Radio In Rapture

* See also TVs_in_Rapture
* See also Entertainment_In_Rapture
* See also Public_Announcements
* See also Technologies
* See also Rapture_Electronics
* See also RT%26T
* See also Marketing_Hype
* See also Advertisement_In_Rapture
Used both for One-Way Broadcast/Reception, and as a Two-Way system of Communication. In Rapture, the signal transmissions would be through wire cables.
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==Entertainment==
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Called The "Wireless" by McDonagh, Except It Is A Cable System for Radio Transmissions in Rapture' :
Radio waves DON'T like Water, and DON'T Like Concrete/Metal ( things which absorb/insulate/disrupt Radio Waves very well ).
A Radio (and TV) Cable distribution network throughout Rapture would have to be there from the start (built-in).
If you want a portable Two-Way radio, you need some kind of local 'Two-Way relaying unit, which adds to the cost of operating such a thing. ( Initially, no consumer-type Transistor Radios when Rapture started, which became popular in the 1960s ). 
With Cable connections, signal origination detection might be done with access to the converging signal wires.
Parts Of Raptures Electrical Wiring System might be utilized as a conductor for Radio Waves
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==Communication==
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Why Couldn't Ryan Just Use a Radio Direction Finder to Trace and Nail Atlas ? :
The Radio Transmission System (and TV also) inside Rapture was not the same as up here on The Surface in those days. Radio waves travel poorly through water and not well through thick concrete. So to get coverage for proper reception, transmissions were sent thru wires either directly to fixed receivers ( like TV sets and Radios ) or to local repeaters for 2-way portable units (Walkie-Talkies). Wires went all over in Rapture, and the RF signals could use most any of them ( I recall remote broadcasts were sent thru conventional Telephone lines way back - some for special coverage from unusual sights like A-Bomb tests in Nevada ). Fontaine was clever enough to temporarily tap into or redirect his communications through that wire maze (crooks in the real world did it all the time), making it hard to trace a true position. No doubt, when possible, Atlas/Fontaine would make use of pre-recordings.
This also means that Radio reception may be poor-to-none depending on the state of those wires. One more thing for the Players to be tasked with fixing. Will be able to watch "Cecil the Seasick Sea Slug" once again !!!
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Calling For Help :
When injured in the MMORPG there is no Insta-Heal. You have to compensate as parts of your body don't quite work anymore, and you have to desperately drag yourself off to a safe spot ( deploying a few Boobie-Traps to dissuade your opponents from following you - YES, you might actually have to be Clever and Creative, or at least Prepared ... ) -- And then you try to get your radio to work ( damned solid walls and balky radio-cell repeaters !!! ) to call for your NPC 'Team' to come Rescue you ...
A good point : Of deploying (and helping to maintain) New Rapture's rebuilt system of Radio Repeaters ( radio waves go quite miserably through water and concrete walls ) to extend everyone's use of the radio systems. As you operate in a certain area of 'The Ruins', you set up a base-camp ( Your NPC lackeys do most of the work ... ) and have as part of your standard rig - a "Radio Repeater" to assist with coordinating various situations which might develop. 'Out Their' radio communications are rather dodgy ( good so they don't become a crutch for Players ).
SO - Another 'City' Maintenance Mission : Go to 'X' and fix the Repeater System - now maintained around the New Rapture City Limits (the Secure zone). It is usually the case of some Vermin have eaten through some of the insulation, or some dishonest shit has stolen some of the radio system's "good parts", instead of going out into The Ruins to salvage some for their next project ( catching a Citizen 'in the Act' -- with that handy camera -- you can get a nice Bounty for turning them in ... ).
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"Voice of Rapture Radio" :
Splicers DO know how to use radios, and likely listen to the entertainment radio broadcasts of New Rapture ( The Splicer Life can be quite boring ). So having regular propaganda messages for all those 'unfortunates' out there telling them there is hope, can be effective.
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Radio Free Rapture :
Story about Splicers making Crystal Radios ( no tubes or electricity/batteries needed ) tapping into the cable radio network ( which Rapture had, since Radio Waves travel so poorly through water ).
Ambient Radio traffic Assets ( now with Splicer weirdness ) could be an added aspect for the MMORPG. And being audio and garbled ( Hmm, add Tools to create proper sounding garbling/distortion effects ... ) are more a function of good writing to produce.
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"KNO RADIO" (Sign Outside in the Water ... In a 'Trailer' for BioShock ??) :
"K N O" w ...
That "K" prefix denotes a American national designation for West of Mississippi ( so that doesn't make sense ). Nitpicking or just observing ? ... It is likely to be just some Quickly-thrown-together Assets by writers who don't know the significance of what they are using for the game.
Likely a play on 'know' ? ( That was don ewith some Surface stations. ) Perhaps someone who ran a station on The Surface kept the name for nostalgia ? ( Just to try to justify its appearance for the MMORPG, which would have the sign be rather 'worse for wear' by 1970 ... as nobody is doing the maintenance on the signs out there ).
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'WalkieTalkies' (handheld field 2-way radio) didn't always have the whip antenna, and frequently a loop type antenna was used ( more effective directionally ).
It wouldn't help anyway in Rapture - Cement walls and all that ocean water makes for really miserable radio transmission.
Some kind of repeater system would be needed in Rapture - with a relay unit in about every room/corridor - much like your WI-FI ( and patient tracking systems in hospitals ).
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Two Way Radio ('Short Wave') in the Bathysphere. Carried by Jack after that. Small portable unit to be able to work would have to tie into a cable-based Rapture-wide equivalent to a celphone - a radio telephone. 1946 - Motorola, together with the Bell System, operated the first commercial mobile telephone service in the USA as a service of the telephone company. 1952 - A-Netz was launched in West Germany as the country's first public commercial mobile phone network.
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Radio In Bathysphere ? :
with the Piss Poor transmissions through water by Radio Waves ...
With a Cable-Driven system, the steel core of the Cable can act as a transmission antenna to get the signal to the Bathysphere. 
Free floating Subs would have their own problems ( more signalling with lights and maybe sound at short ranges for traffic control and such would be done, and radio MIGHT work at VERY short range ). 
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Real World Radio Company sign from the 1930s ( Note the neon tubes - a post mid 1920s thing )
A Very Ryan sounding motto ...
Radio was still making great strides after WW2 and was being joined by TV in America's households.
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Upgrades of Radios
Rebuying home electronics could NOT be possible for many inhabitants, nor frequent/constant for most.
But Radios can be modular, and as advances are made for consumer electronics, PARTIAL replacement with upgrades could be done. Ditto the Recycle and Repair upgrading of USED items for resale.
Seriously the gianourmous Fontaine Mall thing in BaS really did not fit the plausible size of Rapture ( est 20000 population by the Novel author ). Small operations and alot of reuse would be the ruling business model.
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Radio Free Rapture Advertisement :
"Splicers - Are YOU Getting sick of painful tumors and weeping wounds and constipation ?"
"Come have a pow-wow with New Rapture - We are doing something about all that !!!"
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Radios became big in the 1920s (consumer grade electronics), and were in their 'Golden Age' prior to Rapture's existence.
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==Radios in Columbia ?==
This is a 1930s radio console (home furniture), and this is in THE LIGHTHOUSE on the ground.
In 1912 there is no Radio Broadcasting yet in the World. ( And if it is from Columbia, then THAT is only when the Floating City is around. )
A two-way radio to contact Columbia at least might have made sense for the 'Lighthouse Keeper'
The rest of the Lighthouse place is filled with a bunch of rubbish.
We see other Radios IN Columbia. So, the technology ( requiring amplification electronics ) would have to be advanced well beyond what existed historically at that time ( Small ones only reached sufficient development by the 1920s in the Real World ) 
We see a large radio broadcasting system in Columbia controlled by the 'First Lady' Crow Society guys.
In General in Infinite BS, there was too many other Technological Manifestations, all supposedly justified by 'Looking into the Future' ( A rather dubious method so easily spewed by gamewriters who demonstrate they 'haven't a clue' about the difficulties of what they propose. )
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Radio Interference
Various machinery generated high frequency interference. The cable system gets past much of this, but some local areas have very poor reception. Likewise, the local relay transponder for the Two-Way Radios may have malfunctioned or been stolen ( a likely thing for parts of Rapture by the MMORPGs's 1970 ).
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