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Old 12th Feb 2020, 9:26 pm   #81
G6Tanuki
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

When at secondary-school, I had a 2-valve [1T4/1S5] MW/SW regenerative radio that I concealed in my desk, with a wire that ran up the sleeve of my blazer to a little earphone I could conceal in my hand, then 'nonchalantly' lean my head on my hand while apparently listening to the teacher but actually listening to Caroline.

The school had a blanket-ban on taking "transistor radios" in class. When I was found-out and my radio confiscated, I pointed out rather vociferously that it was not a 'transistor radio', and suggested that the Physics master should be summoned to provide an opinion.

I got my radio back.
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Old 12th Feb 2020, 10:32 pm   #82
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

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Bert Kaempfert
I've always had a soft spot for "A Walk in the Black Forest". Perfect pop (of its type of course).
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Old 12th Feb 2020, 10:36 pm   #83
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I've always had a soft spot for "A Walk in the Black Forest". Perfect pop (of its type of course).
that'd be Horst Jankowski
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Old 12th Feb 2020, 10:39 pm   #84
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zQqHCb16MNg

Yes, I know. The Germans were very good at this sort of stuff in the 60s.
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Old 12th Feb 2020, 11:49 pm   #85
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

I remember Casey Kasem presenting America's Top 10 on ITV Nightime, which was a great way to find out what was happening in the American charts, especially what would be released this side of the Atlantic in a few weeks.

He was also the voice of Shaggy in Scooby Doo for many years, along with Mark from Battle Of The Planets.
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Old 12th Feb 2020, 11:58 pm   #86
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I have been going through my cassette collection looking for a recording I once made of RNI with interference. No joy, I must have recorded over it, but I did find a long forgotten recording of most of a Sunday evening (I think) Radio 2 programme that unusually I noted the date of (21st April 1973). I can only think I must have recorded it for potential use of parts of it on a sound track for a home movie cine film I had made at the time, as that type of music wasn't really me. It was from the Birmingham Town Hall and featured the first performance of what was then the BBC's new Midland Light Orchestra with Norrie Paramour, supported by Roger Whittaker plus Saffron; a vocal group "Design" (who I had never heard of); and the Big Ben Banjo Band (who I had!) playing their usual dixieland medleys.
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Old 12th Feb 2020, 11:59 pm   #87
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Yes,I hated that sing something simple too! Luxemborg and Caroline etc plus 270 were my favourites.
I hated it too, but I have one joyful memory of it. When I was about 12, I came by a free,, floppy record of the horrible music and I used it to make a terrible primitive record player in 12 year old boy style, by stuffing a fat pencil in the hole in the centre of the record so I could spin it, while placing an empty matchbox with a pin stuck through it as a pickup in the grooves. This allowed me to 'play' the record after a fashion and happily whiled away a wet afternoon in the 1960s.

As for radio listening, my earliest listening memories are of sitting with my mother in the afternoons beside a huge, probably 1930s valve radio set. It took a while to warm up, smelled of hot dust when you got near it, and I could see fascinating, glowing valves by peering through the vents on the back. We used to listen to the Home Service and Listen with Mother.

Later, I made a crystal set and a crystal set with a transistor amplifier. Both had a bad fault. Selectivity was hopeless, because I had not understood the need for a high impedance tap on the tuning coil, and I ruined the Q and any chance of selecting one station, by taking the signal from the top of the coil. I was 12 and trying to do this stuff from the books I could find. Information was what someone told you or what you could come across in print. It was another world.

In the mornings I could listen to Jack Demanio doing the Today Programme. At night, the whole medium wave band seemed to be there in my ear piece all at once.
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Old 13th Feb 2020, 7:26 am   #88
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

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I hated Sing Something Simple more that I hated any other radio programme. My parents made me and my siblings listen to it during Sunday teatime. I still hate it more than 50 years later.
I had a Sunday job in the early 70's at a local garage, pumping petrol in the days when a gallon of 4* was 36p. It was a long day, 9am till 8pm, so when SSS came on the radio at 7pm after 'pick of the pops' it was a relief knowing there was just one more hour to go. But yes it was dire!
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Old 13th Feb 2020, 9:01 am   #89
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

Unless they moved it, my memory tells me that SSS was on before Pick of the Pops, which, again, IIRC, went out between 5 & 7PM. IIRC, in those days Radio 1 was a 'part time station; which meant that often 247M (or 275/285, whichever it was on by then) carried Radio 2. Slightly OT maybe, but I recall my brother, who was and is a Viennese music enthusiast, being annoyed when, at 5PM one Sunday, Radio 2's FM network switched to Radio1, and he had to listen to the Viennese music program on Medium wave. B.T.W., anyone recall when that practice stopped? It was obviously when, and after Radio 1 was allocated 97-99Mhz and no longer had to share R2's FM allocation.
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Old 13th Feb 2020, 11:35 am   #90
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

It was certainly still happening in the early 80s. I remember listing to Annie Nightingale's request programme followed by Alexis Korner's R & B show (which were both R1) on a Sunday night followed by Peter Clayton's Sounds of Jazz which was an R2 programme. These evening specialist shows were about the only time I went near Radio 1 by then. At some time during the late 80s the regime changed. There were also times when R1 borrowed R2's FM outlet.

People blame the BBC but it was only possible when needle time restrictions were lifted. An ex-commercial DJ told me the extraordinary lengths they went to and the loopholes they exploited to get around the legislation.

In the second half of the 1970s there was a period when R1 & R2 joined in the daytime but this was down to the economic crisis. R3 sometimes joined with R4 at that time.
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Old 13th Feb 2020, 1:29 pm   #91
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

I started to really listen to the radio in about1979 my uncle gave me a 1950s vintage radio which had shortwave on it which fascinated me and was the start of my fascination with DX and international radio. I remember listening to radio 1 which by then was on 275/285 meters I never heard them combine with radio2 they seem to be a completely separate network by then also not long after I discovered Luxembourg which I thought was the best thing since sliced bread. All my fondest memory's of music radio were all medium wave stations oh and of course Atlantic on long wave I think that's why I till listen to mediuwave absolute radio the way it sounds is comforting
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Old 13th Feb 2020, 2:15 pm   #92
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

I'm glad I'm not the only one with an issue about Sing Something Simple.
It always seemed to be on as we arrived home after a long drive, perhaps from seeing my paternal grandparents in Edinburgh, holidays over, school in the morning.

Frank Ifield performing "Lovesick Blues" on the TV would evoke a similar feeling, and strangest of all, Frank Sinatra singing "Love and Marriage" on the unknown Bakelite radio we had in the kitchen. I think I was probably 6.
To this day the song makes me feel slightly uneasy, I had a stable and happy family life BTW!
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Old 13th Feb 2020, 2:37 pm   #93
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

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I started to really listen to the radio in about1979 my uncle gave me a 1950s vintage radio which had shortwave on it which fascinated me and was the start of my fascination with DX and international radio. I remember listening to radio 1 which by then was on 275/285 meters I never heard them combine with radio2 they seem to be a completely separate network by then also not long after I discovered Luxembourg which I thought was the best thing since sliced bread. All my fondest memory's of music radio were all medium wave stations oh and of course Atlantic on long wave I think that's why I till listen to mediuwave absolute radio the way it sounds is comforting
I remember Atlantic 252 was popular at my high school when I was there between 1989 & 1994.

One of our art teachers allowed us to listen to it while we were working.

It always had an odd mix of songs from the mid 1960s to some currently in the charts.
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Old 13th Feb 2020, 2:49 pm   #94
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Hi i remember listerning to veronica on 192 on a sony tr725 at school play times this also had sw bands as well as receiving the school radio club transmitions on Top Band in AM call sign G3POY Mick
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Old 13th Feb 2020, 3:03 pm   #95
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I was born in the late 50s and only really remember listening to the Radio when all the Pirates started that we could get in the Essex Area, mainly Caroline & London and my Dad sometimes listened to 390 although he did like the "Pop" ones as well.

Not much BBC apart from the Chart show on Sunday night and the comedy hour Sunday Lunchtime on LW (Home service/Radio 4) Clitheroe Kid/Navy lark ect)

We had a Murphy A212 used for most of it and also a small HMV Valve VHF only set that only really got used to listen to the Chart show,and had to be banged on the top a few times to get that properly!

P.S Used to hate sing something simple as well, but it must have had something to be on all those Years!
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Old 13th Feb 2020, 3:44 pm   #96
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

Regarding 'Sing Something Simple', I'm fairly convinced it used to be on at 4.30pm on a Sunday afternoon, at least in the 1980s. I remember it because the Top 40 countdown was essential listening for the schoolboy with his finger on the tape machine's record button, and that was on from 5-7pm. At 5pm, Radio 2's FM transmitters were taken over by Radio 1. If I turned on early, I got 'Sing Something Simple'. If I turned on really early, before 4.30, I got 'Sounds Orchestral'. At that time, the Radio 2 FM network stayed with Radio 1 all of Sunday evening. I seem to remember Annie Nightingale's programme being on next, after the top 40.

I think the full rollout of Radio 1 on its own FM network only happened in 1988-1989. I certainly have a couple of recordings of concerts from Radio 1 dated 1988 which came via the London-only Radio 1 transmitter on 104.8MHz. Pulling that in from Cambridge, albeit in mono, was no mean feat at the time.

There are still hits of the 1980s which, when I hear them today, I expect a little snippet of Tony Blackburn as they come to an end!

Chris
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Old 13th Feb 2020, 4:21 pm   #97
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

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The school had a blanket-ban on taking "transistor radios" in class.
Our did as well and not just in class. One of us had a tape recorder and we used to record things on that to listen to. (If we'd been able to carry one we would have probably taken a TV.) I remember one day sitting on the edge of the football field listening to it when a rather stern teacher appeared and asked "is that rrrrrradio you have there?" (she rolled her rs a lot). "No miss", we replied, "it's a tape recorder." A pause and then "Oh well, I suppose that's alright then". Eventually Sinclair Micromatics appeared (the Sinclair factory was just down the road and quite a few of them got "liberated") and they could be hidden in pockets. To get back on topic, what did we listen to? I can't remember but even held next to a metal-framed window I don't think a Micromatic could pick up much more than Radio 1.

Oh yes, and I hated SSS as well.
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Old 13th Feb 2020, 4:48 pm   #98
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

Hmm, all I remember anyone trying to listen to on radios at school was the cricket commentary: I suppose it was that sort of school.

I hadn't guessed there was so much aversion in my generation (16 in '75) to Cliff Adams, Sing Something Simple just wasn't something anyone mentioned. My own pet hate, naming no names, was and remains much mainstream '70s pop: give me Layton and Johnstone or black metal any day...

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Old 13th Feb 2020, 5:14 pm   #99
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and I'm now too old for Radio 2
That must be my problem then. I now listen to a local station as preference. I've had R2 tuned in more or less permanently on the car radio for years but over the last 18 months or so I've drifted away except for Sounds of the 60's on Saturday mornings.
It's my supposition that they moved Sounds of the Sixties to 6am on a Saturday a) in the hope that the audience figures would drop off and it could be quietly 'rested' (BBC parlance for 'axed') and b) in the meantime it wouldn't offend the new R2 target audience too much in that time slot. Unfortunately, Tony Blackburn is making a rather good job of it. He seems to have quite a fan base and could well hang around as long as Brian Matthew!

I think I'm fortunate that I like a wide variety of listening and always have done. However, I'm clearly in a minority as the trend today in terms of style and content is towards 'narrowcasting' rotating the same 100 or so records from a particular era or genre over and over again. The commercial stations, whose main object is to make returns for their shareholders through advertising revenue, will have done enough research to know which model works best.
I agree with Nick about S.O.T.S. It has lost something since Brian Matthew died (nothing against Tony Blackburn). It is the management that is to blame. When Brian was alive at least you could make your own personal request with the track that you wanted to hear. I used to request rarely played instrumentals. It was great to hear them.When the show changed you did not get to hear rarities anymore, only those that the guy who produced the show had.
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Old 13th Feb 2020, 5:32 pm   #100
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Default Re: Favourite Radio Stations past and present.

My brother and I used to burst into a rendition of "Sing something sinful......." We couldn't stand it either.

It had to be cheap and not count as needle time, those could be the only things going for it.

I also wasn't a fan of Jimmy Clitheroe or Billy Cotton. At a pinch, I could put up with Cotton. Sing something was just depressingly dreary, and Jimmy Clitheroe just seemed creepy.

The goons, the navy lark, Alan Freeman, and then John Peel made up for it.

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