wrno

We report from the Cable and Satellite congress in London. Analogue is still alive in Holland and Germany. Digital is still very expensive. Rupert Murdoch has not announced which receivers he will chose for his BSKYB service. Increasingly satellite signals are scrambled. We explain the conditional access module which has considerably complicated the market for individual satellite enthusiasts. Professor John Campbell can’t imagine that viewers will want to edit their own programmes. He thinks that traditional radio is trouble. Remember that CBS started by importing Cuban Cigars. He also sums up exactly what happened to a lot of shortwave radio. Andy Sennit has also news about ASTRA. There is also news about Radio For Peace International in Costa Rica. Joseph M Costello has passed away on April 23rd at 56 so the future of WRNO. We looked at into the archives. Mike Bird has the propagation review. Radio Australia is having its budget cuts, with 80 staff to lose their jobs.

This programme contains an interview with the late Joseph Mark Costello III, the founder of WRNO shortwave in New Orleans. He passed away from complications from diabetes in late April 1997 at the young age of 56. His first job after college was at a small radio station in DeRidder, where he became chief announcer. It was, Mr. Costello later said, the only time that he worked for a company he didn't own. In 1967, the son of Algiers grocery-store owners mortgaged his parents' rental property to help raise $25,000 to build WRNO, a pioneer FM stereo rock-music outlet that became one of the city's most listened-to and profitable radio stations. It was a risk. But Mr. Costello said in a 1982 interview, he never was worried. "I didn't know it would be successful," he said, "but I knew I could always make money at something. It's easy. You just don't spend more money than you make." When he couldn't hire a disc jockey, he acted as the station's announcer, too. Even long after Joe Costello became a millionaire with five homes and a 50-foot yacht, his voice could be heard delivering the station's slogan, "We're the rock of New Orleans." In 1991 I remember getting a call from him. He was visiting Amsterdam and wanted to see around Radio Netherlands. That explains his appearance in this programme.  This show also contains a link up with Richard Measham talking about the wide range of Russian radio stations appearing on shortwave as well as a lab test of the Sony ICFSW-55 which I purchased in Tokyo. The programme actually starts with a promo for a programme by Dheera Sujan and gradually turns into Media Network. I could cut that bit off, but decided not to. Hope you enjoy the show. .