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WARC bands
In Meadville, PA, on the campus of Allegheny College there lies a 400 watt college radio station, 90.3 WARC-FM. There are are non-commercial station, operating on the south side of the FM band. There...
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Labor Day
Today is Labor day and in recognition of who really does the work around here, I am taking the day off. You can read more about the holiday here.
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The Blonder-Tongue Doctrine
I have a text book by Frank J Kahn titled Documents of American Broadcasting. It's a book of legal cases that shaped the broadcasting law of today. It is endlessly fascinating both in the details of...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #229
This is an odd little metal-core disc. The 6.5-inch acetate is orange. I assumed that it had faded or oxidized from red, but the label is clearly purple so perhaps not. It spins at a clean 78 rpm but...
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Bandscan
Sometimes on the road I have the presence of mind to do a quick bandscan. Today was one of those days. There was an appalling amount of country music. A few of them were Froggy, possibly simulcasts and...
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GM pulling HD Radio?
I declared HD radio DOA years ago. Strangely it's carcass refuses to turn over. It was only in 2012 that I became absolutely certain. At the Radio Ink Convergence conference the word was that "AM and...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #230
This is a paper-core, 6.5 inch Rainbo Hollywood Repro-Disc acetate home recording. Compared to Recordisc, Voice-O-Graph and Wilcox-gay it's a rare brand of blank acetate. I have only seen one other one...
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Hire's Harvesters
Nat Shilkret had so many bands it's like he had multiple personalities. A native New Yorker, Naftule Schüldkraut was born in 1889 when New York was more hardcore than it looked in the movie Gangs of...
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A One Million Dollar Inverter
The old saying goes "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." Well if you can build a better inverter Google will drive up to your door and hand you a check for one...
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Radio Disney is Done
No one was surprised on August 15th when Disney announced they were dumping 24 of their 25 radio stations. The only one they held back was 1110 KDIS-AM in Los Angeles. It sounds like a lot but actually...
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DJ Skeets McDonald
In 1959 Skeets McDonald recorded the tune "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes." It was written by Slim Willet in 1952. At least half a dozen other country singers tried to do it justice, but...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #231
This is another 8-inch co-branded Capitol Pro-disc. Like the others it sports that matte-green color scheme and a metal core. The address given on the face of the label is no longer a radio shoppe....
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Traffic Light Radio
You know that scene in the action movie where the stereotypical "hacker" character hacks into the city "traffic system" so the flights will favor their getaway? Apparently that's totally possible....
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First Black Female Radio DJ
When it comes to claims to historical firsts, I favor narrow claims over early claims.The earlier the claim the fewer print sources will be available to corroborate the claim. Furthermore, narrow...
View ArticleTransmitter Site Tours
I was not aware that radio stations did transmitter site tours. It turns out that dozens of these have been videotapes and posted on Youtube. these range from the very historical lecture of the WLW-AM...
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Radio Tikrit
One of my favorite historical topics is propaganda. It plays into my own personal beliefs on bias and the nature of truth. It's not news to anyone that America funds radio propaganda today or yesterday...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #232
This is an 8-Inch, paper-core, Wilcox-Gay Recordio.It's in rough shape. It is shot through with cracks and the acetate coating puckers around all of them. It clearly has been wet. Some damn fools think...
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Heslar Naval Armory Radio
I found this picture of the Heslar Naval Armory in Indianapolis and the first thing I noticed was that for an armory it had an awfully large radio tower on top of it. Also, for a Navy installation it...
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You're On The Air
In 1941 William Heyliger published this gem through the D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc. My copy is a discard from the North Junior High school in Newburgh NY...and worth the $2. Appleton-Century was...
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