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I made a brief appearance on the radio this week to explain the different ways listeners to 702 ABC Sydney can experience their favourite regular shows as well as the cricket which often replaces these programs at this time of the year.
It was designed to be a “how to” guide, and nothing more complex than that. Hopefully, I didn’t sound too stupid, and helped a few people along the way.
Post Script
There was a followup appearance on Tony Delroy’s Nightlife on 30/11/12.
I listen through digital radio a lot and love it especially as it has such clear reception.
Once I decided I would listen to the football description through the App whilst actually at the game but found that the App, like digital radio, is about second seconds behind live broadcast so it wasn’t useful in that situation. Otherwise, the App is good.
My net connection is appallingly slow at present with frequent dropouts. It has been like this for years. It took four minutes to load this page and the audio file plays for 3 – 6 seconds then stops until the download catches up. This is supposedly a broadband connection, ADSL+2 in the inner south of Canberra. Telstra does nothing. I am not going to be watching or listening to online TV or radio any time soon unless I connect to the optical cable at greater expense and pay for a lot of Murdoch and similar junk that I definitely do not want, I have had it in the past and it’s not worth it.
I have a digital radio which I bought more than a year ago. It is unneccessarily diffcult to use, gets only one station which I can hear on AM or FM, (I forget which) anyway. It also uses significant power from batteries even when tuned “off”. I put it back in the box it came in and have not tried to use it for months. This, folks, is not an improvement on what has gone before, it is a step backward. Not perhaps to the days of wireless telegraphy, but it’s no better than FM.
Maybe I’m getting old and crochety, but it’s my opinion that as radio and TV channels have proliferated, the quality of the content has declined. That applies to both commercial and non-commercial outlets.
Hi Ken, gosh it sounds like you’re paying for an ADSL2+ connection and getting a dialup connection. It may be worth checking your speed via this site http://speedtest.net/ and then if you’re not getting what you have paid for, I’d be complaining to Telstra and if not them, to the Telecommunications Industry Ombdusman if they can’t/won’t solve your problem. As for the digital radio, it also sounds like you’re having some trouble there. I can’t see how it’s using power, though, when it’s turned off. Have to agree with you, though, about some of the quality issues. The great thing about digital radio and TV is there’s definitely more choice, and we’re getting to see a lot of programs which never would have previously had a run on Australian TV when we had only 5 channels. That said, we now have 3 channels which are shopping channels, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. Looking forward to the SBS launch of the new National Indigenous Channel in a couple of weeks. And by the way, back on the radio later tonight talking to Tony Delroy about some of the options.
Program Quality
I had Galaxy TV via microwave before they went broke in ’98. One of the channels was old TV shows, There were re-runs of stuff like ‘Route 66’ and of course ‘I Love Lucy’. I seem to recall ‘Ironsides’ too with Raymond Burr, though it might have been ‘Perry Mason’. It struck me that the plots of ‘Route 66’ were better than some of the then current shows, even if the production values were not.
I don’t disagree that there was some crap on free–to-air TV 15 years ago but we did not seem to get endless cooking shows, building, selling & buying houses in France or England (really relevant to us) or ‘Pawn Stars’ and swamp people. Any of these might be valid as a one-off but as a series? Jesus wept. Then there is all the supernatural drivel.
Galaxy included the Discovery Channel. When the DC was not showing docos about sharks, it was about some other large predators. When you have seen two or three docos about lions, you have seen them all. There was nothing even approaching the quality or variety of Attenborough’s work. Then they would get on to the history of aviation. What was shown was good enough, but after a few weeks you got the impression that nobody other than an American ever stepped into an aeroplane. Now perhaps we know too much about Kingsford Smith, Hinkler and a couple of others, but they were never mentioned on the DC. No early aviator from outside the USA was ever mentioned.
Maybe I’m mistaken, but my hypothesis is this. With 5 TV channels broadcasting 24 hours a day, you have 120 hours to fill with something. With 20 channels you need 480 hours per day. This dilutes advertising revenue since the advertisers can always use the other channels and you have to drop your prices. In addition, those producing content are in competition with each other and their prices fall too because the competition is intense. When prices fall too far, their quality suffers too.
Now I realise the ABC does not have to chase advertising revenue but have the allocations from government kept pace with the number of outlets the ABC is attempting to fill with some content, any content? Bruce Springsteen was right.
Digital Radio
According to the manual, the “Pure One Elite” digital radio has two modes, on and standby. Power consumption in standby mode is 0.67 W when connected to mains power. Standby does not operate on battery power, so apparently the entire thing has to be set up again from scratch if on battery power. To change a station, press the station button, rotate a dial, select station from a list on a tiny screen and press the button again. Adjusting the volume takes four operations. There were radios in the late 1920s that were easier to operate.
ADSL
Net connection speed varies here from nothing to 214 kbps or so download. My neighbour dropped ADSL long ago. Much of the suburb is the same, from what I gather. High signal attenuation and a long way from the exchange. A former colleague tells me that water has been found in phone lines here so it’s not surprising if ADSL does not work sometimes. Yet there seems to be no noise on the phone itself. So perhaps fixing my connection involves fixing the entire suburb and that’s not on. Probably not until the NBN passes by and that will not be until
(Oops! Internet Explorer could not connect to http://www.nbnco.com.au)
Third attempt – 2015 or 2016.
Fantastic station James. I remember a time (57 years ago !) when as a night announcer at 2LM (& pre-recorded…
Thanks Sally. Many women my age and older say they go into shops and are completely ignored.
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Blogging about the arts, history, genealogy and various aspects of my own life. Currently focussing a lot on the experiences of “my new life” as someone living with disability, having had a lower leg amputation half way through 2023.
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