Go back to the Asian bandscans series | Go to the Busan Japanese FM audio bandscan 
As a side project to my work in Korea and that on the Great Lakes, I took the brief time I had in Narita, Tokyo’s international airport about 30 miles east of the city, to explore the FM band on November 19, 2011 and exactly six months later on May 19, 2012. The former was a short layover that was delayed by heavy rains as passengers gathered around a terminal television set to watch live sumo wrestling. I took this time to listen to what radio I could receive on my Samsung Yepp Q2 MP3 player, which wasn’t a great number of stations. Twelve stations were regulars here and no hint of any others. Six months later during a much briefer scanning opportunity, I was able to hear an additional two stations: 85.1 and 86.0.
Saturday, November 19, 2011 (1445-1715 JST), 55°F (13°C) with heavy rain and wind
Saturday, May 19, 2012 (1530-1600 JST), 75°F (24°C) and partly cloudy
00:00 The audio bandscan time index shows at what time you can find a station
80.0 Underlined frequencies are those strongest stations which were received on seek (78.6 was only intermittently received on seek)
– stations displayed in gray are not included in the bandscan recording
00:00 76.1 Tokyo Tower / JODW-FM / InterFM (エフエムインターウェーブ) / 10kw / 11.5kw ERP (37 mi.)
01:35 77.1 Tokyo Tower / JOUD-FM / Open Univ. of Japan (放送大学) / 10kw / 38kw ERP (37 mi.)
02:45 78.0 Chiba / JOGV-FM / Bay FM 78 (ベイエフエム) / 5kw / 23kw ERP (19 mi.)
06:55 78.6 Mt. Mitutouge / JOCV-FM / FM-FUJI (エフエム富士) / 300w / 2.6kw ERP (90 mi.)
09:06 79.5 Saitama / JODV-FM / FM Nack5 (エフエムナックファイブ) / 5kw / 37kw ERP (44 mi.)
12:18 80.0 Tokyo Tower / JOAU-FM / 80.Love Tokyo FM (株式会社エフエム東京) / 10kw / 44kw ERP (37 mi.)
15:02 80.7 Chiba / JOMP-FM / NHK Chiba (NHK千葉FM) / 5kw / 25kw ERP (19 mi.)
17:18 81.3 Tokyo Tower / JOAV-FM / J-Wave (ジェイウェーブ) / 10kw / 44kw ERP (37 mi.)
21:14 81.9 Yokohama / JOGP-FM / NHK Yokohama (NHK横浜FM) / 5kw / 19kw ERP (52 mi.)
22:42 82.5 Tokyo Tower / JOAK-FM / NHK Tokyo (NHK東京FM) / 10kw / 44kw ERP (37 mi.)
26:40 83.2 Mito / JOEP-FM / NHK Ibaraki (NHK水戸FM) / 1kw / 5.8kw ERP (40 mi.)
27:52 84.7 Yokohama / JOTU-FM / FM Yokohama (FMヨコハマ) / 5kw / 21kw ERP (52 mi.)
31:19 85.1 Saitama / JOLP-FM / NHK Saitama (NHKさいたまFM) / 5kw / 41kw ERP (44 mi.)
31:19 86.0 Mt. Mitutouge / JOKG-FM / NHK Kofu (NHK甲府FM) / 100w / 160w ERP (90 mi.)
• All NHK stations are generally parallel to each other, aside from any local programming, and do not ID at the top of the hour
• FM-FUJI regular broadcast hours (as of 2011): Monday-Friday 0500-0214, Saturday 0500-0130, and Sunday 0430-0000
Radio market updates
With the opening of the 2,080-foot tall Tokyo Skytree in April 2012, a number of stations in the Tokyo market shuffled. Two stations moved to Skytree on April 23, 2013 with antennas at 1,772 feet (540 m.): 81.3 J-Wave and 82.5 NHK Tokyo, both broadcasting at 7kw output and 57kw ERP. They would eventually be joined two years later by AM relays 90.5 TBS Radio, 91.6 Nippon Cultural Broadcasting, and 93.0 Nippon Broadcasting System, all of which began broadcasting on December 7, 2015 as part of the FM-band complementary expansion (FM補完中継局 or ワイドFM / Wide FM) from 90.1 to 94.9. Foreign-language station InterFM (which moved to 89.7 on June 30, 2015), The Open University of Japan Radio, and Tokyo FM remained behind at Tokyo Tower with The Open University station closing down for good on October 30, 2018 as TV went digital. With NHK Tokyo’s TV antenna having moved to Skytree, 80.0 Tokyo FM moved their antenna atop Tokyo Tower on February 11, 2013. With their continued output at 10kw now from 1,093 feet (333 m.), the station now runs with 125kw ERP. NHK Tokyo’s equipment for 82.5 remains on Tokyo Tower as an auxiliary transmitter at 5kw (11kw ERP).
For other Japanese FM content, be sure to check out the Busan Japanese FM audio bandscan as heard from Busan, Korea.