Radio – The Listener’s Window on the World
Re-Posted for World Radio Day Feb 2022
and as a plea for peace at this time of
great international tension

For the genius of Guglielmo Marconi we must truly all give thanks
Among all his contemporary scientists he was in the very front rank
On the shoulders of Heinrich Hertz who found waves electromagnetic
Marconi built a method to send out these signals energetic

Marconi concocted a plan most cunning that avoided telegraph wires
And thus sent out his ‘wireless’ signals above all those church spires
As the 19th century reached its close his experiments came to fruition
When with magnets, coils and dancing sparks he made his first transmission

From such primitive experiments by these wise men of invention
Flowed a cascade of ideas yielding endless innovation
Hence crystal sets and thermionic valves (which frequently got hot)
Transistors followed next and radio sets did then shrink a lot

As the years took their course and broadcasts grew universal
Transmitter networks worldwide ensured signal dispersal
Initially wave lengths were short or long and sometimes just medium
For local sites we had medium and long, for distance, shortwaves gave a premium

Sometimes people would complain of AM interference
Then along came VHF giving much more coherence
And in latter days, in a world of instant communication
Quality transformed as satellites beam o’er the nations

But the radio scene was much enhanced not just by technology
Its programming stretched wide spanning all ideologies
From off-shore pirate ships to internet radio delights
Broadcast output unceasing by day and night

So today we have radio which is quite all-pervasive
It’s in our cars, on our phones, perhaps too invasive?
Where e’er we roam in this wide world its waves fill the air
We get it live, by DAB, or pod-cast, no matter when or where

And radio for each listener is a window on the world
Its masts like nations’ flags are everywhere unfurled
And if the aim is that ‘nation should speak peace unto nation’
Then those early pioneers assured its true foundations

And at this time of great international tension
We pray that this ingenious invention
Might spread words of diplomacy and peace
From this fiendish stranglehold adversaries be released

So we have come a long way from that first pulse ethereal
Art by invention sent from masts to aerials
A world-wide enterprise to educate, entertain and inform
The broadcast media have all our lives transformed

Therefore acknowledge the debt we owe those pioneers of the past
Without whose achievements we could not amass
Such bounteous gifts as come winging by the air
An inheritance rich that is quite beyond compare

Ken Fisher