The Audio Lost in MP3 Compression
All due credit, I found this on the website for Death & Taxes magazine. [LINK] There has been much hullabaloo in the last decade over lossy compression. Early in the time of online audio the loss...
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Who Bombed Radio Free Granada?
That was us actually. The United States of America bombed Radio Free Granada. QSR Card from here: [SOURCE] If you want to get really specific, it was Ronald Regan who issued the order. So lets go back...
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The Public Interest, Convenience or Necessity
There have been a lot of court rulings regarding applications of the First Amendment when it comes to broadcasting. The First amendment is action-packed. It provides freedom of speech, freedom of the...
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The Incredibe, Edible RFID
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University seem to have settled on the word "ingestible" rather than edible. I kind of recoiled at the idea, but much to my surprise two years ago, the FDA approved an...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #254
This is a Wilcox Gay Recordio. It's undated, unlabeled and like many others it's origin is somewhat in doubt. It has a metal-core, spins at 78 rpm with an outer-edge start and is 8-Inches in diameter....
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The Last Words Broadcast on Radio Magallanes
In 1970 in Chile their presidential election ended with no outright majority in a three-way race. Salvador Allende won 36.2% of the vote. Incumbent Jorge Alessandri won 34.9% and a third party...
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Victory Belles
I read a short blurb, a sales pitch really, that claimed that Victory Belles was the first all female radio program in America. It could certainly be true. It's a very small category in radio history...
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The Sheperdstown Good News Radio Hour
89.7 WSHC is the archetypal small town radio station. With 950 ERP watts it covers it's home town of Sheperdstown, WV and little more. It's HAAT is -3 meters, which if you've been to West Virginia...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #255
This is a 8-Inch, metal-core, Recordisc. I've digitized one side, the other has a thick layer of waxy palmitic acid which is hard to remove, and renders the audio into a muddy mess on playback. If I...
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WV Bandscan
Sitting on a hilltop in rural West Virginia, despite the tree cover, I found I had strangely good radio reception. On Sunday in particular I heard the most amazing local programming. I heard emphatic,...
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Help Berkeley Liberation Radio Rebuild!
On March 2nd 2015 the studio of Berkeley Liberation Radio was broken into and robbed. All of their equipment including CD players, turntables, mics, cables, mixing boards, cassette decks, computers...
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Interpol 50th Anniversary Stamp
This stamp was issued in Austria on February 10th, 1973 to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Interpol. It depicts a radio operator with a transmitter and a Morse key either sending or receiving a...
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Rev H.B. Rittenhouse on the Radio
Rittenhouse is a name that resonates in Philadelphia. Rittenhouse Square is one of five Philadelphia parks originally planned by William Penn and his surveyor Thomas Holme. Originally called Southwest...
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Crystal Radios Are Still For Sale
It's hard to argue that radio as a hobby and as an industry aren't in decline. But I do my best. My latest canary in the coal mine is the toy crystal radio set. You remember the kit: 1 diode, 1 tuning...
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The Slumber Hour
I had read of the NBC Slumber Hour broadcasts. It sometimes comes up in allegorical histories of easy listening and beautiful music. The program mixed chamber music with soft smooth vocals. It's...
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The Long Sad Tale of Croissantgate
April Winchell is an actress, writer, comedian, talk radio host, and blogger. She is best known of all those things for her blog which about 5 years ago pulled off a very clever satire of Etsy titled...
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Cassady to KROW to KJAZ to Cowan to KREV
I was reading the Collected Letters of Neal Cassady and chanced upon a somewhat arcane reference to radio history. There is a single sentence in a letter to Jack Kerouac from June of 1952 "How's Mombo...
View ArticleRadio Automation Software Demos
These are sales demos. I will admit now that they are all at least a little annoying. But you cannot operate a 24/7 operation without automation anymore. You at least need a backup system more...
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Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
The shortwave radio bands certainly have their share of oddities. The station known as UVB-76 is one of my favorites. It's not a numbers station per se.. but it's still interesting. Even it's call sign...
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