descargas

12:39 Jul 22, 2018 

@Helena, I see your point, and how the sentence could make sense if “descargas” could be interpreted as “transmissions”, but I can’t find any sources that use it that way. My understanding is also that descarga has a similar connotation to discharge in English as in something neutral to undesired (e.g. discharge from a wound or sewer). Bearing in mind the context of someone fondly reminiscing about being a child and tuning into these broadcasts, I would be surprised that he chose a word which would make the broadcasts of something he loves so much sound unwanted.

Remember also that he’s talking about the end of spring, start of summer, and there’s also atmospheric phenomena to take into account, which would also affect the sound quality of the radio set he’s listening.

I’m convinced this is meant to refer to a scratchy, crackly sound quality that the writer fondly remembers as part of the ambience of tuning into these exotic broadcasts about the football.

09:57 Jul 22, 2018 

Perhaps 'descargas' is another word for 'transmissions'?

Radios saturated with transmissions that spoke about games played far away...

08:55 Jul 22, 2018 

My background is in analytical instrumentation, so I can’t help but make a distinction here, where perhaps more colloquially people don’t. For the sake of general accuracy, let’s look at the two terms.

A SIGNAL “conveys information about the behaviour or attributes of some phenomenon" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal), and NOISE is “unwanted (and, in general, unknown) modifications that a signal may suffer during capture, storage, transmission, processing, or conversion.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_(signal_processing).

If we take the definition JohnMcDove provides above, interference is “the fading or disturbance of received radio signals caused by unwanted signals from other sources, such as unshielded electrical equipment, or broadcasts from other stations or channels.”

From a signal processing point of view, we are talking about two phenomena:

Interference = signal+signal (two broadcasts)
Picking up noise = signal+noise (one broadcast with added pops, crackles, scratches, fuzz…)

I think most people in this discussion would agree it is the second process, which is not technically interference, which is why I don’t think that is the right word to use.

08:43 Jul 22, 2018 

@JohnMcDove: the source text doesn't use the word "interferencias"; it says "descargas", and that is specifically the word that the OP was asking about.

I just asked my wife and Spanish parents in law to take a look at this paragraph, and they also think descargas is referring to the noise and sound quality of the radio, so I don't think it's quite as clear-cut as you say.

We have to decide whether we are parsing the sentence as:
"saturadas de descargas" describing "las radios", or

"que hablaban de lejanos partidos..." describing these "descargas" which are saturating the radio.

I would argue that it is the former, and the radios, which were "saturated with discharges", were talking about the football matches taking place far-away, especially in the mythical Bombonera stadium. My point is that the sound of a radio "saturated with discharges" is crackly.

You seem to be parsing the text in the second way, which implies that you are translating "descargas" as "broadcast". I could see how one would make a tenuous analogy to the modern use of descargas=downloads as a sort of broadcast, but I think the far simpler explanation is the dictionary definition of descargas as discharges.

07:32 Jul 22, 2018 

I immediately thought they were ‘descargas’ from thunderstorms, not once did I think they came from electrical appliances. My answer is based on what we used to say when we had trouble tuning into a radio starion. In my part of the world (SE England) people spoke about interference; I don’t recall anyone saying ‘There’s a lot of crackling in the air’.

06:00 Jul 22, 2018 

partidos" is NOT "crackling" nor "static". What the author is obviously talking about "is picking up other broadcasts", no question about it. "Far away games"... is referring specifically to just that. When I gave my agreement to Helena, I was thinking about "crackling" and "static", but looking at this again, and while these "interferences" might have been present, (no doubt) the author is precisely referring to "picking up other [far away] broadcasts". Che!

20:58 Jul 20, 2018 

Thank you for the information. 1949 is before my time, I was born in the 1950s. However, when was growing up, people often called radios, 'transistor radio', which is why I thought they had been invented by 1949.

20:53 Jul 20, 2018 

Post interference please, that is the answer. Note however that transistor radios were not invented at the time, radios worked with valves.

20:18 Jul 20, 2018 

The most common problems with radio reception are weak signals or interference. Interference can be caused by anything with an electrical or magnetic current. Changing weather patterns can also cause problems with radio reception.

The radio antenna is the most important factor in achieving good reception. Many radio reception difficulties are caused by deficiencies in the radio or antenna installation.

http://www.abc.net.au/reception/radio-troubleshooting/982571...

In 1949, people used to listen to transistor radios.

20:16 Jul 20, 2018 

I think it refers to what I've always called 'interference'.

20:15 Jul 20, 2018 

In this context it looks like radio channels (specific transmission frequencies).
"... in radios saturated with channels that spoke of distant ..."

19:47 Jul 20, 2018 

19:44 Jul 20, 2018 

¿Descargas de qué? ¿eléctricas? No lo creo.
Personalmente, pienso que sin duda alguna no se trata de ´downloads´, por si esa era tu duda. Sin duda alguna considero es y se refiere a ´discharges´, así como ´signal discharges´.
¡Saludos!