When did the wireless become the radio?

[Peter Moylan]

All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".

Wikipedia doesn't help. It claims that the name changed in 1920. That
was a year before my father was born, but it was still called the
wireless for quite a while after I was born.

I do remember reading a magazine called "Radio and Hobbies" from the
1940s (my father had kept his old collection), but my impression was
that the word "radio" was used only as a specialist technical term, not
an everyday word.

It's just possible that the arrival of television forced us into a
change of terminology, because after all radio and television are both
wireless devices. But then they also both use radiation. A television
signal is just a radio signal carrying a bit more information.

It might also have been when the new-fangled "Japanese transistor radio"
burst on the scene.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

[bruce bowser]

The people at sci.electronics.repair may care.

[Peter Moylan]

I already know that the electronics people were using "radio" at an
early stage, because I was one of them. The question in my mind is when
the word entered everyday non-technical use.

[Paul Carmichael]

... and immediately became known as "the tranny". For listening to Radio
Caroline under the bedsheets.



--
Paul.

https://paulc.es/elpatio

[Hibou]

You know what I'm going to say. Google Ngram Viewer (there - you were
right) shows 'radio' to have been dominant in AmE from the beginning
(about 1918). In BrE, 'wireless' led by a short head (max. 2:1) up till
~1947, then 'radio' took over. (Search terms: "listen to the radio",
"listen to the wireless".)

[GordonD]

The BBC's listing magazine first appeared in May 1923 and was called
'Radio Times' from the start.
--
Gordon Davie
Edinburgh, Scotland

[Richard Heathfield]

On 11/09/2022 2:33 am, Peter Moylan wrote:
> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped
> calling
> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".
>
> Wikipedia doesn't help. It claims that the name changed in 1920.
> That
> was a year before my father was born, but it was still called the
> wireless for quite a while after I was born.
>
> I do remember reading a magazine called "Radio and Hobbies" from the
> 1940s (my father had kept his old collection), but my impression was
> that the word "radio" was used only as a specialist technical
> term, not
> an everyday word.
>
> It's just possible that the arrival of television forced us into a
> change of terminology, because after all radio and television are
> both
> wireless devices.

They really aren't, you know. As a child, I often reflected on
the name, which is so clearly a misnomer.

How did I know? Well, it went on the blink, chap come round, had
the back off, so of course I took a nose while I had the chance.

Wires *everywhere*. Wireless, it just *ain't*.

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

[J. J. Lodder]

Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".
>
> Wikipedia doesn't help. It claims that the name changed in 1920. That
> was a year before my father was born, but it was still called the
> wireless for quite a while after I was born.
>
> I do remember reading a magazine called "Radio and Hobbies" from the
> 1940s (my father had kept his old collection), but my impression was
> that the word "radio" was used only as a specialist technical term, not
> an everyday word.

Also from Wikipedia:
The magazine 'Wireless World" (founded 1913) lasted until 1984,
when it was renamed to "Electronics and Wireless World".
(nowadays just "Electronics World")

Jan

[Peter Moylan]

Thanks. I'm not used to using that thing, but I should put the effort in
to work out how to ask for the graph for Australian sources. It is
possible that "wireless" lasted longer in Australia.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Saturday, September 10, 2022 at 9:33:17 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:

> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".

When it crossed the ocean? I don't think we ever called it "wireless."

> Wikipedia doesn't help. It claims that the name changed in 1920. That
> was a year before my father was born, but it was still called the
> wireless for quite a while after I was born.

At some point, did you start looking eastward instead of westward
for your dialectal influences? Did it coincide with the invasion of the
G.I.s that you sometimes mention?

> I do remember reading a magazine called "Radio and Hobbies" from the
> 1940s (my father had kept his old collection), but my impression was
> that the word "radio" was used only as a specialist technical term, not
> an everyday word.
>
> It's just possible that the arrival of television forced us into a
> change of terminology, because after all radio and television are both
> wireless devices. But then they also both use radiation. A television
> signal is just a radio signal carrying a bit more information.

The Brits don't call the telly the "wireless."

> It might also have been when the new-fangled "Japanese transistor radio"
> burst on the scene.

What's that in Japanese?

[occam]

Could it have been at the time of the introduction of the TV?
Technically, a TV is also a 'wireless', hence the need to differentiate
between the two wirelesses?

[occam]

...not forgetting Radio Luxembourg, the forerunner of pirate radio.

[Ken Blake]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2022 11:33:09 +1000, Peter Moylan
<pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
>wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
>it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".
>
>Wikipedia doesn't help. It claims that the name changed in 1920. That
>was a year before my father was born, but it was still called the
>wireless for quite a while after I was born.

It depends on the country. To me, it's always been "radio," and I
think the same is true for everyone in the US.

[Ken Blake]

It used to be, but not in these days of cable TV.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 11.09.2022 kl. 16.51 skrev Ken Blake:

> It used to be, but not in these days of cable TV.

Isn't streaming more common than cable?

--
Bertel

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 11.09.2022 kl. 14.23 skrev Peter Moylan:

> Thanks. I'm not used to using that thing, but I should put the effort in
> to work out how to ask for the graph for Australian sources.

nGram doesn't have a setting for Australian.

--
Bertel

[Paul Carmichael]

208, no?


--
Paul.

https://paulc.es/elpatio

[lar3ryca]

And unless you are receiving your feed over satellite, how do you
suppose the streams arrive? Mine arrives over fibre optic links (close
enough to 'wires', I think).

--
Why experiment on animals with so many politicians out there?

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 11.09.2022 kl. 18.49 skrev lar3ryca:

> And unless you are receiving your feed over satellite, how do you
> suppose the streams arrive? Mine arrives over fibre optic links (close
> enough to 'wires', I think).

Do you say that mobiles are cabled? There are cables somewhere in the
stream of signals.

--
Bertel

[lar3ryca]

Forgot about mobiles. Probably because I would never use mine to stream
music, TV, or films.

--
Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.
-Frank Zappa

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 11.09.2022 kl. 19.23 skrev lar3ryca:

> Forgot about mobiles. Probably because I would never use mine to stream
> music, TV, or films.

I only now realise that you stream through cables. I think that that is
unusual in Denmark, but I have to admit that I do not know.

--
Bertel

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <pan$1e790$153118d3$991ee1ba$a0eb...@gmail.com>,

"The world's largest commercial broadcaster, Radio Luxembourg, 1440
medium wave from Marnach. 'The Great 208'"

Or so they were identifying in 1988, long after their heyday had
passed. Of course, it was owned by what is now RTL Group, one of
Europe's largest multinational broadcasters, and now owned by one of
the world's largest publishers, Bertelsmann.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wol...@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

[Anders D. Nygaard]

The streaming we do in our household can be entirely cabled, or cabled,
except for the 2-3m from our router to one of our computers.

Just a data point - I have no general information on the matter.

/Anders, Denmark.

[Sam Plusnet]

Probably a generational thing. If the BBC and other broadcasters always
used "radio" then younger people might pick that up, but older people
would stick with "The Wireless".

Otherwise, I think it stems from the point when the household "Wireless"
- a large mains-powered cabinet employing valves, was replaced by
smaller battery-powered transistor radios.

[Sam Plusnet]

"At the end of the day
Just kneel and say
Thank you Lord
For my work and play"

Not exactly rock and roll.

[Sam Plusnet]

On 11/09/2022 11:33, GordonD wrote:
>
> The BBC's listing magazine first appeared in May 1923 and was called
> 'Radio Times' from the start.

I think many people distinguished between "radio" as the service that
provided programmes, and "the wireless" which was that cabinet in the
living room, from which the sound was heard.

But there were certainly some for whom the whole thing was just 'the
wireless'.

[charles]

In article <tflftg$q9e$1...@usenet.csail.mit.edu>,

Garrett Wollman <wol...@bimajority.org> wrote:
> In article <pan$1e790$153118d3$991ee1ba$a0eb...@gmail.com>,
> Paul Carmichael <wibble...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >El Sun, 11 Sep 2022 15:56:02 +0200, occam escribiĂł:

> >> ...not forgetting Radio Luxembourg, the forerunner of pirate radio.
> >
> >
> >208, no?

> "The world's largest commercial broadcaster, Radio Luxembourg, 1440
> medium wave from Marnach. 'The Great 208'"

> Or so they were identifying in 1988, long after their heyday had
> passed. Of course, it was owned by what is now RTL Group,

RTL used to stand for Radio Television Luxembourg

> one of
> Europe's largest multinational broadcasters, and now owned by one of
> the world's largest publishers, Bertelsmann.

> -GAWollman

--

from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

[bil...@shaw.ca]

On Sunday, September 11, 2022 at 4:14:31 AM UTC-7, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> On 11/09/2022 2:33 am, Peter Moylan wrote:
> > All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
> > wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped
> > calling
> > it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".
> >
> > Wikipedia doesn't help. It claims that the name changed in 1920.
> > That
> > was a year before my father was born, but it was still called the
> > wireless for quite a while after I was born.
> >
> > I do remember reading a magazine called "Radio and Hobbies" from the
> > 1940s (my father had kept his old collection), but my impression was
> > that the word "radio" was used only as a specialist technical
> > term, not
> > an everyday word.
> >
> > It's just possible that the arrival of television forced us into a
> > change of terminology, because after all radio and television are
> > both
> > wireless devices.
> They really aren't, you know. As a child, I often reflected on
> the name, which is so clearly a misnomer.
>
> How did I know? Well, it went on the blink, chap come round, had
> the back off, so of course I took a nose while I had the chance.
>
> Wires *everywhere*. Wireless, it just *ain't*.
>

Everybody knows that. But it's an opportunity to repeat the story about Einstein and the long cat:

Imagine a cat so long it stretches all the way from Los Angeles to New York.
If you pull its tail in LA, the cat meows in New York.

Wireless is just the same, except that there is no cat.

bill

[Peter Moylan]

Oh well, one more good idea down the gurgler.

[Peter Moylan]

On 11/09/22 23:42, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Saturday, September 10, 2022 at 9:33:17 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan
> wrote:
>
>> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
>> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped
>> calling it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".
>
> When it crossed the ocean? I don't think we ever called it
> "wireless."
>
>> Wikipedia doesn't help. It claims that the name changed in 1920.
>> That was a year before my father was born, but it was still called
>> the wireless for quite a while after I was born.
>
> At some point, did you start looking eastward instead of westward for
> your dialectal influences?

There is no doubt that a lot of American influence reached us via things
like movies. I'm not sure whether that word was one of the affected things.

> Did it coincide with the invasion of the G.I.s that you sometimes
> mention?

That was before I was born, and it didn't seem to have any linguistic
influence at all.

There was a later invasion of American soldiers on R&R from Vietnam, but
they spoke mainly Black American.

>> I do remember reading a magazine called "Radio and Hobbies" from
>> the 1940s (my father had kept his old collection), but my
>> impression was that the word "radio" was used only as a specialist
>> technical term, not an everyday word.

By the way, that monthly magazine was later renamed "Radio, TV, and
Hobbies", and at a later date it became "Electronics Australia".

It taught me a lot. By the time I reached university I already knew a
lot about vacuum tube circuits. But then, in the third year of my
Engineering degree, we switched from vacuum tubes to transistors, and
that required a lot of re-learning. They work very differently from valves.

[Mark Brader]

Peter Moylan:

>> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
>> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
>> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".

Ken Blake:

> It depends on the country. To me, it's always been "radio," and I
> think the same is true for everyone in the US.

It occurs to me that the word radar -- "radio detection and ranging" --
was invented in the US, whereas in England the thing was originally
called RDF -- "radio direction finding". That was in the late 1930s.
But nobody gave it a name using "wireless".
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "If all is not lost,
m...@vex.net then where the heck is it?"

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[Peter Moylan]

On 12/09/22 15:08, Mark Brader wrote:
> Peter Moylan:

>>> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
>>> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped
>>> calling it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".
>
> Ken Blake:
>> It depends on the country. To me, it's always been "radio," and I
>> think the same is true for everyone in the US.
>
> It occurs to me that the word radar -- "radio detection and ranging"
> -- was invented in the US, whereas in England the thing was
> originally called RDF -- "radio direction finding". That was in the
> late 1930s. But nobody gave it a name using "wireless".

My impression is that "radio" has been used by engineers and technicians
for a long time, but that it refers to the transmission method rather
than to a particular device.

The big cabinet that sat in the living room is another matter. That's
the one I think continued to be called a wireless long after the
technical terminology changed. In my memory, it changed at roughly the
time the receiver became compact enough to sit on a shelf or on the
kitchen bench. (But not yet compact enough to be portable.)

[occam]

On 11/09/2022 23:01, charles wrote:
> In article <tflftg$q9e$1...@usenet.csail.mit.edu>,
> Garrett Wollman <wol...@bimajority.org> wrote:
>> In article <pan$1e790$153118d3$991ee1ba$a0eb...@gmail.com>,
>> Paul Carmichael <wibble...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> El Sun, 11 Sep 2022 15:56:02 +0200, occam escribió:

>>>> ...not forgetting Radio Luxembourg, the forerunner of pirate radio.
>>>
>>>
>>> 208, no?
>
>> "The world's largest commercial broadcaster, Radio Luxembourg, 1440
>> medium wave from Marnach. 'The Great 208'"
>
>> Or so they were identifying in 1988, long after their heyday had
>> passed. Of course, it was owned by what is now RTL Group,
>
> RTL used to stand for Radio Television Luxembourg
>

...and before then as the Compagnie Luxembourgeoise de Radiodiffusion
(known as CLR for short), established 1931.

In Luxembourg we would like to think that the 'L' still stands for
Luxembourg. However a brief look at the takeover history of RTL shows
that all the essence of Luxembourg has been abstracted away.

Here is a link of what I see today. (I am not sponsored by the Tourist
Bureau of Luxembourg.)

https://today.rtl.lu/

[Dingbat]

On Saturday, September 10, 2022 at 6:33:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".
>

> Wikipedia doesn't help. It claims that the name changed in 1920. That
> was a year before my father was born, but it was still called the
> wireless for quite a while after I was born.
>

> I do remember reading a magazine called "Radio and Hobbies" from the
> 1940s (my father had kept his old collection), but my impression was
> that the word "radio" was used only as a specialist technical term, not
> an everyday word.
>

> It's just possible that the arrival of television forced us into a
> change of terminology, because after all radio and television are both

> wireless devices. But then they also both use radiation. A television
> signal is just a radio signal carrying a bit more information.
>

> It might also have been when the new-fangled "Japanese transistor radio"
> burst on the scene.
>

> --
I found this on when, but not why, the terminology changed to RADIO:

The term wireless has been used twice in communications history, with
slightly different meaning. It was initially used from about 1890 for the first
radio transmitting and receiving technology, as in wireless telegraphy, until
the new word radio replaced it around 1920. Radio sets in the UK and the
English-speaking world that were not portable continued to be referred to
as wireless sets into the 1960s. [1][2] The term wireless was revived in the
1980s and 1990s mainly to distinguish digital devices that communicate
without wires, such as the examples listed in the previous paragraph, from
those that require wires or cables. This became its primary usage in the
2000s, due to the advent of technologies such as mobile broadband,
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless

Only part of the frequency range of the electromagnetic spectrum is called
radio waves. Info can be transmitted wirelessly over other parts of the
spectrum too, like infrared.

Smoke signals, sirens and optical fiber could be called wireless in principle
but are not called that in practice.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 12.09.2022 kl. 08.49 skrev Dingbat:

> Smoke signals, sirens and optical fiber could be called wireless in principle
> but are not called that in practice.

One might also mention morse signals with sound or light or the signal
flags (previously?) used on ships.

--
Bertel

[Andy Leighton]

Wireless World was a magazine from the dawn of radio (1913) and
continued until the 80s when it became Electronics and Wireless World
until the mid 90s when it became Electronics World.

There was also Practical Wireless which was founded in 1932 which is
still going I think.

--
Andy Leighton => an...@azaal.plus.com
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
- Douglas Adams

[charles]

In article <slrnthtspr...@azaal.plus.com>,

Andy Leighton <an...@azaal.plus.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Sep 2022 22:01:56 +0100, Sam Plusnet <n...@home.com> wrote:
> > On 11/09/2022 11:33, GordonD wrote:
> >>
> >> The BBC's listing magazine first appeared in May 1923 and was called
> >> 'Radio Times' from the start.
> >
> > I think many people distinguished between "radio" as the service that
> > provided programmes, and "the wireless" which was that cabinet in the
> > living room, from which the sound was heard.
> >
> > But there were certainly some for whom the whole thing was just 'the
> > wireless'.

> Wireless World was a magazine from the dawn of radio (1913) and
> continued until the 80s when it became Electronics and Wireless World
> until the mid 90s when it became Electronics World.

> There was also Practical Wireless which was founded in 1932 which is
> still going I think.

PW had a sister magazine called "Practical Television".

[Quinn C]

* Peter Moylan:

> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".

On a vaguely related note, I was quite surprised when I learned (a long
time ago) that "radio" in English is both the device that you use to
receive institutionalized broadcasts and the device that you use to send
and receive messages (two-way radios, whether the ones you need an
amateur radio license for, CB radio, or a walkie-talkie.)

In German, only the first is called a "Radio", the second is a
"Funkgerät", which doesn't sound similar in any way, so I had
conceptualized them as completely different devices for practical
purposes, even understanding that they both do communication via radio
waves. But they are about as different as a train and a car - both
vehicles.

--
The wrong body ... now comes not to claim rightness but to
dismantle the system that metes out rightness and wrongness
according to the dictates of various social orders.
-- Jack Halberstam, Unbuilding Gender

[Ken Blake]

On Mon, 12 Sep 2022 19:09:42 -0400, Quinn C
<lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:

>* Peter Moylan:
>
>> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
>> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
>> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".
>
>On a vaguely related note, I was quite surprised when I learned (a long
>time ago) that "radio" in English is both the device that you use to
>receive institutionalized broadcasts and the device that you use to send
>and receive messages (two-way radios, whether the ones you need an
>amateur radio license for, CB radio, or a walkie-talkie.)

70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
and a "receiver."

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <b6gvhhl4303t23dip...@4ax.com>,

Ken Blake <K...@invalid.news.com> wrote:

>70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
>equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
>and a "receiver."

Today, the equipment used by hams is usually a "transceiver", since it
integrates both functions -- but the least expensive and most popular
kind is often called an "HT", an initialism for "handheld
transceiver".

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 13.09.2022 kl. 01.09 skrev Quinn C:

> On a vaguely related note, I was quite surprised when I learned (a long
> time ago) that "radio" in English is both the device that you use to
> receive institutionalized broadcasts and the device that you use to send
> and receive messages (two-way radios, whether the ones you need an
> amateur radio license for, CB radio, or a walkie-talkie.)

In Danish walkie-talkie is one thing, but the other device for
send-receive is called a radio and the person using it is a "radioamatør".

> In German, only the first is called a "Radio", the second is a
> "Funkgerät", which doesn't sound similar in any way, so I had
> conceptualized them as completely different devices for practical
> purposes, even understanding that they both do communication via radio
> waves. But they are about as different as a train and a car - both
> vehicles.

The receiving part of the double device is almost identical to a simple
radio.

--
Bertel

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 13.09.2022 kl. 01.32 skrev Ken Blake:

> 70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
> equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
> and a "receiver."

Was it two different devices?

Today "receiver" (at least in Denmark) is a combination of a radio
receiver and an amplifier.

--
Bertel

[Paul Wolff]

On Tue, 13 Sep 2022, at 00:31:16, Garrett Wollman posted:

>In article <b6gvhhl4303t23dip...@4ax.com>,
>Ken Blake <K...@invalid.news.com> wrote:
>
>>70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
>>equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
>>and a "receiver."
>
>Today, the equipment used by hams is usually a "transceiver", since it
>integrates both functions -- but the least expensive and most popular
>kind is often called an "HT", an initialism for "handheld
>transceiver".
>

I was an Army cadet in the early 1960s and I'm pretty sure the things we
carried around on our backs in the signals platoon were wireless sets.
Here's a list - you can see a distinct change from Wireless to Radio -
but is it to be trusted?
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_Army_radio_sets>

My general sense, not confined to the military, is that wireless sets
were big and heavy things for sharing, while radios were lighter,
personal and more portable. But that might just be coincidence, with
language and technology changing during the same period.
--
Paul

[J. J. Lodder]

Quinn C <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:

> * Peter Moylan:
>
> > All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
> > wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
> > it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".
>
> On a vaguely related note, I was quite surprised when I learned (a long
> time ago) that "radio" in English is both the device that you use to
> receive institutionalized broadcasts and the device that you use to send
> and receive messages (two-way radios, whether the ones you need an
> amateur radio license for, CB radio, or a walkie-talkie.)
>
> In German, only the first is called a "Radio", the second is a
> "Funkgerät", which doesn't sound similar in any way, so I had
> conceptualized them as completely different devices for practical
> purposes, even understanding that they both do communication via radio
> waves. But they are about as different as a train and a car - both
> vehicles.

The original 'funkgerat' actualy worked by producing sparks.
And the very first radio receiver, the Hertz resonator
also detected radio waves by producing sparks.
IIRC Hertz produced the first ever demonstration
of the validity of Maxwell's equations for electromagnetic waves,

Jan

[Jonathan Harston]

On Sunday, September 11, 2022 at 9:50:39 PM UTC+1, Sam Plusnet wrote:
> Probably a generational thing. If the BBC and other broadcasters always
> used "radio" then younger people might pick that up, but older people
> would stick with "The Wireless".

Also cultural. If you grew up with, eg, an awareness of The Goons, the
phrase "wireless" and "steam wireless" were often used, and extended
their currency, albeit in a humourous manner.

[Arindam Banerjee]

Completely wrong, above. A bungled tale - naturally Einsteinian that is; the true tale in wireless is that of the dachshund's tail.

There was a dachshund once so long
He hadn't any notion
How long it took to notify
His tail of an emotion.

And so it was that though his eyes
Were filled with woe and sadness
His little tail went wagging on
Because of previous gladness.

Communication Engineering, Everitt and Anner, 3rd ed.
>
> bill

[Lenona]

For what it's worth, C.S. Lewis was still calling it a wireless in 1950.

[Richard Heathfield]

On 13/09/2022 2:17 pm, Lenona wrote:
> For what it's worth, C.S. Lewis was still calling it a wireless in 1950.

It was still the wireless to my parents in the 1970s. (The record
player was the gramophone, of course.)

The radio was, however, never the wireless to me, although of
course I knew the word.

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Monday, September 12, 2022 at 7:09:45 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
> * Peter Moylan:

> > All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
> > wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
> > it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".
>
> On a vaguely related note, I was quite surprised when I learned (a long
> time ago) that "radio" in English is both the device that you use to
> receive institutionalized broadcasts and the device that you use to send
> and receive messages (two-way radios, whether the ones you need an
> amateur radio license for, CB radio, or a walkie-talkie.)
>
> In German, only the first is called a "Radio", the second is a
> "Funkgerät", which doesn't sound similar in any way, so I had
> conceptualized them as completely different devices for practical
> purposes, even understanding that they both do communication via radio
> waves. But they are about as different as a train and a car - both
> vehicles.

The orchestras supported by German audio broadcasters have
"Rundfunk" in their names. There are quite a few.

[Ken Blake]

On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 00:31:16 -0000 (UTC), wol...@bimajority.org
(Garrett Wollman) wrote:

>In article <b6gvhhl4303t23dip...@4ax.com>,
>Ken Blake <K...@invalid.news.com> wrote:
>
>>70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
>>equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
>>and a "receiver."
>
>Today, the equipment used by hams is usually a "transceiver", since it
>integrates both functions --

Yes. I might be misremembering, but I think they were available even
in my day. I had separate devices because I built the receiver first,
then the transmitter when I could afford it.

[Ken Blake]

On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:55:00 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen
<gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:

>Den 13.09.2022 kl. 01.32 skrev Ken Blake:
>
>> 70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
>> equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
>> and a "receiver."
>
>Was it two different devices?

Yes. Note the word "they" (plural) in my sentence above.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

On 2022-09-13 13:26:37 +0000, Richard Heathfield said:

> On 13/09/2022 2:17 pm, Lenona wrote:
>> For what it's worth, C.S. Lewis was still calling it a wireless in 1950.
>
> It was still the wireless to my parents in the 1970s.

Mine too, and I called that myself until about 1970.

What bebercito can now tell us is when the French stopped using the
term TSF that I was taught at school.

> (The record player was the gramophone, of course.)

Likewise

>
> The radio was, however, never the wireless to me, although of course I
> knew the word.


--

Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

[Rich Ulrich]

On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:55:00 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen
<gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:

I assume that you are describing what is also known as
'receiver' in the US -- which is part of a home hi-fi/stereo setup.

My first expensive stereo (1969) had separate units for pre-amp,
power amp. And tuner? I don't remember if I had radio at all.

A bit later, the pre-amp and tuner were combined as a 'receiver'
and (I think) I still used a separate poweramp. Nowadays, the most
common receivers include the power amp, too. I assume that
expensive, separate units still are sold. My original power amp
weighed 30 pounds or more because of the built-in heat sink.

The need for /great/ power and correspondingly large heat
dissipaters has been mitigated by the use of speakers that plug
into the wall to power their own bass.

What Amazon shows me for 'receiver' features a bunch with
5.2, 7.2 and 9.2 channels -- home theatre emphasis, not radio.
The one (cheap) unit that has just two channels mentions only
FM for radio.

- Okay. I was wondering who still listens to AM radio. Google
tells me: sports and talk shows. A little music. And I learn that
most electric cars /don't/ have AM because the vehicle interferes
with the reception.

--
Rich Ulrich

[Ken Blake]

On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 12:37:47 -0400, Rich Ulrich
<rich....@comcast.net> wrote:

>On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:55:00 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen
><gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>
>>Den 13.09.2022 kl. 01.32 skrev Ken Blake:
>>
>>> 70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
>>> equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
>>> and a "receiver."
>>
>>Was it two different devices?
>>
>>Today "receiver" (at least in Denmark) is a combination of a radio
>>receiver and an amplifier.
>
>I assume that you are describing what is also known as
>'receiver' in the US -- which is part of a home hi-fi/stereo setup.
>
>My first expensive stereo (1969) had separate units for pre-amp,
>power amp. And tuner? I don't remember if I had radio at all.

Mine had six units: two power amps, two pre-amps, a unit that
connected the two pre-amps and made them act as one (all of them
excellent high-quality units I built from kits), and a tuner (also
built from a kit, but much lower quality).

>A bit later, the pre-amp and tuner were combined as a 'receiver'
>and (I think) I still used a separate poweramp. Nowadays, the most
>common receivers include the power amp, too.

Yes.

>I assume that
>expensive, separate units still are sold.

Yes. You can see several for sale on Amazon.com.

>My original power amp
>weighed 30 pounds or more because of the built-in heat sink.

I think each of my two weighed at least that much, although I don't
remember a number.

>The need for /great/ power and correspondingly large heat
>dissipaters has been mitigated by the use of speakers that plug
>into the wall to power their own bass.
>
>What Amazon shows me for 'receiver' features a bunch with
>5.2, 7.2 and 9.2 channels -- home theatre emphasis, not radio.
>The one (cheap) unit that has just two channels mentions only
>FM for radio.
>
> - Okay. I was wondering who still listens to AM radio. Google
>tells me: sports and talk shows. A little music. And I learn that
>most electric cars /don't/ have AM because the vehicle interferes
>with the reception.

Interesting. I didn't know that. I don't have an EV, but if I live
long enough, I'll probably get one some day. I won't care if it has
no AM. It's been many years since I've listened to AM.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 13.09.2022 kl. 16.49 skrev Ken Blake:

> Yes. Note the word "they" (plural) in my sentence above.

Yes, language is wonderful.

--
Bertel

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 13.09.2022 kl. 18.37 skrev Rich Ulrich:

> What Amazon shows me for 'receiver' features a bunch with
> 5.2, 7.2 and 9.2 channels -- home theatre emphasis, not radio.
> The one (cheap) unit that has just two channels mentions only
> FM for radio.

In the catalogue from my favourite hifi-shop most devices with
"receiver" in their description are indeed "hjemmebio-receivere"
(home-bio(graph)-receivers) without radio, but there are a few receivers
with DAB-radio.

> - Okay. I was wondering who still listens to AM radio. Google
> tells me: sports and talk shows. A little music. And I learn that
> most electric cars /don't/ have AM because the vehicle interferes
> with the reception.

I have to go back to my youth to find a time where I listened to AM -
except when the setting on my receiver was wrong.

The FM-part in my receiver is useless, so I have a small DAB-tuner.

--
Bertel

[Tony Cooper]

On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 12:37:47 -0400, Rich Ulrich
<rich....@comcast.net> wrote:

> - Okay. I was wondering who still listens to AM radio. Google
>tells me: sports and talk shows. A little music. And I learn that
>most electric cars /don't/ have AM because the vehicle interferes
>with the reception.

In this area, the major stations have "sister channels" for AM and FM.
Some programs can be heard on either.

--

Tony Cooper - Orlando Florida

I read and post to this group as a form of entertainment.

[occam]

On 11/09/2022 03:33, Peter Moylan wrote:
> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".
>

> Wikipedia doesn't help. It claims that the name changed in 1920. That
> was a year before my father was born, but it was still called the
> wireless for quite a while after I was born.

I have been re-watching the Crown on Netflix. In Series 1 Episode 4,
dealing the the Great Fog of London (December 1952), the script writers
refer to the news on the radio a number of times.

'wireless' 3 ; 'radio' 0

[Peter Moylan]

On 14/09/22 00:49, Ken Blake wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:55:00 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen
> <gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>
>> Den 13.09.2022 kl. 01.32 skrev Ken Blake:
>>
>>> 70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I
>>> had equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a
>>> "transmitter' and a "receiver."
>>
>> Was it two different devices?
>
> Yes. Note the word "they" (plural) in my sentence above.

Once upon a time, the whole point of amateur radio was designing and
building your own equipment. There can't be many people left who still
do that. You just go and buy the gear pre-built.

I wasn't in that scene, because I never got my Morse speed high enough
to pass the licence exam. I met something similar with computers,
though. Circa 1980 I started a microcomputer club. My vision was that we
could work together to design and build small personal computers. Some
of us did that, but the majority turned up with a trash-80 from Tandy.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

[lar3ryca]

On 2022-09-13 08:49, Ken Blake wrote:
> On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:55:00 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen
> <gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>
>> Den 13.09.2022 kl. 01.32 skrev Ken Blake:
>>
>>> 70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
>>> equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
>>> and a "receiver."
>>
>> Was it two different devices?
>
> Yes. Note the word "they" (plural) in my sentence above.

Saw that, but these days it's hard to tell from the pronoun.

>> Today "receiver" (at least in Denmark) is a combination of a radio
>> receiver and an amplifier.

--
I tried to put my horse into a Hubble Barn,
But it didn't fit.

[Richard Heathfield]

On 14/09/2022 7:41 am, lar3ryca wrote:
> On 2022-09-13 08:49, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:55:00 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen
>> <gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>>
>>> Den 13.09.2022 kl. 01.32 skrev Ken Blake:
>>>
>>>> 70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur
>>>> license, I had equipment for sending and receiving,
>>>> They were called a "transmitter' and a "receiver."
>>>
>>> Was it two different devices?
>>
>> Yes. Note the word "they" (plural) in my sentence above.
>
> Saw that, but these days it's hard to tell from the pronoun.

I find that the best way to handle `they' is to assume that the
author intends a plural until overwhelming evidence emerges to
the contrary.

[Hibou]

Le 11/09/2022 à 02:33, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>
> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling

> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio". [...]

I suspect the real answer is: when someone looked inside the cabinet and
realised it was the exact opposite of wire-less.

[J. J. Lodder]

Paul Wolff <boun...@thiswontwork.wolff.co.uk> wrote:

> On Tue, 13 Sep 2022, at 00:31:16, Garrett Wollman posted:
> >In article <b6gvhhl4303t23dip...@4ax.com>,
> >Ken Blake <K...@invalid.news.com> wrote:
> >
> >>70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
> >>equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
> >>and a "receiver."
> >
> >Today, the equipment used by hams is usually a "transceiver", since it
> >integrates both functions -- but the least expensive and most popular
> >kind is often called an "HT", an initialism for "handheld
> >transceiver".
> >
> I was an Army cadet in the early 1960s and I'm pretty sure the things we
> carried around on our backs in the signals platoon were wireless sets.
> Here's a list - you can see a distinct change from Wireless to Radio -
> but is it to be trusted?
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_Army_radio_sets>

The WS22 wireless set in that list became famous, or rather infamous,
for not working at any distance during the battle of Arnhem.
Frost had to drive around to pass orders.
They blamed it on trees being in the way,
rather than on failing British technology.

And yes, the things were heavy and big,
best kept in a jeep,

Jan

[occam]

(see the same reflections by Richard H. It is not the wires within, but
those without.)

[Richard Heathfield]

Modulo some way of plugging it in.

[Hibou]

Le 14/09/2022 à 11:08, Richard Heathfield a écrit :
> On 14/09/2022 11:04 am, occam wrote:
>> On 14/09/2022 09:08, Hibou wrote:
>>> Le 11/09/2022 à 02:33, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>>>>
>>>> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
>>>> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
>>>> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio". [...]
>>>
>>> I suspect the real answer is: when someone looked inside the cabinet and
>>> realised it was the exact opposite of wire-less.
>>
>> (see the same reflections by Richard H. It is not the wires within, but
>> those without.)
>
> Modulo some way of plugging it in.

The first one I dickered about with was a home-brew crystal-set. Power
from the aether, from a long aerial, so it wasn't wire-less either.

[Ken Blake]

On Wed, 14 Sep 2022 10:25:18 +1000, Peter Moylan
<pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>On 14/09/22 00:49, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:55:00 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen
>> <gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>>
>>> Den 13.09.2022 kl. 01.32 skrev Ken Blake:
>>>
>>>> 70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I
>>>> had equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a
>>>> "transmitter' and a "receiver."
>>>
>>> Was it two different devices?
>>
>> Yes. Note the word "they" (plural) in my sentence above.
>
>Once upon a time, the whole point of amateur radio was designing and
>building your own equipment.

I built my own, but I never had anywhere near the skill needed to
design it myself.

>There can't be many people left who still
>do that. You just go and buy the gear pre-built.
>
>I wasn't in that scene, because I never got my Morse speed high enough
>to pass the licence exam.

Nor did I.

>I met something similar with computers,
>though. Circa 1980 I started a microcomputer club. My vision was that we
>could work together to design and build small personal computers. Some
>of us did that, but the majority turned up with a trash-80 from Tandy.

I never had one of those.

In the early days of PCs, building a computer was not much more than
plugging components together--not much different from building a
stereo system, except that with a PC, the components are inside a box.

In those day, I built a couple myself. My first computer was a IBM XT
clone, built by my cousin. My second one was an IBM AT clone, which I
built.

These days, it's still not terribly difficult, but it's gotten
somewhat harder, especially for my almost 85-year-old hands. My
current computer was built for me by a friend (with a little
assistance from me), with components that I selected and bought.

[Ken Blake]

On Wed, 14 Sep 2022 00:41:55 -0600, lar3ryca <la...@invalid.ca> wrote:

>On 2022-09-13 08:49, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:55:00 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen
>> <gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>>
>>> Den 13.09.2022 kl. 01.32 skrev Ken Blake:
>>>
>>>> 70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
>>>> equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
>>>> and a "receiver."
>>>
>>> Was it two different devices?
>>
>> Yes. Note the word "they" (plural) in my sentence above.
>
>Saw that, but these days it's hard to tell from the pronoun.

Not from the pronouns I use. I'm not like Quinn. As far as I'm
concerned, "they" is always plural.

[Ken Blake]

No, I don't think so. I think the term "wireless" has nothing to do
with what's inside the cabinet. It has to do with how the broadcasts
are received.

[Ken Blake]

If the signal came from an aerial, it *was* wireless.

[Richard Heathfield]

The aerial is a wire.

But I know what you mean, and you know what I mean, so let's call
the whole thing off.

[Quinn C]

* Ken Blake:

In Europe, stereo on AM didn't even become popular, so the preference
towards FM for music will have been even stronger. At this point, many
AM stations have been shut down, and there are various ideas to use
those frequencies for other purposes.

--
Quinn C
My pronouns are they/them
(or other gender-neutral ones)

[Ken Blake]

On Wed, 14 Sep 2022 15:29:56 +0100, Richard Heathfield
<r...@cpax.org.uk> wrote:

>On 14/09/2022 3:28 pm, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On Wed, 14 Sep 2022 11:16:49 +0100, Hibou <h...@b.ou> wrote:
>>
>>> Le 14/09/2022 à 11:08, Richard Heathfield a écrit :
>>>> On 14/09/2022 11:04 am, occam wrote:
>>>>> On 14/09/2022 09:08, Hibou wrote:
>>>>>> Le 11/09/2022 à 02:33, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
>>>>>>> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
>>>>>>> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio". [...]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I suspect the real answer is: when someone looked inside the cabinet and
>>>>>> realised it was the exact opposite of wire-less.
>>>>>
>>>>> (see the same reflections by Richard H. It is not the wires within, but
>>>>> those without.)
>>>>
>>>> Modulo some way of plugging it in.
>>>
>>> The first one I dickered about with was a home-brew crystal-set. Power
>>>from the aether, from a long aerial, so it wasn't wire-less either.
>>
>> If the signal came from an aerial, it *was* wireless.
>
>The aerial is a wire.

Often (it was for me, back in those days), but not always.

>
>But I know what you mean, and you know what I mean, so let's call
>the whole thing off.

Yes, yes, and yes.

[charles]

In article <1fq3ihtks40ot1r0a...@4ax.com>, Ken Blake

but it wasn't a wire back to the source. This is where the French TSF is a
better description

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

[Quinn C]

* J. J. Lodder:

> Quinn C <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:
>
>> * Peter Moylan:

>>
>>> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
>>> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped calling
>>> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio".
>>

>> On a vaguely related note, I was quite surprised when I learned (a long
>> time ago) that "radio" in English is both the device that you use to
>> receive institutionalized broadcasts and the device that you use to send
>> and receive messages (two-way radios, whether the ones you need an
>> amateur radio license for, CB radio, or a walkie-talkie.)
>>
>> In German, only the first is called a "Radio", the second is a
>> "Funkgerät", which doesn't sound similar in any way, so I had
>> conceptualized them as completely different devices for practical
>> purposes, even understanding that they both do communication via radio
>> waves. But they are about as different as a train and a car - both
>> vehicles.
>
> The original 'funkgerat' actualy worked by producing sparks.

Many early commercial ones made by Telefunken.

By the time I bought my Telefunken TV, it was already getting hard to
follow the fast changing ownership of the brand.

--
They're telling the truth. [...] I know what you mean. There's
another truth that they're not telling. But newspapers never
do, that's not what they're for.
-- James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

[Quinn C]

* Ken Blake:

> On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:55:00 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen
> <gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>
>>Den 13.09.2022 kl. 01.32 skrev Ken Blake:
>>
>>> 70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
>>> equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
>>> and a "receiver."
>>
>>Was it two different devices?
>
> Yes. Note the word "they" (plural) in my sentence above.

I'm not sure that's so unambiguous. I expect a transceiver will contain
at least partially separate components for sending and receiving, and
they constitute equipment. Besides, equipment is usually uncountable.

--
It gets hot in Raleigh, but Texas! I don't know why anybody
lives here, honestly.
-- Robert C. Wilson, Vortex (novel), p.220

[Quinn C]

* Jonathan Harston:

> On Sunday, September 11, 2022 at 9:50:39 PM UTC+1, Sam Plusnet wrote:
>> Probably a generational thing. If the BBC and other broadcasters always
>> used "radio" then younger people might pick that up, but older people
>> would stick with "The Wireless".
>
> Also cultural. If you grew up with, eg, an awareness of The Goons, the
> phrase "wireless" and "steam wireless" were often used, and extended
> their currency, albeit in a humourous manner.

Interesting. "Dampfradio" ("steam radio") is quite familiar to me for an
old-fashioned radio receiver or for traditional (i.e. uncool) radio
broadcasting. I had never heard the English version.

--
Somebody, your father or mine, should have told us that not many
people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and
are perishing every hour [...] for the lack of it.

[Quinn C]

* Ken Blake:

No need to single me out. You're not like over 90% of speakers of
English, for whom a "someone" can be referred to as "they".

--
Statler: I was just thinking, apropos of nothing, but is it
pronounced tomayto or tomahto?
Waldorf: Is what pronounced tomayto or tomahto?

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 14.09.2022 kl. 18.35 skrev Quinn C:

>> Also cultural. If you grew up with, eg, an awareness of The Goons, the
>> phrase "wireless" and "steam wireless" were often used, and extended
>> their currency, albeit in a humourous manner.

> Interesting. "Dampfradio" ("steam radio") is quite familiar to me for an
> old-fashioned radio receiver or for traditional (i.e. uncool) radio
> broadcasting. I had never heard the English version.

In Danish: dampradio

--
Bertel

[Ken Blake]

Heat it in the oven for a few minutes, and maybe it will dry out.

[Sam Plusnet]

On 14/09/2022 15:37, Quinn C wrote:
>
> In Europe, stereo on AM didn't even become popular, so the preference
> towards FM for music will have been even stronger. At this point, many
> AM stations have been shut down, and there are various ideas to use
> those frequencies for other purposes.
>

Stereo on AM radio?? Well I never! (as my Granny would say).

That last point has puzzled me. The available bandwidth on AM radio is
surely too small to be of any practical use for most modern applications.

[Sam Plusnet]

Well, there was a bit of an air gap. Think of it as a capacitor with a
lossy dielectric.

[Ken Blake]

On Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:20:51 +0100, Sam Plusnet <n...@home.com> wrote:

>On 14/09/2022 15:37, Quinn C wrote:
>>
>> In Europe, stereo on AM didn't even become popular, so the preference
>> towards FM for music will have been even stronger. At this point, many
>> AM stations have been shut down, and there are various ideas to use
>> those frequencies for other purposes.
>>
>
>Stereo on AM radio?? Well I never! (as my Granny would say).

The first radio stereo in my experience (in NYC; I don't know about
elsewhere) was one channel on FM and the other on AM

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <nQpUK.74201$%q2.2...@fx15.ams1>,

Sam Plusnet <n...@home.com> wrote:
>On 14/09/2022 15:37, Quinn C wrote:

>> In Europe, stereo on AM didn't even become popular, so the preference
>> towards FM for music will have been even stronger.

AM stereo never became popular anywhere. There was a long battle in
the 1970s over which of three competing standards would be adopted,
and the debate largely outlasted the economics of the technology as
music programming moved to FM by the end of the 70s (except in Canada
and Australia where regulatory restrictions[1] delayeed the switchover).

>Stereo on AM radio?? Well I never! (as my Granny would say).
>
>That last point has puzzled me. The available bandwidth on AM radio is
>surely too small to be of any practical use for most modern applications.

There are other issues that get in the way: interference (both from
non-broadcast sources, like electronics, and other stations via
skywave propagation) and required antenna sizes for reliable reception
among them. Interference can be dealt with by spread-spectrum
techniques, but of course at the cost of bit rate. Nonetheless, the
authorized system for digital transmission on the AM band in the US is
capable of about 24 kbit/s, which is enough for acceptable quality
stereo audio using a modern low-bandwidth codec -- provided that there
aren't any other lossy codecs in the air chain.[2] There are some
very-low-bandwidth "internet of things" applications that could use
such a service, but for the most part they don't because it's less
capital-intensive to piggyback on the cellular industry's investment
in physical infrastructure.

-GAWollman


[1] In Canada, FM stations had severe licensing restrictions on the
amount of airtime given to "hits"; this was intentionally done to
preserve the economic viability of the AM band. In Australia, part of
the ITU standard FM band was occupied by television, and these TV
stations had to be relocated to UHF before the full extent of the FM
band could be utilized.

[2] We have a local station here that is running classical music on
all-digital AM and it sounds quite good. According to the station's
engineer, they went to significant effort to get the music library
encoded with 100% lossless codecs, and a fullly digital path to the
encoder, to avoid the artifacts that inevitably arise when multiple
layers of lossy compression are applied to audio. This is a change
from how radio stations were engineered in the past, when storage was
expensive and all the receivers were analog, and you could get away
with lossy compression in the music library.

--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
wol...@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)

[Peter Moylan]

A restriction for me was that I wasn't able to make printed circuit
boards. The computer I built was all on wire-wrap sockets. It seemed to
work as well as a motherboard. The processor was an 8080A, which was
relatively new at the time.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

[Peter Moylan]

The bandwidth per channel is small, perhaps, but if you shut down all
the AM stations then it adds up to a lot.

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <tftu4q$34h3f$2...@dont-email.me>,

Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>The bandwidth per channel is small, perhaps, but if you shut down all
>the AM stations then it adds up to a lot.

It adds up to 1.2 MHz,[0] which is not much, at an inconveniently long
wavelength.

There's a reason North America[1] just "repacked" its UHF TV spectrum to
sell off half of it, but there's been no interest in doing the same
for the other broadcast bands (not even VHF TV).

-GAWollman

[1] It was mostly the US doing this, but Canada and Mexico got paid
off with some of the proceeds as an incentive to cooperate, which they
largely did. It was actually a really interesting auction design, at
the intersection of theoretical computer science and economics.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 14.09.2022 kl. 20.01 skrev Ken Blake:

>> In Danish: dampradio

> Heat it in the oven for a few minutes, and maybe it will dry out.

You'd risk that it "fordampede" (=~ steam away).

--
Bertel

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 14.09.2022 kl. 21.20 skrev Sam Plusnet:

>> In Europe, stereo on AM didn't even become popular,

> Stereo on AM radio??  Well I never! (as my Granny would say).

This is also the first time I hear of such a thing.

--
Bertel

[lar3ryca]

While I am now [1] in agreement with you, I probably should have added
"that the speaker used".

[1] Quinn can thank herself for my current feelings about using whatever
pronouns a small minority of English speakers demand.

--
Some people say, contractions in the English language are difficult.
Indeed, they're.

[lar3ryca]

I disliked the Intel processors, so I built my first computer using a
Signetics 2650, 1K of ram, code entry via toggle switches for the first
6 months, then a keyboard after that, and eventually I attached an IBM
Selectric typewriter for output.

I worked for IBM at the time, and had access to wirewrap tools, so
that's what I used, mounting all the sockets on perfboard.

Those were interesting times.

[lar3ryca]

On 2022-09-14 04:16, Hibou wrote:
> Le 14/09/2022 à 11:08, Richard Heathfield a écrit :
>> On 14/09/2022 11:04 am, occam wrote:
>>> On 14/09/2022 09:08, Hibou wrote:
>>>> Le 11/09/2022 à 02:33, Peter Moylan a écrit :
>>>>>
>>>>> All the mention of monarchy made me remember stuff I heard on the
>>>>> wireless when I was young. Now I can't remember when we stopped
>>>>> calling
>>>>> it "the wireless" and started calling it "the radio". [...]
>>>>
>>>> I suspect the real answer is: when someone looked inside the cabinet
>>>> and
>>>> realised it was the exact opposite of wire-less.
>>>
>>> (see the same reflections by Richard H. It is not the wires within, but
>>> those without.)
>>
>> Modulo some way of plugging it in.
>
> The first one I dickered about with was a home-brew crystal-set. Power
> from the aether, from a long aerial, so it wasn't wire-less either.

My Dad built me a crystal set, using a galena crystal, when I was about
6 or 7. I used to tune to the news at 8AM before arising. I didn't care
about the news, but their sponsor was Grant Gunn Motors, and the intro
had the sound of a cannon to start the sponsor's message.

--
To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion
To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion

[Paul Wolff]

On Wed, 14 Sep 2022, at 09:34:50, J. J. Lodder posted:
>Paul Wolff <boun...@thiswontwork.wolff.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 13 Sep 2022, at 00:31:16, Garrett Wollman posted:
>> >In article <b6gvhhl4303t23dip...@4ax.com>,

>> >Ken Blake <K...@invalid.news.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >>70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
>> >>equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
>> >>and a "receiver."
>> >

>> >Today, the equipment used by hams is usually a "transceiver", since it
>> >integrates both functions -- but the least expensive and most popular
>> >kind is often called an "HT", an initialism for "handheld
>> >transceiver".
>> >
>> I was an Army cadet in the early 1960s and I'm pretty sure the things we
>> carried around on our backs in the signals platoon were wireless sets.
>> Here's a list - you can see a distinct change from Wireless to Radio -
>> but is it to be trusted?
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_Army_radio_sets>
>
>The WS22 wireless set in that list became famous, or rather infamous,
>for not working at any distance during the battle of Arnhem.
>Frost had to drive around to pass orders.
>They blamed it on trees being in the way,
>rather than on failing British technology.
>
>And yes, the things were heavy and big,
>best kept in a jeep,
>
I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't army surplus 22-sets that we
practised with. Whatever model they were, they had a dial on the back
(best used by the signaller while the set was on another soldier/cadet's
back) that you turned for the R/T (voice) range of something-or-other,
but the extreme of the range switched it to W/T (morse or maybe C/W or
carrier wave), which I managed to do by mistake one Field Day, leaving
me out of touch for an hour or so talking to nobody in a Sussex bog.
Easily done - blame the Arnhem embarrassment on that design defect too.
--
Paul

[Ken Blake]

On Thu, 15 Sep 2022 11:09:06 +1000, Peter Moylan

OK, then you *really* built a computer. When most people these days
say they built a computer, they're talking about the kind of
"building" I mentioned above: installing the store-bought components
in a case, and plugging them together.

By the way, printed circuit boards are better than building from
scratch with wires. Printed circuit boards are faster because
everything is closer together.

I remember once (30 or 35 years ago) attending a lecture by an IBM
employee. He asked us if we knew how long a nanosecond was. He
rejected all our answers, held his hands about 11 inches apart, and
said "this long."

That's how far electricity can travel in one nanosecond. He was
stressing how important miniaturization was.

[Ken Blake]

On Wed, 14 Sep 2022 23:20:05 -0600, lar3ryca <la...@invalid.ca> wrote:

>On 2022-09-14 08:24, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On Wed, 14 Sep 2022 00:41:55 -0600, lar3ryca <la...@invalid.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> On 2022-09-13 08:49, Ken Blake wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 13 Sep 2022 07:55:00 +0200, Bertel Lund Hansen
>>>> <gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Den 13.09.2022 kl. 01.32 skrev Ken Blake:
>>>>>
>>>>>> 70 or so years ago, when I was studying for an amateur license, I had
>>>>>> equipment for sending and receiving, They were called a "transmitter'
>>>>>> and a "receiver."
>>>>>
>>>>> Was it two different devices?
>>>>
>>>> Yes. Note the word "they" (plural) in my sentence above.
>>>
>>> Saw that, but these days it's hard to tell from the pronoun.
>>
>> Not from the pronouns I use. I'm not like Quinn. As far as I'm
>> concerned, "they" is always plural.
>
>While I am now [1] in agreement with you, I probably should have added
>"that the speaker used".
>
>[1] Quinn can thank herself

Herself?

Himself?

Theirself?

Themself?

Perhaps "itself" would be best.

>or my current feelings about using whatever
>pronouns a small minority of English speakers demand.

I don't think it's the small minority that Quinn makes it out to be.

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <tfu6hc$37qgs$6...@dont-email.me>,

Bertel Lund Hansen <gade...@lundhansen.dk> wrote:

>Den 14.09.2022 kl. 21.20 skrev Sam Plusnet:

[attribution missing for this line]

>>> In Europe, stereo on AM didn't even become popular,

>> Stereo on AM radio??  Well I never! (as my Granny would say).

>This is also the first time I hear of such a thing.

If you look at your typical AM signal's spectrum, you'll see a carrier
in the center, and two symmetric "sidebands" on either side where the
audio information is.[0] A clever engineer named Leonard Kahn had the
idea that if you modulated the upper and the lower sidebands
separately, you could put the left channel in one and the right
channel in the other; these would sum together to form the same
monaural signal as always, but if you had two radios, and tuned one of
them slightly to the left of the carrier, and one of them slightly to
the right, then you'd get stereo without the need for any special
equipment.

Kahn's system was not, however, the one that was adopted. (Kahn's
system was eventually authorized, under the name "POWERside", but for
a different purpose.[1]) Magnavox had a different system, that
required specialized receivers. In the end, a third system, Motorola
"C-QUAM" ("compatible quadrature amplitude modulation") was adopted.
In the Motorola system, the regular AM double-sideband signal was
modulated with the stereo sum ("L+R") signal as usual, but the stereo
difference ("L-R") signal was modulated 90 degrees out of phase ("in
quadrature"). This required the addition of a pilot tone, outside the
passband of typical AM tuners, which would signal the presence of the
stereo encoding.

The Motorola system didn't work very well: it placed severe limits on
the stereo difference signal, and in the presence of skywave
interference it suffered from "platform motion", causing listeners
vestibular distress, as a result of which many stations turned it off
at night. But the real nail in the coffin was that it wasn't
standardized until ca. 1983, by which time the majority of music
listening had migrated to FM, and the talk and sports programming that
remained on AM didn't benefit much from stereo. Very few C-QUAM
receivers were ever made, and almost no cars (the predominant place
for radio listening) had it.

-GAWollman

[0] This is actually a waste of bandwidth, as was recognized when
television was introduced, and other than the original British
405-line transmitter on channel 1 from Alexandra Palace, all analog
television systems suppress most of one of the sidebands (called
"vestigial sideband" modulation).

[1] Kahn POWERside could be used by stations which suffered from
adjacent-channel interference on one sideband to put more power (up to
20% IIRC) into the other sideband, tricking receivers into
deemphasizing the problem sideband.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, September 14, 2022 at 4:32:05 PM UTC-4, Garrett Wollman wrote:

> [2] We have a local station here that is running classical music on
> all-digital AM and it sounds quite good. According to the station's
> engineer, they went to significant effort to get the music library
> encoded with 100% lossless codecs, and a fullly digital path to the
> encoder, to avoid the artifacts that inevitably arise when multiple
> layers of lossy compression are applied to audio. This is a change
> from how radio stations were engineered in the past, when storage was
> expensive and all the receivers were analog, and you could get away
> with lossy compression in the music library.

Listeners to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on Saturday afternoons
in New York and Chicago were immensely frustrated because WOR and
WGN (respectively) refused to cede the air rights to WQXR and WFMT
(respectively) until decades after the rest of the country had high-quality
the stereo live broadcasts.

And not infrequently, there was conflict with the Mets and Cubs
broadcasts (respectively) in April/May and September (October
didn't come into play in those days), and guess who won out?

OTOH, there's a big box of "Wagner from the Met," everything in the
repertoire except Parsifal, mostly with Lauritz Melchior from the
30s and 40s, and the sound is surprisingly good. (I did check the
Met archives, and there seems to have been only one broadcast
Parsifal from back when it was performed every Easter -- and it
was the day after Melchior had sung, IIRC, Tristan, so he may not
have been at his best that afternoon.)

[Sam Plusnet]

One of Grace Hopper's visual aides in her lectures was to hand out short
lengths of wire, each one nanosecond long.

[Ken Blake]

[Ken Blake]

On Thu, 15 Sep 2022 13:07:57 -0700, Ken Blake <K...@invalid.news.com>

Sorry, I screwed this up. I meant to say

Now that you mention it, I think I also saw her do that.