Thursday, June 10, 2010

STUFF IT! I AM NOT INTERESTED......

The new digital TV was set to radio broadcasting this evening.  The 'real' radio in the kitchen was switched on too.  It became very irritating to have an overlap of vocabulary sounding out.  It was as if there was a permanent stutter at the ends of syllables or trailing at the ends of sentences.

 Knowing that it will be 2015 at the earliest till we are switched off from analogue radio broadcasting, I was relatively sanguine about the time lag in the two broadcasts.  If it is not sorted out by compulsory radio switch over dates I won't be so tolerant of it. 

Those of you living in the UK, will have probably become aware that there is a campaign underway to tempt the suckers, that's you and me, to part with analogue radios now.  Manufacturers and retailers are desperate to keep up sales.  We are told that our old analogue radios will go to a great cause, giving people, like those living in Africa, equipment they have not yet had en masse. Participating shops, we are told seductively, will give a £10 credit for a trade-in against a new digital radio. 

Excuse me for not being excited or seduced by this sorry sales pitch.   Stuff it, I am really not interested!  I can obtain at least five more years of use from my old analogue radio, it might even be longer.......  My radio has served me well and will continue to do so.

When digital radio broadcasting timing has been perfected, (if it ever is) someone can let me know.  I will need assuring.  I like Big Ben to be "boinging" on time, not several overlapping seconds late.  I set my watch by the final hourly chime of Big Ben.













6 comments:

Vincent said...

Quite right, ZACL. Why don't they leave things alone? But of course they can't. We become attached to things as if they are our possessions. Of course my old radio belongs to me, but i don't own the analog system and am unable to preserve it.

I feel like this about beautiful old pubs too, well one in particular, when a new lnadlord modernised it - The Crown in Penn. I have complained to them bitterly about it. They have even recognised their mistake, up to a point, when they turned part of it into a "fine dining restaurant" with formal fittings and table service instead of the previous cheerful-casual pub arrangement where the tables and benches don't match, dried hops hung from the rafters as they had done since tie immemorial and precous Audubon prints hung from the walls. They made it bland and faceless.

But I don't own the pub and the few visits I make there in a year don't entitle me to dictate its decor.

and as for radios, sometimes we just have to fake it. I have a plastic Bush portable, a reproduction of a Fifties design but with the FM/AM/LW all modern circuitry. At any rate it works better than the genuine fifties one. And if we have to go digital, they'll doubtless have nostalgic retro versions too. Probably do already.

Or we could go to Cuba, where the march of modernisation has been slowed down, and they still drive Fifties American cars. I would like to go there - for a vacation anyhow.

ZACL said...

A delightfully humorous reply with lots of sober notes.

I am not a luddite; I do remember cathode tube radios, the warming up period and the bakelite casings. We had a cream one, which I sat close to so I could hear my favourite broadcasts in a noisy household. It is today, why I am a radio listener.

Progress in communications is fascinating, much of it is beneficial. This forcing of changeover from analogue to digital media, is about market forces as much as progress. The old bands can be sold to the best bidders for other uses. In other words, Government coffers can coin in some dosh.

Personally, I see no reason to move over to something that has not been technologically refined. I strongly object to being forced to do so. Just now, there are attempts at seducing us to buy. The tactic will change when the decision to switch us off analogue radio broadcasts is taken.

I am not one for having the first public sales development of anything. Incarnation three onwards, would be about my starting point, if 'it' suited my life style. So, as I said, till then "Stuff it"!

Anonymous said...

I've no intention of buying a new one until the old one no longer works! Flighty xx

ZACL said...

Hello Mr F.

Good on you! Can you re-tune your radio to digital? If we can continue to get channels we want when analogue radio is switched off,(doubtful) then we will be keeping ours if they are still working as they do now.

We made a decision to get the TV as we have a history of a digi box not working. By the time we totted up the cost of a new aerial plus a digi-box, the TV purchase looked a lot less painful as it did not need either purchase, installation or tuning.

XX

Anonymous said...

everything these days seems to be allotted a life span and woebetide anybody who tries to linger behind the pace-setters in life.

we still believe that something brand new is an improvement and things that have served us well for many years become consigned to the scrapheap without a second thought.

satisfaction seldom follows progress.

ZACL said...

Hello Ax,

You make some salient points. Yes, it will create sales, (some specific crime, no doubt) the Government will, it hopes, make some money from selling the freed up analogue wave- bands.

As you say, the kidology is, all is better than ever. Time will tell, and our pockets will be lighter for it.