The Museum of History of Girona receives the first microphone of Ràdio Girona where communiqués were read during the Civil War

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

This morning the donation took place to coincide with World Radio Day and the celebration of the centenary of radio in Catalonia.

The Girona History Museum received the first microphone from Ràdio Girona this morning. The piece will be located in the museum space dedicated to explaining the history of local radio. This morning the event took place to coincide with World Radio Day, with the celebration of the centenary of radio in Catalonia and with the first regular broadcasts of Ràdio Barcelona EAJ-1, the first station that broadcast in Catalonia and the state.
The donation has had the participation of the mayor of Girona, Lluc Salellas i Vilar; the deputy mayor and Councilor for Culture of Girona City Council, Quim Ayats i Bartrina; the director of the Girona History Museum, Sílvia Planas Marcé, and the director of Ràdio Girona-Cadena SER, Carme Martínez i Palomé.

"Here EJ 38. Here, Ràdio Girona". On December 10, 1933 and with these words, spoken by a young announcer named Paquita Boris (who later became known as Francina Boris), the regular broadcasts of Ràdio Girona EAJ 38, the name she had in her beginnings The microphone from which the first minutes of radio were broadcast has now been donated by the broadcaster to the Girona History Museum.

This is an octagonal carbon pellet microphone that was manufactured in the 1920s and 1930s. Initially, these devices were used for telephony, but were technologically improved for use in radio stations that then they were born all over the world. Very few original octagon design microphones survive. Ràdio Girona came to have 4 of which the station has only kept one.

The president of the Generalitat de Catalunya Lluís Companys spoke through this microphone during his visits to the city. On January 30, 1939, the president of the Spanish government, Juan Negrín, passing through the city, spoke through this microphone of Ràdio Girona advocating the resistance. Through this same device, Carles Rahola gave his popular weekly lectures, which were also given by Miquel de Palol, Prudenci Bertrana, Joaquim Pla i Cargol and the Girona politicians and intellectuals of the time. The announcer of Ràdio Girona, Maria Lluïsa Figa, used it daily to read the war communiques of the Commissariat of the Generalitat during the Civil War and to make distress calls and requests for news about missing persons.

The microphone that has been loaned to the Museum can be seen throughout the month of March in one of the display cases at the entrance to the equipment.