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Re: [IRCA] Pirate radio stations are making a comeback
IRCA,
Reading this online article the thing that popped out at me was
triggered by this paragraph.
---------------------
"The DJs sound like you and they talk about things that you're
interested in," said Jay Blessed, an online DJ who has listened to
various unlicensed stations since she moved from Trinidad to New York
City more than a decade ago.
"You call them up and say, 'I want to hear this song,' and they play it
for you," Blessed said. "It's interactive. It's engaging. It's communal."
------------------
This person is describing how radio was when I was a kid. The 1996
rewrite of the telecommunications act allowing 4 companies to own most
of the radio stations, newspapers, and televisions in a given market, is
I believe a direct consequence of this action.
For the most part local radio is not local, at least as I experienced it.
In the mid to late 1950’s there was only one Rock and Roll station in
Tucson, KTKT and during the day it was my station. Back then there were
a lot of “daytime only” stations and KTKT was one of them. The DJ talked
to you, not at you. They and the stations that they worked for did
everything they could to make the station more then just background
music. They were given room to be creative and be funny. You really
listened to the radio, not just had it on in the background, because you
never knew what they might do or say. And the radio was a great way to
meet girls.
Once KTKT finally got permission to stay on at night, such a huge number
of kids would call the station nonstop, that the phone exchange would be
jammed up all of the time. Kids quickly uncovered a technical quirk that
was a side effect of this telephone traffic jam. When you dialed the
station you almost always got a busy signal. But so did thousands of
other kids. We discovered that if you spoke in between the slow beeps of
the busy signal, other kids who were also hearing the busy signal could
hear you. You just had to wait for the beep and then say “Hello” and
almost always you would get an answer. This communication technique
probably anticipated Internet “Chat Rooms” by over 30 years, but it took
a little getting used to. The conversations sounded like: “beep, what,
beep, school, beep, do you, beep, go to, beep.” Or, “beep, how, beep,
old, beep, are, beep, you, beep.” If the two of you struck an emotional
or hormonal cord then one of you would give the other their phone number
and you would both hang up, and establish a real phone conversation. If
you didn’t find anybody you were attracted to all you had to do was hang
up and dial back. The chances are that the next time you would land on a
different trunk line and get somebody different. Frequently you might be
able to hear several people. Occasionally when this happened the
conversations would get pretty steamy, or about as steamy and anything
ever got in the late 1950’s early 60’s.
Before KTKT got permission to stay on all of the time they said goodbye
at about 5:00pm and left the air. But right about that time especially
in the winter KOMA, a powerhouse running 50,000 watts, came booming in
from Okalahoma City. Kids all over the western U.S. grew up listening to
KOMA at night. I can still remember countless hot summer evenings, the
smell of an approaching desert thunderstorm in the air. The breeze ahead
of the storm beginning to drop the temperature, distant lightening
strikes crackling out of the radio speaker along with KOMA’s jingles,
“Yours Truuly KaaaaOMA”. I recently exchanged email with one of the KOMA
DJ’s from the late 1960’s. He told me that the calls on the request line
used to amaze him, as they came from all over including troops in Vietnam.
Steve
On 5/3/16 4:12 PM, Dennis Gibson wrote:
http://www.startribune.com/pirate-radio-stations-are-making-a-comeback/377624341/
Sent from my iPad
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--
Stephen Hawkins NG0G
ng0g@xxxxxxxxx
73 49 111 01001001
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IRCA mailing list
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Be sure to register now for the Joint DX Convention
Kansas City, September 9 to 11. Hotel space is filling up.
Registration info:
http://www.nrcdxas.org
Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers
For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org
To Post a message: irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx