Decibel
96.2 FM
DB MUSIC, MISSING IT IS OUT OF THE QUESTION 
Here's some background on how radioprograms were made during the
early eighties. Decibel Amsterdam was "founded" in 1977,
just a few years after the dutch government had made offshore radio
piracy impossible. Back then the legal radiostations like Hilversum 3
which claimed to attract the youth, weren't playing the music and
didn't fit into the style of the youth. In 1980 Decibel jumped into
making radio with one goal; Playing mainly disco and funk (dance)
import music, new wave and other fresh (rarely heared) music from the UK and the US. Soon Decibel was transmitting in
the weekend exclusively on 96.2 FM and became state of the (radio)art
with jocks like John Holden (Adam Curry), Jeroen van Inkel, Rob van
Someren, Daniel
Dekker, Ferry van de Velde, Rene de Leeuw, Lion Keezer, Ruud Huisman and more well known radio
jocks which some of them are still having radio shows (legal that is).
At first the DB broadcastings were done from the Jan van
Galenstraat, just a couple of hundred meters from the place where one
of the owners of the 12inches.nl site was born. Later on they had a
own steady rented location at the daCostakade 97 (see picture). This
was just a couple of hundred meters from the Amsterdam police HQ.
Well....how 'bout that antenna!
Decibel radio was number one in Amsterdam. Some of the reasons were...
* They played dance import music and had the number one
sundayafternoon Decibel Dance Report show. This was a "top
40" dancechart with almost no poppy dance tracks in it....just
plain import stuff...look at these three DDR's from the years 1983
1984
1985.
Besides the Disco and Funk import they also had special radio hours
for, for instance, New Wave in the Blitz top 10 and more like that.
Here are some more DDR's from 1983
1984
1985.
* Indeed.. they played what other radiostations like the legal
"Hilversum 3" didn't.
* The jocks made radio sound very fresh for those days with new
idea's such as:
Phone Inns Top of the Hours (TOTH)
Jingles
Games Commercials
* Mostly they had a very powerfull transmitter with this and within
a 20 till 30 km range anyone with a FM radio could listen to Decibel.
Phone Inns
This was started by Decibel mostly during nights they opened the
phoneline to all the listeners so everybody had the chance to say
"hello" (among other greetings) towards friends through the
air. This was incredible popular, sometimes you could'nt reach the DB
studio nights after nights...
Discjock
Jeroen and Newsjock Simone (siepie)
Tel met Decibel (Count with Decibel)
This game was played with a weekly fresh Dutch Top 40 chart. A
montage of 1 second music fragments from hits from a top 40 were
played and in between a jock (Jeroen van Inkel) made remarks like" Add this to.."
" divide this from" "multiple with" "subtract
this". The right solution was a number between 1 and 40. The
listener who came through with the correct answer (artist and song on
that number in the top 40 chart), could play the rest of the game
After succeeding these tests he/she could choose from two unknown
prices. Despite of the difficulty of this game and the possibility of
getting a very small price, this game was so popular that sometimes
telephonelines went dead for days or weeks due to the enormous amount
of callers. Just listen to this Tel met Decibel .
Top of the Hours.
This idea was born somewhere in 1982. Meaning of the TOTH was to
make a short 1 minutemix "hotlist" of the new releases which
were played at Decibel. This was broadcasted every start of the hour.
Listen to one from 1983
and of of the last we have from 1985 .
 |
|
| Who's he ;-) ? |
Rob v. Someren, Lion Keezer and Daniel Dekker. |
Commercials
What needs to be said about them? Decibel made sure that the
commercials (well most of them...) completely fit into the sound of
Decibel. At the end of the first TOTH of 1984 you can hear a
commercial from Western house - Amsterdam (spoken by Adam Curry).
Another you can listen to was one of my favourites for a record store in
Amsterdam Boudisque.
Here's another one from JR aan de Amstel
or what about this one .
Jingles
Just as outstanding as most of the Db idea's were the proffessional
jingles. They completed the way of giving Db radio a new fresh style
througout all the programs. Decibel often played englisch orientated
jingles spoken by Adam Curry. For example:
"Tomorrow's music today" "More
music less talk on 96.2 FM" "If you're
wondering ....Decibel radio the ultimate FM."
" DB music, missing it is out of the question".
Some other english and dutch spoken jingles were:
Decibel Dance Report jingle
Decibel packman jingle
Gouwe ouwe
DB drums
Hier gebeurt het .
For us Decibel 96.2 FM ended in 1985. After a uncountable amount of
imposessions by the
authority's it all stopped. They (unfortunately) didn't succeed in
keeping
Decibel alive on the cable network in Amsterdam, after a few years it
was over. What has left behind is a great radiotime,
some old tape recordings, dance reports and this dedication towards
Decibel and her jocks.
Take a look at some extra photo's...there's more to explore!
|
The
Decibel studio in 1983. |
 |
 |
A
500watt transmitter called Harry.
|
Tommorow's music today or since 1998 Yesterday's music today at 12inches.nl!......and.......!!!
at decibel.fm
!!!! The
original Decibel website, alive in 2003 with regular radio
internetbroadcasting of "Decibel" tracks from the
late seventies and early eighties. Listen to our music at live365
internetradio. Just search for Decibel / Amsterdam / Lion Keezer and
have a good time!
Another bigtime Decibel fun page to visit is yrrahh
! This is a website made by one of the formal DJ's Ruud Huisman. Do
you still remember the DIM's ? Look at some of these Decibel Info
Magazines on Ruud's DB pages.
If someone has old cassettes or tape recordings with
Db stuff on it (jingles, promo's, commercials, complete DDR shows and
so one), PLEASE Email us!! We are more then willing to exchange DB
stuff in any other way...
This realaudiofragment is the last one we share with
you on our dedicated decibel page....listen to the intro of a 1983 hit
from Nile Rodgers...
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The earth has music for those
who listen