Turn Your Radio On ...

On 31/01/2025 07:09, WokieSux282@ud0s4.net wrote:

I grew up with 2.5 TV stations ... the 0.5
   was more distant and only came in OK if the
   weather was just right.

Back in Denmark, we had just one (public service) TV channel. People
near Copenhagen could get the Swedish TV in addition. Did not affect me:
My family did not have any TV. We got our news from the (public service)
radio, which had two channels, structured like the BBC: One was "family"
oriented, including news; Two was "culture". No commercial broadcasting
allowed. This changed in the summer of 1958, when "Radio Merkur" started
broadcasting from the international waters in Øresund, between Denmark
and Sweden, playing top hits in FM quality. This was very good for the
"radio stores": For the first time in decades, there was a reason to buy
a new radio, and it probably needed a visit from an antenna installer as
well.

This was the first "pirate" radio station in Europe. It was wildly
popular, and the government/parliament was uncomfortable at this outlaw
gang. Eventually, they passed a law prohibiting Danish businesses from
advertizing on the radio. By mid-august 1962, it was finally shut down.
But that created such a protest from the listners that the state
broadcaster had to start a new network "Program Three" playing the kind
of music that had been on the priate station.

My family got a TV around 1964, when my grandparents died and we
inherited their 21" TV set.

Color TV arrived in my household in the mid 1970s. That was around the
time that we started getting cable TV. At the time it was a
"neighborhood community antenna system". For a decade thereafter these
could not be connected across municipal boundaries; so we did not get
more channels, but the ones we got were better quality, and we also got
clean versions of all the FM stations from Denmark and Sweden.

On 2025-01-31, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

In the UK we had BBC with state propaganda and ITV with soap powder adverts.
>
And really only BBC radio stations were receivable with any quality,
although after dark we could listen to rock and roll on Radio Luxembourg.
>
The brodcasting from moored ships that were outside legal UK limits
started and things improved

Well, Radio Caroline met the same end as its inspiration, and in the UK,
too, the backlash when it was terminated led to reforms.

In those days when there was no "top 20" on the local (public service)
radio in Denmark, I rigged a 200 foot wire across the fields of my
parents' farm so I could listen to Radio Luxembourg while doing homework
in the evening.

I often was still listening when they signed off, playing,

    At the end of the day / I kneel down and say
    Thank you Lord / for my work and play!
    I tried to be good / for I know that I should
    That's my prayer / at the end of the day.

Fond memories ...