Push Button Radio

Everyone of a certain age remembers those old car radios with the five pushbuttons right under the dial. Heck, I’m so old. I remember our family car did not even have a radio despite the fact that Motorola introduced the first radio with push-button station presets in 1936. They were so pricey that it wasn’t until we got our brand new ’55 Chevrolet Bel Air that we had our first car radio. Mom and Dad claimed four of the five buttons for their stations. That left my brother and me to fight over push button number 5.

At first, it was easy; WPDQ at 600 on the dial was THE rocker in Jacksonville in ’55 so it was all good until March 1, 1958 when WAPE signed on the air as The Big Ape at 690 on the dial. Now there was trouble in River City. Mom and Dad would not give up a second button. They had a lock on those buttons for WJAX, WMBR, WIVY and WVOJ. We tried arguing that they never listened to WVOJ, a country and western station but they wouldn’t listen.

So we kept our button tuned to WAPE at 690 and when we wanted to listen to WPDQ we would have to tune down to 600, about a turn on the big knob on the right side of the radio. Being kids at the time, when one station was playing a song we didn’t really like, we would tune to the other station to see what they were playing. Fortunately my brother and I pretty much liked the same songs. But dad was almost always complaining about our choices; “What is all that noise anyway?”

Every so often, he would pipe down and listen to a song. From my vantage point in the back seat, I would notice a slight smile on his lips and that the toes on his left foot were tapping when he was not shifting gears. I mentally compiled Dad’s playlist; “Midnight Gambler” and “High Noon” by Frankie Laine, “Cool Water” by Marty Robbins, “Calcutta” By Lawrence Welk and “So Rare” by Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra. When he was feeling really good he would whistle along with the song and then say “What WHAT!” when he saw us looking at him. When I think about those “Bel Air” songs, I now realize that those are some of my favorites.

Mom was more of a fan of Perry Como and Johnny Mathis. My sister was too young to care back in the “Bel Air” days; she was into the likes of Sam The Sham when she began her rock and roll years.

One thing about those old mechanical push buttons on radios is that they were not very accurate. It depended on how you pushed the buttons. Push them firmly and crisply and they got you close to where you wanted to be. Push them softly or hit a bump in the road as you were selecting a station could leave you anywhere on the dial between the station you were listening to and the one you wanted. Just pushing the button again wouldn’t work, you had to select another station first then the one you wanted.

Typically, most listeners programmed their push buttons with their favorite station on the left or number one button and then the rest in descending order. At least two of the stations I worked for over the years had a show named “Push Button One” even if they were on the far right of the dial.

When, I got my first car, while working at WCOS, I programmed buttons 1 through 3 to my station’s frequency 1400. The number 4 button was for our main competition, WNOK at 1230, in case I wanted to hear what they were doing. The last button was kept at 690 good old WAPE even though under most conditions I could not hear them in Columbia. It was there for when I hit US 17 in southern South Carolina on the way home or the times I went to Charleston which was well within the Big Ape’s coverage area.

FM complicated things even more. At first one had to get an FM converter similar to the UHF converters they had on televisions. They did not have buttons on them but you had one on the AM radio dedicated to the frequency the converter used. Finally AM/FM radios came along. But it wasn’t all flowers and roses; now you had to remember if a particular button was programmed for an AM or an FM station. You also had to select AM or FM on a separate switch on the face of the radio. It’s amazing we survived making all those adjustments driving down the highway at 65 miles per hour.

Today’s listening choices have blossomed into a full bouquet; AM, FM, CD, Sirius/XM, external device and USB drive are the choices on my car radio. With the addition of digital selector buttons on my car radio touch screen; I also have 30 pre-settable “buttons” on my car radio. However, I have programmed only five of those buttons, not because I listen to only 5 different stations, but because my smart radio has speech recognition. When I push a button on the steering wheel this sexy and at the same time commanding female voice says “Say your command!” Once I get over thinking about Barbara Eden’s never seen belly button, I can then say “Tune to Sixties on Six”, “Tune 90.5 FM”, “Tune 1170 AM” or “Play USB” and just like magic, the show I want is pumping through the speakers with my eyes never leaving the road. I can even call the station if I need to; “Call WUSC” connects me hands free to the studio phone on the desk to the left of the on the air DJ and flashes a bright strobe light instead of ringing a bell. I can even tell what song is on the air by glancing at the Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS) display on the screen. By the way, if you send me a text while I’m driving, you will get a message that says “I’m driving right now; I’ll get back to you later.” I won’t even know that happened until I leave the car. Say what you will about the better old days; I’ll take that technology over those five buttons below the dial any day. Oh MY!