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Old 2nd Aug 2020, 6:04 pm   #81
Graham G3ZVT
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

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Originally Posted by Boulevardier View Post

I didn't know they'd tried to stifle the modulated light brigade - sledgehammer, nut!

I think that might have been more about preserving the GPO's monopoly (communication was seen as a public utility, like water and electricity, back then). So any form of transmission would have been stamped on. CB radio was illegal back then, as was, I think, running a communication wire from your own property to your immediately adjacent neighbour (even though it was just across a fence).

Mike
At least one Australian amateur got an NOV to that effect. Whether it was legally necessary is a moot point.
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Old 2nd Aug 2020, 7:04 pm   #82
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

I was told that I listened to the first edition of Listen with Mother. [b1948] I think it was a quarter to two followed by Woman's Hour with mum doing the ironing plugged in the light! The iron thermostat used to make a right crackle when it cut in and out.

Take It From Here was one of my favourites with Jimmy Edwards and the Glums.
I thought Jimmy Clitheroe was a real kid until I saw this old ruin on television. It spoilt the illusion.
Desert Island Discs of course, Top of the Form, Radio Newsreel and I used to try in advance to guess by the tone of the announcers voice, how many goals had been scored by the various teams in football. Loved the Navy Lark but thought the Goons were daft even as a kid.
Other than the Sunday lunchtime comedy, Sunday radio was miserable and dad tuned one of the push buttons on our HMV1114 to Hilversum.
It was all a lifetime ago and even the flat where we lived in Wimbledon Broadway [1946-55] has been demolished. I can see the trams now clanking along the Broadway from Merton. Memories. John.
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Old 2nd Aug 2020, 7:49 pm   #83
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

Thanks for shedding "light" on the WT Act modification Mike [p73*]. It doesn't let the PMG, the BBC and the Government off the hook for shifting the off-shore "border" to defeat the popular pirates though. North of Manchester we could usually only pick up one ship and at times, reception was worse than scratching for Luxembourg on a very bad Sunday night. I still have a reasonably good pirate recording though [it fades only slowly and steadily]. I recall the excitement of listening to Dylan's Positively 4th Street drifting in and out with a message to the PMG [It wasn't on the Light Program much].

"You gotta lotta nerve to say you are my friend!
When I was down you just stood there grinning!"

[Well it's not really to Tony of course but appropriate I suppose ]

This was the same mains battery/Vidor? portable that I'd listened to Kennedy's Funeral Procession on, two years earlier [ahead of UK coverage]. That's why SW listening was so popular. Dylan has just put out a 17 minute opus about that, nearly sixty years later, truly shocking event. It's casually and freely available on line-not even associated with a key date or "spun" in any way. [The album tops the charts!] The track is "Murder Most Foul" [Hamlet again] Chilling! Shakespeare and Dylan eh, he's 80 next year! Sang at Sinatra's 80th. Called him "Mr Frank" like a small child would from respect!

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Old 2nd Aug 2020, 8:50 pm   #84
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

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It doesn't let the PMG, the BBC and the Government off the hook for shifting the off-shore "border" to defeat the popular pirates though.

Dave W
Toally agree - every citizen has the right to know exactly what the law is before they act (and spend money on ships, equipment, etc).

Others will know better than me, but I think I remember reading that there was (maybe still is) a condition of the amateur licence that says "nothing may be transmitted that would normally be conveyed by telephone" (or something like that). Is that just something I dreamed?

Mike
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Old 2nd Aug 2020, 8:58 pm   #85
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

Wouldn't it be great if there was a BBC Light programme style station on MW or LW that people like us could tune into and enjoy.
I listen to my old radios a lot but apart from radio 4 I don't find much else that I'm interested in..........certainly not sport!
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Old 2nd Aug 2020, 9:43 pm   #86
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

Surely with all available stations there has to be room for a 60’s station. At the moment I can’t find any worth listening to.
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Old 2nd Aug 2020, 9:48 pm   #87
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

One of my father's anecdotes from his days as a young producer on the Light Programme was about request shows such as Family Favourites.

They would decide what they wanted to play and then look through the piles of postcards to find ones that requested those records. Your best chance of getting your name and message read out was to request a song you thought likely to be played, not one that you wanted to hear.
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Old 2nd Aug 2020, 10:39 pm   #88
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

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Surely with all available stations there has to be room for a 60’s station. At the moment I can’t find any worth listening to.
Solid Gold Gem AM regularly and Serenade Radio most of the time.
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Old 2nd Aug 2020, 11:57 pm   #89
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

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I was told that I listened to the first edition of Listen with Mother. [b1948] I think it was a quarter to two followed by Woman's Hour with mum doing the ironing plugged in the light! The iron thermostat used to make a right crackle when it cut in and out.
I seem to remember the running order in the early 60's being The Archers at 1:30, Listen With Mother at 1:45 and Womens Hour at 2pm. As a 4 year old I remember the routine of lunch, followed by switching on the HMV radio with push buttons to choose the station part way through the Archers to give it time to warm up in time for Listen With Mother. I always listened to the Archers theme tune and wondered how long they would let it play before fading it. I also remember trying to peer round the edge of the dial where the light was coming from to see if I could see the people in the radio.

In our house it was the Hoover Junior that wiped out both radio and TV. Dad tried to fit a suppression capacitor but it didn't seem to do much good.
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Old 3rd Aug 2020, 12:15 am   #90
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

I call sport on the BBC.. "Meat Paste" Clive [post 85*]. It's a cheap and less than nourishing filler for their not very ambitious purpose-ie Don't Rock The Boat with the Government or any other possible threat! The 24 Hour "Rolling News" Channel did use to compete appropriately with the other services [at first] broadcasting live Press Conference material and investigative journalism at length. It was interesting but now a policy of "risk avoidance" means that they resort to this diversion within every aspect of "news" and programming. See the One and Only Show or local news TV or religious programs for example. Try clapping your hands every time that they introduce a sports angle or personality into what you are watching. It's so totally disingenuous and patronising to license/tax payers and requires relatively little effort. Even The Light Program was much better than this.


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Old 3rd Aug 2020, 8:38 am   #91
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

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Originally Posted by Heatercathodeshort View Post
I was told that I listened to the first edition of Listen with Mother. [b1948] I think it was a quarter to two followed by Woman's Hour with mum doing the ironing plugged in the light! The iron thermostat used to make a right crackle when it cut in and out.

Take It From Here was one of my favourites with Jimmy Edwards and the Glums.
I thought Jimmy Clitheroe was a real kid until I saw this old ruin on television. It spoilt the illusion.
Desert Island Discs of course, Top of the Form, Radio Newsreel and I used to try in advance to guess by the tone of the announcers voice, how many goals had been scored by the various teams in football. Loved the Navy Lark but thought the Goons were daft even as a kid.
Other than the Sunday lunchtime comedy, Sunday radio was miserable and dad tuned one of the push buttons on our HMV1114 to Hilversum.
It was all a lifetime ago and even the flat where we lived in Wimbledon Broadway [1946-55] has been demolished. I can see the trams now clanking along the Broadway from Merton. Memories. John.
I remember all those John and even Tommy Handley, Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warriss. Surely I can't be that old.

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Old 3rd Aug 2020, 9:22 am   #92
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

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Originally Posted by dave walsh View Post
I call sport on the BBC.. "Meat Paste" Clive [post 85*]. It's a cheap and less than nourishing filler for their not very ambitious purpose-ie Don't Rock The Boat with the Government or any other possible threat! The 24 Hour "Rolling News" Channel did use to compete appropriately with the other services [at first] broadcasting live Press Conference material and investigative journalism at length. It was interesting but now a policy of "risk avoidance" means that they resort to this diversion within every aspect of "news" and programming. See the One and Only Show or local news TV or religious programs for example. Try clapping your hands every time that they introduce a sports angle or personality into what you are watching. It's so totally disingenuous and patronising to license/tax payers and requires relatively little effort. Even The Light Program was much better than this.


Dave W
That disappoints me too- probing and incisive analysis has been replaced by an all-pervading theme of trivialising fluff. The independent TV networks were eviscerated when they started to peer too closely into flaws of governance and ask too many questions, now they are largely "wallpaper for idiots". Then they turned on the BBC, which has been muzzled and trivialised- not to mention its long-term supine obsession with political events thousands of miles away across the Atlantic coupled with dismissal and disdain for those tens of miles away across the Channel.
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Old 3rd Aug 2020, 9:41 am   #93
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Default Re: The BBC light programme

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Quote:
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My brother and myself were most definitely not fans of sing something simple.
Serenade Radio - 5pm each Sunday.

And original recordings of 'Music While You Work' also on Serenade every weekday at 9.30am....

Steve

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Old 3rd Aug 2020, 10:23 am   #94
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

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Surely with all available stations there has to be room for a 60’s station. At the moment I can’t find any worth listening to.
Solid Gold Gem AM regularly and Serenade Radio most of the time.
I listen to Serenade Radio a lot. It's curious that in the pirate days I felt that the Light Programme was 'opposition' and was out to prevent me having what I enjoyed.

It's curious how one's outlook changes over time. Back in the Light Programme days, it was to me outdated. Then it was all about what I wanted and I could really see no further. But I was a child. I've long since tired of mainstream pop and the type of presentation that went with it. I went through my nostalgia phase thirty years ago when the Gold stations came about. I'm fortunate that I like classical music and that we still have Radio 3 and there is Classic FM and now Scala Radio.

I also have developed a liking for jazz and big bands, a genre that is almost extinct on the BBC with about four hours a week and reducing across five national networks to cover what is an enormous genre. It was wonderful to hear John Hellings voice doing his first jazz show on Serenade Radio last night. He was until recently on Radio Shropshire, which I can receive in my area on FM and DAB, with his regionally networked show. I knew when his and Genevieve Tudor's excellent folk show were suspended that they wouldn't be coming back.

The Light Programme had to be all things to all people, from programmes for small children to entertainment for their grandparents and with a wide range of programming in a time where TV wasn't ubiquitous. Serenade is in musical terms the Light Programme meets Radio 390. My other listening is now mainly online. There are probably ten stations online and terrestrial I use regularly because that is the only way to get variety of entertainment and information.

Today, broadcasting is increasingly 'narrowcasting' where a station picks its genre and its era and does that 24 hours. The commercial sector has developed this to an ultimate level with its decade stations and the BBC feels it has to follow this path which is why programming outside the main daytime staple on Radio 2 is steadily being removed.

I love curry but I don't eat it every day and I don't want it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper but it seems to me that radio stations have become become like restaurants (we'll be telling our grandchildren what those were) that has no menu and serves just the same meal each day. (Thinking about it that was school dinners in the days of the Light Programme. )

What I think happened with me with the Light (and later Radio 2) is that even at that young age I was subconsciously aware that there were genres other than what Caroline and London were playing and as I grew in life, and threw off the shackle that if it's old or on the BBC it's rubbish, my tastes broadened.

What is sad about modern radio, and I concur with John, Heatercathodeshort, #77, is that I never get to hear the new more melodic music produced by young artists - which I'm sure must exist - because I can't bear the style of presentation on the stations on which they might be played and, as John said, life is now too short to waste time listening to an ocean of dross on the off chance something interesting comes along.
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Old 3rd Aug 2020, 10:59 am   #95
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

Extract from above post:

I love curry but I don't eat it every day and I don't want it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper but it seems to me that radio stations have become become like restaurants (we'll be telling our grandchildren what those were) that has no menu and serves just the same meal each day. (Thinking about it that was school dinners in the days of the Light Programme. )

A few years back an independent station I tried listening to used to do a lot of programmes that in their allocated slot played anything from 50s to the latest. To cater for all tastes I imagine.
I didn't persevere listening. I imagine the younger generations would also dislike listening to older music.
To me, a waste of time trying to please everyone all the time in their one or three hour programme.
Rob
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Old 3rd Aug 2020, 11:06 am   #96
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

I normally listen to my local Gold station on my old radios, it rarely has music later than the 1980s and has a Rock & Roll programme at certain times.

Jazz FM found the wasn't enough interested to became Smooth. There were still jazz programmes, but normally late at night, but those are long gone.

At least for me there is a good balance of music from the 1960s onwards, it's the default station on my car radio.
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Old 3rd Aug 2020, 1:02 pm   #97
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

Quote:
..........as was, I think, running a communication wire from your own property to your immediately adjacent neighbour (even though it was just across a fence).
This brought a huge smile to my face. Back in the early 1960's my school pal and I were presented with a 'bird's nest' of heavy gauge DCC enamelled copper wire. After spending a few days unravelling said wire, we decided to set up a link between our two houses each end terminated with a balanced armature headphone - no batteries needed. The overall length was around 150 feet, most of it run along a fence. This gave us excellent communication, mostly at bedtime when we played 'battleships' and other devised games, before retiring to sleep - both then listening to Luxembourg on our home brews. We later learned about the semi-conductor effect caused by corrosion of the twisted wire joints of our link giving us reception of the BBC!!

This is turning into a great post, so keep those memories coming.

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Old 3rd Aug 2020, 1:27 pm   #98
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I generally confine my BBC listening to the morning 'Today', some quiz shows, and"Moneybox" ( a very useful and informative programme) , much of the other stuff is too preachy and P.C. for me. Where I used to listen to the radio when working indoors, I now play selections of the collection of vinyl LPs that I have acquired from a local charity shop at 50p each. Ironically, a couple of my favourites at present are BBC records: Ann Robison's selection of listeners favourites from her Radio 2 programmes, and the music from Dennis Potter's " The Singing Detective".

On the point about DJs selecting records from listener's requests for "Housewives Choice", it was mentioned in, I think a programme about Ken Dodd, that when his record "Tears" was at its height of popularity, in one week virtually every Housewife's Choice request was for "Tears". The DJ had to ask the producers of other request programmes for some of their requests for other records.

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Old 3rd Aug 2020, 1:39 pm   #99
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

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Jazz FM found the wasn't enough interested to became Smooth.
The original Jazz FM was bought by a group – it was owned by Guardian Media at some point. Various takeovers along the way and it was in the same group that owned Smooth – which I remember in the early 2000s was a DAB station. They had also bought the Saga FM stations. The prize was the regional FM transmitters and JazzFM's London Tx (and possibly it's sister Jazz FM Tx in Manchester) that could be used to lauch Smooth as if not quite a national FM station but one with good FM coverage of various highly populated parts of the country.

A few years later the original owner bought the rights to Jazz FM and relauched on DAB. They tried a format of programming with lots of variety not dissimilar to Radio 2 or Light Programme style within, of course, the genre. (No Clitheroe Kid!) Bauer have since bought it but it's become very watered down. It seems that, as with Radio 2, the Light Programme style mixing of different programming doesn't work because the next show loses listeners who were listening to the previous show. After I got over my 'must have pop all day and all night' phase I always liked variety in a station and came to enjoy many of the programmes on Radio 2 that had a legacy back to the Light Programme. However, it would seem I'm in a minority in this respect and market research demonstrates that the majority prefer 'curry all day'.

We have a lot more stations now than the days of Light, Home and Third – it's just the shame so many are clones or are clustered within particular narrow genres and chasing the same audience.
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Old 3rd Aug 2020, 1:42 pm   #100
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Default Re: The BBC Light programme

There was such a shortage of pop music on the Light Programme in the late 1950s that I recall resorting to taping records from Radio Luxembourg for our Youth Club which had previously existed on a diet of quicksteps, waltzes and the dashing white sergeant.

By the early 1960s, pop music had become more significant on the Light Programme, but, because of the BBC ‘limited needle time’ agreement with the Musicians’ Union, much of it consisted of rather pale live studio replica performances of the original records. One still had to focus on the likes of ‘Two Way Family Favourites’ waiting with a finger poised above the Record button to capture the genuine item for what would today be called a mixtape.

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