Don't know how to use a radio anymore?

My BTW seems to have turned into the main subject, I didn't mean that to happen.

What I was trying to put across was the "I will chose what I like and like what I chose" paradigm rather than finding something sort of OK (like The World Service*, available on DAB radio) and then getting something you never thought you liked and expanding your horizons. Or even being alone and thinking.

*If I was on desert island disks my luxury would be the World Service in stereo, well presented chunks (no sound bytes) of everything.

Another BTW, my 'phone is so posh it's tied to the house with a curly cord.

[The General]

I think it's very easy to become too reliant on some of the newer technology. I have a rather good Android smartphone, but I mostly use it as.... a phone (but it is useful to Google a model number when I'm at a BVWS auction!). I have a sat nav but I'll use a map to get most of the way there & use the navi to go the last mile. I wouldn't have a DAB radio if you paid me... well, just my 2 cents.
Mark

[turretslug]

Originally Posted by merlinmaxwell

If I was on desert island disks my luxury would be the World Service in stereo, well presented chunks (no sound bytes) of everything.

BBC WS fan here- but it just doesn't seem right or convincing on DAB (or Freeview), it needs the fades and QRM (not too much!) of 6195, 12095 etc. or the muzziness, fridge 'stats, SMPSU burble of the much-missed 648 as accompaniment. I hope it continues for a long time (on whatever platform) as a calm, restrained, informative and eclectic window on a wider world- but I fear that all those qualities actually count against it in a world in the grip of ADHD marketing people. Also appreciative of Radio 3 on a well-quieted FM, a comforting retreat from the adverts and three-minute music burst mayhem, so cool and detached it might be broadcast from Titan- "Today's weather will be mostly methane snow. Much as it has been for the last trillion days".

I can't help thinking that a proper multi-gang airspaced variable, drive and dial would be as quaint, mysterious and alien as a spinning wheel or penny-farthing to many nowadays!

[julie_m]

Yes; the idea of varying the frequency of an oscillator by physically adjusting the plates of a capacitor must seem a bit alien to someone brought up on digital systems!

[Karen O]

This thread, along with another (our attraction to old tech) kinda sums up my motivations for owning and using old tech. I prefer pre-internet computers and 'passive' technology i.e. a radio that doesn't talk back to the transmitter. Why? Forgive me if I seem paranoid (which I very likely am) but smart phones and such like are surveillance devices as well as communication devices.

If your phone is switched on, then someone somewhere knows where you are. Phones can be turned into listening devices. I dare to suggest that, should you utter certain names near one of those 'dot' things, a SWAT team will be round pronto.

That may be overstating the case, but not by much. And it gets worse as each year goes by. Modern tech will be the means by which humans will be enslaved. The day is not far away when say, a hospital whistleblower cannot express their concerns to the press without their employer finding out.

Now, where are my pills....?

[turretslug]

Those are exactly the concerns I have but had refrained from posting so far in case it gave the impression of a persecution complex... It's why I prefer PVR or DAB recorder for time-shifting if I can't listen off-air live. The terms "un-elected" and "sovereignty" get bandied about a lot currently, but we are all pigeon-holed by un-elected marketing people on the basis of our chronically incontinent data and this pigeon-holing affects our lives in ubiquitous and insidious ways, we collectively long ago ceded our sovereignty to the internet-connected IT world.

Yes, radio is still private and opaque to data-harvesting and I value that greatly- and, as highlighted, there's a "19th century physics" appeal to tuning-in.

[Karen O]

Well Turretslug, if I attract the label 'paranoid nutter' it will be a few steps up from what I've been called in past. I even had an offer once from someone who wanted to 'exorcise my demons' so this is relatively tame.

I digress...

[MrBungle]

I agree with the privacy aspect. Google and Microsoft do not look after you or respect your privacy and primarily want to harvest your data. When you buy a smart phone with their software, what you’re saving in cash is turning into a data collection subsidy. You are a cow being milked.

It’s one reason I went down the apple path as they have an active privacy stance unlike other vendors. They have also stood up to governments and refused to allow their devices to be compromised: https://www.apple.com/uk/privacy/

Passive radios are a compromise too far for me.

The real killer of modern tech is distraction and that’s something you are in control of yourself.

[Nuvistor]

Re posts 45,46 and 47, yet you post on a device and to a forum that can give a good account of the date/time and possible location of yourself.

[turretslug]

Absolutely so- but we all have to make compromises with respect to existence in the modern world. This forum will undoubtedly have been trawled, member-profiled and rated by the mega-corps but that profiling will say something like, "largely older male, many retired, little mention of fashion, up-to-the-minute hi-tech, exotic holidays or prestige cars, apparently resistant to new ideas or high expenditure, they'd rather spend hours mending a 70-year old radio that they found in a skip. Not much scope for earnings-extraction". With all due respect to Paul and the moderators and the time and effort they put in, it's not a very promising place for the spammers and pop-up algorithms to base a lucrative harvest on.

I've long treated my mobile phone as if I were constantly over enemy territory- switch it on, get the information, switch it off- quick!

It's the tying of assumptions about what sort of person am to my browsing that I resent, made by people in supra-governmental corporations who can't be voted out or contested and who affect things like credit rating, mortgage possibility, life and health insurance and a great deal more, some very insidious My enjoyment of TV and radio programmes on scientific, environmental, political and historical matters would have me pigeonholed as "dangerous subversive" and "awkward squad" if it wasn't taken in privately from the ether. Oops, I've given it away now....

Long may the tuning continue!

[Beobloke]

Originally Posted by 1100 man

A quick search through the FM band produces a cacophony of racket, endless news, travel news, adverts, phone in's, Dave the gardener and BBC local radio all broadcast in appalling quality .

I take your point about most of the FM band's content, but sound quality? I think you need a better tuner!

[Voxophone]

I’ll come clean and admit that when I first got into vintage radio two years ago this month, it took me a while to figure out the subtleties of how to use one.

I understood the theory of AM and FM just fine, but hadn’t ever needed to use a proper analogue receiver before. Even recent car radios are more like digital devices, with pre-programmed stations and push-button tuning.

That said, I’ve always been a bit behind the curve in terms of the latest technology. I still don’t own a smartphone. I’ve just never felt the need to access the internet everywhere I go. If I ever did get one it would probably be for the camera as much as anything.

I definitely find it a bit spooky/Orwellian when almost every person on my morning commute is staring at an identical glowing white oblong, as if receiving the day’s programming from some sort of hive mind.

[ms660]

Originally Posted by Voxophone

I definitely find it a bit spooky/Orwellian when almost every person on my morning commute is staring at an identical glowing white oblong, as if receiving the day’s programming from some sort of hive mind.

It's nowt new:

https://saarimner.com/2014/01/04/all...us-antisocial/

Lawrence.

[MrBungle]

Before we used to just stare at a newspaper or book desperately trying to avoid eye contact in case the other person thought we were a nutter.

[dave walsh]

Re Merlins By The Way [p41*] clearly many people just want the one thing that they want and are not so interested in diversity-well that's fair enough I suppose but perhaps a bit limiting

As another related BTW though. I'd suggest that it's a bit different with the I-Player. Lots of people haven't just objected to having to register, it's the bit that comes after where they start telling what you THEY think you would/should also like.

Not only can this be a bit of an impertinence in the overall rush to turn the BBC into a web based conglomerate it's [ironically] actually contrary to the founding principles of our National Broadcaster. Reith was a bit of a strange chap but he did insist upon a serendipity factor ie that you would come across something you didn't know that you liked... but not in a directive manner! Surprising perhaps but true although he was pretty dogmatic about everything else!

Dave W

[Nuvistor]

Originally Posted by dave walsh

As another related BTW though. I'd suggest that it's a bit different with the I-Player. Lots of people haven't just objected to having to register, it's the bit that comes after where they start telling what you THEY think you would/should also like.

That’s one reason I haven’t bothered to register, I have a TV and a licence but generally record what I want, if I miss something, that’s ok, I would have been doing something interesting and it’s impossible to watch everything.

I don't know how to use a mobile 'phone (dumb or smart) mainly because I have never tried, I can't see the need. When I leave the front door I do not want to be connected. I saw a lovely tee shirt with "It's a glorious day, why not go outside and look at your 'phone" on it, rather sums it all up.

[Station X]

As this thread has drifted way off topic, I'll close it from my smart phone.