At circa 2300h last night I had a listen on the LW band. Stations heard were:
171kHz…faint station, voice just audible but unreadable, probably Morocco. 225kHz…moderate strength, Polskie Radio, Polish rapper 252kHz…strong station, voices using French language, probably Algeria.
Polish rapper. It reminds me of a time in our rental car in Buenos Aires when the best radio station we could find was Spanish Rap. None of us had ever expected that.
The other 49 stations would, of course, have been playing tango music
24/7! At least, they seemed to when I was there 30+ years ago.
LOL
I’ve heard Polish rap before, I even once heard an expression in one rap that I could translate (’wielki dom’ (big house)) although the rest remained a mystery.
Even 5 years ago or more trying to find any decent music on continental FM/AM was a disaster
Thank Clapton the current cars supports a USB drive full of MP3s...
I had a variation on this theme. In Mexico City, I once got into a cab in which the driver had to shut off the AM/FM radio, then the two-way radio, so that his battery could actually turn the engine over. He repeated this when I got back into the cab after stopping at Office Depot.
Davey and Jeff will be reassured to hear that not a lot has changed in that respect and AM radio - especially localised AM radio - is still a big thing in the capital and beyond. They don't have the benefit of a UK-style regulatory authority so the name of the game is to crank up your own output so that your station will cut through against the neighbouring stations who have also cranked up their output. If you want to listen to something specific then it's often easier to find their internet stream.
...which is what we did when a friend of ours was doing a live session from a radio studio just a couple of miles away in the district of Chacarita. Unfortunately, I don't remember much of the performance. Being live radio but without the precision of the BBC, the live session was being delayed and delayed and I'd just opened this bottle of Limoncello - which for the record is bottled at a higher strength and in a bigger bottle over there - and before I knew it, the bottle was empty and so was my head.
Nick
A friend remarked, perhaps a bit unkindly, there is a gonna be a time that there won't be a market for such stuff - never mind the withdrawal of services and scarcity of media - it's namely people that are interested are buying the items for reasons of nostalgia, are themselves dying off...
There will be collectors as long as there are idle rich with nothing better to do.
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