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Transcription Mystery Disc #169
Center start discs always catch me off guard. The upshot to center start is that most damage tends to be to the outer edge of the dist so the beginning of the recording is more likely to be in good...
View ArticleBeer Bottle+ Lathe = Fun
They used a lathe to cut a song into a glass beer bottle. that's actually pretty nifty.
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DMM, VOM, DVOM, TVM & VTVM
Every radio engineer (and most any geek of the tech variety) needs two things: A soldering iron and a decent Multimeter. I've seen them called DVM for Digital Volt-Meter, or DMM for Digital...
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WSBA Cookbook
I found this in a junk shop recently. The introduction reads "Welcome to a world of delicious eating, the 1984 WSBA/WARM 103 Cookbook!" It's existence led me to believe that in the early 1980s there...
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Sir Francis Ronalds
Sir Francis Ronalds was way ahead of Faraday. He had an intuitive grasp of induction that was decades ahead of his peers. In 1823, Ronalds wrote "...the probability that the electrical induction which...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #170
This 8.5 inch Duodisc has an outer edge start and spins at 78 RPM. It's wholly unlabeled but at least it's in nice condition. It's clearly a radio recording but the diligent dubber skipped over the...
View ArticleHate/Love for Clever Marketing
Noticing that the young and hip today aren't too keen on CD-R promos this German record label, Kantor came up with a vinyl record, and QR code triggered smart-phone app that mimics playing the record....
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Spareribs' Blackface Children's Stories
Malcolm Claire had a one man show as "Uncle Mal" on WLS-AM reading children's stories. His only accompaniment was an organist named Irma Glen (sometimes written as Irma Glynn.) She also worked at WENR....
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Radio Nick's Island Paradise
Delmar Nicholson was known as "Radio Nick" in his Florida homeland. He was born in Orlando in 1899, 20 years before the city's first radio station, WFAW-AM signed on. The station became WQAM in 1923....
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If A Radio Plays In The Forest...
If a radio plays and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? It's a paraphrasing of the old philosophical thought experiment from early metaphysics. The question was first asked in writing,...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #171
This disc was so bent that I had to manually intervene and bend it back. This is a dangerous move as any flexing of the core can de-laminate the acetate from the substrate. In other words the coating...
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Sugar Cube Radio
Miniaturization was a long process, and as much credit as NASA deservedly gets, the military shouldn't be forgotten. For every great NASA story about Velcro, memory foam, rumble strips, Mylar, (and...
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Because AWD now AWRT is AWM
The AWRT was the Alliance for Women in Radio and Television. The national, non-profit organization was founded in 1951 because NAB (The National Association of Broadcasters) discontinued its women's...
View ArticleDown Beat Shows
I found a few more Downbeat AFRS Programs so I thought I'd post them. It was an excellent program. I really hope they're all available some day.
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Women at the FCC
The FCC has always been a wee bit sexist. I was reading in an article about the AWRT in 1951that they were excitedly expecting the nomination of a woman as an FCC commissioner. It didn't happen. I read...
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Transcription Mystery Disc #172
This Pepsi Disc was filthy, totally filthy. I had to carefully wipe it down. I play back it's cracked splintered surface at 33 rpm then correct the speed digitally. Miraculously, the source audio...
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The Rise and Fall of WGTL
In 2009, WTCG-AM changed their city of license to Mount Holly, NC from Clayton, GA. When they made the 170 mile move they also changed frequencies from 1370 kHz to 870 kHz and call sign to WGHC. Why a...
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Turn Your Old MP3s Into Records
One of my readers, KL from NYC posted this video with a comment on an earlier post of mine. The video is fascinating. In it, audio geek David Nelson demonstrates a home-made recording lathe comprised...
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Gernsback Strike Again!
Hugo Gernsback is one of those names that pops up repeatedly in radio history. His late career success in science fiction overshadowed his snake oil interests in radio and his more bonafide...
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