Radio Broadcasting – A reliable form of communication

January 24, 2024

In recent years, radio broadcasting has faced competition from other forms of media, such as streaming services, television, and the Internet. However, radio broadcasting remains a popular way to get news and entertainment, and it will likely continue to be a popular medium for many years. Government Book Talk features our best-selling radio spectrum poster for radio broadcasting enthusiasts.

United States Frequency Allocations: The Radio Spectrum Poster uses color codes to show parts of the radio spectrum allocated to each type of radio service, including amateur (ham) radio, commercial radio, television broadcasting, radio navigation, mobile, satellite, and more.

Also available is the Manual of Regulations and Procedures for Federal Radio Frequency Management, specifically designed to cover the regulation of non-government interstate and foreign telecommunications.

Here are some additional facts about radio broadcasting:

  • The first radio broadcast was made in 1906 by Reginald Fessenden.
  • The most popular radio station in the world is BBC Radio 1.
  • The first commercial radio station was KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which began broadcasting in 1920.
  • Satellite radio was launched in the United States in 1995.

Whether an enthusiast or not, we can all appreciate listening to radio broadcasting because it can reach a broad audience without requiring a high-speed internet connection.

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Find more than a million official Federal Government publications from all three branches at www.govinfo.gov.

About the author: Blogger Trudy Hawkins is the Senior Marketing & Promotions Specialist in GPO’s Publication & Information Sales Office supporting the U.S. Government Online Bookstore (https://bookstore.gpo.gov).

4 Comments | Department of Commerce, Telecommunications | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Trudy Hawkins

Just for Fun: Aunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes

April 19, 2010

When I first got the idea to blog about Aunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes, I figured that I’d be shedding light on a totally forgotten Government publication. I remembered Aunt Sammy as the title character of an odd-sounding booklet that GPO was selling in my early days here. When I searched the Internet, though, she was everywhere. Cooking sites, old time radio sites, newspaper sites – who knew?

On October 4, 1926, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Bureau of Home Economics and the Radio Service launched its Housekeeper’s Chat show, featuring Aunt Sammy – Uncle Sam’s wife, of course. In addition to meals and recipes, she talked about all kinds of other household matters, but it was the recipes that got listeners’ attention. In 1927 USDA put the most popular recipes into a pamphlet: Aunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes. According to the introduction to the 1976 USDA reprint (the one I remembered hearing about),  “The demand was so great that it had to be reprinted after only a month. ‘Aunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes’ was revised and enlarged three times between 1927 and 1931. In 1932 it became the first cookbook published in braille.”

Aunt Sammy vanished in 1934 and the show did likewise in 1946, yet her memory lingers on. I discovered that the 1931 edition has been reprinted by a private publisher and is still available. I like the 1976 edition, which you can find here, because it has contemporary recipes from USDA as well as some 1920’s favorites. It’s all what I think of as “hearty fare” or “comfort food” – definitely BA (before arugula). What with diners and such making a comeback, our Aunt Sammy may be more contemporary than we think. Maybe I’ll have meatloaf tonight…

18 Comments | U.S. Department of Agriculture | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by govbooktalk