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Children in Radio Postcards
In the 1930s there was a mercifully brief and inexplicably faddish number of children-with-radio post cards. All the children are cherubic and toe headed. All of them are European that I've seen and...
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ARPSC
The term "ham radio" was originally an insult, like ham-fisted. Around two million people worldwide are "hams" with 700,000 of those being in the U.S. Technically, all early radio experimenters were...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #225
This is an 8-inch, metal-core duo disc. It spins at 78 rpm and has the common, outer-edge start. It's totally unlabeled as its par for the course. But this was a gem of a recording, high levels, low...
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The Patron Saint of Amateur Radio Operators
Saints are different from patron saints. While various popes have named patron saints in the past, patrons can be chosen by other individuals or groups as well. This has led to a proliferation of...
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Semiconductors are also Semiresistors
Some people just see the glass as half full. Some people see the glass as half empty. By definition, a semiconductor is any material with a mediocre electrical conductivity. In other words, more...
View ArticleYAGI Attack on GFCI
GFCI stands for Ground-Fault Circuit Interrupter. This problem is relegated to the non-threatening urban legend category. Let me tell you this is very real. GFCIs are designed, to serve as a safety...
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Milton William Cooper
 By most measures (including mine) Milton William Cooper was a bit crazy. As a conspiracy theorist he crossed that community's version of the Maginot line into Ufology, the occult, Illuminati,...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #226
This is yet another 8-Inch, metal-core Duodisc that spins at 78 RPM. This one in particular has a nice sound, good levels and low noise. It's an instrumental, and unlabeled so for me there is no hope...
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Post Mortem Broadcasts
 There is a small but growing number of dead DJs who have ongoing programs in radioland. It's a strange convention, but one that was inevitable after the re-run was invented. Early radio, like later...
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You Can't Do Business with Hitler
Sometimes I read about radio history and feel like some cranky mischievous character like Joe Bussard has planted some false information as a prank. Much to my surprise I was able to corroborate this...
View ArticlePaper Tape!
 "Electronic Computers Improve Management Control" UCLA 1957These readers were mechanically very similar to the reel-to-reel decks that read and recorded to magnetic tape. But their history os so...
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Pneumatic Tube Audio
You may have used one of these systems on an airplane as recently as the late 1980s. (Does that count as recent?) Â This was not radio so to speak, as it contained no RF but it often included...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #227
This disc is damaged. It has a chip missing from the outer edge of the acetate coating. It's on both sides indicating it may have been dropped. Thankfully it falls just short of the start of the...
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Suppertime Frolic
In 1940 they advertised 1130 WJJD-AM as "The Largest Independent radio Station in the Nation."It was probably even true at 20,000 watts over Chicago. Some announcers left WLW for slots at WJJD. They...
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Uda
In America no one remember Roebuck. Sears got all the credit. But Alvah Roebuck was a real person and after Richard Sears bought him out he went on to be the president of the Emerson Typewriter...
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The Memristor
The memristor was first imagined by Leon O. Chua in 1971. [link] He considered it a "missing" circuit component that would be non-linear, passive, two-terminal, electrical component. The name is a...
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SK
These are practices specific to every culture and subculture that help define them from other groups. These are the nuances that define them from those outside the group. In anthropology it's sometimes...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #228
This is a 78 rpm metal-core, 8-Inch Recordisc. it's actually the B-side of the unlabeled idsc from last week that caught my attention. The physical connection made me suspect Ted Daffan but the song...
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Half A Song or Half A radio Station?
So let's start with the tagline of this story. It's run in a few magazines and newspapers but the gist is always the same. "This Calgary radio station has started cutting songs in half so listeners...
View ArticleHow Vinyl Records Are Made
I've posted before on how records are made but this is a nice modern production line. This baffling revival of vinyl has led to the re-activation and even new construction of record production...
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