![]() There were the occasional barking dogs, kettle whistles, and door knocks on the recordings, but overall the system worked. This was achieved by hovering around the radio and frantically clicking the record button when I heard the first couple of notes of a hit that I wanted to record and listen to at my leisure. This piece of high-tech meant that I could tape selected songs from the radio. Sometime later, we acquired a reel-to-reel tape recorder. That was until a paying customer who had the cheek to want to use the phone to make a paid telephone call came along and spoiled the fun by staring you daggers until you got out of the phone booth. There was a new song each week, so it was not unusual for kids to queue up outside the phone box to listen to the latest hit. One of these was Dial-a-Hit which could be accessed for free from a public telephone. The Post Master General pre-Telstra was responsible for telephones, and for a while, there was an abundance of dial-up recorded message services (Dial the time, weather, prayer, and even race tips). Even at a young age, I’d hang around the record shop listening booths (remember them?) to get a free listen, but the store owners soon twigged that they weren’t going to make a sale, so they began to give me the old stink eye.Īnother now-defunct source of free music was the local public telephone box. I mean, my sister’s Young Talent Time record was quite poppy, but it wasn’t Abbey Road. This was a great step forward in my musical freedom, but the trouble was, as a pre-teen, my limited finances meant the records I wanted to listen to were in short supply. We didn’t have a record player until the late 1960s when my sister was given one for Christmas. Its tinny sound didn’t deter me, nor did the complaints of anyone within earshot of my newfound musical freedom. ![]() I’d have it attached to my belt or even the handlebars of my bike. This was about the size of a pack of cigarettes and had the advantage of being fully portable no 20-metre copper wire antenna was required. My next birthday saw an upgrade to a Source. Though not very powerful, with only enough signal strength to power a single earpiece, I still marvel at its ability to work without mains or battery power. This primitive but amazing radio required a long aerial to work, so I had a length of copper wire strung along the side of the house with an offshoot into each window so I could listen in any room. My first personal radio was a crystal radio set. Mention short wave to a millennial, and they may think you were referring to a 60s hairstyle. If you were feeling really adventurous, you could flip the band selector to short wave to hear something really exotic from distant lands overseas. Usually, it was set to a local pop station so you could hear Herman’s Hermits, The Beatles, or the Twilights belt out their latest hit. Going back to the sixties, my first chance to listen to a hit I liked was from Mum and Dad’s Bakelite shelf radio that sat in the kitchen next to the Tupperware flour, sugar, and salt canisters. It’s a long way from sitting around the radio hoping my favourite song will get played. I can think of almost any song or LP I used to listen to, type the title into the search box, and boom, there it is. ![]() While listening to a favourite album on a streaming service the other day, I reflected on the virtual music smorgasbord I now have access to. ![]()
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