Your thoughts upon hearing FM radio for the first time?

When I discovered FM radio, ca. 1968, I was still in a mono world and would remain that way for some time. I had my grandparents' old Zenith table radio (similar to the one pictured below), which had surprisingly good sound compared to most — you can see the size of the speaker. The bigger revelation was not one of sound, but of content, as I discovered what was at the time called the "progressive rock" station out of Cleveland (i.e., underground rock). The differences between that format and AM Top 40 radio were, of course, significant.

I obviously didn't have the scratch in my high school and college years to go in for any kind of component stereo system. My method for playing LPs was still a tilt-down record player with detachable speakers. I don't recall a component system until my senior year of college, when my roommate got one.

So I don't have a specific memory of hearing FM radio in stereo until then. There's one thing I do recall that was different. For a time some of the ABC-TV In Concert shows would have their soundtrack simulcast in stereo on selected FM radio stations, so it was definitely a novelty to watch something on TV with that much fidelity and stereo separation. I still have some of the reel-to-reel recordings of those shows I made — The Hollies and Steely Dan come to mind as among the artists featured.

 

Deeper cuts, live shows, less talk...
Was lucky (WNEW in New York Metro, then KSAN in San Francisco)

 

secret whispers cluing me in to what was really out there

 

And beyond that as well. I worked at the commercial FM station in my college town starting in January 1972, and they were still mono. Not sure when they finally converted to stereo, but it was definitely sometime after the year-plus that I worked there.

Somewhat related to the thread topic, there's an interesting story from my tenure at that station (which parenthetically, was the greatest radio job I ever had in my career, because we had an underground rock format — and needless to say, management didn't have a clue about the music being played, so I had carte blanche as the DJ to play whatever I wanted to!).

One night I decided to play a cut (probably "Omaha") from Moby Grape's debut album. I put on my stereo copy of it — and to my astonishment the vocals on this song completely disappeared! Same thing with other cuts on this album. We had the station's engineer in there reversing the leads on the turntable's cartridge and doing all sorts of things. But nothing solved the problem.

Came to find out several years later that this album was recorded out of phase, in such a way that if the stereo signal was summed to mono, elements somehow canceled each other out in this fashion. I've always wondered if there were other albums out there that were recorded this way and would produce similar results.

 

First time I heard FM radio would have been KNX-FM in 1978, most likely. I enjoyed it but at the time I didn't really feel it was "my" music. I did note that they sounded fantastic.

Later on, in around 1981, when I made the leap from AM to FM (mostly because by then my tastes had changed), I was lovin' every second of it....the music, the fidelity, everything...

I used to notice that between the 2 big rock stations (KMET and KLOS), they both played great music but they didn't sound the same. KLOS might have had more compression or processing or something... to my ears they sounded "smoother" and so they got most of my attention. If I'd known then about how iconic KMET was, I would have listened to them more!!! (yes, I know it was 1981 and the glory days were ending...)

 

Thanks for reminding me, I did the same. If I remember right, I got Mahavishnu Orchestra, Mott the Hoople, Steeleye Span, and probably a lot of other things off of that show. Unfortunately those tapes are long gone...

 

It was kind of a big moment in my life. I actually still remember the first song sequence I ever heard on FM radio while visiting western NY:

Derek & the Dominoes - I Looked Away
Derek & the Dominoes - Bell Bottom Blues
Derek & the Dominoes - Keep on Growing
Station Man - Fleetwood Mac
The Who - Baba O’Reilly
The Who - Going Mobile
The Who - Behind Blue Eyes

No commercials during the set. Guy with a real low voice coming on every 20 minutes or so to recap what they had played. I was hooked! Who’s Next had just been released at the time. You couldn’t wait to listen just to see what they would play next.

 

Just very happy!

 

I started listening to the radio in late 1979 KMET in LA. So I never knew AM. What was the holdup anyway?

 

Early FM radio was really progressive. I mainly listened to WMMR Philadelphia and they would play anything.
I remember hearing Ambergris, Clifford T Ward, Emitt Rhodes, Elizabeth, Dialogue, Arlo Guthrie, Mandrake Memorial, Nazz, Earth Opera, The American Dream and many others.
The first time I ever heard T-Rex was when they played "Fist Heart Mighty Dawn Dart"!

I still have a few songs on reel to reel tape that I recorded off the air that I can't identify.

 

My parents got a Magnavox console in 1968. I logged what little time I could. Got my own stereo tuner in 1970. Whole new world.

 

Back in the late sixties in the Los Angeles area there was a TV station that played FM. Just music, no commercials. The video looked like lava lamps or something along with naked women. Really. Nobody will remember this except me.

 

FM radio didn't make to down here until 1986. I distinctly remember the whole family sitting in the family car (pulled over to the side of the road) when the first radio station in our city "flipped the switch" from AM to FM. I was a casually amused 12 year old. A couple of years later I got my first Walkman and with the headphones on I was blown away by the same FM broadcasts, it wasn't until then I properly understood what "Stereo" was, and a long time later until I appreciated what true stereo imaging was.

 

i wonder when ckxl came around with stereo. too young to remember.
CKXL Calgary, Alberta 1972 - Kens Radio Scrapbook

later
-1

 

FM (commercial) radio started here in Sydney in 1980. Two stations that started in a big way were 2MMM and 2DAY FM.
I upgraded my FM tuner and started recording many songs they were playing onto my cassette recorder. At last!
Ripped music off the radio in stereo.

 

CKXL was all I listened to growing up! AM radio, top 40 glory!

 

This thread is making me miss good FM radio.... I know there's still some community FM that's great but I miss when the BIG stations were still good.

 

I could not care much about stereo radio vs mono, but it was nice to hear the music without the fuzz noise from poor AM reception.

 

1969 in Santa Rosa, California. When cable TV first started, it came with cable FM. I was able to listen to San Francisco stations like KMPX and KSAN with Tom Donahue & company. Hearing those long versions and album tracks for the first time and in stereo! It seemed like a had discovered a magic and somewhat secret underground radio band.

I didn’t abandon AM completely, but my tastes in music certainly expanded greatly.

 

Obviously much later on, but the local morning shows and personalities of the 90s were fun as a kid since they were always running skits and contests. But by the time I was teen I was already growing kind of bored with the typical radio format unless it was an alternative rock station.

 

I love to find decent oldies stations on the AM dial.

 

It was clearer.

 

Play them over your stereo and use a smartphone app like Shazam which should identify them for you.

 

Unless this is purely nostalgia, there are plenty of terrific online or satellite stations which sound good and have terrific music. Just a suggestion.

 

It was a whole new world, and it was a great time for music: Cheap Trick, Blondie, Eddie Money, Elvis Costello, Tom Petty's first record, Joe Jackson, Pat Benatar, and lots of others, plus all the established acts I'd never really heard. . . Doors, Zep, Skynyrd, Who, Stones, Beatles, Hendrix . . . it was an amazing introduction to music. The station I listened to was in peak form... lots of music, good, non-obnoxious DJs who "got it." They played Rush's Working Man early in the morning for all the guys who had to get up and work in the trades.
Today that station has a playlist of about 60 songs, tons of commercials, DJs who WON'T. SHUT. UP, and it's just a shadow of itself. So get off my lawn.