Addressing Bill's romantic love of terrestrial radio, StarHalo writes:
It's fishing versus eating fish; I do enjoy fishing, but I eventually want to eat the fish (and a lot of it.) Given a finite amount of free time, the choice between listening to some mindful and inspiring content as opposed to trying to dig out a legible signal from noise is not so fair a comparison
Jeff, I'd be a fool to deny that a romantic love of radio exists, especially in this blog. But that wasn't what I was talking about today. I was talking about radio's practical advantages over Internet streams.
Radio is self-contained, portable, and cheap in ways Internet streaming isn't. This makes it more useful than streaming in certain practical situations ranging from power failure-- a fairly common occurrence here in the woods-- to just goofing around in the back yard.
On the other hand, StarHalo, I live in a place where local radio reminds one of the line from the movie _Blues Brothers,_ "We have BOTH kinds of music here, Country AND Western!" It's obvious that streaming offers nearly infinite variety that our local stations here don't.
Nothing says you can't have both, especially when a decent portable suitable for emergency and back yard use can be had for the price of a pizza.
Posted by: bill | July 01, 2014 at 02:18 AM
For me it's all about what I can pull in now ( when it comes to broadcast radio)..hunting up and down the dial to see what I can pull in out of the air. Very seldom to I even listen to radio in the car anymore. Why? There's not much left to listen to, and what is left is plagued with an abundance of commercial spots.
I took up broadcasting my own stuff though a (modified audio) Talking House transmitter just to be able to use my collection of radios for something more than band scanning and DX hunting.
Truth be known I've become spoiled by podcasting's lack of FCC content restrictions, not being limited to a time schedule (the ability to listen to what you want, when you want), and and far fewer advertisements. As far as music goes; I have a stash of literally thousands of cuts in my pocket with better sound than broadcast radio is capable of. Unfortunately radio can't compete with that.
So, why bother with radio at all anymore? There's still something magical about a box that pulls sound out of the air. Not to mention that radios themselves are simply fun to play with. Also there's the idea that you can still pull in stations from hundreds and even thousands of miles away.
I do still listen sometimes, but mostly to ham radio operators rag chewing.
Posted by: Drive-In-Freak | July 05, 2014 at 05:37 AM