PS: Good morning, Mr. SafeNow,

I totally agree with you about bluetooth. I have two bluetooth speakers (with micro sd cards) and I love them. Mrs. Smith and I listen to pandora through them while sitting on the porch sometimes and it's a good way to hear new music that we otherwise would never have heard when listening to our own local music. (Local meaning on our hard drives and sd cards. Already in our catalogue.)

I do really like some of these new bluetooth compatible retro looking speakers. They are more stylie than the (dare I say older?) original bluetooth speakers from just a few years ago.

I found this little gem yesterday while reminiscing about my first radio...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/335304590979

I even thought about buying it. I might have if the case was less beat up and if the lettering around the dial was less worn. But I really don't need it and I already impulse bought two more BaoFengs* that I really don't need either. It does seem pretty cool taking old transistor tube radios from the 50's and converting them into bluetooth speakers. A nifty way to upcycle.

*Link from a previous comment...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/225152488164

My hope is that by having a couple new Baofeng radios to tinker with that I'll finally take the time to learn about some of the other functions that these little radios have. I should probably watch some youtube videos about how these different functions work.

So Cheers to a beautiful Sunday.
I hope you have a great day! ☮️

PS
Mr, Adam Smith, while the vintage radios are bluetooth-compatible, that functionality can actually be a plus. I could cue-up on my iPad a compilation of 60s or 70s songs and then zap it over to play on the retro radio. Suddenly I am back there…me and Suzie.

PS: Lol... I forgot a link...

https://retroradiofarm.com/

☮️

PS: Good evening, Mr. SafeNow!
(I hope you too are enjoying your Saturday night.)

So, I googled 𝑅𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑜 𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑜 𝐴𝑚𝑎𝑧𝑜𝑛 and clicked 𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑠 and I indeed found many beautiful creations from a better time. But then I noticed that many of the creations in the "feed" were bluetooth compatible facsimiles. All sorts of things from...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/196068315770
(not a facsimile)

to...
https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Greadio-Fashioned-Enhancement-Connection/dp/B07KFFQ4K7

or...
https://www.amazon.com/Boombox-Cassette-Recording-Bluetooth-Speakers/dp/B0DWHCS3G6

or... (I actually think this might rock...)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/405318371640

And it got me wondering, and reminiscing...

About the earliest memories I have of radio...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/235520152709

↑ This ↑ (mid 50's Zenith) radio was always there. (There before me.) These are (among my earliest) memories from when I was ~½ year old. This was the radio atop my dresser. (as an infant/toddler and a little beyond.)(Even moved from the old house to the new house.) It was there long before my little sister. (Who is two and a half years younger than I.)

It always took a few (like 5 or 10) seconds to warm up after I powered it on. (Because tubes.) But it was my first radio. (I know it came from/through my paternal grandparents.)

There were some other radios along the way.
(Most notably...)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/365127947928

Which came along when I was 3 or 4 years old.
(A birthday gift from my grandpa.)

And then... Sometime when I was ~10(or 9?)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j71oXgsqgu4

It was around that time that the old mid 50's zenith went away. (It probably still worked but how many radios does a kid need? Or, alternatively, it might have needed a tube or something.)

But what 10 year old in their right mind would even want that old zenith tube radio when he had a Dual Cassette AM/FM Hitachi stereo? (Like the Hitachi TRK-W22AU.)

Anyway... Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Cheers to a great rest of the weekend! ☮️

PS

Radio was extremely important in my life and I can't believe that I no longer have a radio in my home. The internet conquers all.

I got a crystal radio for my tenth birthday and listened to reports of the Russians stomping down the Hungarian revolt with tanks and machine guns. Radio ruined my family life because I listened to radio stations in New York, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburg, New Orleans, and Wisconsin, a much wider world than our Michigan farm encompassed. My parents were ignorant of world and national events and I was ostracized.

PS
Google “Retro radio Amazon” and then click “images” and scads of these gorgeous creations will pop-up. Metaphors for a better time, sigh.

PS: Me again...

If anyone is looking for a cheap dual sim (GSM) phone with FM radio and an analog TV tuner you can get one of these...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133103006662
https://www.gsmarena.com/blu_jenny_tv_2_8-5746.php

New old stock but they're still available. ☮️

PS: Greetings, everyone,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Days

𝑊𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑𝑛'𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑤 "𝑠𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑡" 𝑇𝑉'𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑜𝑛, 𝑘𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ?

Well, yes. But only since about 2013 or so...

https://i.ibb.co/p7cGRYy/Smart-TV.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_content_recognition

A couple years back Mrs. Smith thought it would be a good idea to have a transistor like radio so we can listen to the radio when the power goes out. So I bought a couple of these...

https://www.besthamradio.com/baofeng-uv-82-dual-band-radio-review/

I really haven't used them much. They work very nice as walkie talkies (I use them on the FRS and MURS frequencies) and for listening to FM radio. I've also used them to listen to weather band radio and some of the local emergency channels. They also have a little built in led flashlight.

Apparently I'm supposed to get a radio license if I want to broadcast on HAM frequencies, but I probably won't mess with that. I don't even know how to use all its functions (it has some sort of encryption-like functions that I don't yet understand) or how to use repeaters. Supposedly this thing can be used as a scanner and some other things, but I don't know how to do that either. I do like it though and it seems pretty nice. I looked on ebay and the UV-82 isn't available from a U.S. seller, but these seem like a nice upgrade...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/225152488164
(I might even buy a pair. Who knows?)


𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑙𝑦-𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒𝑙 𝑠𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑏𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑡-𝑖𝑛 𝐹𝑀 𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠...

Quite a few years back I bought a cheap dual sim (GSM only) cell phone made by a company called BLU...

https://www.gsmchoice.com/en/catalogue/blu/diva/

I was tinkering with inexpensive cell phone services at the time and settled in on some little known company whose name eludes me at the moment but which ran on the T-Moble network. (T-Mobile didn't work well around town at the time but always worked great for me atop the mountain.) I thought it was pretty cool having a cheap cell phone with two anonymous burner style numbers. Not that I ever really used them.

I guess the point of my story is that this little phone not only had an FM radio receiver with a built in antenna, but it also had an analog TV tuner. It didn't work here as this was after the U.S. made the switch to digital TV but apparently this feature was included because BLU's main market was South America where analog TV remained in use.

I still have that little phone around here somewhere. (And it's in almost new condition as I used it very lightly.) I suppose I should dig it out and check to make sure the battery hasn't exploded. (I recently found an old mp3 player with a swollen lithium-ion battery pack while cleaning out a junk drawer. Most thankfully, it didn't start a fire.) If nothing else it could still be used as an FM radio or with a cheap GSM sim card if ever the need arises.


𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔ℎ𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑦𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟?

Might not be quite what you're looking for but check these out...
https://www.ebay.com/itm/126836143128
https://www.ebay.com/itm/256889312680
https://www.ebay.com/itm/315791553148

They also have some other vintage boomboxes for sale on ebay, but I thought these looked interesting (especially the first two) because they are new.

I guess that's about all I have to say.
So Happy Saturday! ☮️

PS: Thanks for the link to Radio Derb, Mr. Hail. I see that Zman kindly put up the transcripts too, for us. I read rather than listen, unless I have no choice, just based on speed, definitely not due to Mr.Derbyshire's voice. His is very clear and erudite-sounding, while I have a hard time catching all that Peter Brimelow says about 1/3 of the time.

I just looked and I see that Mr. Derbyshire is completely off of the Unz Review now. I never can tell whose decision these things are. Ron Unz is pretty hands-off, from what he's written, once he has a writer on board. (That doesn't stop him from writing disparaging comments underneath the posts of his own site's writers on occasion. Well, there was the Jonathan Revulsky and also Godfree Roberts, so yeah... don't blame him.)

PS: Yeah, I did have a ham radio license for a while, Alarmist. On the day I got it, from listening I could tell I'd have passed the 13 wpm Morse Code test, but I only did required 5 wpm one. Within 1 month afterward I only knew half the letters! Anyway, when TSHTF, nobody will be checking people's radios. I just doubt that radio still works, even if i could find it.

Yeah, good idea. I've got to look up some station, as even Conservative friends have not mentioned listening to talk radio in years.

PS

On who has been listening to radio:

Many of the early-model smartphones came with built-in FM radio receivers. You had to plug in earphones to get it to function. The earphones served the function of antennas. A highly efficient way to use the new devices, back in those days most people had limited or no "data" (as it's now called). Radio, with no reliance on wifi networks. By the early-2020s, this early-mid 2020s feature of smartphones seemed very quaint.

PS

John Derbyshire has just published his latest "Radio Derb" weekly commentary. It comes in at 3500 words, counting introductory and closing banter.

Now that VDare is offline, Mr Derb has been posting them at the Z-Man website:

https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=33917

______________

SECTION 1: VDARE fights on. (525 words)

SECTION 2: Lydia’s appeal (1550 words)

SECTION 3: Tariffs, uh. ("Where does Radio Derb stand on this? Uh, nowhere very firmly.") (700 words)

SECTION 4: Miscellany (Atheism, SAVE Act (Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility) (Fruit flies who consume alcohol mate more successfully). (350 words)

_____________

PS

“… of what use is the radio?“

Just wait for TSTHTF … then you’ll appreciate Radio.

Seriously though, I know you mean broadcast radio. Pick a local talk-radio station and tell Nielsen you listen to it non-stop. Just to tweak them. They’ll never send you a survey ever again.

🕉️