Radio Waves

Radio Waves ©

By

Michael Casey

Radio had been a big thing in my life, it still is but to a lesser degree, though I only bought my cheap mobile phone because it had a radio on it. Radio is a conspiracy between the announcer and the listener. As kids we listened under the bed clothes, then when we had an ear piece we listened with the radio on the bedclothes beside us.

Earpieces is the operative word because you only had one thing to go in your ear, headphones had not been invented. And you shared an earpiece and ear wax with your brother. Yuck.

We were given a huge Bush radio, the one with the saucer dial and the domino like controls, now these radios are retro and stylish, but back in the 60s they were huge. Me and my brother shared a double bed and the radio lay between us as we listened to The World Tonight, Douglas Stuart reporting, which was BBC Radio4 late night news. Followed by the Book at Bed Time.

For me that radio changed my life, and improved my intellect. 20 years  of listening to clever people talk and explain things. Perhaps that’s why I have a Posh Brummie accent, though having a Shanghai wife means I have to try and talk clearly otherwise she’d never understand me.

Due to the repeats on the radio I have a broader view on life, and on comedy on the radio. Round the Horn and ITMA, even some of the Goons. The Goons had a young Peter Sellers as part of the crew before he became an international film star. I also heard 100s or 1000s of plays. If you work shifts and your days off are midweek what can you do? You listen to Radio4 of course.

Radio has more power than tv. If you hear an item on the radio and later on you are watching the same item on  tv the words don’t seem as “loud” or as forceful on tv. Why? Because the pictures get in the way of the words. Did anybody ever listen to Marilyn Monroe, no, they were too busy looking, proves my point, pictures get in the way of words, or eyes outvote ears.

When we listen to our favourite music we close our eyes, it sounds better in the dark, just as kissing is better in the dark, or power cuts or blackouts if you live in New York. Radio does send out waves of love and music to us. Radio must have been invented for music. As well as speech radio I always listen to lots of music. Nowadays on my PC or on a UBS stick  in the cheap but good Hifi behind me.

Radio has been splintered nowadays, we have stations for this and stations for that. You have Hip Hop radio, you have Reggae radio, Smooth radio, Jazz radio, radio for every faction under the sun. Though Breakfast radio always seems to have 2 hyper people, a boy and a girl, talking about themselves,  and talking over the music.

I have tried getting my Shorts on the radio and this is very hard, because we have Format radio. A man , a dog and a playlist, that’s what they always do and that’s what they always do. Radio stations play it safe they don’t want to lose the advertisers, adverts rule OK?

Dab radio and satellite radio are new things that bring quality listening quality to us. I got my 1^st Dab radio 10 years ago perhaps. My sister said the radio sounded like a HiFi and it did. So my hope is that now that we can all hear in such great quality, as if all of us have had our ears syringed, let’s hope the radio owners put

quality material on their stations. And may I drop a hint

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