OT; Cruelty to Handyman.

After about 25 years.

Owain

Yes, well, I suspect what we like had a similar sound to our elders when we were young. I do feel though that there is far too much sameness these days on stations generally. The narrowcasting era is well and truly here.

Some modern stuff is quite good and some of the rappers are quite humorous, but after one has got the joke, it is a wee bit like torture as you know what is coming!

I also suspect that since alot of people make hip hop and new age r/b out of recycled old backing tracks that its not at all surprising that sameness is with us.

Brian

As are all other people I seem to meet. Nobody seems to understand the needs of older people any more, and there is a terrible tendency to forget information and good practice learned over time making re learning from ground zero the only way, If the accountants in charge could see the savings of retaining info, then they would look more kindly on the time it takes to record it. and let new employees read it. Brian

No. It's not a trick question.

I was just wondering if TMHs Dad used to say the same thing about Blondie, ABBA etc

Ah why, that is what every kid starts to act at a certain age of course. The problem with R1 and R1X is that there is no dynamic range. admittedly there may not be that much on some of the stuff they play, but the constant volume of anything is going to result in fatigue after quite a short time. Its done of course as they know many use it in noisy places and want to hear it obove the noise. However one of the digital ages advantages is that a station need not process its output other than to avoid overload as any signal processing could be done easilyy in the radio under listener control, the fact that this has not been used is a complete mystery.

Brian

That does tend to lead to the "but we've always done it this way" attitude.

A popular beat combo M'Lud.

In message , Brian Gaff writes

Speaking of *older* and *reading*.

Why are instruction manuals printed in 2 point print on Izal toilet paper?

Is the world really that short of paper or are those over 50 not expected to need to read; prescription forms, medicine information and my most recent annoyance, the instructions for a digital thermostat.

I realise this is not Brian's most pressing issue:-)

(a) The broadcasters don't like to give up control, as they spend a lot of thought in setting up their station's "sound" so they don't want listeners messing it up, and (b) they would get too many complaints from people who can't work out how to make their radio sound the way they expect it to.

Traditionally, compression of audio levels has been used to extend the range of AM and FM stations by not letting the signal fall below the noise levels until the listener is on the absolute fringe of reception. For example, Radio Caroline used a compressor on their transmitter feed,which gave them an extra few hundred thousand listeners.

The problem with stations like Radio One is that they are playing very compressed material already, which doesn't respond well to a second dose of compression. If a track that they are playing has as much as 10 decibels of dynamic range, I'd be surprised. Google for the Loudness War.

Because the owners son & his crew wos cleaning all the equipment & R1 was on the speaker system.

What gets me is the amount of low contrast printed material. Fopr example, black type on purple backgroud. It may just be for part of a magazine article, but it's bloody annoying.

A spectacularly good (or is that bad?) example is the GMC's new guidance to being a good doctor. Meant for doctors AND patients.

On page 2, they have what I shall describe as mauve text on a purple background.

(This sort of layout - whole page has purple background/text mauve or white - is also a massive pain if you decide you want to print it. Either uses up masses of ink/toner. Or is unreadable when printed. Or both.)

However, for those with poor sight they also have their read-aloud mechanism - which I have utterly failed to get to work. And if you get, say, Adobe Reader to read aloud, it reads in an odd order - speaks what is on the page before the header, etc. And some paragraphs are split at line wraps, others not, etc.

Luckily for me, I have OK eyes.

Yesterday had that delightful combo of orange on cyan/blue. If I wanted my eyes to dance, I take up the tango.

Bad luck. Hope you charged extra for that.

... I woke up one day 40 years ago and realised that pop music is mostly immature s**te and stopped listening to it. Fine for kiddywinks though.

Tim Lamb :

To make room for 27 languages.

They did make endless tea & a bacon sarnie.

Well that's something. But you could have worn the ear-muffs just to make a point.

Then I might not have heard "want another cuppa"?

Fashion yourself a badge.

"Tea? Yes please. Bacon sarnie? Lovely, thanks, plenty of brown sauce."