techGeneral: April 2008 Archives

This morning as I was making coffee, I grabbed one of the Sonos controllers and set out to find a radio station to listen to. There are a number of choices Steph and I usually choose from (if she's not home, the choices expand, as my taste in music usually irritates her) between Sirius over the internet, Rhapsody music channels and some radio stations from Germany that stream over the net (thank you!). I realized that other than in the car, I haven't listened to a normal radio in my house or apartment for close to eight years. Once streaming radio over the net became available, I stopped listening to normal (terrestrial) radio. In the car, I have Sirius (which I never thought I'd like) and/or an iPod. When I have to drive a vehicle that lacks either of those, the thought goes through my head, "damn... static, fade, constant commercials, crap content and never being able to find a station I like." Granted, there are a number of stations I listen to that stream over the net and are thus like their over-the-air counterpart, but the difference is that they don't fade and the content is that good that I don't mind the commercial interruptions. Either way, I realized how different the radio is today compared to yesterday and how differently our kids will look at radio "stations." Talk of using short-wave radios to get in a station for the west coast or even over-seas will fade and slowly go the way of tube based amps. No, they don't disappear, but there are a select few who actually know about them and will remember how they work.