Wednesday 28 March 2012

MEMORY RADIO DOWN UNDER


Hello from Australia Just a quick post .We're out here with our friends from Network 10 to promote the station and our first stop was Melbourne for the Grand Prix.Our passes were amazing I got to see my heroes in action.


                                     
                                           In the Media area with Damon Hill and Martin Brundle

                                         Here we are in Sydney at the Center Point Tower

                                                        Our friends in East Brisbane

                                                Channel Seven on Mt Coot-tha,Brisbane
Join me soon for all the news and photos from our promotional trip .Cheerio and gooday sports.

Monday 5 March 2012

REMEMBER MARCH 1979

Hello again and welcome along to our Memory Radio Blog. This week we're off to March 1979 and let's start our trip with the No1 song in the charts this week in March 1979


                                         



Top 10 Hits of Early March 1979
^1The Bee GeesTragedy
^2Elvis Costello & The AttractionsOliver's Army
fall3BlondieHeart Of Glass
^4Gloria GaynorI Will Survive
^5Lene LovichLucky Number
fall6AbbaChiquitita
^7Edwin StarrContact
^8The Real ThingCan You Feel The Force?
fall9Leif GarrettI Was Made For Dancin'
fall10Gene ChandlerGet Down

We work hard now  to make our Blog mobile friendly after many tries we found this blondie video that plays on apple products.We have a rare heart of glass video on our facebook page heres the link
                                                MEMORY RADIO BOYLE ON FACEBOOK


                                         
                                                                               

COUNTRY CLASSIC 1979


TV 1979
Colour TV sales really took off in 1979 after the opening the previous year of  the new a Irish  channel  RTE 2 and a crystal clear UHF signal from newly erected  mast at Cairn Hill (outside Longford) Ireland's most powerful television transmitter .A good excuse  with the forthcoming papal visit in 1979 was "we want to see the new pope in colour"
                               Our first colour set was a Phillips similar to this one pictured below
                              The test card .A thing of the past now with 24 hour broadcasting.
Living near the border with Northern Ireland we were able to watch the BBC and ITV channels using a high gain Ariel and amps. With freeSat and the forthcoming digital changeover these systems are disappearing this side of the border every day now

What we watched in 1979
                                                            
                                                                   UK TV 1979


IRISH TV 1979


CaitlĂ­n Maude (1941 – 1982) poet, teacher, actress and traditional singer in her native Irish tongue

                                                            US TV 1979


The Dukes Of Hazzard along with the Movie Convoy started the CB Radio craze in 1979



During  1979 and in the 1980's, the trend of CB radios was similar to online chats or text messaging today. When we did this, We developed friendships with other people on CB's, and while their real names remained anonymous, their handles were well known names.We used a Handle or Call Sign, (Mine was Shooting Star) because CB Radio at this time was seen as illegal (there were no provisions in Irish broadcasting law  and the whole thing was very vague) of course this added to its appeal.
The sets we used were imported from the USA, where 27 Mhz AM was granted for Citizens use hence the term citizens band C.B.The standard set had 40 channels and an output of 4 watts .These were mostly 12v mobile sets like the one pictured above .

This was usually  coupled with a magmount Ariel .There was an art in setting up the ariel in tune with the C.B. ,adjusting the S.W.R. by using a meter and twiddling with the adjustable rod at the end of the Ariel whip. It could be difficult to chat at any distance during the day because of what was known as skip  the signals of other C.B.'s all over the world bouncing off the upper atmosphere and just making a wall of noise that the background noise filter SQUELCH could barely keep out , at night all the noise stopped and at dusk and dawn it was possible under the right conditions to talk long distance DX 
                                                    Heres an example of DX'ing on a C.B

                                         
We have a nice thread on facebook about C.B's
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=258912030858631&set=a.106292142787288.13913.100002195078462&type=1&theater


RADIO 1979
Up until May 1979 here in Ireland the only pop broadcasters were Pirate stations such as Radio Dublin, new local unlicensed stations such as Radio North West which  I worked on and  powerful Radio Luxembourg at night which was aimed at the U.K ,BBC Radio1 the U.K. pop station during the day.All broadcasting on MW
Then along came RTE Radio 2 on the 31'st of May.The Main MW signal came from Athlone.But it was on  also FM around Ireland and was soon re-branded Radio2fm
.

This was the first song that I heard  played when I tuned in to the newly opened RTE Radio 2





CARS 1979


                    The Ford Fiesta was starting to become a very popular car in 1979