Radio's obsolete. Surely not.

[letsavagoo 961]

There was a short piece on the BBC news the other day and a reporter went out and showed a standard portable radio to a number of young people. It was a complete mystery to many of them who simply didn't know what it was or what it did. Seems hard to believe. I was really surprised but as I'm currently listening to a record made in 1933 on the uk 1940's radio station via broadband on an iPad app connected to a speaker via Bluetooth maybe it's not so surprising after all.

I do however have about 7 or 8 radios in the house probably more. A few dab but mostly older transistor, some multi band 1970's sets plus my short wave communications radio. 

[plantfit 7,580]

Just love radio, started listening in the mid 60's Luxemburg,Caroline and some shortwave stuff on an old Fidelity transistor radio powered by a PP9 battery, loved to look at the ols radio tuning thngy's on the front of the old valve sets and often wondered where in the world all the different plces were,don't know owt about radio,just never got round to it,I do listen to my two radio scanners,mainly military aviation and some civil aviation,the odd Ham stuff,would love to get into it so must find the time and force myself

 

Rog

[Willow wilson 894]

I like my radios and I think dab is a marvelous invention. 

Our parent's  first radio was prewar with a huge accumulator like a car battery for the valve heaters and a dry battery for the valve HT.

My dad then bought a floor standing Murphy 146 in 1950. It was mainly a large flat varnished wood baffle 2ft 6 high 2ft 6 wide with a 10" cloth covered speaker set in the middle and a linear tuning strip along the top. It was the hifi of its day. We enjoyed everything the BBC put out on that, home service, light prog, 3rd prog. Operas, concerts, dramas, hymns, jazz, big bands, close harmonies, skiffle, crooners, popular, listen with mother, Dick Barton, children's hour, rock n roll, Wilfred pickles, goon show, Kenneth Horne, Archie Andrews, mrs Dale's diary, The Huggets, Hancock, football results, Ray's a laugh, 20 questions. And the ubiquitous Billy Cotton and family favourites, Friday night is music night; The tune "Roses From The South" is etched on my memory forever, associated with pleasant orchestral music wafting me off to my childhood sleep at night.

[Oztalgian 3,271]

A long list of great memories there Willow Wilson. After a long afternoon shift and a quick pint before 10:30 closing I often fell asleep to Sailing Bye, the theme from the Shipping Forecast.

 

 

[Bubblewrap 3,815]

Have Radio 4 on every day DAB radio as part of my sound system

 

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

I loved the radio as a child. Listen With Mother, Berceuse from Faure's Dolly Suite still brings tears of happiness. Dad listening to The Navy Lark on Sundays, Two Way Family Favourites, Sing Something Simple...wonderful. memories! 

[Willow wilson 894]

It can be a disappointment sometimes to delve too closely into the rosy past.

But I heard recently on radio 4 a rerun of Journey into Space and it had lost none of its attraction. It was as engrossing to me as the first time. Must be something to do with the unique pictures that come with radio programmes.

[catfan 14,793]

Enjoy FM radio while you can it's going (official) .

http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/tech-news/dab-digital-radio-switchover-fm-uk-11364137002537

 

Personally I much prefer DAB anytime.

[Oztalgian 3,271]

3 hours ago, Jill Sparrow said:

Dad listening to The Navy Lark on Sundays,

Sub Lieutenant Phillips "Left hand down a bit" and CPO Pertwee's cry of Ev'rybody down" as HMS Troutbridge again crashed into something. 

 

 

 

 

[Oztalgian 3,271]

7 minutes ago, catfan said:

Enjoy FM radio while you can it's going (official) .

Hope they don't follow suit in OZ as DAB is only available in capital cities or via the web

[Jill Sparrow 10,304]

Dad, being ex Navy, never missed it!

[FLY2 10,108]

I have only one setting on the radio in the kitchen, that's Radio Nottingham. Two channels in the car, again, Radio Nottingham, and Radio 2, but that's never on before 9.30 when the Chris Evans Show has finished. 

Radio 1 these days is appalling, and only appeals to the under 25's, the mentally unstable, the tone deaf, and the possessors of an IQ in single figures. 

I used to have 5 Live on when I was driving for a living, as it had good traffic reports and decent quizzes. 

[Compo 10,328]

As in Australia, here in the far north we don't have much in teh way of DAB stations - just the standard BBC ones.  Radio Caroline is available of DAB in some areas and online at http://radiocaroline.co.uk Caroline now has an AM licence and will soon be transmitting on the old BBC frequency of 648KHz in the medium wave band but with limited power.  I rarely listen to the BBC these days; when my radio is on it is usually tuned to FM where I listen to Caroline via internet and my little Chinese transmitter which relays it to me on the radio.

[Oztalgian 3,271]

Jill and Willow

Some of these theme tunes will bring back many memories, including Dick Barton especially for Chulla

 

 

 

 

[catfan 14,793]

I only listen to Radio 4, anything else is uncivilised !

[benjamin1945 16,139]

Love the radio, radio 4 for the news and Smooth radio,great music, mostly 70s and 80s, reggay and disco, always lifts my mood, makes me feel like dancing,    ahh

[nnsc 131]

I also love the radio, listen to football on 5 (listening to Newcastle v Liverpool as I type), Johnny Walker & Tony Blackburn on Radio 2, Magic Radio on Saturdays and Sundays and on occasion Radio Dead on the internet.

 

[Willow wilson 894]

The radio set may be mostly gone by the time the present youth generation is middle aged. Even I've succumbed to the internet radio station. For music while working in my kitchen I connect my mobile to a little speaker thing and select via a radio app one station which plays what I like. There are few adverts and few egotistical station identifiers.

I don't use those ear plug things, they  give a false ambience and get tangled and can be dangerous in a working situation.

For serious music listening I don't think you can beat a good quality stereo speaker set up, whether playing CDs, MP3 or radio. For my other listening, mostly talking programmes, I use a proper simple to use dab/fm radio set. 

With a radio set (dab, FM, or am) nobody "out there" knows what you're listening to!

When I was a youth you had to stop indoors in one place to listen to your music on a record player or mains radio. Then came portable radios in the park. The trend now in a mobile "mobile" generation is to listen on the move with ear phones, the temptation being to do any serious listening en route to somewhere rather than in an uncluttered quality listening time with a hifi. 

[Compo 10,328]

3 hours ago, Willow wilson said:

With a radio set (dab, FM, or am) nobody "out there" knows what you're listening to!

 

An excellent point WW!

[catfan 14,793]

With DAB your display will tell you exactly what you're listening to , all additional information iss carried wuth the signal, better than the old RDS on car radios.

[colly0410 1,181]

Got a digital radio in the car & it's brill, went all the way from Hucknall to Portsmouth & back listening to smooth extra & it didn't fade or drop out once. At home I usually listen online: I've got one of those mini FM transmitters (same as Compo's) & have set it to 87.8 FM as there's no broadcast stations below 88.3. Sounds great through my stereo connected to my Celestion Ditton 44 speakers...

[DJ360 6,721]

On 02/10/2017 at 7:25 AM, Willow wilson said:

The radio set may be mostly gone by the time the present youth generation is middle aged. Even I've succumbed to the internet radio station. For music while working in my kitchen I connect my mobile to a little speaker thing and select via a radio app one station which plays what I like. There are few adverts and few egotistical station identifiers.

I don't use those ear plug things, they  give a false ambience and get tangled and can be dangerous in a working situation.

For serious music listening I don't think you can beat a good quality stereo speaker set up, whether playing CDs, MP3 or radio. For my other listening, mostly talking programmes, I use a proper simple to use dab/fm radio set. 

With a radio set (dab, FM, or am) nobody "out there" knows what you're listening to!

When I was a youth you had to stop indoors in one place to listen to your music on a record player or mains radio. Then came portable radios in the park. The trend now in a mobile "mobile" generation is to listen on the move with ear phones, the temptation being to do any serious listening en route to somewhere rather than in an uncluttered quality listening time with a hifi. 

 

Broadly agree with that Willow, except that most of my 'quality listening' is done from vinyl via my pride and joy.. a Michell Orbe record player with all the trimmings.

I don't have a DAB radio, but as I understand it, many DAB stations are not exploiting the full 'CD quality' supposedly available and are putting stuff out at low bit rates or in mono...  So while DAB is a sort of radio equivalent of CD in that it brings quality sound to more people and cheaper than older formats, it also has its drawback I believe.

 

The best radio sound ever in my house was through a (borrowed ) LEAK Troughline III all valve tuner with a modern stereo decoder attached.  Clear, open and very enjoyable sound.

 

At the moment, I don't have radio apart from a Tivoli Model 1 I can't find space for, and a Logitech Squeezebox which needs setting up.  The latter does decent enough 'internet' radio via my Hi-Fi.  My fave is Radio 4.  It's a pity it is seen as 'stuffy', because it has a massive range of programmes on a hugely diverse range of subjects.

 

Col

[DJ360 6,721]

Right!  This thread has got me all fired up. I must sort out a 'wirelss set'.... 

 

In the loft I have a Denon TU 260 L radio tuner, which for about 120 quid was the generally regarded as THE 'budget' radio tuner for the hi fi crowd a couple of decades back.  ( £120 was 'budget' compared to the likes of the NAIM Audio 'NAT 01' which cost a couple of grand, and the astonishing 'Day-Sequerra' American thing which was about three times that price.  Interestingly, although the sound of NAIM audio kit tends to divide opinion, a few years ago a lot of hi-fi reviewers would say " If you want better radio sound than an NAT-01, go and live in the studio". 

 

The Denon does FM stereo decently enough, though it is, like all Tuners rather dependent on a high quality aerial to feed it and mine is just an old circular 'antiference' job mounted as high as possible in the loft.

 

I've got the Logitech Squeezebox streamer I mentioned above.  It does a very decent job of streaming audio from the PC and is improved by the nice external DAC I use.  My long term intention is to rip all of my CDs either to a large external hard drive, or to a Network Attached Storage device. That way, any tune, artist etc., can just be called up from the remote and played via the hi-fi. I can then put all of those ugly CD's out of site somewhere and make more room for my vinyl.  The Logitech can also stream internet radio, though I need to find out more about how to use it best.

 

Finally, I've got a Chromecast Audio thingy still sitting in its box after buying it on impulse last year..  As far as I can work out, I need to get an app for my phone, then I can somehow use it too to stream or 'cast' audio including radio I think.  I really must look into it...

 

For what it's worth I ought to do the same with video/films etc., and get Netflix or summert instead of increasing piles of Blu Rays lying about.

 

Col

[catfan 14,793]

I stream music & video wirelessly via a WD 4TB NAS, does the job perfectly !

[radfordred 6,284]

I have on DAB radio in the kitchen, car & bedroom I also record shows off 6 music like Don Letts, Liz Kershaw, Derek Rodigain & the recent John Peel re-runs & 5lives 606 football phone in, radio Nottinghams MatchTalk on my HD recorder via the TV, I also download podcasts to listen too while on me walk, the Two Mikes, Flintoff, Savage & the Ping Pong Guy, I go to bed listening to the radio & wake up to it, I have it on about 15 hours a day, got hawksbee & Jacobs on now on TalkSport.