AM radio memories

[ribonucleic]

Just thought of this for the first time in.. [checks calendar] ... 40 years.

 

[JeffS7444]

Some of the earliest pop tunes that I recall my mom playing on the radio were by Nancy Sinatra, and occasionally, the 5th Dimension (Age of Aquarius). I had no idea what the lyrics meant. But it gave me exposure to music that I'd never hear otherwise.

 

[JeffS7444]

Sitting in my restoration queue is a 1943 AM/SW set by Bang & Olufsen, who were then known as a radio manufacturer. Denmark was under Nazi occupation at the time, and access to imported materials including Bakelite was limited. So the Beolit 43K was made mostly of wood and other materials deemed non-strategic. Grill cloth has a botanical motif, and the metal grill looks like something which might have been intended for a chicken coop. Lots of options for powering it, including high voltage DC!

 

[egellings]

I was studying biology/photosynthesis at home and listening to the AM radio and the radio station DJ said he was doing the daily ask a question and the first caller with the answer to explain photosynthesis got a free LP record. I leaped into action, phoned the radio station and answered the question on live radio. HeHe.

Did you get the record?

 

[Doodski]

Did you get the record?

Yes, I think it was Prism going off memory.

 

[Philbo King]

My first AM radio experience was making a crystal radio at age 7 or 8. A toilet paper tube wrapped with wire scrounged from an old transformer, a small tin foil capacitor and a 1N34 germanium diode. Unfortunately it wasn't very selective. I wanted to listen to top 40 from WLS in Chicago, but the local station WEKZ broadcasting polka music and yodelling drowned it out.

 

[RayDunzl]

1963, maybe. RCA 8 transistors, won in a bicycling contest.

Still works.

Seems there is a lot more interference that back then.

Or Dad's car radio on trips across the south to Grandma's house, listening to the local flavors, back when there still was some.

 

[thecheapseats]

as a kid - small transistor radio, it even had an earpiece - the Dodgers in their new stadium in '63 - listened to every game that season...

 

[Aynsley]

Listening to Radio Luxembourg using old discarded tube radios as an adolescent. Brings back fond memories.

Same here. I've fond memories of turning the dial to Radio Luxembourg at around 5 p.m. (in the UK) and waiting for the signal to come through with that distinctive phasing sound. My record for picking up long-range medium-wave AM was 1010 WINS out of New York, coming in loud and clear right across the Atlantic.

 

[Chrispy]

When I was a kid we had some good am stations with top 40 type of music. Later it just became idiotic rage radio.

 

[Blumlein 88]

My best AM radio memory is about FM. My father had bought a 1962 Corvette and it had an FM radio. So I remember him driving around with the top off in the summer and playing these FM radio stations I had not heard before then.

There was a time I was driving home for Thanksgiving in 1981. Traveling across country they were playing a Rolling Stones concert live on the AM radio from Chicago. I had the heater going in my Malibu, with the radio cranked up as much as it would go. Part way through it blew out my rear speakers. I actually stopped to pull the wires on those as it was so messed up sounding. Then continued on having only my front speaker to listen to as the concert wound down. When it was over switched to the big New Orleans AM powerhouse as they were playing some blues. Now if I pass thru a town with a college FM radio station I try and pull that in for 50 miles or so either way. Not like when the sun goes down and those AM stations cranked it up after dark and could carry long distances.

 

[TheWalkman]

Same here. I've fond memories of turning the dial to Radio Luxembourg at around 5 p.m. (in the UK) and waiting for the signal to come through with that distinctive phasing sound. My record for picking up long-range medium-wave AM was 1010 WINS out of New York, coming in loud and clear right across the Atlantic.

Don’t forget, Deutsche Welle, Radio Nederland, Swiss Radio International and of course the BBC, not to mention the 50KW domestic, clear channel broadcasters in the US.

I don’t even remember where it came from, but somehow I picked up a used, am/ fm/ shortwave radio (with a 10’ piece of 18# wire acting as an antenna) and as a 12 or 13 year old kid in the US, listening to scratchy radio shows from across the Atlantic seemed like absolute magic.

(Though DXing was magical , I never did the HAM thing, preferring to listen to interesting news and programming rather than a seemingly endless discussion of what antenna Joe had and Bill’s brand of transceiver.)

Now, I nonchalantly stream these same broadcasters at 128k, actually cleaner than any LP or tape deck available to me in the 70’s. To be honest, I kind of miss the fading sounds and noise of the old shortwave DX broadcasts of the past.

 

[MoreWatts]

1960-80s Los Angeles area, AM radio for me was for sports broadcasts. LA had hall-of-fame voices for the abundance of quality teams the city fostered. Vin Scully, Chick Hearn, Bob Miller, Dick Enberg and many others, for pro and big-time UCLA/USC college sports. If a game was on, either: the TV; a classic hand-size transistor radio; a desktop radio; from the mid-70s, my Pioneer receivers; or the car radio, were tuned-in.

Even into the 90s, a ball game on the radio was a way to pass the time. Took a backcountry backpacking trip/trek in California’s Sequoia National Park, ~3 days from a car. A tiny Grundig unit pulls in games from San Francisco and Los Angeles, each 300 miles away. The 1999 Stanley Cup Final Game 6, infamous with triple overtime, was heard with a soak in a High Sierra hot spring. Roughing it, just like John Muir….

My sports passion has run its course, as has most AM radio in my current locale.

 

[DavidMcRoy]

My best AM radio memory is about FM. My father had bought a 1962 Corvette and it had an FM radio. So I remember him driving around with the top off in the summer and playing these FM radio stations I had not heard before then.

There was a time I was driving home for Thanksgiving in 1981. Traveling across country they were playing a Rolling Stones concert live on the AM radio from Chicago. I had the heater going in my Malibu, with the radio cranked up as much as it would go. Part way through it blew out my rear speakers. I actually stopped to pull the wires on those as it was so messed up sounding. Then continued on having only my front speaker to listen to as the concert wound down. When it was over switched to the big New Orleans AM powerhouse as they were playing some blues. Now if I pass thru a town with a college FM radio station I try and pull that in for 50 miles or so either way. Not like when the sun goes down and those AM stations cranked it up after dark and could carry long distances.

That New Orleans station was likely 50 kW clear channel WWL-AM 870 (still on the air.)

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

Another shout for Luxembourg.
Mom and Dad's old bakelite in their bedroom.
The light operatic and popular stuff they liked, which now, I also love, was discovered to be entirely redundant. Only about half an hour before Luxembourg became to distorted to listen to.
But in that short time, I discovered, my, rock 'n' roll!

 

[Aynsley]

Another shout for Luxembourg.
Mom and Dad's old bakelite in their bedroom.
The light operatic and popular stuff they liked, which now, I also love, was discovered to be entirely redundant. Only about half an hour before Luxembourg became to distorted to listen to.
But in that short time, I discovered, my, rock 'n' roll!

A question for the many Radio Luxembourg fans on this forum. I recall record labels purchasing 30-minute slots featuring well-known UK DJs. That was one of the downsides of that particular business model —if you were listening to the Pye segment, you got only Pye releases. But didn't RL also have some on-site disk jockeys resident in Luxembourg? My memory is hazy on this. After RL came all the off-shore pirate ships, then attempts to broadcast from Monte Carlo and even Andorra. They've all become confused in my memory. Radio London, Radio Caroline, Radio Essex, Radio Geronimo and several others. Wasn't Essex the one that took over an abandoned WWII watch-tower?

 

[egellings]

My first AM radio experience was making a crystal radio at age 7 or 8. A toilet paper tube wrapped with wire scrounged from an old transformer, a small tin foil capacitor and a 1N34 germanium diode. Unfortunately it wasn't very selective. I wanted to listen to top 40 from WLS in Chicago, but the local station WEKZ broadcasting polka music and yodelling drowned it out.

I did that, too, but my TP roll coil had a slider that could vary the coil's size in an attempt to tune a station a bit better.

 

[GShepard]

As a kid I used to listen to KGIL AM 1260 in the San Fernando valley near Los Angeles on my crystal radio. Since I lived less than a mile from the transmitter it was the only station I could hear. Later on I listened to AM stereo on KFI in my 1991 pickup truck. Today I still listen to AM radio on my Anan 200D SDR amateur radio transceiver.

 

[LouB]

Had a few but the best was in a Rambler & that radio had reverb/delay & it sounded so cool.
Lived in SF Bay Area & late at night withy right weather conditions we'd get Wolfman Jack broadcasting from I think somewhere in Mexico !

 

[recycle]

I had a friend living near the Vatican City AM transmitter: in his house, when opening the fridge you could listen to Pope voice, the Pope was also inside the central heating and in the building intercom: The Pope (Woityla at that time) was everywhere in the house. That was quite creepy. The issue was created because every metal part of the house was resonating with the radio waves of the very powerful AM transmitter nearby.
Eventually, the guy wisely moved to another area

The antennas: