Radio Waddenzee in Holland closing 29th June

In broken Dutch, translated by the incredible Google browser (no corrections by me – whats with the hair?)

RADIO BROADCASTS WADDENZEE STOPS HAIR

Due to sharp decline in advertising revenue, the management of Radio Waddenzee decided broadcasts on 29 June. at 19:00 to strike.After eight years comes to an end a fantastic adventure radio. We conclude this black Radio Day with a live broadcast from our headquarters in Urk.

Highlights included the annual events on board the lightship Jenni Baynton radio and live broadcasts on Saturday.

We want our listeners, advertisers, (former) employees and founders of our wonderful radio to thank for 8 glorious years of radio.

The 78rpm disc, labels, sleeves

What is  78rpm disc?  It is a fragile disc, made of shellac.  Shellac is made out of crushed beetle shells apparently.  They run at 78rpm, were the forerunners of vinyl singles and albums. I first became aware of 78rpm discs at the tender age of around 5.  Up in our attic room at home my father housed his collection of 78 discs, some his but the bulk were from my Great Uncle’s collection.   My brother and I liked to play them on the wind up gramophone that was stored in the attic room. The sound from 78rpm discs was surprisingly good, rather like 15 ips reel to reel recording were superior to those recorded at lower speeds.  The discs did have a surface noise and after many plays some cracks and pops were inevitable. Here is a selection of 78rpm discs, labels and sleeves I sampled in a local charity shop.

My favourite labels are the Regal Zonophone and Rex labels.

My father used to have some comedy discs – some of Sandy Powell the comedian, tame by todays standards but interesting to a youngster hearing sound coming out of a revolving disc.

It amazes me that the video above shows a chap putting a 78rpm disc on an autochanger and allowing it to drop down.

Some of the later 78rpm discs were made of vinyl, if you have an Elvis Presley on 78 it is worth something!

Also Frank Crumit

 

If you have time here are two videos which explains how 78rpm discs are made

Never say the Wireless Waffler does not inform and educate!

Radio Newsbeat

From the Radio Today Site – my selections of items that interest me

 

A cable theft at The Bay’s transmitter site in Ulverston meant the station’s three transmitters were on back-up for over 24hrs.

It appears the studio to transmitter link, between Lancaster and Ulverston was down, meaning the station could still be heard online but not on 96.9, 102.3 or 103.2 FM.

The incident happened on Monday and the latest update from the station (Wednesday afternoon) says they are still having issues.

All competitions, including the no-repeat 9-to-5 had to be suspended as the back-up tape played the same songs in the same order all day Tuesday.

The Bay said transmission problems were caused “by thieves following a 500 pair cable theft.

“Please bear with us…we’ll be back to normal with Great Music and Local News across The Bay as soon as we can,” the station posted on Facebook.

Update on transmission problems. One set of 200 pair cable and another 400 pair cable stolen from Dalton in Furness. 180 metres of each needed to be replaced before we can get back on air. The Bay crew and Arqiva are in Ulverston trying to get everything back to normal asap. Thanks for your patience from all at The Bay.

 

13/06/2013 – 20:53 |

As Kerrang! 105.2 enters it’s final full day of FM broadcasting, RadioToday brings you details of the digital-only Kerrang! Radio.

A new schedule will kick in from Monday, with current drive-time host Kate Lawler taking over Breakfast.

Kate said: “This is a brave new dawn for Kerrang! Radio and I can’t wait to kick-start listeners’ week days with a rock and roll wakeup call! The whole team is really excited about the awesome new line-up for the station – believe me we are all gonna be ready to rock from June 17th!”

Jake Thomson will do middays and Loz Guest will host afternoon ‘drive’ 2-6pm whilst Johnny Doom will present the evening show from 7pm. Johnny will also present a weekend dose of the Rock n Roll Years on Sundays 10am-2pm where he will play songs from one particular year over the past four decades.

Other parts of the new schedule includes Alex Baker presenting two regular shows – The Unsigned Show (Sundays 7pm-10pm) and The Alex Baker Show (Saturdays 2pm-6pm).

The Kerrang! Chart with Dan Hudson will air each Saturdays 10am-2pm and Klub Kerrang! with Katie Parsons will be broadcast on Saturdays 7pm-10pm.

Ric Blaxill, Music and Content Director, Kerrang! Radio, said: “We’re really proud to reveal this fantastic new presenter line-up for Kerrang! It’s just what fans are looking for – great rock music delivered by much loved, well-known, funny and passionate DJs.”

The changes to Kerrang!, available on DAB and online, see it come more into line with the artists featured in Kerrang! magazine – from Paramore, Biffy Clyro, and Frank Turner to Don Broco, 30 Seconds To Mars, and Muse.

Kerrang!’s 105.2 frequency in the West Midlands will be a simulcast of Planet Rockfrom London from Friday afternoon.

Rock Dog and the Rocking Horse do not feature in the new schedule.

 

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson is joining LBC with his own phone-in show, following in the footsteps of Nick Clegg.

The deputy PM already has a weekly show, Thursday mornings during the last hour of Nick Ferrari’s breakfast show. Now Boris Johnson will do the same but on a monthly basis, on a Tuesday.

“The great thing about being on LBC 97.3 is that you get to hear what people are really talking about, said Boris.

“Nothing is off limits as Nick Ferrari and his band of fellow assassins, LBC 97.3’s loyal London listeners, attempt to expose every pound spent, every promise made and I say ‘Quite right.’ If it matters to Londoners, I want to hear about it.”

Global Radio’s Director of Broadcasting Richard Park said: “LBC 97.3 delivers yet another exclusive, agenda-setting programme as we welcome Boris Johnson to the station for his first monthly address and phone-in. This is going to be appointment-to-listen radio for London at its best.”

Ask Boris starts on Tuesday 2nd July from 9am.

 

12/06/2013 – 16:24 | 

Juice FM has named the winner of their competition “the Juice Recruit” who will co-present the breakfast show on a temporary basis.

Twenty-six year old Nina Roberts will work alongside Adam and Chambo while regular host Leanne Campbell is on maternity leave.

Nina, who works in the marketing department of the Roy Castle Cancer Research Foundation, made it through an eight week public audition process.

Programme Controller Mark Kaye judged the competition: “Nina really impressed us and it was important for us to give this opportunity to a Juice FM listener and more importantly a local girl with a bubbly personality who we felt could wake up Liverpool with breakfast presenter Adam Weighell.”

Nina Roberts said: “I’m in shock, I can’t believe I won! The competition was fun and I’m looking forward to working with Adam every morning on Juice FM breakfast.

 

Long-serving popular BBC radio announcer and newsreader Rory Morrison has died at the age of 48 after a long battle with Cancer.

Photo: BBC

Rory started his radio career at BBC local radio in Leeds, York and Cleveland before joining Radio 4 as a continuity announcer.

In 2008 he wrote an emotional article in the Daily Mail explaining his battle with Cancer – a rare type of Lymphoma.

His Twitter profile describes his as “Radio Four announcer and newsreader. Married to Nik with 2 lovely kids and Max the Spaniel.”

The station’s controller Gwyneth Williams told the BBC he was respected for his intelligence, integrity and complete professionalism and that he had been at the heart of Radio 4 for many years.

Shortwave Archive

I have just discovered, thanks to the Yahoo Groups Anoraks UK group, a marvellous online archive of shortwave radio.  It has some audio you can download, and asks if you have any to contribute.

http://shortwavearchive.com/

 

 

BBC Archive nuggets

If you are not aware, the BBC Archive has put up a large number of archival clips online.  They are not for download but are interesting to listen to. Radio and Television moments so enjoy visit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/programme/

I enjoyed Sue McGregor’s interiew with Enid Blyton

Who is Julia Cleaver, Sound Archivist?  I left the BBC 11 years ago but the quality of the Sound Archivist’ s presentation has dropped —- in my opinion!

 

Pictorial Musings ……………… again

Slugs seem to be appearing in rather unusual colours, here is a small slug in my raised bed that looks like a No 2!

This pigeon had the bottle to land on the bird table about a foot from us sitting out in the sun today (yes sun!)  It stood on the table looking at us for quite some time, then when I decided to take a picture it flew up onto the wall!

Whilst purchasing some new jeans from Blue Inc I noticed these saucy boxers.  At the BBC Simon Bates ones had the nickname on the boxers above.  Simon does a superb breakfast show on Smooth UK, well worth a listen.

The above pictures of a radio looks great, however the contents are not electrical, but biscuits!   You should find these tins in your local Debenhams.

Pictorial Musings

We have not had time for pictorial comments recently so lets get right on with it!

Some time ago I included some pictures of men cutting down masses of innocent trees at Ruislip Lido.  Nothing has been done on this site, this is what it looked like a week ago, – tree stumps cost a fortune to remove – in the words of Ian Dury “What a waste”!

 

 

Lidls have a range of decoy animals for the garden, they are crafted out of tin metal, does this actually look like a duck to you?

A sign of something becoming obsolete and out of vogue (even though you can get film for these still!)   The Pentax SLR with Lenes £19.99!   How long before digital cameras become obsolete?  Mobile Photos are beginning to become more popular now.

 

 

 

At the Edinburgh Wool shop at a garden centre near Wendover they were selling toffee with a hammer to break it. Fond memories of my childhood days breaking toffee with a hammer.  Now toffees are taboo due to the fact they can pull out fillings!

An unfortunate display on the front of this weeks’s Daily Mail magazine. The Queen appears to have big white ears, fancy transposing our monarch over a title!

This album caught my eye in a local charity shop window!

The slugs in my garden are appearing in a range of different colours, white, black and now something that looks rather like a human stool!I was looking down my drain on one of the lovely sunny days, and noticed that the bricks were made by a company called Accrington Nori.  Turns out they are very strong engineering bricks, once exported to France for the base of the Eiffel Tower.

This is how Wikipedia tackles the subject!

Three theories are proposed:

• Iron was written on the chimney of the brickworks, but with the I at the bottom
• The letters IRON were placed backwards in the brick moulds thus spelling NORI. This is by far the most common story.
• It was a deliberate decision of the owners, who also produced a brick called the REDAC standing for Accrington Red.^[2]

Geology

Fire clay is often found close to coal seams. Huncoat had colleries. At the end of the Ice Age, the Calder was blocked and formed a large lake in the Accrington area. The sediment from this lake produced the fireclay seams. And coal was available to fire it.^[3]

History

The NORI was first produced at a brickworks adjacent to the quarry in Whinney Hill, Huncoat by the Accrington Brick and Tile Company Ltd. The clay there produced bricks of the highest strength and hardness. These bricks were acid resistant, so could be used for the lining of flues and chimneys.

There were four brickyards, producing engineering bricks (Enfields, Whinney Hills) and specials. Specials were hand thrown into plaster of paris moulds. They could be extremely decorative. These bricks were used for specialised engineering projects such as in furnaces and for powerstations. ^[2]

The site had its own branch railway joining the East Lancashire Line at Huncoat Station, and was close to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The brickworks now managed by Marshall Clay Products were bought out by Hanson, a subsidiary of the multi-national Heidelberg Cement group in 2005. The brickworks was closed in 2008, with the loss of 83 jobs. Hanson who say they are mothballing the factory cited the recession and standstill in new house builds.^[1]

Following closure the site became a landfill for domestic waste from the north west region operated by the company SITA UK. In 2013 local residents began legal action against SITA. over claims of foul smells coming from the site.^[4]

Usage

• Blackpool Tower
• Barry Power Station
• Fiddlers Ferry Power Station
• Sellafield
• Thiepval Memorial

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Accrington Observer 2008-09-26
2. ^ ^{a b} Accrington Forum
3. ^ Hyndburn Canal Leaflet
4. ^ Papers served on Sita over Whinney Hill landfill smells BBC News 11 February 2013, accessed 11 February 2013