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Radio

World Mysteries 101: UVB-76 – The Ghostly, Strange Radio Station

Russia UVB-76 Radio Cold War Soviet Spy

UVB-76, often referred to as “The Buzzer,” is a notorious shortwave radio station that broadcasts a repetitive buzzing sound, which has been transmitting since the late 1970s. The signal, typically consisting of a short buzz tone repeating at a steady rate, is occasionally interrupted by voice messages in Russian. While the exact purpose of UVB-76 remains a subject of speculation, it is widely believed to be linked to the Russian military, serving as a means of communication or a method for testing the network’s readiness. Image source: Slavorum)

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Technology 101: Still Remember Your Dolby Noise Reduced Songs?

Dolby NR TDK Cassette Tape

If one needs to listen to a particular song back in the 1980s, you will record them yourself either from the radio using blank TDK cassette tapes (encoded with Dolby Noise Reduction) or get it recorded in one of the many recorded cassettes selling shops out there. Image source: Wikipedia

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Ilaiyaraaja: Project “Then, Now & Forever” 2013

Western classical music is perspective – look at the number of people involved in a symphony! Our traditional music is lonely – Ilaiyaraaja

ilaiyaraaja sp bala s janaki old photo

A very young Ilaiyaraaja with the very talented SP Bala and S. Janaki in the early 1980s during a recording session. Image source: The Federal

As long I could remember, I have been listening to Ilaiyaraaja music since I was still young and started to have an appreciation of his style of music – all the way from the 1970s (you are aware that Annakili was not his first movie and that he had to impress the producer Panchu Arunachalam by singing a song that his mother sang and using the table as a music instrument?) to his latest flick in “Neethane En Ponvasantham” – thanks to my Dad who was a big fan of Ilaiyaraaja (Ilaiyaraaja means the “younger” Raja – that is because the Tamil music industry already had another music director named Raja – the famed A.M. Raja).

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Childhood Memories: Part 24 – Different Types of Memorable Radios

Read the childhood series here

childhood radio

(The granddaddy of all radio and even entertainment devices – the one that ruled long before we had satellite TV and one good source for news)

I was watching TV a couple of nights ago when my wife asked me to “update” her MP3 files in her thumb drive. She heard her favourite song on my car MP3 player and she wanted the same for her car.

My son interjected and asked for a specific song from one of the latest Tamil movies. I was kind of speechless – it is kind of interesting how we have moved from radio station only to cassette to CDs to MP3 files these days.

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