DEVELOPMENTS IN RADIO TECHNOLOGY

The Red Heat of Technology

This light-hearted look at 50 years of changes and developments in radio technology, as they have affected Radio Worldwide, was written by Dick Davies for the RW newsletter in Spring 1999.

The 60s

When Radio Worldwide was born, the technology that made our ministry possible was big, heavy, and hot. The old 'valves' that made tape machines work were glass bottles which glowed orange as they operated. A good side effect was that on a cold day the machines could keep the chill off! As with many things from that era they are back in fashion at the moment. If you can remember them from the first time around then maybe you are showing your age!

At the controls of the mixer here is John Redman. He was a student on our first foundation course - held for the EMA in 1965. The location is Livingstone Studios - hired for the course as RW didn't have their own at that stage. John later joined Radio Worldwide and became our first engineer. With his help we started to install our own studios in the London HQ. At first they were very simple - some equipment sitting on a table, behind a double glazed window looking into the "studio" (a converted loft bedroom).

At that time tape recording was done on spools of tape. There was something comforting about seeing the tape slide slowly through the tape recorder mechanism. Editing was easy to understand - you just cut sections out with a blade and joined up the cut ends with sticky tape. Sounds simple? It was, in theory. Some RW staff made it an art form!

The 70s

The late sixties and seventies also saw the introduction of the transistor. The transistor was a miniature replacement for valves, and was kept in a small metal can. RW was at the forefront of transistor technology. RW engineers, working with several other Christian experts, developed an innovative transistorised sound mixer. These mixers are still used today in some parts of the world. When I was last in Delhi I saw one, and sympathised with the Indian engineer still trying to keep it working! Transistorised tape recorders became smaller and lighter. Some were even portable enough to take out of the studio. The beautifully engineered Swiss Nagra looked wonderful, but proved impossible to tame for some would-be operators!

Likewise, new at this time was the 'cassette' tape. As cassettes were smaller and lighter than a reel of tape, RW soon adopted this as a way of sending radio programmes to stations for broadcast. Cassette recorders improved significantly over the years, and soon interviewers could gather good quality audio on tiny 'walkman' type recorders.

The 80s

When I joined the team in the early eighties we were on the brink of a big expansion in broadcasting and equipment designed for this growing market. Integrated circuits or 'chips' made equipment more compact and more flexible. RW bought new sound mixers. The digital revolution was arriving too. CDs were a great improvement for playing music into programmes. They were easier to use, more reliable, and they sounded good.

The 90s to Present

By the early '90s it was becoming apparent that computers would have a part to play in the studio. We were already making good use of them in script writing and presentation. Now with the advances in technology we could record onto computer. Not quite as comforting to use as the old tape recorders however, as the sound seems to vanish into an anonymous beige box. This new "virtual" technology, where nothing is as it seems, has been a new learning experience for some! Now recordings made in a studio pass seemingly by magic from one computer to another. Later the sound recording can be edited sitting at an office desk. Watching the picture on the computer screen, the operator can now edit with a flexibility and precision previously unimaginable. Once finished, the final step is for the computer to produce a recording on CD.

By 2000 the internet was becoming a big part of our lives, and we no longer had to even write CDs - we could now deliver programmes directly to the broadcaster over the internet. Gone were those comforting reels of tape - in fact there was nothing to see at all - except on a computer screen.

With all the changes in technology in the last 50 years or so, we look forward to the future. Who knows what exotic forms of technology it may one day hold?