Today’s living room is a veritable gizmo gallery with LED TVs, home theatres and BlueRay players fighting for space and attention. It’s a far cry from the days when households huddled around an old shortwave radio, with a cobweb kind of mesh running across the room serving as the aerial. Tuning into the station was a delicate art and as one groped for the right frequency, the radio protested all along, making funny noises. And one had to keep the ear tuned constantly to the set for there was never saying when the request would be played, unlike today, where you can quench your thirst for music by turning your iPod on and off like a water tap.
Like the TV addicts who surf channels with remotes today, avid shortwave radio enthusiasts knew every frequency on every band and had the programme guides memorised. As the day progressed, more stations came on air, and as the frequency got congested, the expert would deftly switch the band and turn to a new frequency and resume his listening.
The crackling Murphy or Westinghouse was a constant in the rooms with only the listeners changing, except when there is clash of programmes as the sister wants her weekly British Top Twenty while the brother refuses to change the tuner from BBC’s Test Match Special.
For the listener, there were other obstacles too like the poor reception, where the singer’s faint voice on Australia’s National Top Hits gave him the sense of distance between Melbourne and Bangalore. Add to this the cold war games of the erstwhile USSR, which made it a point to jam your favourite programmes with its Radio Moscow World Service which tried its best to counter the BBC and VOA’s version of the news.
Pop music shows on the BBC, Radio Australia, VOA, Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and Radio Kuwait were popular among Bangalore’s youngsters, who frequently sent in song requests and took part in contests, winning tee shirts, programme guides and other prizes in the bargain. Saddam Hussein not only robbed Bangaloreans of their favourite programmes with his invasion of Kuwait but the first Gulf War that followed saw the advent of 24-hour cable TV, which hastened the demise of shortwave radio.
All India Radio Bangalore had its own request show on medium wave called Your Choice on Sunday afternoons, which more often than not was her (announcer’s) choice, since the studio collection seemed to be limited to just a few LPs. And as she read out the names of the listeners who made the request, there was a cheer from the small crowd around the radio, only to be replaced by disappointment for the broken record would refuse to proceed beyond the second stanza, which goes on and on till the announcer has enough of it and turns to the next request.
With modern radios coming with just the AM and FM modes, the shortwave radio, surely seems to have sung its swan song.
Like the TV addicts who surf channels with remotes today, avid shortwave radio enthusiasts knew every frequency on every band and had the programme guides memorised. As the day progressed, more stations came on air, and as the frequency got congested, the expert would deftly switch the band and turn to a new frequency and resume his listening.
The crackling Murphy or Westinghouse was a constant in the rooms with only the listeners changing, except when there is clash of programmes as the sister wants her weekly British Top Twenty while the brother refuses to change the tuner from BBC’s Test Match Special.
For the listener, there were other obstacles too like the poor reception, where the singer’s faint voice on Australia’s National Top Hits gave him the sense of distance between Melbourne and Bangalore. Add to this the cold war games of the erstwhile USSR, which made it a point to jam your favourite programmes with its Radio Moscow World Service which tried its best to counter the BBC and VOA’s version of the news.
Pop music shows on the BBC, Radio Australia, VOA, Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and Radio Kuwait were popular among Bangalore’s youngsters, who frequently sent in song requests and took part in contests, winning tee shirts, programme guides and other prizes in the bargain. Saddam Hussein not only robbed Bangaloreans of their favourite programmes with his invasion of Kuwait but the first Gulf War that followed saw the advent of 24-hour cable TV, which hastened the demise of shortwave radio.
All India Radio Bangalore had its own request show on medium wave called Your Choice on Sunday afternoons, which more often than not was her (announcer’s) choice, since the studio collection seemed to be limited to just a few LPs. And as she read out the names of the listeners who made the request, there was a cheer from the small crowd around the radio, only to be replaced by disappointment for the broken record would refuse to proceed beyond the second stanza, which goes on and on till the announcer has enough of it and turns to the next request.
With modern radios coming with just the AM and FM modes, the shortwave radio, surely seems to have sung its swan song.
1 comment:
wow!! those were the days my friend!!
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