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Practical Radio

This is the "Practical Radio" booklet from the 103 series by the M.W. Lads Publishing Company in Philadelphia, PA. This edition was printed in 1966. M.W. Lads was an oddball small publishing company focused mostly on militaria.their most mainstream work was probably A History of Music in the U.S. Armed Forces During World War II  which was also published in 1966.

This booklet is part of their 103 series which you might think had 13 books but really looks like it had about 12. Other books cover diodes, oscilloscopes, volt-meters, tape recorders, circuit diagrams, basic AC, and electronics math. I came to that number because the editions have index numbers starting at MWL-1 going through MWL-12, I'd really like to see the ones on Diodes and tape recording but I lucky to find the few I did.Inexplicably I also find a reference for a small record label under the name "MW Lads" in Philadelphia in the same time period. regardless the company's bibliography appears to start in 1963 and end abruptly in 1968.

According t one advertisement they were located at 11401 Roosevelt Blvd., Philadelphia, PA. The area currently houses the United Refrigeration. But back in the 1960s the address belonged to Goodway makers of cheap junk electronic tape decks and such. I also found an ad by Goodway that also plugged MW Lads Records connecting the two at least in my own mind. These early-era radio articles are about completely outdated, archaic technology but remain interesting from a historical perspective. It's 66 pages chock full of radio arcana.

You Can Get All 17.6 MB 

Download HERE

Tweety Bird

The Spanish name for Tweety Bird (the fictional yellow Canary in the Warner Bros. cartoons) is Piolín.  "Tweet" is an onomatopoeia the long predated the damn twitter site; to at least 1845 depending on the source you prefer. Onomatopoeia are not universal, they vary by culture, so it makes sense that Hispanic groups would have a different name for that character. Piolín is also the string you pull to spin a top, literally it just means "cord." So what's in a name?

Eddie Sotelo has had the nickname "Piolín" since he was a child. He is a Mexican national, born in Ocotlán, Jalisco, in 1972. In 1986 at the age of 14 he illegally crossed the border into the United States by hiding in the trunk of a car. (some sources say he was 16) He spent his teens in Santa Ana. Calling it inauspicious would be an understatement. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1996.

Today he hosts "Piolín por la Mañana," a weekday program on 101.9 KSCA in Los Angeles. His program is all in Spanish and according to Arbitron he out draws even Rush Limbaugh and Tom Joyner with a 9.9 share. Even considering the demographics, the accomplishment is amazing. In 2006, The LA Times ranked Sotelo in 2006 amongst the 100 most powerful people in Southern California. Without ever intending to, he's become a political power broker with the ability to endorse candidates and law. In 2010 President Obama visited the program in person.In other words thsi is the most important radio program you have never heard. More here.

Univision carries the program into 15 markets including: 92.7 WQBU New York, 98.3 WRTO Miami, 98.9 KSOL San Francisco,105.9 KHOT Phoenix, 99.1/107.1 KFZO and KDXX Dallas, 105.1 KJFA Albuquerque, 99.1 KSQL Monterey, 103.5 KISF Las Vegas, 106.5 KOVE Houston, 92.1 KOND Fresno, 105.1 WOJO Chicago,  97.5 KBNA El Paso, 106.5 KLNV San Diego, and others of course. More here.

As many know, El Piolin started his morning drive at KSCA on February 3, 2002. But thsi was not hsi first radio gig. His first was in 1991 in Corona. Ben Quiñones of the LA Weekly told the story as follows

"Sotelo started out taking food and drinks to the local deejays in Santa Ana in hopes of getting his foot in the door. Then, he was getting a haircut one day in 1991 when a family member ran over to tell him that a small station in Corona wanted to interview him for a job. He borrowed a car and got to the station at around 10 p.m. There, the program director asked Sotelo how much experience he had. Sotelo, who had none, lied and said lots. The program director asked Sotelo if he could do news. Of course, he said, even though he had no idea how to do news, or anything else in radio, for that matter."

What I like about that story is that it's the same story as every DJ ever told me. Either they went to broadcasting school, or they were in college radio or they lied, or all of the above. Eddie came back the next day to start at 5:00 AM. He later lost the job because he didn't have a green card. So he moved to 102.9 KXLM in Oxnard but one day after his show, immigration officers were waiting for him outside. He was very lucky and he was able to get a work permit before he was deported.  Since then he has broadcast his show from different points, Riverside, Santa Ana, and San Jose.

But despite his powerful ratings in large Hispanic markets he was almost totally unknown to the rest of the English-speaking nation. But then after becoming a citizen, Sotelo began to speak out over immigration issues. You might call them border-jumpers, or undocumented aliens, or immigrants but they are non-citizens with no right to be here. Nonetheless they are here, more than a million of them and usually because they were invited more or less explicitly for manual labor. The topic is much debated Sotelo's new vocal stance changed the dynamic a bit, not just because he is a national media figure, but also because he is a former illegal immigrant. when he endorsed a protest against anti-immigrant legislation half-a-million people showed up. When he asked for them, he got one million letters sent to congress. So no matter how you feel about the issue, you must acknowledge his involvement changes the dynamic.Sometimes radio still matters.

Empire of the Air

Empire of the Air is an excellent documentary on the beginnings of radio. Radprog has posted a few segments on Youtube, but you really need to see the whole thing.

Transcription Mystery Disc #26

This disc is clearly a later era disc as it spins at 33rpm with an outer edge start. I will also note that it uses a generic Audio Devices label over top of a generic Audiodisc label. the label was typed out and stuck over the stock label. I've included scans of both sides of the disc as they have different information.  One side lists "Cohoes" a town just outside Albany, NY. with a July 30th date. The other side is labeled for Maryland, MD. It is that side which I was able to identify easily. The label recommends shadow-graphed steel needles. The earliest advert I can find for those date to 1945. Audio Devices, Inc. manufactured of Audiodiscs until Capitol took over in the late 1960s.

Both sides of the disc appear to be live field recordings of the Reilly Raiders, a drum and bugle corps that still exists today. The group was founded in 1946 by returning veterans of WWII. This makes the 1955 date totally plausible.While the group is based in Philadelphia, they definitely travel around to perform in other cities so Baltimore and Cohoes are not a stretch geographically.
The audio is pretty good, it cleaned up easily with a low pass filter. I chopped out a four-and-a-half minute sample from the better of the two sides. But these sides are hand-numbered as 15 and 16. It intimates there are another 14 discs of drum corps out there somewhere. Hopefully some of them made it into the hands of the Reilly Raiders.

The Bebop Radio Ban

Long before the harsh attacks on rock n' roll in the 1950s, there was an attack on bebop for  the same reasons. Bebop burst on the the American jazz scene from the fingertips of rebellious musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell and Charlie Parker. Even other more traditional jazz musicians criticized their experiments. But in the early 1940s it was catching on with a certain audience: rebellious white teenagers; a group we now refer to historically as beatniks. (though the term 'beat' wasn't popularized until the late 1940s.)

As it did in later in the 1950s, racial mixed audiences really set off conservatives. It may seem incongruous, but the most remembered even event in this "ban" was in California. In the March 25th 1946 issue of Newsweek, Ted Steele Program Director of 710 KMPC-AM was quoted as saying "Bebop... tends to make degenerates, out of our young listeners. . . ." Time Magazine backed them up with an article that described bebop in unflattering terms "What be-bop amounts to: hot jazz overheated with overdone lyrics, full of bawdiness, references to narcotics and double talk." Ted listed a some of the "banned" songs:

1. Woody Herman - Your Father's Moustache

2. Harry "The Hipster" Gibson - (All Releases)

3. Slim Gaillard - (All Releases)

4. All versions of the song "Come For A Ride"

5. All versions of the song "Drink Hearty"

6. All versions of the song "Cement Mixer"

7. All versions of the song "Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine."

You might immediately notice that not all of the above is strictly bebop. What had set Ted off was the drug references the song "Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine." He was singling out for the most part Harry Gibson and Slim Gaillard. Predictably, the ban packed houses for Slim and Slam and won Gaillard an invitation to to appear on Bing Crosby's radio show.The move was wholly ineffective. Gaillard had already sold 20,000 records in Los Angeles alone. In 1938 Benny Goodman played "Flat Foot Floogie,"on the Camel Caravan program; the tune was written by Slam Stewart. the ban coalesced the jazz community in favor of bebop with Downbeat and Metronome magazines both supporting the artists.  Downbeat accused Steele of slander. Metronome was more interested in defending jazz as a whole, explaining that strictly speaking, Slim Gaillard and Charlie Parker were very different birds. Unexpectedly it was all thsi press that elevated the word "bebop" into the formal jazz lexicon. More here.

According to some sources, other stations, as many as 19 unnamed broadcasters followed suit. Different articles refer to east Coast stations that followed suit. There's also a direct reference to KFWB dropping it's land line to Billy Berg’s Rendezvous, a hot jazz night club where Harry the Hipster performed. Harry's program was mostly targeted at a black audience, but unknown to many.. he was white. In 1947 Harry released a 78 rpm platter on Musicraft "I Stay Brown All Year ‘Round / Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine."  Harry got black balled by the record industry after that. In 1951 he opened a club in Miami, and started his own label: Hip Records.

Ted wasnt' just a hater of jazz, he was also a stuffy musician who was vested in the old meme. On the West coast Steele had been a bandleader for a number of big names: Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Louis Prima and Jo Stafford. Ted left town shortly thereafter and played some CBS shows with his own Orchestra. He even did one of those awful Novachord records for Decca. He and his orchestra ended up hosting the Stork Club in New York City, for the Chesterfield Supper Club on NBC. 

Things didn't work out at KMPC-AM and he left for KNX-AM in 1949. He stayed for a year then left for New York. From there he went to TV in about 1953. He also worked at WPIX-TV channel 11 doing a teen-focused dance program sponsored by Pepsi called The Ted Steele Show and another as Uncle Ted  hosting a program of silent cartoons. He must have liked TV as he also worked on WATV-TV channel 13 and WOR-TV channel 9. In that era he also was announcing at WMCA and also appearing on Cavalcade of America. In 1950 Billboard magazine said he was on air 32 hours a week, making him one of the busiest broadcasters in the city. But he fell out of favor, or burned out or something. the reasons are lost to time but a few years later he was doing a lone program on 970 WAAT-AM in Newark NJ.

The Weird Circle

Not crop circles, or social circles, or driving in circles but "Weird Circles." Over two seasons it cranked out a total of 78 episodes. It was a program that rehashed classic horror stories into short radio plays. they took the works of Guy de Maupassant, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, Honore de Balzac and others... Their reliance on the classics made the program a tad classier than the pulp programs of the day.  It was pure gothic horror, and one of the first. More here.

The program was 30 minutes long and ran Sundays. Accounts differ as to when the program initially ran. Digital Deli dates the series as running from 1943 to 1945. Other sources state it ran from 1946 to 1947. I've tried to find corroborating references. An issue of Billboard puts it on WNEW-AM in 1944, and it lists it in a set of script writing prices in December 1943. Interestingly a 1953 issue of Billboard puts it as running at 8:00 PM on WTOP-AM. This was confusing at first but I found a reference in Monster Wax that confirmed the show was re-run.

"...The Weird Circle was syndicated again decades later to independent stations on reel to reel tape. I know this because I found dozens of boxes of the tapes stored at KZSU Stanford in the early 1990s... They were probably originally sent in the 1970s when there was a resurgence of interest in OTR created by The CBS Radio Mystery Theater and Zero Hour. The actual stories sounded like they were the same 1940s recordings, but the introduction and closing segments had a different voice of an older man, and were probably re-recorded to allow a standardized point for commercials to be inserted..."

For these reasons I agree with the Digital Deli data. More here and here. Radio archives agrees and puts the airing of the first program as Sunday, August 29, 1943, the last on Sunday, February 11, 1945.

Polystyrene is your friend

Polystyrene is a hard, relatively inflexible plastic. It's rigid, and brittle and should never ever have been used to make records. But it was. Polystyrene was used to make both 45s and LPs into the 1970s. Not all records were made with polystyrene, most were made with vinyl.You can see the difference without knowing your plastics. The polystyrene records had glued down labels, and vinyl labels were pressed directly into the hot vinyl. You can also flick it with your finger. Vinyl makes sort of a dull noise, polystyrene makes more of a high pitched thwack.

Polystyrene was injection molded a process that is slightly difference from "pressing." Polystyrene beads are heated into a liquid form and is then  injected into a closed set of stampers in a press. Because there are no labels inside the stampers they need glued on after. But polystyrene records wear quickly and are very susceptible to cue burn. If you've ever bought one used you know what I'm talking about. They generally sound like crap. I have a couple on Mala Records I cant' bear to part with despite the noisiness.Tim Neely at Goldmine focused on the positive:

"Styrene records get a bad rap because they don’t tend to stand up to abuse as well as vinyl discs. That said, in near-mint condition, there is no audible difference between a vinyl and a styrene 45."

The material can be air-injected to make styrofoam, or made into food-wrap, or dozens of other more appropriate items. But when making records there is only one advantage. It's cheaper. There are two reasons it's cheaper:

• The stampers last longer because they're not directly heated. Metal fatigue slowly destroys stampers in vinyl.   
• The material can also be re-liquefied and reused .

The equipment for polystyrene and vinyl wasn't interchangeable. Polystyrene needs to be molded at much higher temperatures than vinyl for pressing. It's so much higher that they actually shrink while cooling. This is what causes that odd "orange rind" surface appearance. I have read that the Columbia Records pressing plant in Pittman, NJ was once a major producer of injection molded polystyrene pressings. I think that was the plant that made those dark-red polystyrene 45s from the mid 1970s. It is interesting to note that before the 70s all polystyrene records were black. I don't' know the significance of the color change.If you go looking for it let me warn you that it's subtle, you'll have to hold them up to a light to see it.

As you know, some funk and soul recordings were never re-released so the only pressings out there are the original polystyrene beasts. So when you see these rare discs up for auction or elsewhere consider that when you see the price. The condition will usually be pretty bad. These get more fragile with time, they break easily while cleaning, and the damn labels fall off.  If you have some of these I can make two recommendations:

• Make a digital copy now and play that rip, not the record.  
• If you insist on playing the record, use the lightest tracking weight possible, because the wear is only going to get worse. 

Chamber of Commerce Radio

American City Magazine was a trade publication that began publishing around 1909 and was in circulation through the late 1920s. It normally focused on statistics, chamber of commerce activities, garbage disposal, coal prices, beautification, municipal affairs, paving techniques, street lighting, and the works of civil engineers. The magazine was pretty dry. It literally had regular articles about the placement of public drinking fountains. But in June of 1922  The American City Magazine uncharacteristically published an  article about radio.

The article reported that an Albany Chamber of Commerce meeting being broadcast live on the radio April 12th 1922. The article claimed that it was the first "radiophone" chamber of commerce meeting held in the United States. I'm pretty confident it was the first anywhere.

"More than 1,100 members and friends of the Chamber of Commerce gathered in beautiful Chancellors' Hall in Albany to hear the speakers, musicians and other participants in the program at the radio broadcasting station of the General Electric Company in Schenectady (WGY). The audience was therefore assembled about twenty miles from the performers. The program consisted of piano, violin and soprano solos, followed by a radio telephone speech delivered by Roy S. Smith, Executive Manager, Albany Chamber of Commerce."

They received "telegrams, letters and newspapers from scores of cities." apparently on that night reception was possible as far west as Terre Haute. Albany had notified many other Chamber of Commerce groups of the broadcast and many sent notices confirming reception.

The broadcast  included a speech by Chamber of Commerce President Roy Smith titled  "The Forces That Build Cities" which was described as a "short outline of chamber of commerce work."  I'm sure it was riveting.  then in an even more novel move, they followed that broadcast with a stunt on April 26th. To launch their membership drive, they employed a Fokker airplane to carry Mr. Smith—flying 2,500 feet over Albany to make a broadcast from the air. It was reported that it was heard over a 200 mile radius of Albany. Since the aircraft was equipped to send and receive, at the conclusion of the program they began receiving messages one from as far away as Newark, NJ. It is unknown if all this actually increased membership.

Transcription Mystery Disc #48

 This is a 78 rpm 8-Inch transcription disc, it starts at the outer edge and has two tracks on each side. each side having two-takes each of a song. I've included both takes of "Riding Down The Canyon" from what we can hypothetically call Side A.

"Riding Down The Canyon" is by Gene Autry and the other side is "Jimmy Crack Corn".  Jimmy Crack Corn is alternately titled "Blue tail fly" and it is virtually un-datable, going back to the 1840s. "Riding Down The Canyon" was first released in 1942 and has subsequently been covered by Roy Rogers, Marty Robbins, Bing Crosby and more recently, Willie Nelson. It appears in the soundtrack of a film by the same title which sported a version by Sons of the Pioneers. That flick came out in 1942.



This disc has no identifying markings of any kind. It's just a red Recordio in nice condition. I know the recording isn't' any of the above versions as it has no harmonies or accompaniment. That excludes by default essentially all known contemporary versions. Interesting in the production is that the singer has a lot of bass response. That's not my EQ job, I actually laid on a low pass filter and tweaked down the bass, it was too boomy. That tells me this was not recorded from the radio, nor dubbed. This was a singer "eating the mic" as we say in the studio. So this really is a transcription, and since it's from the same set of discs, I suspect it may be from a member of the Hayloft Hoedown and the station is therefore WFIL-AM.that would date the recording between 1944 and 1948. The artist sadly remains unknown.

Radio Halo

I thought at first that the astronomical term "radio halo" might not be literal. It turns out to be quite apt.  It is a large area of radio emission found in a cluster of galaxies. Astronomers have discovered nearly 300 galaxy clusters and groups,  But few of these have radio halos.  They are very rare, found only in a fraction of those massive clusters. The cause is unknown and hotly debated. Because that's what we do in science.  One theory suggests that they're formed by the turbulence created by colliding clusters of galaxies. Another theory suggests they are created in the complex mergers of galaxy clusters. A third suggests they are a byproduct of black holes or jetting plasma.More here.

Radio halos are enormous. It might be 40 kiloparsecs in length. [For reference One parsec is approximately 3.262 light-years.  A kiloparsec is one thousand parsecs.] They are found at the center of galaxy clusters. Nearly all radio galaxies fall into two categories.

There is a spatial correlation between the brightness of a radio halo and the hot gas regions of a galaxy cluster. This is the opposite of radio relics which though similar, are found at the edge of galaxy clusters. I imagine them like bubbles of radio wave intensity resulting from a cosmic event. As you might expect, their frequencies are usually clustered high in the GHz range.  But not always...

There are exceptions. In 2008 a mixed group of scientists cooperating (Istituto di Radioastronomia, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Naval Research Laboratory, Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università di Bologna and The National Radio Astronomy Observatory) reported the following:

"...a radio halo at low frequencies associated with the merging cluster Abell 521. This halo has an extremely steep radio spectrum, which implies a high frequency cut-off; this makes the halo difficult to detect with observations at 1.4 GHz...The spectrum of the halo is inconsistent with a secondary origin of the relativistic electrons, but instead supports turbulent acceleration, which suggests that manya radio haloes in the Universe should emit mainly at low frequencies."

It's a low frequency radio halo. They continue to study the phenomena with LOFAR and LWA radio telescopes.  More here.

MOVIE NIGHT

PART 1

PART 2

First Radio Signal on the West Coast

Radio history is very East Coast centric: DeForest, Armstrong, Fessenden.. etc. There was of course radio on the west coast. But in the short synopses we read in our school text books the furthest west radio travels is to KDKA, in Pittsburgh. The school books don't even leave East Coast time. But more specific texts such as The University of Santa Clara: A History, 1851-1977 by Gerald McKevitt describe even the first west cost broadcast in some detail.

"In 1899 a team of San Franciscans reproduced Guglielmo Marconi's method of communicating by radio waves and demonstrated its usefulness by sending a message in Morse code from a lightship anchored outside the Golden Gate to the Cliff House on the San Francisco Shore. This was the first wireless message broadcast on the West coast and the first ship-to-shore broadcast in the United States."

A month later Marconi himself came to America and repeated some of his now famous experiments. So their work preceded even Marconi's own demonstrations in the new world. That team of San Franciscans included father Richard Bell, a Jesuit priest and Professor John Montgomery. Bell had studied theology in the 1890s in Rome. While there he had become interested in the work of Marconi. Marconi's earliest experiments date to at least 1888. Bell was so interested in these that when he returned to California in 1898 he brought with him a copy of Marconi's published accounts. He began replicating the small-scale experiments almost immediately.

Bell began testing as early as 10 years after Marconi. Marconi did a quick U.S. visit in 1899 mostly around New york for the America's Cup race starting in Sandy Hook, NJ. He transmitted from the USS Ponce. He did not make it to the west coast. Bell continued his lectures and public experiments. In 1903 Bell and Montgomery made a 7-mile transmission from Villa Maria to college tower. Normally I'd double check that distance on a map but neither of those locations appear on any map. I suspect the locations are colloquial.

In 1906 Bell was promoted to head up both physics and chemistry at Santa Clara U. in the the Bruengo Science Building. Bell continued to experiment. He made transmissions from Los Gatos College to San Francisco, and later tackled voice transmissions with Dr. Charles Herrold. He and Herrold spoke the first transmitted words in the West coast. They were ahead of the Great White fleet by at least a year, who in California sometime in 1908. Bell for all his work patented only one device, a simple signaling unit he devised in 1928. In 1933 Marconi finally went to the west coast and visited Bell. (see image above.)  Bell is the grumpy looking cuss to the left.

Hollywood Never Forgets

I rarely write about new radio programs but this one piqued my interest.  Not just because of it's host Manny Pacheco, but also because of it's format. In 2009 Manny published a book called Forgotten Hollywood. The book is about the supporting casts instead of those with histories top billing. Basil Rathbone doesn't get enough press these days. That book led to this radio program.

Manny Pacheco is one of those names that keeps turning up in LA Radio. He started at KRLA in 1980, then jumped to KDAY a year later and KNAC another year later then back to KRLA. He went from there to KKBT in 1985 and kept going. He spent time at KOCM, KIKF, KMGX and KGIL, before returning to KRLA briefly in 1993. More recently in the late 90s he spent time back at KIKF and KBIG. He did some fund raisers on Public television Channel 8 KCET-TV Then after a long, strange  active period in the evil arts of karaoke, he returned to radio.

Then two months ago came his new program on 1510 KSPA-AM. They currently airs nostalgia, a natural fit for a program mixing old standards and movie themes. But they only flipped back to Nostalgia at the end of last year. They spent June through December airing talk to no great success. The KSPA Website www.thesparadio.com clearly notes a simulcast on 1450 KFSD-AM, but other sources indicate that ended last year. That situation remains uncertain. It is my current understanding that the simulcast ended in March of 2010, but restarted in November of 2010 and continues today.

regardless, 1510 KSPA-AM is airing "Forgotten Hollywood" Sundays at 3 PM playing music and audio clips from classic Hollywood movies. They will be having interviews with some of the related artists, directors and presumably those attention-loving mogul types.  There is also a segment called "On The Backlot" which guests Gary Lycan. Lycan presently is a writes for the Orange Country Register. He's a total mystery to me, but I like his blog. 

Transcription Mystery Disc #107

I picked up two Cliff Morey branded 10-Inch 78 rpm acetates a couple years ago. I ripped one about this time last year. Both blanks are clearly made by Capitol, probably at the same plant that made Pro-Disc acetates. The address on the label  is 15409 Fenkell Street, Detroit, MI. Today it is a vacant lot. The priot disc was not labeled at all, but this one thankfully is. The artist (presumably) is Billie McGill.

The song "Goofus" is an instrumental played on piano and fiddle (in this version) was written around 1930 by Wayne King. It was covered in the 30s by Paul Goodwin, the Cumberland Ridge Runner, then later by Les Paul,  The Carpenters and even Chet Atkins. This is clearly an early version.


Cliff Morey's name, address and phone number are right there in bold print and a year later I've never found another byte of hard information elsewhere. I did find one bit of tangential but possibly unrelated information. There was a Cliff Morey employed as monotype machinist at the Sun and later at the Daily News. This is no direct connection, but the era and the region are at least correct and a machinist is a credible character to operate recording hardware.

4-H Club Radio

The four H's in the 4-H club stand for head, heart, hands, and health.Started in 1902, the growth of the program from experimental projects into formal clubs mirrors the growth of early radio.  There was no golden era of radio for the 4-H club. There was a period of time when they moved from experimental to instructional radio programs. We traffic in the arcane here, and this certainly qualifies.

In 1922 a 4-H Club leader wrote "This wireless nonsense is just a fad. It will never amount to anything. They might better spend their time raising chickens."  What talks happened between then and their later experiments remains a mystery. But seven years later, they made a full 180 on the topic. On June 23rd they did a test program and hooked up 21 radio stations. The response to the test was very positive and on October 1st 1928 an experimental radio service was launched.  They began with a set of 10 monthly programs relating to 4-H club work. This program was titled "4-H Club Crier" and was included in the programs of approximately 68 radio stations. I actually corroborated this in two separate newspapers: The October 5th, 1928 issue of the Catskill New York Recorder. It reads as follows:

"A weekly broadcast for farm boys and girls "the 4-H Club Crier" will be sent on Thursday or Friday evenings  by Co-operating stations."

The second reference came from the The August 23rd 1928 issue of the Tulia Herald, of Tulia Texas.  It reads as follows:

"A large-scale demonstration of radio's effectiveness in influencing rural thought and action will be carried on for a period of 30 weeks starting October 1, by some 60 radio stations and the Radio and Extension services of the United States department of Agriculture.. the national program will supplement State 4-H Club radio programs carried on by a number of land-grant colleges..." 

The article later claims that 61 stations in 38 states requested the program. But it also noted that Town Crier programs were being developed for the Eastern, Southern, central and Western groups of states. This intimates that the Town Criers content varied regionally with the activities of local 4-H groups. This mixed kids programs existed side-by-side with the state level programs and were aired on a mix of college and commercial stations.  This was a lot of content. The papers of the Federal Extension Service described the programs thusly:

"By means of the radio, club boys and girls were also given interesting glimpses into the world of literature and of birds and wild flowers, as well as of those other things that enlarge the horizon and give greater meaning to the everyday tasks of field and home."

The program was targeted at kids.  It explained how best to conduct their 4-H club activities, whether they be in the growing of crops, the raising of livestock, the preparation and serving of food, the selection and construction of clothing, or the general beautification of the farm home. One reference said they performed "music memory contests." These focused on "our best-known composers."  I can only imagine these as s precursor to the quiz shows that would predominate radio a decade later.

Pirate Radio USA

I need to see this.

Radio Amway

Amway is infamous the world over as a direct-sale pyramid scheme. They are not generally known as a media company, but they once dabbled in that market. By once I mean from 1977 to 1983, the experiment lasted over a decade. More here.

It began on September 30th 1977 when Amway bought the Mutual radio Network. MBS had been founded in 1934 and by the late 1940s they were the largest radio network in America at least in terms of the raw number of members. In reality CBS and NBC were the Coke and Pepsi of radio networks. They had the lions share of the market, and most of the powerful stations. To quote Elizabeth McLeod

"Mutual shows were produced by the stations on a cooperative basis, and the stations paid the productions costs and furnished the facilities, not the network. This setup was radically different from that used by the Major Networks, so in that sense, one could call Mutual small."

 MBS kept trying to make itself into a bigger player. One of the biggest mistakes it made was in 1960 selling out to 3M. The adhesive company was a poor fit. 3M didn't damage the company but it left it directionless, and sold it to a group of mixed investors in 1966. Two of the shareholders, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin F. Gilbert bought out the other share holders then sold MBS to Amway and turned a profit in the process.

Before this all Amway had done was underwriting and advertising. To be succinct, they had no idea what they were doing. But they certainly had gumption. About two months after the buy, they announced they were dropping landlines, and moving to satellite distributon via Western Union's Westar I.  The system went live in 1981. They were the first radio network to go to satellite.

Launched in 1973, Westar I was America's first domestic communications satellite. It was designed to operate for 7 years, but was removed from orbit in 1983 and replaced with Westar II. While the plans continued, Amway expanded MBS. They bought purchased WCFL in 1979 in 1980, Amway purchased WHN in New York and added affiliates. They peaked at 950, less than ABC, but more than NBC or CBS.  Amway may have been novices, but they were aggressive novices.

But being a novice has a downside.  Despite all these very exciting changes and expansions, Amway was taking a bath on the project. The move to satellite cost them 10 million dollars. When they dabbled in changing programming they experienced epic fail. they changed slots wrecking the ratings of highly rated show, change line ups, and tried to take shows on the road for no reason whatsoever. One of their few successes was the Larry King show on WIOD but that was probably because for the most part, they left Larry alone. For the most part, what they touched, they destroyed.

In 1984 they sold off WCFL to Statewide Broadcasting.  That same year they did a re-org and fired a number of executives and laid off over 20 Mutual staff. In September 1985 they sold the whole enchilada to Westwood One. The only thing they held back was their satellite services division and up-link facility. Amway went back to what they knew, they started making and selling satellite dishes.  But even that still had the stink of failure on it and they sold off the division was in 1989.

FM Multiplexing

Unlike AM, FM has very comfortable spacing. FM Stations are 200 KHz apart, AM stations on the other hand are half that at best. (In fact AM stations can overlap.) One of the things a FM radio station does with all this extra space is multiplex. We don't ordinarily think of FM as multiplexed, but the way it encodes stereo certainly qualifies.

Multiplexing - The simultaneous transmission of multiple signals on the same channel

The FM stereo signal consists three parts, thus qualifying as "multiple." The first part is the sum of the left and right channels. This is simplified as L+R. This is a mono signal. If you have an old component amplifier from the 1970s it may have a mono switch and what it does is to only rectify this part of the signal. More here.

The second part is L-R,  a modulated 38 Khz subcarrier signal. It uses double sideband suppressed carrier (DSBSC) modulation. In DSBSC the amplitude modulated frequencies are symmetrically spaced above and below the suppressed carrier. But unlike AM radio, the wave carrier is not transmitted. So all that power is distributed between the sidebands. That improves coverage.In a simpel sense, this is an AM modulation of the subcarrier.

The third part is a 19 Khz pilot tone. 19 Khz is half of the 38 Khz subcarrier signal.  The relative percentage of modulation put into the pilot is 10%. It's like a reference tone, used for synchronization. Without the 19 kHz pilot tone a stereo receiver would ignore signals in the 38-39 kHz range. A guard band of  4 kHz above and below the pilot tone (15-23 kHz) is used to protect the pilot tone from interference.  The primary cause of interference in Fm radio would be the baseband audio signal from 50 Hz-15 kHz and the lower sideband from 23-53 kHz. (If you're wondering where RDS fits in, that's set at 57 kHz.)

So in your stereo receiver the L+R and L-R signals are combined for the Left channel [L+R] + [L-R] = 2L.  For the right channel they're just subtracted [L+R] - [L-R] = 2R.  It's actually elegant and simple, that's why it works so damn well and why it's been beating out AM radio for 30 years. 

Transcription Mystery Disc #111

This is a Wilcox Gay Recordio with no markings whatsoever. It starts at the outside edge and spins at approximately 78 rpm, but in all honesty that speed sounds a tad fast. One side is in worse shape than the other but I spliced them together anyway. I applied a mild high-pass filter because the source audio was muddy enough to make it difficult to understand speech. Playback was best with a 0.7mil. The standard 2.5 78 stylus produced a waveform of mud.


The occasion appears to be a birthday party, a fathers voice is clear and he is the recording engineer and I use the term loosely. There is a younger sibling who would not be intelligible even with pristine audio. From the talk it's clear that grandma is there too. Phonozoic calls this the Wilcox-Gay Recordio Type 3A variant 2.