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Henry Busse and Henry Busse Jr.
Henry Busse and his Rhythm Shuffle Orchestra was probably the pinnacle of Busse's career in the 1930s. He was a jazz trumpeter, born near Magdeburg in Germany in 1894. He was forced to play trumpet for...
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RADIO HACKER 7"
I found this once while reading up on the Hacker brand of Radios once popular in the UK. It's a 33rpm 7-inch flexi-disc. It's a garage rock band;s only release that was pressed in 1988 in Japan. It...
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SPST, SPDT, DPDT and Beyond!
I had a switch go bad in the oven hood. I don't know the source of the failure, but the solution is simple: replace the switch.It's a simple repair, cut two wires, solder two connections. Anyone who...
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GCHQ wants your Radio Dial
The media excoriates the NSA and the CIA for spying on "every day Americans" and rightly so. The action is expensive, morally vacant, and grotesque. But across the Atlantic a similar government agency...
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Popepocalypse
Taking a few days off for the Popepocalypse. Things are getting tough here. [LINK]See you Monday.
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DMARC and MPOE an IDF
 If you ever have to pull, cut, splice, extend or punch down cables... you already know the terms DMARC, MPOE and IDF. But the terms are widely misused. Actually, in telecom there seems to be a...
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Ralph Milne Farley
The science fiction writer Ralph Milne Farley was actually Roger Sherman Hoar. Ralph was a pseudonym for a sitting state senator and assistant Attorney General of the state of Massachusetts. His...
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Flat Holm Radio: GB5FI
Flat Holm island has been inhabited since at least the Bronze age (900 BCE.)Â Without delving into it's pre-history lets just agree it has a long and rich history. In 1897 it was the site of the first...
View ArticleRadio Guitar Pedals
There are a number of guitar pedals that purport to "re=create" the sound of AM radio. They're mostly notch filters that take out the low end the the dial varies the side the depth of the roll off....
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All India Radio
AIR in New Delhi India stands for All India Radio. You might even have guessed that. But since 1956 it has been officially known as Akashvani, which translates to "Message from the Sky" or "Celestial...
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The WSM-AM birthday cake phenomenon
As of today, 650Â WSM-AM is 90 years old.We all know their iconic brand, and even more iconic Grand Ole Opry. WSM first signed on Monday, October 5th, 1925. But the Opry was first broadcast November...
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The First Woman on Australian Rock Radio
It seems unbelievable but there were no female DJs Australian airwaves before 1975. Rock N' Roll was already (arguably) 25 years old, old enough to buy itself a beer in all 50 states. But in Australia...
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Early German Police Radio Hoax
The postcard claims that this is police radio in German circa 1925. I cant' quite read the word on the nameplate in the middle of the loop antenna. I'd expect "Rundfunk" or "Antenne" but it's neither...
View ArticleJamming Drive Thru Restaurants
There is a lot of trouble you can cause with a 6.5536 Mhz crystal. You may not be aware that many restaurants use radio to connect to the drive thru speaker. There is a bit of debate if the video is...
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KLAC Survey
This KLAC-AM response form dates to 1967. That's less than 50 years ago. Even if you were able to generate a statistically meaningful mailing list, I doubt you could even conduct a survey this way...
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The Cradle Time Show
I became aware of this radio program because of a single short article in Jet Magazine; dated to May 21st 1959. In it, Susie Strother displays a New York Golden Mic award. McCall's magazine used to...
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Hackberry Hotel
Hackberrry Hotel was amazingly racist. But in Dallas, TX in 1948 that's about as surprising as sunshine in the the daytime. The program was broadcast on 570 WFAA-AM and was 15 minutes long and at least...
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Color Codes
This is from my favorite web-comic XKCD. The image above suggesting a mnemonic for resistor color codes got me thinking about their origins. For some reason I had assumed color codes were an RCA design...
View ArticleGuitar Pick Up Radio
I've written a few times about guitar pick ups, and amplifiers receiving radio signals. Here's a short video explaining how those coils act as an LC circuit with the addition of a diode and instantly...
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