"Truly He taught us to love one another, His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother, And in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, With all our hearts we praise His holy name. Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we, His power and glory ever more proclaim! His power and glory ever more proclaim!
"Truly He taught us to love one another, His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother, And in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we, With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we, His power and glory ever more proclaim! His power and glory ever more proclaim!
1. On Christmas Eve 1906 ships at sea, who had previously used radio only for morse code transmissions, heard the first radio audio broadcast. The program included the carol "O Holy Night," (lyrics above), which was sung and played on violin by which radio inventor? Reginald Fessenden Guglielmo Marconi Nikoli Tesla
On December 24 1906, 9pm EST, Reginald Aubrey Fessenden, Canadian inventor and former Thomas Edison employee, transmitted the first radio broadcast of human voices ("radio telephony"). The transmitter was at Brant Rock, Massachusetts, near Boston. Several ships at sea owned by the United Fruit Company heard the transmission (they had radio receiver for morse code).
Fessenden hosted the broadcast, starting by listing of the upcoming program, then playing a recording of Handel's "Largo" on an Ediphone. Fessenden followed by performing on violin the Christmas carol, "Oh Holy Night" -- and singing the last few verses (lyrics above) as he played. His wife, Helen, and Fessenden's secretary, Miss Bent, were to have then read seasonal Bible passages, including "Glory to God in the highest -- and on earth peace to men of good will." They froze speechless with mike fright, however, when their turn came. Fessenden assumed the readings, and concluded with Christmas greetings, and a request for his listeners to write, which many did.
"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
2. An elementary explanation by: Thomas Edison Albert Einstein Edwin H. Armstrong
Countless sites attribute this quote to Albert Einstein, though none list the source. So let's continue to believe the attribution till we hear different.
ANNOUNCER THREE Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. From the Meridian Room in the Park Plaza Hotel in New York City, we bring you the music of Ramón Raquello and his orchestra. With a touch of the Spanish, Ramón Raquello leads off with "La Cumparsita." ("LA CUMPARSITA" STARTS PLAYING, THEN QUICKLY FADES OUT) ANNOUNCER TWO Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. At twenty minutes before eight, central time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars. The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen and moving towards the earth with enormous velocity. Professor Pierson of the Observatory at Princeton confirms Farrell's observation, and describes the phenomenon as, quote, "like a jet of blue flame shot from a gun," unquote.
ANNOUNCER THREE Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. From the Meridian Room in the Park Plaza Hotel in New York City, we bring you the music of Ramón Raquello and his orchestra. With a touch of the Spanish, Ramón Raquello leads off with "La Cumparsita."
("LA CUMPARSITA" STARTS PLAYING, THEN QUICKLY FADES OUT)
ANNOUNCER TWO Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News.
At twenty minutes before eight, central time, Professor Farrell of the Mount Jennings Observatory, Chicago, Illinois, reports observing several explosions of incandescent gas, occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars. The spectroscope indicates the gas to be hydrogen and moving towards the earth with enormous velocity.
Professor Pierson of the Observatory at Princeton confirms Farrell's observation, and describes the phenomenon as, quote, "like a jet of blue flame shot from a gun," unquote.
3. This famous 1938 broadcast followed with a report on: February 12: German troops enter Austria October 30: Explosions of incandescent gas on Mars November 9: Kristallnacht, 25,000 Jews arrested, 91 killed
In 1938 Germans did take over Austria, and in Germany on Kristallnacht ("night of broken glass") Nazi troops and sympathizers looted and burned Jewish businesses (7,500 destroyed, 267 synagogues burned).
But the earth-shaking event being reported in the radio transcript above was from Grover's Mill, New Jersey. What was first thought to be gas explosions, then a meteorite, turned out to be a Martian invasion: "The War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells, as performed by Orson Welles & the Mercury Theatre on the Air, broadcast on the Columbia Broadcasting System, Sunday, October 30, 1938.
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine; and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular. This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it Ñ and rather successfully. Cassius was right. 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.' Good night, and good luck."
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine; and remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.
This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it Ñ and rather successfully. Cassius was right. 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.' Good night, and good luck."
4. Edward R. Murrow of CBS Radio went on to host several TV series. In his quote above, from a 1954 episode of See it Now, who is he warning us about? Mao Tse-Tung Joseph Stalin Joseph McCarthy
Red-baiting and blacklisting abounded in the 1950s. Leading the anti-communist charge was McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Ed Murrow's March 1954 episode of See it Now is considered a devastating indictment of McCarthy's methods: most of the program is clips of the Senator speaking.
"Here to blow your mind and clean up your face." --KYA 1961 "The disc jockeys have become robots, performing their inanities at the direction of programmers who have succeeded in totally squeezing the human element out of their sound, and reducing it to a series of blips and bleeps and happy, oh yes, always happy, sounding cretins who are poured from bottles every three hours. They have succeeded in making everyone on the station staff sound the same -- asinine. This is the much coveted 'station sound.'" --AM Radio Is Dead and Its Rotting Corpse Is Stinking Up the Airwaves, Rolling Stone 1967
"Here to blow your mind and clean up your face." --KYA 1961
"The disc jockeys have become robots, performing their inanities at the direction of programmers who have succeeded in totally squeezing the human element out of their sound, and reducing it to a series of blips and bleeps and happy, oh yes, always happy, sounding cretins who are poured from bottles every three hours. They have succeeded in making everyone on the station staff sound the same -- asinine. This is the much coveted 'station sound.'" --AM Radio Is Dead and Its Rotting Corpse Is Stinking Up the Airwaves, Rolling Stone 1967
5. So began each KYA show, hosted by this Top 40 DJ, who later pioneered free-form underground radio, and founded stations KMPX, KSAN, KMET and KPPC. Alan Freed Tom Donahue Rodney Bingenheimer
Alan Freed gets credit for coining "rock n' roll". Rodney Bingenheimer's radio career is documented in the film Mayor of the Sunset Strip. But is Tom Tom DonahueDonahue who pioneered progressive rack radio. In 1975 the San Francisco Chronicle had this memorial: "In a field where a person with just one good idea can look like an intellectual giant, Tom Donahue, who died Monday of a heart attack at age 46, was a true visionary. The whole country noticed San Francisco radio when Donahue created what quickly came to be called 'underground radio' on KMPX-FM here in 1967, opening the FM airwaves to rock for the first time."
"It was in 1844 that Congress authorized $30,000 for the first telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore. Soon afterward, Samuel Morse sent a stream of dots and dashes over that line to a friend who was waiting. His message was brief and prophetic and it read: 'What hath God wrought?'." "The law that I will sign shortly... builds a new institution: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The Corporation will assist stations and producers who aim for the best in broadcasting good music, in broadcasting exciting plays, and in broadcasting reports on the whole fascinating range of human activity. It will try to prove that what educates can also be exciting. It will get part of its support from our Government. But it will be carefully guarded from Government or from party control. It will be free, and it will be independent--and it will belong to all of our people."
"It was in 1844 that Congress authorized $30,000 for the first telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore. Soon afterward, Samuel Morse sent a stream of dots and dashes over that line to a friend who was waiting. His message was brief and prophetic and it read: 'What hath God wrought?'."
6. About the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, said by: Ken Tomlinson Bill Moyers Lyndon B. Johnson
The quote is from LBJ's remarks upon signing into U.S. law the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which authorized federal funding for public television and radio, and established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to: "facilitate the full development of public telecommunications in which programs of high quality, diversity, creativity, excellence, and innovation, which are obtained from diverse sources, will be made available to public telecommunications entities, with strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature."
"In the top of the day's news, the crush, catcalls, flux and flow of the demonstrations in Washington. For many demonstrators, the mobile street tactics, the civil disobedience, are an expected spring event. But before today, many other young people have not been willing to oppose the state with their bodies. For these young Americans, today was a major test of their commitment to the ethical code of the young and the angry. It was their freedom ride, their Selma march, their May Day."
"In the top of the day's news, the crush, catcalls, flux and flow of the demonstrations in Washington.
7. From 1971, the first introduction in the first All Things Considered broadcast to the first ATC report by this first ATC host: Mike Waters Robert Conley Susan Stamberg
At 5pm EDT, May 3 1971, the first edition of All Things Considered went on the air (audio at NPR link below). The host was Robert Conley. The first story was a lengthy report on the anti-Vietnam War protests taking place that day in Washington DC. NPR's Jeff Kamen was in the streets recording and reporting: "Today in the nation's capital, it is a crime to be young and have long hair."
By year's end co-hosts Jim Russell and (the late) Mike Waters were at ATC's helm. Susan Stamberg had replaced Russell (now head of American Public Media, producer of Marketplace) in 1972. In 1974 Bob Edwards (now of XM) becomes Susan's co-host, and stays there till tapped to host the newly created Morning Edition in 1979.
"There is a basic principle that distinguishes a hot medium like radio from a cool one like the telephone, or a hot medium like the movie from a cool one like TV. A hot medium is one that extends one single sense in 'high definition'. High definition is the state of being well filled with data. A photograph is, visually 'high definition.' A cartoon is 'low definition', simply because very little visual information is provided. Telephone is a cool medium, or one of low definition, because the ear is given a meager amount of information. And speech is a cool medium of low definition, because so little is given and so much has to be filled in by the listener. On the other hand, hot media do not leave so much to be filled in or completed by the audience. Hot media are, therefore, low in participation, and cool media are high in participation or completion by the audience. Naturally, therefore, a hot medium like radio has very different effects on the user from a cool medium like the telephone. A cool medium like hieroglyphic or ideogrammic written characters has very different effects from the hot and explosive medium of the phonetic alphabet. The alphabet, when pushed to a high degree of abstract visual intensity, became typography. The printed word with its specialist intensity burst the bonds of medieval corporate guilds and monasteries, creating extreme individualist patterns of enterprise and monopoly. But the typical reversal occurred when extremes of monopoly brought back the corporation, with its impersonal empire over many lives. The hotting-up of the medium of writing to repeatable print intensity led to nationalism and the religious wars of the sixteenth century. The heavy and unwieldy media, such as stone, are time binders. Used for writing, they are very cool indeed, and serve to unify the ages; whereas paper is a hot medium that serves to unify spaces horizontally, both in political and entertainment empires. Any hot medium allows of less participation than a cool one, as a lecture makes for less participation than a seminar, and a book for less than dialogue. With print many earlier forms were excluded from life and art, and many were given strange new intensity. But our own time is crowded with examples of the principle that the hot form excludes, and the cool includes...." "In terms of the theme of media hot and cold, backward countries are cool, and we are hot. The 'city slicker' is hot, and the rustic is cool. But in terms of the reversal of procedures and values in the electric age, the past mechanical time was hot, and we of the TV age are cool. The waltz was a hot, fast mechanical dance suited to the industrial time in its moods of pomp and circumstance. In contrast, the Twist is a cool, involved and chatty form of improvised gesture. The jazz of the period of the hot new media of movie and radio was hot jazz. Yet jazz of itself tends to be a casual dialogue form of dance quite lacking in the repetitive and mechanical forms of the waltz. Cool jazz came in quite naturally after the first impact of radio and movie had been absorbed."
"There is a basic principle that distinguishes a hot medium like radio from a cool one like the telephone, or a hot medium like the movie from a cool one like TV. A hot medium is one that extends one single sense in 'high definition'. High definition is the state of being well filled with data. A photograph is, visually 'high definition.' A cartoon is 'low definition', simply because very little visual information is provided. Telephone is a cool medium, or one of low definition, because the ear is given a meager amount of information. And speech is a cool medium of low definition, because so little is given and so much has to be filled in by the listener. On the other hand, hot media do not leave so much to be filled in or completed by the audience. Hot media are, therefore, low in participation, and cool media are high in participation or completion by the audience. Naturally, therefore, a hot medium like radio has very different effects on the user from a cool medium like the telephone.
A cool medium like hieroglyphic or ideogrammic written characters has very different effects from the hot and explosive medium of the phonetic alphabet. The alphabet, when pushed to a high degree of abstract visual intensity, became typography. The printed word with its specialist intensity burst the bonds of medieval corporate guilds and monasteries, creating extreme individualist patterns of enterprise and monopoly. But the typical reversal occurred when extremes of monopoly brought back the corporation, with its impersonal empire over many lives. The hotting-up of the medium of writing to repeatable print intensity led to nationalism and the religious wars of the sixteenth century. The heavy and unwieldy media, such as stone, are time binders. Used for writing, they are very cool indeed, and serve to unify the ages; whereas paper is a hot medium that serves to unify spaces horizontally, both in political and entertainment empires.
Any hot medium allows of less participation than a cool one, as a lecture makes for less participation than a seminar, and a book for less than dialogue. With print many earlier forms were excluded from life and art, and many were given strange new intensity. But our own time is crowded with examples of the principle that the hot form excludes, and the cool includes...."
"In terms of the theme of media hot and cold, backward countries are cool, and we are hot. The 'city slicker' is hot, and the rustic is cool. But in terms of the reversal of procedures and values in the electric age, the past mechanical time was hot, and we of the TV age are cool. The waltz was a hot, fast mechanical dance suited to the industrial time in its moods of pomp and circumstance. In contrast, the Twist is a cool, involved and chatty form of improvised gesture. The jazz of the period of the hot new media of movie and radio was hot jazz. Yet jazz of itself tends to be a casual dialogue form of dance quite lacking in the repetitive and mechanical forms of the waltz. Cool jazz came in quite naturally after the first impact of radio and movie had been absorbed."
8. Marshall McLuhan's mediums run hot and cool. TV and telephones are cool. Radios and movies are hot, as are: photograph, phonetic alphabet, paper, dialogue, waltz cartoon, speech, hieroglyphic, lecture, Twist cartoon, phonetic alphabet, paper, dialogue, Twist
Dear Marshall: Whatever. Sincerely, HV
(Text above from McLuhan's Understanding Media. Picture on the right from McLuhan's book The Medium is the Massage; the caption: "The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.")
"A radio station should not just be a hole in the universe for making money, or feeding egos, or running the world... A radio station should be a live place for live people to sing and dance and talk: talk their talk and walk their walk and know that they (and the rest of us) are not finally and irrevocably dead."
9. The quote is from the book Sex and Broadcasting: A Handbook on Starting a Radio Station for the Community, written by which of these early community broadcasting advocates? Lorenzo Milam Tom Thomas Lewis Hill
Among community radio's pioneers were: Lewis Hill, who created the Pacifica Foundation in 1946 and KPFA-Berkeley in 1949; Tom Thomas and Terry Clifford, who started, in their apartment, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters in the mid-70s; and Lorenzo Milam, author of Sex and Broadcasting (1975) and The Radio Papers: From KRAB to KCHU-Essays on the Art and Practice of Radio Transmission (1986).
In 1962 Milam started KRAB in Seattle, followed by twelve other U.S. community stations (the KRAB Nebula). Also, unlike many in this august field, he had a sense of humor: "Radio was discovered by a dog named RCA Victor. RCA Victor discovered radio accidently by looking into a horn, and discerning the voice of his master." --Milam, A Brief History of Radio.
"I heard you on the wireless back in Fifty Two Lying awake intent at tuning in on you... In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone too far Pictures came and broke your heart put the blame on VCR You are a radio star Video killed the radio star"
"I heard you on the wireless back in Fifty Two Lying awake intent at tuning in on you...
In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone too far Pictures came and broke your heart put the blame on VCR You are a radio star Video killed the radio star"
10. These words were the first sung on the first MTV broadcast (August 1981). The tune was "Video Killed the Radio Star;" the band was: The Rutles Snuggles The Buggles
The Rutles were a Beatles spoof (the Prefab Four) by Monty Python renegades. Snuggles was some sorta laundry product spokes-bear. And The Buggles were the first act played on MTV.
They were bassist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoff Downes. They later replaced Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman in the super-group Yes. Horn also started The Art of Noise, and produced albums by, among many others, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grace Jones, Seal, Tina Turner, Tom Jones, Paul McCartney, Pet Shop Boys, Mike Oldfield, and Belle & Sebastian.
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