responsible for these (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_stations) seem to think so

Discussion over.

... in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space". ('Your Cue Mr. Wayne)

Orson Welles' Broadcast scared the bejeebers out of millions in 1938. I am sure that leaving something 'to the imagination' as radio so often does (there being no pictures to gawp at) can make it somehow more stimulating.

My parents talk about all the kids out playing in their 1940s London, disappearing from the streets en-masse every night as the word got round that 'Dick Barton, Special Agent' was on.

... and of course ... Radio 4 is a national treasure.

of course it is...

6 music...especially on a Sunday

The folk show on Radio Shropshire on a Sunday

Classic Rock show on WCR FM on a Friday night (ok..its very local but its very very good)

Test Match Special

Pretty much all of Radio 4

Bob Harris

Mark Lamarr on a Friday/Saturday morning on Radio 2

Danny Baker on 5 live Saturday morning

Fighting Talk

Planet Rock

I Haven't a Clue

the Clitheroe Kid on Radio 7

Need I go on?

!

but right now I'm catching up on the Word blog as well as watching Charlton v Swindon. There are times when a computer beats it but not often.

... mass broadcast radio didn't get going until 1919 and into the 1920s-ish ... but that does mean we've been pumping out radio waves to the universe for around 90 years and there are a whole bunch of stars (some with planets) within 90 light years of Earth so "they" may indeed be listening... but they don't write, they don't call...

PS: back of an envelope, 90 light years = approx 851.5 trillion km (i think)

I took radio for granted till the nineties when, after a heavy night out I found myself in a mate's flat listening to Radio 1.

I always despised this station but this night it sounded weird, but in a good way. There was a mix of music and truly disturbing sketches on, and the mangled state that my brain happened to be in meant that while I was entranced, I didn't necessarily get what was going on for a good half hour.

You may have now guessed that Chris Morris's Blue Jam was what I was listening to. When people talk about "the pictures being better on the radio" I heard what they meant without necessarily believing them. This series completely opened my eyes and ears in a way that few things ever have. I think it's a true work of art. Too many favorite sketches to list, but this one was in the first episode I heard. This is "The Gush," and it's weirdly horrible but (I think) funny as hell.

Are you talking about the medium or the message? As far as the message goes, just about everything that others have posted prove you're right. The case for medium is now trickier as the Internet is able to deliver the same programmes around the world almost instantly using the a relatively haphazard network of computers (compared to anything that would be required to relay the same radio around the world).

Forgetting digital for a mo, for about a tenner and the cost of replacement batteries, you can buy a transistor radio, and have all the music and chat you want, anywhere in the world, forever (or as long as radio as we know it exists) - not a bad investment.

Telephones ,Television, Cinema and the internet all have their plusses, I like Radio yes but prefer television being a sports buff can't imagine the World Cup for example being purely on Radio