Who has a radio?

Seeing news of hurricane Beryl’s aftermath, I got to wondering whether people still have radios in their homes. I suspect most people still have the ability to receive AM/FM radio broadcasts in their cars, but how many still have a boom box or an old stereo receiver or anything in their houses that will receive radio broadcasts?

I saw interviews with dozens of people, all of whom were complaining about being “cut off from civilization” because their mobile phone service and their home Internet service were cut off. No cable television. No home Internet or mobile phone service to connect to news and information. But nobody said anything about radio and broadcast television.

I personally know people who still receive television broadcasts over the air. I don’t know how prevalent it is, but everybody I know who depends on over-the-air television does so simply because cable is not available in their locations. But I don’t know if any of them have radios in the house.

Debra and I do have some radios in the house, although I’d be hard pressed to say when we last turned one on. I have one in my shop that, until I signed up for Spotify and got a good Internet connection in there, was how I listened to music when I was out working. But I haven’t turned it on in two or three years. We’d have to carefully monitor our radio use, though: they all run on D-cell batteries, of which we have precious few.

If you live in an area that could be subject to long-term outages (I know people whose power was out for more than 10 days due to hurricane Beryl), it’s probably a good idea to make sure you have a working radio with plenty of batteries for backup, and that you know how to use it. Critically, make a list of the top five or so AM and FM broadcast stations in your area so that you’ll know where to tune when your Internet and mobile phone services go out.