nostalga

[goddessfarmer]

The radio that is currently playing WUMB in my office is one that I have had since 1984 or earlier. WUMB went on the air in 1982. Radio and station are of an age. Back in early 1984, this radio played KBRQ, a country music station near Denver, Colorado, up on the wall in the barn where I kept my horse. I took it when I moved back to NJ in 1984 but I didn't take this radio to college with me and it stayed in my parent's barn, largely silent, until I moved to NH in 1991. In 1992, I put it in the then-brand-new barn, where it stayed and played WOKQ until 2001 when I switched over to listening to WUMB. Last summer, I moved again, and this humble, dusty and now downright old, AM/FM radio is in my office, because it is the only just plain old radio that I own. I have never owned a stereo system, boom boxes have come and gone and lived and died, and yet this old cheap radio plays on despite it's antenna being long gone and having been covered in dust and hay and left in open windows during rainstorms not to mention bitter cold and severe heat.

Comments

[ialdaboth.livejournal.com]

Actually

[starphire.livejournal.com]

Portable radios are one of those appliances that a reliability engineer can love, because they have no constantly-moving parts, almost no moving parts at all, and - since the days of transistors at least - no components that might have to operate at a high internal temperature. If nothing else, the distortion from the tinny built-in speaker would become intolerable to the listener long before turning up the volume all the way might result in an overheated amplifier component.

Indeed, the death of a radio in a consumer's mind often comes when one of those moving parts, a switch or knob, gets damaged from dirt or impact, or simply wears out after the rated number of cycles, and they don't even think about getting that part replaced (switches and knobs being fairly simple, cheap devices) for the obvious reason. Only a sentimental attachment or a DIY fixit personality would ever justify repair.

Your radio could easily outlast the existence of AM/FM radio broadcasts as a commercially/publically viable medium. While local radio broadcasting seems safe as long as people still drive places without a built-in internet connection along for the ride, or a satellite receiver, the day is doubtlessly going to come.