| RADIO | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Radio is a form of communication where waves travel from one point to another without using wires. Early forms of communication over great distances were the telephone and the telegraph and these forms of communication require wires between the sender (radio station) and receiver (the listener). It relies on the radiation of energy from a transmitting antenna in the form of radio waves. These radio waves, travelling at the speed of light (300,000 km/sec; 186,000 mi/sec), carry the information. When the waves arrive at a receiving antenna, a small electrical voltage is produced. After this voltage has been suitably amplified, the original information contained in the radio waves is retrieved and presented in an understandable form of the D.J and a song. The first ever developments on radios happened at the start of the 1800?s. The scientists were Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry and they had a theory that you could send a message without using wires but using waves. In 1887, a man called Heinrich Herts found that electric sparks send out waves of electricity and this is what a radio uses. Waves travel so fast, they could go seven times around the world in one second. Then a few years later, Guglielmo Marconi adopted the same theory but used the waves to send electrical messages. Early radios were build like pieces of furniture built in large wooden boxes which were carved with good quality varnished woods. Most radios in 1933 had two knobs a on/off button and a knob to change the station. They also had a big large rounded speaker. The radio used to be the centre of family entertainment with whole family sitting around the radio and listening to their favourite radio stations. When families did this on average 96 of every 100 homes would own a radio. At night, the family listened to the radio like families would sit around the television theseand days. Radios in 1933 had many different parts. They had a round coil to pick up the stations. The speaker had a drum skin material on it when this shook we heard that as sound. There were tubes that made the signal stronger. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| NEW RADIOS | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Over the years there has been a need for smaller more portable systems like walkmans which can fit in your pocket and they are able to get the same sound quality as bigger systems. You can plug in headphone sets, so no one else in the room has to hear it. There are clock radios which have a clock and you can set it to go off at a certain time. These are some of the main changes that have happened with radios over the years. Instead of heavy wood, now they are made of hard plastics which are very strong and easier to carry. To make them even more portable radios don?t even need to be plugged into a power supply but they give you the choice of battery or power operated. Many runners put batteries in their walkmans so they can go running while listening to music and they are lightweight so they don?t weight down the runner. With walkmans you don?t even need to hold them in your hand as most have a clip so you can put it onto your pants. Also new technology are bass expanders and graphic equalisers so you can change the settings of the radios to hear more bass music in the song. Now most radios are made in factories in China using many robots. The new technology in radios has taken away many jobs from carpenters who made the shells for the old radios. Jobs have also been taken by robots who now make the radios. The companies save paying the employees, robots never get tired and hardly make mistakes. A clock radio these days, begin from around $29.95 and the walkmans which are very portable cost around $35.00 which is fairly cheap. The big old radios would have cost much more for the time because they were placed in beautiful wooden cases which you never see around today. Some of the major developments made from radios have been diskmans. They have used the idea of the portable radio and have used it in diskmans. Diskmans are portable CD players which use the head phones as well. On radios now, you can get information from the other side of the world over a phone call when on television you need a television crew there. Radios now have up to date news bulletins, guides on where police cameras are and the busy Melbourne roads. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HOW RADIO HAS CHANGED THE MEDIA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Radio has changed the media in many ways. They have brought the world up to date with news around the world. News about the Port Arthur shooting was on American radio before it was in Australia which is amazing how quick they can bring a story onto the air. They have made communication around the world much better. In Australia people wake up and turn on the radio to hear the weather forecast for the next few days and an accurate world news coverage telling you stories that have happened through the night. Radio is much better than news papers for news because radio can give you updates on a story as it breaks and the newspapers are a day late always. Radio has made the rest of the media sources work a lot harder and faster to try to break a story before the radio gets it. | Radio will continue to be a very popular source of media into the next millennium. Radios are still popular because they are light, always up to date on local/worldwide weather and news. I think in the future you will have smaller and lighter radios which have the sound quality of a C.D. and you will be able to pick up the channel from further away. I feel radios will always be a part of our lives and be a great source of entertainment and communication throughout the next few years.
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