Listener's Guide - 1999 - The Listeners Guide

So, a "five and nine" report is an R Readabilityexcellent signal, something like aR5 Perfectly readable"one and two" isn't worth staying upfor. We do enjoy hearing reports of R4 Readable with little difficultyones and twos on 80m, the chap R3 Readable with considerable difficultygoing on to say, "but I don't care R2 Barely readable, occasional words audiblewhat the meter says - I'll give you aR1 Unreadablefive and eight because I heard everyword!".And Finally...And that's it. Before the end-credits, a last dose of nostalgia;Whatever happened to......Radio Fax, the all-day radio information service on 6205....the Laser Radio organisation who were anything but organised when it came to runninga radio station. Laser 558 changed UK pop radio for the better....Radio Caroline, the best audio on the air during its 963 era....the legendary voice of Radio Caroline, Peter Philips....Airport Information Radio, taking "narrowcasting" to a margin so slim it could notsurvive life in the taxi lane at Heathrow....LBC, the first commercial station in the UK, the first to try the "all-news" format....the IBA?...the 2.5Mhz calibration beacon. An essential check for your scribe's 19 Set back when awireless was anything but....Capital 539, the Lots Road transmitter for Capital Radio, London. A Tee antenna swungbetween the chimneys brought the new sound of commercial pop radio to an eagermetropolis until the new site was ready. Dave Cash and Kenny Everett brought the basisof the Zoo Format to England fifteen years before anyone had heard of Steve Wright....Radio Three on AM. Reception was rather indifferent, but at least it stayed there asthose who fight with FM in the car will tell you....Radio Two on AM. Sunday drives in the country with Benny Green telling me why Ishould hate the bloke who wrote all those songs I love so well....Radio One on AM. Your correspondent knows why all these services have had to leavethe steam radio, but a new FM car radio is the answer, the price a part of the question.RDS is the key for me, so I can read what station I'm not hearing clearly as I drive along....Virgin Radio at night?...Radio Nova from Ireland, one of the few stations to treat pop music intelligently....Radio North Sea International. On 6215 during the time I should have been revising forO Levels, this rocker shook the AR88D and is the reason why I now do this for a living....Radio Luxembourg on the great 208 and the oh-so 6090. Quietly reborn as Atlantic252....the wonderful concept of a Light and Home Service, with all the values they evoke....classic comedy on World Service. The rush for news forces gentler entertainment outof the schedules....Trent 301 and Kid Jensen....the new Radio One in 1967, so frightened by what the upstart Kenny Everett may say,they put him on at 6.45 in the evening opposite The Archers....Grace Archer....radio comedy, full stop....Beacon 303, the first real try at rock radio....Les Ross and Fiona on Radio Birmingham....legal CB radio, now pushed to the back of the set....the real characters on 80m, teaching not complaining....the 1930 Net on 160m. 1930KHz at 1930GMT, a group of traditionalists who felt goingover to sideband enough of a compromise - the only net I could hear on my CodarCR70A....clear AM, before OptiMod defined what the radio would sound like before the radio hadhad a try....VOA Europe on short-wave....VOA Europe on medium-wave now Virgin has taken 1197....Radio Veronica, now stylized into mainstream Dutch radio....Laser 730 with the famous antenna balloon....the great Laser voices of David Lee Stone and Rick Harris....World Mission Radio.