SOMETIMES A COMMENT GIVES YOU A POST.

       I follow the Catalyst for his humor and variety of material.

       I knew that he originated in North Dakota. I was born and raised in Saskatchewan so we lived about 300 miles from each other. So we experienced many similar things like the wide open prairie, harsh winter storms and a pattern of leaving the area for other places to live. 

      Catalyst said that he was 13  in 1953 and that he listened to the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953. The key word here is listened.

     We lived in a area that didn't have television coverage. We would have to travel to the nearest city with a TV station to watch the coronation on snowy TV reception. I'll bet most of you have never heard of snowy TV!

    There were some very skilled broadcasters at the time who could ably describe an event so that you felt you were right there. We also had to work with the broadcaster and use some imagination.

   I was probably about 15 years old when I saw my first hockey game on TV. All those years I remember listening to hockey games and knowing exactly what was going on in the game. 

    Some people wondered how I could just listen to a coronation and get anything out of it. Yes, we enjoyed radio and were glued to it for drama, sports and mega events like the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

     

EARLY EXPECTATIONS OF RADIO AND TELEVISION

     Your comments give me an opportunity to reconsider what I've written in a previous post. For the post on the internet I was trying to comment on one of the problems with the internet. There are others. But I made it seem like all the internet was negative which isn't so. . The internet has allowed us to achieve much by having a much better communication system.

     Then I got thinking about radio and television. I think they both started with hopes for better communication and keeping people together. Radio took a long time to get to the point where homes could have a radio . The first radios in homes where large affairs with poor quality reception. So people had to crowd around the machine and they also invited neighbors. The first radios were battery powered. Electric radios came later and transistor radios about 1954. So families and neighbors gathered around the radio. When the transistor arrived radio became an individual happening. In the beginning there were very few radio stations. Now there are thousands. 

     In 1953, I got my Grandpa's beautiful large wooden cabinet radio. I could listen to radio stations from very far away. There were many different languages and I heard different music. My experience with Grandpa's radio came to an end when I couldn't buy the battery that was required.

     As a kid I made a small radio with parts obtained around the house. We used a magnet, cold of wire, flashlight battery and earphones and wow! We had to buy the crystal. Every kid could have a radio. This gizmo was called a crystal radio.

    Television developed much the same as radio. We had one television station. All the family gathered around the TV. Neighbors got together to watch TV. We didn't have our own TV so we went to the neighbors to watch a very poor reception which was described as snowy. Does anybody have a snowy picture today? Soon homes had more than one television set. Kids had their own TV and watched their own shows. Now we have hundreds of channels to choose from and smart guys who charge us lots of money to see them. 

    So as communication devices develop and change, the listeners and viewers have to change and have a new experience. Or do the listeners and viewers have to change because of the guys with the money? We certainly hear and see far more ads so the money guys can get far more money.