Where Do You Get Your Radio?
If you wanted to hear the news, you used to walk to town and hear it bellowed from a soap box orator. For fairer entertainment, you had to purchase sheet music of your favorite etude, then get to work learning to play it on the parlor piano. Then came recorded cylinders, vinyl plates, magnetic tape, compact discs. As we have found more ways to record sound and make it portable, people continue to demand access to it.
Looking Back
Reginald Fessenden is credited for broadcasting the first radio signal to carry human voice to ships at sea on Chrismas Eve, 1906. In that glowing moment, radio was born. Fast forward to 2011. Technological advancements in radio and related product lines are so numerous that consumers are spoiled for choice. Technology enhancements aside, radio is a medium that has remained relatively the same. The mechanism employs a method of generating signals in one station, casting them through the air to a broad selection of receivers. Today we are capable of broadcasting communication signals with greater clarity much further afield.
Looking Ahead
The type of radio content we’re seeking dictates the way we receive it. Local stations still serve local communities, requiring nothing more than a simple table-top receiver. A nearly unlimited selection of global broadcasts, however, is available for a monthly subscription and more sophisticated apparatus. The future likely holds more portability and accessability. We can get our radio from the station on Main Street, or beamed down from geostationary satellites high above the earth. As long as we humans desire connection to the world around us, no matter how it comes in, we will get our radio.