The song popped out like a newly pubescent teenager in 1966 -- this was a great year, fabulous summer in which to have a new driver's license etc., etc.
In complete honesty, i would like to know what songs captivated my offspring, or those sophomores and juniors in high school today -- most of them aren't even allowed to drive or smoke, let along drink 3.2 beer. We had to worry about being drafted.
AM radio -- c'mon -- it wasn't that bad -- in the midwest we had six or seven stations from pittsburgh to detroit and ft wayne, and the big boomer up in canada, CKLW!
In complete honesty, i would like to know what songs captivated my offspring, or those sophomores and juniors in high school today -- most of them aren't even allowed to drive or smoke, let along drink 3.2 beer. We had to worry about being drafted.
AM radio -- c'mon -- it wasn't that bad -- in the midwest we had six or seven stations from pittsburgh to detroit and ft wayne, and the big boomer up in canada, CKLW!
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It is actually cold this morning, around -14C on the car-gauge on my way to the office. Brrrrrr....... !
Snow here. Just a tad but not yet melting. Won't be light for another couple hours so it's off to work in the dark with traction control engaged.
Here too.....with a fresh batch on its way soon (ETA 2 hours), coming south out of Canada via Cleveland. High temp for the day has already been reached, 27F (-3C) with an expected low of 10F (-12C). So much for the T-shirt weather.
Seems to me that basic tube lineup was used in pretty much everything sold for use at home - from the cheapest clock radios, through table models in fancy cabinets, to the tuners of expensive console stereos. When I competed on the electronic troubleshooting team in the state's High School Industrial Arts Competition, I could draw the schematic from memory. (We were second in the southeastern Michigan region.)
Possibly the best year of the "1960's Decade" (which actually didn't start until about 1963, and hung on until about '73 or '74.) It was a fairly prosperous time. The civil rights confrontations that had come to a boil earlier in the decade were turned down to a simmer, before erupting again in 1967. The country couldn't foresee what Southeast Asia would become.
And how could you omit the two Chicago contenders, WLS ("World's Largest Store" - originally licensed to Sears Roebuck) and WCFL (owned by Chicago Federation of Labor)?
CKLW is notable because it's a Canadian station (Windsor, Ontario) but it used a directional antenna array to cover major U.S. markets, rather than the Canadians it was licensed to serve. I think it had to create notches in its coverage pattern to avoid interference with stations in the Caribbean.
These were all "clear channel" stations, with legal and treaty protection from night-time co-channel interference across major portions of the country or even the entire North American continent. Has any sociologist researched the extent to which these stations helped create the youth culture, and generational identity, of the Baby Boomers? There's a hint of that effect in the movie "Stand By Me", though it's a local small-town radio station that seems to be a common element in the lives of both the adolescents and their adversaries, the 20-somethings.
When my kids - now 27 to 36 years old - were in High School I was amazed at their knowledge and interest in popular music of the 1960's and 70's. You might expect familiarity with The Beatles, perhaps the Stones and some of the Motown material - but they, and their friends, knew the lyrics and riffs to almost my whole record collection and anything played on the Moldy Oldies radio stations! (Well, maybe not the Moody Blues.) "Amazed" isn't accurate - I was more "appalled" that they didn't seem to identify with pop music of their own generation, almost like us self-centered baby boomers had squashed their own generational identity and imposed ours on them.
Dale
Up to a year and a half ago, we had a highschooler in the house who was totally into Wacko Jacko.
Six months ago, he turned Celtic mode, either drinks beer from a horn he got for his birthday, or cups of tea and lemon.
I advised the 2nd year history geek to take on a scientist position at a Dublin or Edinburgh college after his graduation, wear tweed, smoke a pipe, to discuss unearthly topics with fag collegues every night over 20 fl oz of used dishwater.
(I was serious)
I must have dissected 100 or more AA5 radios in my early youth. I still remember all the tube numbers, and have a small stash of each.
The oldest transformerless AA5's used octal tubes. 12SK7, 12SA7, 12SQ7, 35Z5 and 50L6. There was an octal tube lineup with plate caps that pre-dates these, but they weren't too common in the early 60's. I don't remember the numbers.
The first generation 7 pin AA5's used 12BA6, 12BE6, 12AV6 (or 12AT6), 35W4, and 50B5. When UL decided that having the plate pin next to the heater pin was a shock hazard on a hot chassis radio, the plate pin was moved and the 50B5 became the 50C5.
On a cool winter night we could get WLS, WMAQ, WSB and a few others that I can't remember in Miami. Despite having a local station on 790, you could hear a political broadcaster in the Dutch Antilles on 800 if you had a "modern" radio with a "loopstick" antenna and turned the radio to null WFUN on 790.
There was also WQAM, a 50KW station on 560 in Miami with its single tower on a concrete island in Biscayne Bay between Miami and Miami Beach. You could hear that station just about any time, anywhere along the gulf or Atlantic coasts if you were near the water.
Back to the weather.....Uh the thermometer read 9 degrees this morning when I set out for the gym...about 7AM. It's currently 14 degrees.
I found in my travels that in distant rural areas (e.g. North Dakota), a few extra tubes such as a tunable RF amplifier or second IF stage was added to even cheap table model radios.
Back in the days of tubes with octal sockets and predecessors, a fair proportion of the radios in higher end consoles had tunable RF amplifiers and the like.
It appears that several of those Canadian degrees flew south out of Ontario for the winter.....although I'm sure they have plenty left. It is currently -12C here. No snow, plenty of frost.
Note, a friend who works for Blackberry sent me pictures of the parking lot in Waterloo last winter. A few buried cars and a pair of bicycle handlebars sticking out of a vast sea of white......
It's only -3C here in Minne-snow-ta. The weather forecast says it is supposed to be snow and mixed precipitation until Friday, though.
Last winter and this, no comparison. We barely got any snow. I'm still riding my v-strom, although yesterday morning (-14) was a bit edgy. 🙂
I was in Washington D.C. Monday and early Tuesday it was really cold for them 17F or so. Apparently when Congress is in session there is much more hot air. Now they are back and already it is 20 degrees warmer.
How is this for you? It has been a warm week, but look what happens tonight and saturday! 😉
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