Arnie Ginsburg stood out on 1960s radio. He didn’t adopt a catchy stage name or try to hide his high-pitched voice—but what really set him apart was his ear for the hits.

“I had a batting average I’d say of 70 or 80 percent”

Charles Clemons is the co-founder of Touch 106.1FM, a radio fixture in Boston’s black community. That is, until the Federal Communication Commission arrived to shut it down.

“Can you show me how to build one?”

Joe Castiglione has announced more Red Sox games on the radio than any other broadcaster in the team’s history. The way he sees it, his job is to tell stories.

“It’s our job to make you see it”

As a child, Paul Horowitz communicated with people around the world by shortwave radio. Over his career as a physicist at Harvard University, he has attempted to reach much farther.

“We didn’t find anything, so the search goes on”

In 1968 Donna Halper became the first female disc jockey on Northeastern University’s student radio, launching a career that eventually helped to make rock & roll history.

“People don’t have radio dreams anymore”

Paul Lamere helps shape the music playlists on your phone and computer, but he grew up listening to radio—an experience that continues to inform his work in the world of digital music.

“Radio had no skip button”

In 1957, Paul Coss was a young radio announcer in Boston. Then he got a draft notice and soon found himself broadcasting to a whole new audience.

“We were a propaganda group”

"Radio Contact: Sounds Stories and Perspectives from the Boston Airwaves" is produced by Ian Coss and edited by Julie Caine. The project is supported by the Harvard Collection of Historic Scientific Instruments. More on the project at radiocontact.org.

Radio Contact

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