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Author Topic: So, why did you start listening to the radio?  (Read 2689 times)

Online Ct Yankee

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So, why did you start listening to the radio?
« on: June 17, 2016, 2249 UTC »
A Father's Day Weekend Contemplation

I was always curious on why people began their hobby of listening to the radio.  For me, I grew up in a brick 2-family in New York's borough of Queens (much like the opening segment of "All in the Family").  As the oldest of 5 kids in the 1960's with 1 TV, waiting my "turn" for the TV was a hinderance to following baseball.  I decided to pick up a transistor to listen to the Yanks and Mets. Baseball was far more enjoyable on the radio, plus the radio could travel with me.

I soon learned I could pick up every team east of the Mississippi plus the Twins. Ah, DXing and I didn't even know it....wrote to every station I picked up.  For Christmas 1970, my parents picked me up a multi-band radio (no, not a T/O) and the rest, as they say, is history.....
« Last Edit: June 18, 2016, 1218 UTC by Ct Yankee »
Tecsun H501x (broadcast received on this unless noted), Zenith T/O G500, Zenith T/O Royal 7000, Emerson AR-176, Zenith 8S154, T/O 7G605 (Bomber), Tecsun PL-600, Tecsun PL-880, Zenith 5S320, Realistic DX 160 using 40 feet of copper wire.  With apologies to Senator Gramm for his thoughts on firearms, "I have more radios than I need but not as many as I want."
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Offline jFarley

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Re: So, why did you start listening to the radio?
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2016, 0256 UTC »
Okay, I'll take a poke.

I was born in 1953, and at that time, radio and electronics were the geekiest hobbies a science nerd could pursue.  So I jumped on board.  A different question to ask would be why I continued to listen to radio as newer geekier technologies emerged.  I gotta admit that the answer to that was something I was thinking about a while ago.

When I was in my teens, I lived through the "The Medium is the Message (Massage)" era, and I thought that this was a bunch of crap at the time.  But viewed in a special way that is known to DXers, how true it is.  The medium of radio, through all the warts and blemishes added by propagation, has a way of adding a certain magic to program content; it can make pleasurable listening of program content which would be intolerable in a more robust channel and draw your hand to the tuning knob, assuming the radio had one. 

While listening, my mind tends to wander off the program at times, and marvel at the little clues the medium has impressed on the program.  Some are hints as to where the transmitter is located, others are annoyances, but they all tend to increase my engagement with the act of listening.  I suppose it's like brush strokes on a canvas kinda thing.

How many times have you listened to an Asian broadcaster whose signal is experiencing deep polar flutter and found that you were paying attention to the flutter and not the program?  Or an East African just starting to poke its way above the noise as dawn enhancement commences?  These are beautiful things...

Sometimes before a listening session, I take the dog out, and while she's doing her thing I think about what's about to happen.  I think "If I take my 2 hands, cup them, and surround a small volume of space, what's in there right now?"  Certainly dozens of FM and MW stations, hundreds of ARO signals, broadcasts from around the world, pesks and pirates, thousands of cellular conversations, beacons and radars; you get the picture.  It's all there; what do I want to hear?

Bottom line, like most people in the hobby I have learned or have been taught to experience radio as an active intense foreground activity; it's not just something "on in the background".  I enjoy the feeling that when I go down to listen or DX, I am in effect strapping my butt to the entire globe.  On any given night, you just don't know what will happen, what you will hear.

All you gotta do is put yourself in the right place at the right time, and then magic happens.
Joe Farley, Near Chicago
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Offline Pigmeat

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Re: So, why did you start listening to the radio?
« Reply #2 on: June 18, 2016, 0335 UTC »
I lived with my Grandparents for much of my childhood. Grandma listened to Tennessee Ernie Ford and her radio soaps while she was doing housework and keeping an eye on my human cannonball tendencies. When I was riding around with Grandpa in the truck it was sports, hillbilly music, and "Lum And Abner".

On hot, humid summer nights in those pre-air conditioning days, I'd take a pillow out to the truck and listen to the radio until I conked out or cooled off enough to sleep. Listening to the various locals sign off at ten and midnight and stations way out west start to roll in is was what really got me. I clearly remember listening to American Legion baseball games coming from the Great Plains and Rocky Mt. states. I can't imagine being able to do that now on a summer night except under extraordinary circumstances, but it was a nightly thing then.

Offline Josh

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Re: So, why did you start listening to the radio?
« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2016, 1744 UTC »
My HAM uncle bought me a 200 in 1 electronics kit from radio shack when I was around 13 or so, and my dad let me use his solid state trans o wich all kinda got the deal started. I was in hog heaven, learning how diodes and cds cells work, and wondering how the guy on shortwave who sat there all day every day telling the time over the radio stayed awake. And the commies were all in an uproar on sw radio, even though  we were yanqui imperialists with all our running dogs we could still qsl box 88, Moscow. My friends all got cbs so cb was fun for a while, ssb was funner, amps and good antennas added to the fun, and eventually got a HAM license. My first decent sw set after the to died was a halli 110 wich had a neat vertical smeter, and wich drifted every time the ac or furnace came on or you just walked by it but was good enough to hear HAMs in Australia on 20m ssb on a minimalist antenna, just had to ride the bandspread. Then came a Icom R70, what a difference that made! The r70 pretty much did everything right, but eventually it went away and was replaced with a plethora of others. Now my main interest is all sdr and digital decoding, but still nice to have a radio with knobs just for cruising the bands.
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Nella F.

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Re: So, why did you start listening to the radio?
« Reply #4 on: June 18, 2016, 2044 UTC »
looking forward to composing my reply, so stand by... will post tomorrow, weather permitting.

Nella F.

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Re: So, why did you start listening to the radio?
« Reply #5 on: June 19, 2016, 2234 UTC »
looking forward to composing my reply, so stand by... will post tomorrow, weather permitting.

Ah, I'll do this now @ library. My cousin was a ham operator & I remember visiting & talking to someone in Alaska...pretty neat.(from Oregon). This would have probably of been the late '50's. Also we had one of those Zenith transoceanic "portables" the battery was the size & weight of a pre-fab fireplace log.  By early & mid '60's my dad's brother took over his father in laws tv/radio repair business. I still have my am station logbook starting in Xmas of 1964 (Zenith Royal 500 8 transistor black/gold trim) until Feb. of 1968 when I was facing the draft & about to go "sailing", instead. After boot camp, of course. I posted a longer answer to this exact ? probably within the last two years, if you're that interested.

SevenFortyOne

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Re: So, why did you start listening to the radio?
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2016, 0226 UTC »
When I was a kid, my dad always had a radio on.  Whether it was the little GE in the garage, the Knight Star Roamer shortwave set in the kitchen, or the Zenith in the living room he was always listening to something.  Quite often, he'd watch TV but have his headphones partially on and be listening to the radio at the same time.

I'm not sure how old I was but I remember borrowing the GE from the garage and bringing it up to my room for the evening to see if I could figure out why dad liked his radios so much.  I spent all night tuning up and down the AM and FM bands pulling in all kinds of stations.  I don't think I slept that night.  Shortly after this happened my big sister took me to the local department store and let me buy my first radio - an Emerson model 299 portable radio which I still have.

I don't do the headphone trick like dad did but I always like to have a radio close by and going in the background especially when working around the house. 



Offline Pigmeat

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Re: So, why did you start listening to the radio?
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2016, 0301 UTC »
I just finished listening to the NBA Championship via WTAM on a 1935 Philco tabletop. The old roof rattler sure sounded good to be 81.

Online Ct Yankee

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Re: So, why did you start listening to the radio?
« Reply #8 on: June 25, 2016, 1131 UTC »


I, too, listened to Game 7 on WTAM but on the porch with the PL-600.  Otherwise, it would have been on a unit a year younger than your Philco.  These past two finals have been of special interest - I have two sons, both in their early 30's.  One works in SF but lives in Oakland, the other lives/works in Cleveland.  Up 3-1, the Oakland son decided to mail me a Warriors hat for Father's Day - that's why they lost.   ;)

I will frequently listen to the Tribe on WTAM.  However, there is a Long Island station on the same frequency that stays on longer than permitted by FCC regulations.  So, I must await them going to bed to catch any Indian broadcast.
Tecsun H501x (broadcast received on this unless noted), Zenith T/O G500, Zenith T/O Royal 7000, Emerson AR-176, Zenith 8S154, T/O 7G605 (Bomber), Tecsun PL-600, Tecsun PL-880, Zenith 5S320, Realistic DX 160 using 40 feet of copper wire.  With apologies to Senator Gramm for his thoughts on firearms, "I have more radios than I need but not as many as I want."
QTH:  Durham, Connecticut (rural setting, 15 miles north of Long Island Sound)
qsl please to:  jamcanner@comcast.net  (Thank you)