Radius Receiver

A chapel style radius receiver, inside it contains a metal sheet with data on the manufacturer and model. These receptors replaced the first galena models until the transistor appeared in the 1940s. The exhibition is associated with a screen in which sound files from different stations and programs can be selected throughout the 20th century, classified into three categories: news, advertising and music.

During the first half of the century, radio was the media par excellence. The first broadcasts were made by amateur radio clubs, such as Radio Club Sevillà and Radio Club Biscay, although it was Radio Ibérica, which broadcast more constantly from 1924. However, EAJ-1 Ràdio Barcelona is considered the dean of Spain. We can hear the tune of this and other stations in the news section. The first radio station to be born in l’Horta Sud is radie Torrent, with precedent in a private amateur radio station that was confiscated by the Republican government. During the war period the stations had a high strategic value, since unlike other means, their waves crossed war fronts and allowed to introduce information and propaganda on the opposite side. In this sense, the rivalry between General Queipo de Llano, on Radio Sevilla and Francisco Cano, broadcaster of Radio Torrent, was well known. On the radio we can also hear fragments of a Franco war communiqué or a fragment of a famous speech by Dolores Ib’rruri, “Passionaria”.

After the civil war the Franco regime, aware of the importance of this means of communication, establishes a rigid control. Radio Nacional de Espa’a was the only one that had information power, the rest of the stations were obliged to connect twice a day to transmit their spoken newspapers. This importance did not go unnoticed for the Catholic Church either. Thus, between 1955 and 1966 in the Horta Sud they broadcast six parochial stations (Mislata, Picanya, Torrent, Alcàsser, Catarroja and Benetússer) and an official belonging to the Network of Emitters of the Movement (Ràdio Manises). This series of stations is a faithful reflection of the role that radio played during the Franco regime as an instrument for political-religious indoctrination within the context of national Catholicism, in all its facets.