13 February 2013

World Radio Day

Today is World Radio Day. When we look at the metamorphosis of communication devices from crystal radio sets to valve radios to digital receivers to current mobile radios, we cannot forget  the role played by simple desktop radio receivers (fondly known as `radio') in the lives of people of my generation.  Many radios carried short as well as medium wave bands. Besides being a reliable information source and an entertainment medium, the radio used to serve as a `time keeper'. (I have seen my father and mother setting their wrist watch and wall clock respectively based on programs aired on radio. In many households, radio was used like a family clock. If a program was scheduled to begin at 8.30 AM, according to the program schedule it began exactly at 8.30, unlike today when many of our TV programs here in India aren't telecast at scheduled times).

Besides being a time setter and information source, the radio had been immensely useful in my DXing for many years until around 1992. 


Let me leave you with 2 photographs (from my archives of late '80s and early '90s) in which you can see car stickers, QSL cards (from my favourite broadcasters) and my `best' friend: the radio!





2 comments:

  1. I was just browsing through your write ups in the blog and was wondering how we cherish the past and enjoy every step we have walked up to the present.As both of us share part of it and have travelled to some of those places, though separately and at different times, when I read them i too experience the nostalgia.
    Thank you Guruprasad.
    K C Jose

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Jose. By the way, from what I have read in online magazines from Bhutan, I think that you teach in Bhutan and also write in your free time. I fondly remember my own stay in Bhutan (Mongar) when I had the pleasure of working with another K C Jose (Kottuthundiyil C Jose), with whom I still correspond. Probably you know him. He is one of my best friends.

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Chennai, Tamilnadu, India
I am a retired K-12 Education Management Professional. I have worked at different levels in K-12 school systems, textbook publishing, elearning and Education NGOs. I have held memberships in The Association for Science Education (UK), American Association of Physics Teachers and The Malaysian Institute of Physics. I hold a 1st class B Sc Degree in Physics followed by B Ed [English and Physical Science] and M A [Childcare and Education] degrees. My published works include 59 articles in teacher development magazines in India and the US and a book entitled `Creative Classrooms and Child Friendly Schools' (listed in Amazon). This book is almost an anecdotal account of my professional experience in six countries (including Cambodia where I worked as Technical Adviser to the Ministry of Education, Youth And Sports). I served as mentor in the Certificate of Teaching Mastery Program offered by Teachers Without Borders.