NYC Fireworks Better Than Ever But No Transistor Radio

I couldn't resist a trip downtown from my home in NYC to check out this year's Macy's Spectacular July 4^th Fireworks. It did not disappoint. The pyrotechnics are bigger, brighter and more elaborate then ever, synchronized to the wonderful music of the NY Pops.

Wait a minute. What Pops? Though I stood in the crowds on 34^th St. and the East River and booms filled the air, the simulcast music was nowhere to be heard. When I was a kid, every person in NY brought along their transistor radio to enjoy the synchronized sound and light special. It wasn't unusual to hear hundreds of radios tuned to the same station crackling along. But alas, in the age of iPods, the simulcast, for all its good intentions, fell on deaf ears. Thousands of LCD cameras were held up like candles in the sky, but you had to use your imagination to decide whether the fireworks were being timed with the music of America the Beautiful or the Star Spangled Banner. I checked with 1010 WINS, the simulcast station and with the NY Pops. Nada. Maybe next year they'll load up the music in advance and figure out exactly what a digital audio simulcast entails. In the digital age the 4th fell strangely silent.