One of my collecting interests for many years was what’s called Old Time Radio; that is to say, radio programming from before 1962 or so. I was one of the early birds in the hobby, starting in the mid-1970s I’d guess, with all of my shows on reel-to-reel tape.

   Which I still have, and they still are. I have close to 3000 of these tapes, with about 12 half-hour shows per reel. I never did switch over to cassettes, as most people did, thinking them too flimsy for long-term archiving. Once the Internet and MP3’s came along, reel-to-reel recorders were like dinosaurs, or living fossils. One CD, if the input is compressed enough, can now hold over 100 shows.

   And the shows often sound terrible. To me MP3’s usually sound shrill and sharp-edged in tone. I’m told that MP3’s, if processed correctly, can sound as good as these old shows did when they were broadcast live, but if that is true, then I’ve never heard one.

   In one sense, MP3’s have expanded the hobby tremendously, as the amount of money to amass a collection is a teensy fraction of what it cost me to put mine together. On the other hand, the ubiquitousness of MP3’s has done nothing to expand the number of shows that are in circulation. I’ve not been actively collecting for nearly 20 years, I would estimate, and the shows that were available then are still nearly all of the shows that are available now.

   The dealers who found new shows then no longer find it financially profitable to buy the disks, clean them up, and transfer them to tape or CD. Once available, the MP3ers, to coin a phrase, will have copies made and out and available for next to nothing, and the person who did the basic discovery and necessary groundwork is left out in the cold.

   So there are tons of OTR shows safely stored away in various archival bunkers across the country, or so I’ve been told. They’re just not going anywhere, and maybe they never will. The asking price for other collections in private hands is simply too high for anyone to pay the price, and so they sit.

   But if you are interested in listening to the shows and not necessarily in building your own collection, this is almost the Golden Age of Old Time Radio. Via the Internet, there are several sources of programming you can listen to absolutely free. Even with my own collection here at arm’s length away from me, it’s easier to turn on the computer and head for one of the following sites and listen to almost any program that’s in circulation.

   Being stored in the MP3 format, the sound is not always so very good, for the most part, but the price is certainly right. This is not meant to be a complete list. It consists only of the sites that I stop by every once in a while. For the person not wishing to download and store the shows, most of these sites have the option of “click and play.”

   I’ll list these in reverse order of recommendation:

1. www.freeotrshows.com. For mystery fans, a long run of Philip Marlowe shows; more moderate runs of Richard Diamond, Ellery Queen, Let George Do It, Nick Carter and several others.

2. www.otr.net More selection than the site above, but the sound generally does not seem as good. Here’s a sampling: 55 Sam Spade shows, 36 Casey, Crime Photographer, 84 Suspense, 14 Pat Novak, 201 Escape, 53 Green Hornet, and as they say, much more.

3. www.archive.org, then do a search on “Old Time Radio,” in quotes. Great selection, with varying sound quality. Not available on the previous two sites are a large number of The Shadow shows, which is one of the first programs I remember listening to as a child. I had to be less than 10 years old, more likely 8 or 9, and I still remember a whole new world opening up before my ears. Lots of Ellery Queen radio shows, plus The Whistler, Suspense, Inner Sanctum, and so on and so on. The site is not organized for easy locating of shows, and dates are not always given, but if you’re looking for a particular program, you’re more likely to find it here.

   And of course I have not mentioned at all programs like Jack Benny, Amos & Andy, Lux Radio Theater, Gunsmoke, X Minus One, Bob Hope, Vic and Sade, Cavalcade of America and Flash Gordon that you can find for free on the web.

   Just to name a few.