Radio Surprise

Reader Contribution by Sam Moore
Published on September 18, 2017
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Ninety years ago the new-fangled radio was found in few homes. The following account of an individual’s first encounter with a radio was written by a man named Fred Meeker and appeared in the September 1927 issue of The American Thresherman magazine.

“Probably many readers now own radio receiving sets; but there are probably many more who are looking forward to the time when they too will own one of these wonders.

“Several years ago I was invited to a friend’s home one evening, ‘To listen to the radio.’ It was some ten miles distant and the weather was cold, but we bundled the five children up well, climbed into the flivver and went to hear the voices and music out of the air. The first thing to attract my attention, when entering the house, was the loud speaker. Although I was offered a more comfortable chair across the room, I chose a straight-back one by the loud speaker, for I did not want to miss anything. I was very nervous and could hardly wait for the thing to be set going. My host remarked, ‘Oh, there’s nothing on the air right now; it will be fifteen minutes yet.’

“Would those fifteen minutes never pass? It seemed more like fifteen hours, but at last he announced, ‘KDKA is now on and we’ll try them.” I moved my chair right in front of the horn so I could see every move he made and hear all that might be said.

“My friend first pulled a switch which lighted some bulbs similar to electric light bulbs, and then slowly began to turn a knob. Suddenly, ‘Whee! O-o-o-o-w! whiz! bang!’ I nearly fell off my chair! I had expected to hear music or someone’s voice, but not such a screeching, whistling, howling racket as that. The ‘o-o-o-w, r-r-r-r-r-r, o-o-w-e-e’ kept up and the longer it went the louder it got. Was this radio? If so, it certainly wasn’t enjoyable, let alone entertaining. At last, after a half-hour of noise without one word or musical note from the blooming thing, my host, who was sweating like a butcher, said he’d have to give it up for a while. ‘That’s radio,’ said he; ‘just as soon as someone comes it always acts up, but when we are here alone it’s fine.’

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