From the early 1940s onwards, the Governing Board introduced new disciplinary measures into the internal regulations of the Fontilles Sanatorium, with the aim of curbing the excesses of “unruly and recalcitrant patients”. Among these was “nipping the abuse of personal radios in the bud”. Juan Villalonga, chairman of the Governing Board, informed readers of Fontilles magazine that this measure was intended to “prevent something highly undesirable, namely the situation where, with the airwaves open, patients with their radios might pick up programmes that were, under no circumstances, suitable for them to listen to”. The Board decided to implement a centralised radio broadcasting system and a network of loudspeakers, situated in halls, squares and elevated points, to ensure the programming reached every corner of the sanatorium. At the helm of Radio Fontilles was, first and foremost, Father Ramón Palau Rodamilans. Its programming consisted of “broadcasts of a recreational, apologetic and informative nature”, intended to “cheer up and enlighten the patients”. By 1958, the daily schedule began at noon “with the public recitation of the Angelus” and continued with the announcement of “orders, notices and news”, as well as “filling the Sanatorium with music” and broadcasting “entertaining radio plays performed by male and female patients”.
Radio Fontilles’ first studio was set up in the Guesthouse, next to the sanatorium’s management and administrative offices. The Diodo company in Madrid supplied the amplifier, preamplifiers, record player, radio receiver and microphone, which were manually installed on a bureau-style desk. Nothing remains of this first studio. The equipment on display dates from the final phase of Radio Fontilles, in the 1960s. The broadcasts were pre-recorded on the Akai magnetophone, which captured the music played on the Dual record player as well as the interviews, religious services and speeches recorded directly in the studio on the Ronette microphone or in the sanatorium’s premises using, initially, the portable Ingra magnetophone and, later on the Philips EL 3300 recorder, that arrived at the sanatorium, shortly after being launched in 1963 as the first gadget capable of recording onto cassette tapes. Some of these broadcasts have been preserved and have made possible to bring the sanatorium’s soundscape to the exhibition.
