Clik here to view.
New York Harbor Police Radio
I read a reference to Police radio with an implausibly early date of 1916. It stated "New York Harbor Police begin using Marconi Spark Transmitters to communicate with police boats and other ships in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Plasticville TV Transmitting Station 1618
Hobbies are our cultural minutiae. It's only because of the internet that such otaku can discover each other. The Plasticville USA collectors have cataloged and posted the complete line of plastic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Saturday Light Brigade
The Saturday Light Brigade is one of the longest running public radio programs on air today. It debuted in 1978 —36 years ago and continues today with it's original host, Larry Berger. The program...
View ArticleClik here to view.
MLK Day
It's a legitimate federal holiday: banks, federal offices, post offices and this blog are closed for the day. I'm taking the night off. If you don't know much, then maybe you should learn more.
View ArticleClik here to view.
Transcription Mystery Disc #200
For my 200th rip I am ripping one from my stash of H.O.W.A.R.D. acetates. The first acetate I ever ripped was a HOWARD disc and I lost it years ago. It came in a lot of 78s and honestly I didn't know...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Muzak and Vinylite 4 Ever
A commenter on this blog recently suggested that the upside of Muzak was that they created the vinyl record. This is not conjecture. In fact, according to Muzak’s own website, in 1933 they “began...
View ArticleClik here to view.
There Is No Cat
When asked in 1938 to explain radio, Albert Einstein, is widely reported to have responded with the following statement: "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Short History Of Radio From The FCC
You may or may not be aware that the FCC has a little PDF history of radio. I was not wowed. What's interesting about their version of radio history is both who is there (white males) and who is not...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dawn Patrol!
Nat Wright played the last song on the last episode of Dawn Patrol back in 1984 when WIP-AM switched from an AC format to all talk radio. It started with a single talk program at 8:00 PM called...
View ArticleClik here to view.
ACETATES 4 SALE!
Last week I ripped my 200th acetate disc. I started digitizing and posting acetate recordings around 6 years ago. They were cheap, easy to find and are fun to digitize. That fun factor has led to my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
MDCL on the Radio
MDCL is a power-saving standard for amplitude modulation on FM radio. The acronym stands for Modulation-Dependent Carrier Level. It's been used abroad for years but until 2011 it wasn't used in the US...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Listener Driven Radio
In February of 2001 FMQB ran the following blurb:"Listener Driven Radio announces the release of its latest software offering -- LDR.Takeover. Bonneville Hot AC WTMX (101.9 The Mix)/Chicago is the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Art Hellyer is Not Dead
Art Hellyer, said in a 1993 interview on 97.1 WNIB that he wasn't really a DJ he just "played music as a fill between commercials." Hellyer was a mainstay of Chicagoland radio starting back in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Father Coughlin before WWII
This blew my mind. While father Coughlin today is remembered mostly as the pro-fascist Catholic Bishop of Detroit and a radio lecturer, his radio politics began far left of that. By WWII he was a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Transcription Mystery Disc #201
Good gravy I've got a lot of these. Good thing I sold off a few. A gentleman at WMKV actually bought one of my stacks which is a pleasure and an honor. This week's disc is a nice metal-core 12-Inch...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gerry Wilkinson
I got a nice email from Gerry at Broadcast Pioneers about a post from 2013 I wrote on WRTI. Since Gerry is the main man behind the esteemed Broadcast Pioneers website http://www.broadcastpioneers.com I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gakken Mini Denchi Block Experiment Kit
I don't have ads on this blog. But I don't mind mentioning products (usually music, books or toys) that I own and enjoy. So it is in that vein that I admit that I bought a set of Gakken Denchi...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Game Of Radio
I finally acquired a deck of cards from the famous Game Of Radio set. It was produced by the Radio games Company in Peoria, IL starting around 1924. The deck consists of 51 cards.The object of the game...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cavalry Radio School
Cavalry School in Fort Riley Kansas didn't exactly have a radio school. But they did have a class in radio theory. This was no cloistered christian college. This was a United States Army Cavalry...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Transcription Mystery Disc #202
This is a metal-core, bright red Wilcox-Gay transcription disc. It spins at 78 rpm and is in pretty nice shape. It is a live radio recording and that makes this acetate also a transcription disc....
View Article