grundig

Om at skifte spor og få et drømmejob

A reportage from the International Audio and Video Electronics show in Berlin. This year was the launch for the DVD format, with a vast improvement on VHS. Philips has a rival system called MPEG-Multichannel audio. I remember Professor Doug Boyd was involved to set up the new DRM standard, which was a system designed to turn analogue shortwave broadcasting into digital. Glyn Jones of the BBC acknowledged that a lot of work still needs to be done before Walkman-style DAB radios become available. (Yes, I know, Photo is from a later Funkausstellung. I think I took slides in those days!)

We’re trying to solve some reception problems from Dushanbe. There are changes going on with Grundig North America, with the transfer of the design from Fuerth to California. Lou Josephs recommends shopping around for receiver bargains. 47th Street Photo adds 8% sales tax. We talked to Richard McLaughlin of LOWE electronics about the HF225 and HF150. Benelux and Germany are the strongest markets. They will launch the HF250 at Dayton. Radio Netherlands will launch its HTML pages on April 21st 1995. A special AM station on the NAB convention. Arthur Cushen heard it on 1660 kHz.

This news edition of the programme discussed your letters. We caught up on peace keeping radio, and the sale of Harry Helms shortwave website. In his farewell message, Harry predicted the demise of shortwave radio because they didn't understand the communications business. Of course, he was right. Fast and cheap web access is going each shortwave's lunch. We also had receiver news about Grundig. Grundig used to be a daughter organisation of Philips.

This programme starts with a report from Hungary about protests to changes at Radio Budapest. We also learned of the passing of the editor of the RBSWC, Dennis Herner. Andy Sennitt had news of the reactivation of LRA36, the Argentine station on their Antarctic base. Victor Goonetilleke is on the line with news that TWR plans to return to shortwave. Bob Tomalski has some rants about why wide angle televisions are only appearing in PAL, and we look at some of the thoughts behind the Grundig 206 shortwave receiver.

This was a regular edition of Media Network in the summer of 1986. We review the Grundig Satellit 400 shortwave receiver made in Portugal from German designs. Roger Broadbent explains about AM stereo and the challenges it faces. We look at the growth of English language radio in Paris - stations are now carryingVOA Europe. Arthur Cushen's tips include recordings of the internal shortwave services of ABC in Australia in Tennant Creek. I personally remember this programme not for its content but for the panic before broadcast. We used an Apple IIe to write the script and the power supply short circuited a few hours before the recording. Luckily some of the segments had already been recorded but the main script was hastily rewritten before we went to air.

This edition marked the start of Radio Netherlands presence on the World-Wide Web (21st April 1995) after three years of experimenting with MCI-Mail and participation in bulletin board systems like FIDONET. As Director of Programmes at the time, I remember suggesting as the URL to the head of IT at the time. We chat with Esmail Amid-Hozour, head of Grundig North America. I think you would be hard put to find someone who has more enthusiasm for AM broadcasting, and shortwave in particular. He was very clever in putting shortwave portables in airline catalogues and Sharper Image. There’s also a visit to the BBC World Service shop in Bush House (long since gone) and a report on Lowe receivers designed and made in Matlock, Derbyshire. Still love those long URLs. I suppose we really covered the birth of Adam Curry’s love affair with the web, well before podcasting. Then it was called metaverse.com and you could download software to listen to radio stations, like a station in Melbourne, Florida. These days Adam’s devoted himself to producing with John C Dvorak. Haven’t time’s changed? We also celebrated the 10th anniversary of NDXE, the station that had a listeners club but never built the transmitter. This was a global radio station that claimed it would broadcast on shortwave in stereo.