Happy New Year

The holiday madness is almost over.
Normal posting resumes tomorrow.

The Prudential Family Hour

The Prudential Family Hour was a music and variety program that ran from 1941 to 1948 on CBS and also re-broadcast on AFRS. It starred Gladys Swarthout, a soprano from the Metropolitan Opera and the Al Goodman Orchestra. The 45 minute light classical music program aired on Sundays at 5:00 PM. It had a big budget and production was top notch for the era.

As you might imagine, the variety part of the program wasn't slapstick and redneck jokes. They aired carefully scripted sketches on the lives of composers like Beethoven and Schubert. Prudential Insurance hadn't done much in radio prior to the Family Hour. It sponsored the short-lived Jack Berch Show, and possibly a soap opera in the 1930s. I've not confirmed that yet.

You probably have never heard of Gladys Swarthout. Born in 1900, she studied at the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago and started out at the Chicago Civic Opera Company.  She debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 1929. In the 1930s she began appearing in films. She guested on many radio programs including "What's My Line?," "The Railroad Hour,""Firestone Theater," "Palmolive Beauty Box Theater," "Camel Caravan", "Ford Symphony" and many others. More here.

After eight years the audience had diminished significantly. Wholesome programming like these music programs were on the wane and both FM radio and TV were on the rise. In 1948 they tried to revive the  program with a reboot as The Prudential Family Hour of Stars, mixing in appearances by Hollywood celebrities and more dramatic segments. Swarthout was not included. The new show had appearances by Humphrey Bogart, Ginger Rogers, Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck among others. It wasn't enough. The program was cancelled in 1949. Swarthout later retired to Italy, and died in 1969. More here.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) doesn't make the news very often. As government agencies go they're very quiet, not much coverage from the big three networks. The BBG dutifully posts press releases on their web page but they largely go ignored.  The BBG is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for all non-military, international broadcasting. That includes the Voice of America (VOA), WORLDNET Television and Film Service, and Radio y Televisión Martí. None of this programming is available inside the U.S. because by some definitions it's considered propaganda. That said, they do some surprisingly good news programming. In fact their content is carried on over 1,200 TV and radio stations globally. More here.


The Broadcasting Board Governors (BBG) was only formed in 1999. they idea was to move all of these similar government broadcasting services under one agency. So when President Bill Clinton signed the 1998 Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act (Public Law 105-277), the BBG assumed that authority.  They absorbed not only VOA, but the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB).  They also oversee three other organizations, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN). WORLDNET TV was folded into VOA in 2004. 

The bi-partisan board consists of eight members nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The chairman is the U.S. Secretary of State. By law, no more than four members shall be from the same political party, excluding the chairman. Board members have included a Sony CEO, Ambassadors, a Fox News commentator, the chairman of Westwood One, and a board member from the CPB. There are currently two vacant seats on the board. I would of course gladly serve if nominated.

Chuck Kramer

Chuck Kramer's Ode to Christmas” has been an NPR tradition for more than 2 decades now. I caught it on the drive back to the home land Friday. It was said that they retired it in 2008, so I was glad to hear it's return. Kramer worked at WCVB-TV, ABC Channel 5 in Boston for years, then at the PBS affiliate in that market, WGBH-TV, Channel 2.  He is presently a graphic artist. More here.

Transcription Mystery Disc #150

This is a 6.5" diameter 78-rpm, metal core Wilcox-gay Recordio. It's labeled "White Christmas, Betty F.S."  the other side just says "SCRAP."   The scrap side has a recording of some Spanish orchestra with intermittent break-ins by some woman warming up her singing voice. This is no edit, this was just efficient use of what must have been a junk disc.

Betty White Christmas


But the quality of even the A side is lacking.  The groove walls of the disc are thin, and the grooves shallow leading to an almost intractable skate problem. I manually dealt with the worst parts, leveled the audio, removed pops and reduced the nose floor and it's still rough. But it's a Christmas classic, and this is Christmas day. The date and all else remain unknown.

Herb Shriner Time

Herbert Shriner  would never have made it big today. Being affable, knowing some funny stories and playing the harmonica wouldn't be enough to put him over the top these days. He was sort of the Will Rogers of Indiana, if Indiana ever needed their own. But comedy was a different animal back then. He was born in Toledo in 1918, and grew up in Ft. Wayne. How he ended up as a radio celeb seems almost by accident.

He began as a humorist, what we now call a stand-up comedian. He played harmonica on radio programs like a Hoosier version of Johnny Puelo. No source gives a specific date as to his first appearance but it's generally dated to about 1940. He was being booked by the William Morris agency. His first regular spot was Camel Caravan, a comedy-variety program. He started there in 1942. That fits well in the time line since by 1952 Billboard was calling him a "TV comedian." What happened in between was WWII. Herb performed for the USO live and on air including The Philip Morris Follies.

In 1946 he was the star of the "Hoosier Radio Round Up," a radio event that was networked 300+ programs across 19 radio stations broadcasting from the Indiana State fair.  The program showcased talent in the Hoosier state. There were appearances by Singing Sam, Herb Shriner, Hoagy Carmichael, Chick Johnson, Ole Olsen and many others. Networked stations includes WISH, WIBC, WFBM, WIRE, WHOT, WHBU, WLBC, WKMO, WASK, WKMO, WKBV,  WKBF, WMLL, WBOW and WOWO. He did it again in1947. After it was all over Governor Ralph gates gave him a medal.

In 1948 he got his own radio show on CBS, Herb Shriner Time. The show also had the Raymond Scott Quintet, singer Dorothy Collins, and announcer Durward Kirby. The Herb Shriner TV Show began in 1949 which ran for 2 years. ABC picked him up for a year in 1951 and that petered out in the Fall of 1952.  CBS picked him up for a third spin in the Fall of  1952. He did a stint hosting a TV game show after that which ran until 1955. In the 1950s he did some comedy LPs, and an all harmonica orchestra which was an abomination. He went back to the night clubs. He retired to Florida, and was killed in a car wreck in 1970.

Traveling

I have a little traveling to do for the holiday. See you all next week.

News and Reviews 2012

I've been blogging Arcane Radio Trivia since April of 2005. As of this date, that works out to more than  1,900 posts. It's a time-consuming hobby.  2012 has been a good year for this radio man. I was interviewed by a French audiophile magazine, Discuts. I've digitized dozens of acetates. Two of my cranky letters to Radio World were published. I read several dozen books. I learned a lot more HTML. A year has passed. So the time have come to reflect and review.  It's a good time to look at my previous top 10s, and "Best Of" lists.You can see previous years lists at the links below:

• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005

Best Posts: 
My favorites are never my readers favorites. I was recently got name-checked at the Society of Lathe Trolls (which is an honor and a privilege) for one of my weekly acetate rips. I really liked my post about Alan Freed and the artist genuinely known as Moondog. I also liked the post on WKDU vs. WPWT vs. WEXP, because it was a bit of Philly radio history. I also posted a much more detailed history of broadcasts from trains because I got called out on a technicality. I also had the pleasure and honor of blogging my own grandfather's radio history in two segments, here and here.

Most Popular Posts:
I had an unexpected bump from Reddit this year which had a bit of a long tail as other sites recycled their content including my link. It totally rearranged what posts were popular, and continues to feed me a river of web traffic. So that Reddit link and it's after effects produced over 100,000 hits, over half of which happened within about 24 hours beginning on June 27th. It was re-blogged by several sites including "Did You Know?" a Tumbler site, the Straight Dope message board, Josh Withers, and several others. It led to increased hits on related pages and a generally higher level since. This redefined "popular" for my blog. My average daily hits since then are up 5k. This all because of a post I wrote on peter Tripp in 2009.

Best Music Blogs
I still read Built on a Weak Spot, more often than I read the Newspaper.  I'd also like to note that  Aversion Online was a rock solid resource until writer Andrew went on hiatus. I hope for his triumphant return. I think every new CD/vinyl and download I bought in the last few years was because of these two blogs.

Best Radio Station:
This year I'm picking the College of Staten Island radio station 88.9 WSIA. Hurricane Sandy dealt a harsh  blow to the whole Metropolitan New York area. Worst hit were probably Hoboken and Staten Island. WSIA is the only radio station local to Staten Island, and they like most took some damage.  Their  transmitter site took severe damage in the storm, but their campus opened it's doors to the beleaguered residents of Staten Island. We all hope for their swift return. Also laudable is WCPR the Cable & webcast station at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken. Other stations, including WFMU took a hit as well but they are in a much better position fiscally to recover.

Best Radio Show:
Tin Pan Alley on WDVR. What an odd little program this is. Host Barbara Zentner plays pop music from 1920s through the 1950s with an ear for oddities and a mind for themes and lost causes. She truly has made a format of all the record I always toss after buying a lot wholesale. Somehow she ties it all together like some kind of mad crate-digging anthropologist. More here.

Best Record Store:
Willimantic Records was so good that I bought their T-shirt. They have vinyl, classic punk, used CDs, a nice book section, xylophones, shirts, magazines, and of course... 78s. You can't beat that.

Best Zine
It's more of a weekly than a zine, but this year I have to give it to the New Miami Times for their high brow writing on voter suppression, mosquito borne diseases, Art & Vinyl and a feature on the zombie apocalypse. It sounds like fiction but you should have heard the AM band down there light up when that dude ate that other dude's face. It made great reading while trapped in a Pinecrest hotel room. they are a sister publication to the Village Voice and a fine read.

Top 10 Records of 2012
1. Pile - Dripping
2. Metz - Metz
3. Killing Joke - MMXII
4. Staer - Staer 
5. Teenanger - Frights
6. Future of the Left - The Plot Against Common Sense
7. Crocodiles - Endless Flowers
8. Gay Witch Abortion - Opportunistic Smoke Screen Behavior
9. Fast Citizens - Gather
10. Thy Art Is Murder - Hate

Honorable mentions: Tendril - Smear, Sky:lark - 2012 demos, Father John Misty – Fear Fun, Desaparecidos - Marikkkopa 7-inch, Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel, Deftones - Koi No Yokan, Anchor 3 - Whir, The Soupcans – Good Feelings,Various Artists - The Reverb Conspiracy,  The Algorithm - Polymorphic Code, Ruiner - Whores, Hawks - Rub, Noxious Foxes - Leggings, Converge: All We Love We Leave Behind, Old Man Gloom - No.

The Last of the Broadcasting Schools

There actually is big money in radio, just generally not in being a DJ. I've written several posts about radio schools over the years and it occurred to me that there were still a scant few left operating who deserved a bit of credit. Below is a list of every broadcasting school still operating in America that I am aware of.

Broadcasting school may be an old idea, maybe even one that has really passed by but there are still a few educational institutions living the dream. This list excludes known scams and also universities that offer broadcasting or radio courses within a department or as a focus within their curriculum. But I do include ham schools because they are so few. This list should not be taken an an endorsement, tacit or otherwise of any of these schools individually, or of broadcasting schools as a whole. My personal recommendation is to go to a college or university with it's own radio station, get your feet wet, and go suffer through some grueling internships.

Academy of Radio & Television Broadcasting - www.abradio.com

Alpha Pacific Institute - www.alphapacificinstitute.com

American Broadcasting School - www.radioschool.com

Atlanta Broadcasting Institute - www.radiotvschool.com

Broadcast Center of St. Louis - www.broadcastcenterinfo.com

Broadcasting Institute of Maryland - www.bim.org

Broadcasters Mentoring Group - www.broadcastingschool.com

Carolina School of Broadcasting -  www.csbradiotv.edu

Centro Radio & TV Center - www.centrotvandradio.com

Columbia School of Broadcasting - www.csbdream2destiny.com

Connecticut School of Broadcasting - www.gocsb.com

Eastern Connecticut Radio Academy -  www.beonairtoday.com

Gordon West radio School (ham)-  www.gordonwestradioschool.com

Ham Radio School .com - www.hamradioschool.com

International College of Broadcasting - www.icbcollege.com/

Radio Connection - www.radioconnection.com

Radio 1 Broadcast School - www.radio1school.com

Specs Howard School of Media Arts - www.specshoward.edu

Transcription Mystery Disc #149

This is a paper-core Silvertone transcription disc. It has an outer-edge start, and spins at 78 rpm. It's labeled and dated, something I almost never seen. It reads "Tom Gibbons, SEP 27 1944 Chicago Ill." The date is actually stamped on which is odd, something that indicates the engineer may have been making discs with some regularity. This made sense when I played back the disc. It's an audio letter sent from a WWII soldier to his family in Texas. It's no surprise then that the center hole is worn oval from play.

Tom Gibbons in Chicago


"Hello Mom I'm sending this to you, I'm sending it from the Chicago serviceman's Center."  Tom mentions his brother Jim and the apparently very nice facilities at the serviceman's center. There were actually a few Serviceman's Centers in Chicago in the 1940s. He mentions his was near Michigan avenue. I think this is the one formerly located at 131 South Wabash Ave. which opened in May of 1942. The address is now occupied by a jewelry store.

FM... Radio At It's Finest

When FM radio first came out people actually needed it explained to them. Not that laypeople have any idea how it's works now, but FM actually had an uphill selling battle for decades. But while the public was still mulling over new broadcast modes, manufacturers had bought in to the idea. New products mean new revenue, plain and simple. It's what capitalism does. But in those early days FM was so poorly understood, that Zenith (among others) felt the need to include pamphlets like these with their console radios because they needed to sell this feature in addition to selling the actual appliance. This pamphlet came with a a Zenith stereo, it's part education, part sales pitch. It reads like this:

"FM brings new life-like realism to radio reception that makes you feel you are present at the original performance. Standard AM is good— but it does not capture all the brilliance, richness and natural tone quality that FM does. FM is like a beautiful painting in full color, while AM is an incomplete picture with much of the color missing."

Must of the rest of the document is more directly slagging on the known reception problems connected to AM. People who hadn't yet heard FM really didn't know how much better it was. They didn't know that FM radio was impervious to the static from a thunderclap, or that it didn't fade at night, or in the summer. This was all new.  I did some snazzy line graphs to illustrate the rise of FM /fall of AM in an old post here. You can download the pamphlet below:

Download all 6MB

HERE

WPTC Fights to Survive

I recently heard that 88.1 WPTC was in danger of being closed down.  The  Pennsylvania College of Technology was mulling a decision that could mean the end of the 490-watt small town FM station. Elliot Strickland, Chief Student Affairs Officer said “If we choose not to run it anymore, we would look to sell the equipment, our FCC license, those kinds of things.” Radio Survivor has also covered this story here.

The college radio community has lost a significant number of stations over the last few years and it's becoming an increasingly touchy subject. But media is changing, and even curmudgeons like myself can recognize that. I decided to reach out to Professor Brad Nason, Associate Professor of Media Arts and faculty adviser to WPTC and get some first hand information. He was very forthcoming that interview is below:

1. When did you first learn that WPCT was in peril? 
The college announced the end of the Mass Media Communication program in August 2011. At the time, I don’t think the administration made the connection that the radio station and the academic program were two different issues, but I knew at that point that the station could possibly be closed.

 2. What's their impetus for closing the station? 
I assume it’s strictly a financial issue. When the academic program officially ends next May, the station will no longer have a home. And the bottom line is it’s probably less expensive to get rid of the station than to keep it.

3. Do you think that's valid in any way?
 I mean, obviously, money is an issue. But I think a college radio station has value—to the students, to the campus and to the larger community—that goes beyond the bottom line. I’ve argued that you can continue to run a station that exists as a student club or a community organization much more cheaply than you can a facility that’s part of an academic program, in which you need the best and most-recent equipment to train students.

4. Has the timing of that news helped or hurt your cause? 
It wasn’t like this was a sudden announcement. I think the administration has gradually come to understand that, unlike a metal shop that you can just close, a radio station has a license and uses public airwaves. You just can’t unplug it and walk away.

5. Is Penn College management conflicted on this at all or are they full steam ahead? 
I don’t hear too much from administrators on their decision-making process. I do know the college is trying to sell the station and from my experience since this process began, I’d bet that if a buyer comes forth, the station will be sold.

6. What has been the response like inside WPTC? 
The few remaining students in the program have embraced it as a cause almost. The courses that required students to work at the station have been phased out, but this final group of students has already volunteered to do airshifts and production work next semester. The jazz volunteers feel letdown, certainly. I’ve known some of those guys even before I came to Penn College.

7.  How has the student body and the community reacted as a whole? 
From the petition drive the students started, we’ve received a number of supportive comments—from alumni, current students and others, some of whom I was surprised to learn listen to the station. The feedback from the community, particularly about our jazz programming, has been very supportive.

8. Are they have any success pushing back? 
Hard to tell. You’d have to ask the administration whether that’s a factor.

9. How long have you been with WPTC? 
I came to Penn College in 1995 as a faculty member who was also responsible for managing the station. I started the weekend programming with volunteers in January of 1996 and we began full-time summer programming, also with volunteers, in the early 2000s. My role with the station ends in May. I will continue to teach here in the Communication/Literature Department.

10. How are the odds looking at the moment? 
While I would love to see the station continue broadcasting, I’d be surprised if Penn College has a radio station a year from now. I’ve suggested that they hire someone part-time to run the station as a community/club organization, but that’s out of my hands.

11. How can people help WPTC?
Probably the best ways are to sign the petition (on our website at:  www.pct.edu/wptc) and/or contact the provost, Dr. Paul Starkey, or the president, Dr. Davie Jane Gilmour at PA College of Technology, One College Avenue, Williamsport, PA · 17701-5799, 570-326-3761. 

The First Radio Station

The story of Charles "Doc" Herrold and the station SJN from Professor Mike Adams:

The Amalgamated Broadcasting System

Today, nobody remembers who Ed Wynne was, which is sort of a shame. He was born Isaiah Edwin Leopold, and his father made women's hats for a living in Philadelphia. Ed ran away from home to become a comedian while still a teenager. He crafted his middle name into a stage name, Ed Wynne. He performed on Broadway and in vaudeville, and made the jump into radio in the late 1920s.

While was a comedian in the 1930s he hosted a popular radio show called The Fire Chief. It was sponsored by Texaco. He reprized that popular Fire Chief radio character in two films "Follow the Leader" which came out in 1930 and "The Chief", three years later. It was then, at the peak of his fame that he struck it out boldly and risked it all to found a new radio network. Wynne lost big.

Wynne debuted the Amalgamated Broadcasting System on September 25, 1933. He used his personal savings to launch ABS, seriously trying to compete with CBS and NBC. They had one affiliate in New York WBNX, a share time with WAWZ. They had talks with other stations but it was just talk. Ed was tough, he'd been on his own for 30 years worked his way up from selling hats to Hollywood movies. But his partner Ota Gygi was not. Gygi was a Hungarian-born violinist, who worked in vaudeville. He was not very famous, and there is little written of him. Variety magazine reviewed a show he performed in 1922 and basically said it wasn't worth the $2.

Shortly after ABS started, Wynne left town to appear a Hollywood film. Gygi was left in charge. That's when things ran amok. Gygi spent his time offending the press, and advertisers. The fledgling network was crippled by the time Wynne got back. Without advertisers they lacked the capital to put together a schedule of quality programming. Amalgamated went out of business on October 28, 1933... after only 5 weeks. They lost $300,000, that's over 5 million in 2012 dollars. Wynne didn't take it well. In short order he was divorced, and had a nervous breakdown.

Gygi spent the next few years begging to work in the orchestra at NBC but he did eventually find work for Samuel Insull at the Affiliate Broadcasting Company, but that house of cards failed in 1936. He's lost to time after that. But Wynne's career recovered, The Fire Chief show lasted a few more years and he segued into television hosting variety shows. He hosted The Ed Wynne show on NBC TV in 1948, and memorably voiced the Mad Hatter character for Disney in the 1951 film Alice in Wonderland. He continued to do appearances on TV in the 1960s even appearing on the Twilight Zone. He died in 1966.

Transcription Mystery Disc #148

This is an unusual little instantaneous recording. It's a 5-Inch fiber-core Packard-Bell Phonocord.I've never seen a Phonocord of this design nor one of this size. Actually it's the smallest home recording acetate I've ever seen. It has the recognizable crest in Baby Blue on one side, and the red image above on the other. It's only marking is the numerals "1" and  "2" in black oil crayon indicating sides. The disc also bears the two Packard-Bell branding statements For Record-Making Fun and Put Life's Big Moments On Record. 

Phonocord #2


Despite the obvious fragility it is a two-sided recording. It has an inner edge start which is necessitated by the groove running out almost flush with the outer edge. An outter edge needle trip with no gap would be  a logistical problem. Despite maximizing the limited space on a 5-inch record, there is still only total a playing time of 1 minute 30 seconds per side. Because it's so short I digitized both and edited them into one track.

The recording is a letter from a man to a woman whom he only refers to as "darling." It starts off as a love letter but degenerates into advice on finances and a story about a cat crapping in a sink and an unexplained request for a pair of tights. In the recording he even happens to give the time of day as 4:20, but not the date. At the end of side A he says "oops I better quit this side" realizing that the time has about run out, but before he lifts the record needle, you can briefly hear music. I've left this in in case anyone happens to recognize the fragment. I somewhat suspect the disc may have been used previously and that it was from that prior use.

SIGINT

SIGINT is a blend of two words Signal and Intelligence. In this use I refer to information gained from intercepted radio signals, including broad traffic analysis. Since first days that data could be transmitted, opposing parties were trying to intercept it. A detailed history of SIGINT would take many thousands of pages. Thankfully I'm only interested in it's radio applications. But before I try to find a narrative here, let me first roll out a bit of military jargon:

COMINT - (Communications Intelligence) communications between people.
ELINT - (Electronic intelligence) communications not containing speech or text.
OpELINT- Operational ELINT
MASINT - (Measurement and Signature Intelligence)
FISINT - (Foreign Instrumentation Signals Intelligence)
LEO COMINT  - Space based communications with orbiting satellites below 2000 km
GEO COMINT - Space based communications with geosynchronous satellites

These are all programs at US security agencies. SIGINT includes radio, but is not limited to radio. It's best summarized broadly as intelligence-gathering by the interception of signals. This even includes conversations  (COMINT.)  It also, traffic analysis—not just traffic but signal on the radio band as well. It's an examination of who sends signals to who, and how often. That's regardless of whether the signals themselves can be decrypted and/or understood. This is what spooks do. They are not James Bond, they are peeping toms. By and large most people are OK with that. More here.

Obviously these programs are much older than the agencies that oversee them now. Eavesdropping is surely as old as our species, Encryption is at least as old as the Romans, and probably cracked in the same era.  But ELINT is only as old as radio. Some of the first intercepted signals were transmitted in 1900 during the Boer war.  The British went on to monitor Russian marine wireless in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904.  This all became more of a international game in WWI. The British cut German undersea cables, forcing them to use radio so they could intercept the signals. The British built Y-stations on land and afloat  for interception and direction finding.

US was late to the game. Our communications monitoring of naval signals started around 1918. The Navy built 52 direction finding sites on the East Coast. What little we built in WWI was let to rot in the interval. We only ramped up again in the lead up to WWI in order to provide some direction finding on Japanese signals in the Pacific. Real COMINT programs started in the late 1930s with ships intercepting signals from Germany and Italy. When japan again joined the fray we ramped up on the west coast as well. Following WWII the military began approaching permanent monitoring installations, a direction remains unchanged today.

How Sound Is Transmitted...

This is a nice 6-minute science reel on how radio works. Unfortunately the video lacks any context so it's origin is unknown. It is in the Prelinger Archives on archive.org, which is likely how it came to be preserved at all. The Prelinger Archives were founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. It is a a broad collection of over 60,000 ephemeral films in various formats. In 2002 it was acquired by the Library of Congress.

OWI Radio

The OWI was the United States Office of War Information. It only existed from 1942 into 1945. These three years were also the peak years of U.S. involvement in WWII. They distributed some information for general safety like warning against hoarding,or shortages, but mostly they produced patriotic, jingoist content  for print and radio. Without rendering any judgement over the ethics of the program as a whole I can say they produced a huge volume of programming, and some was even popular.

So starting with with Roosevelt's Executive Order 9182 on Jun 13th, 1942 things changed.  In July 1942 William B. Lewis was appointed as head of it's radio bureau. He had been serving as head of the Domestic Radio Bureau of the Office of Facts and Figures since he left CBS. Lewis came to radio from the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. He made a good impression at an interview with William Paley and ended up as Director of Programming even though he'd had zero prior experience. His work at CBS is legendary and will get it's own post another day. But his connections and experience made the programming strong. It was so strong that in 1943 when they closed 53 branch offices there was a brouhaha in radioland. Billboard ran more than two pages of comments from radio program directors kvetching about the loss of service. More here.

Under Lewis the Radio Bureau became the dominant arm of the OWI at home. Abroad it had other goals but domestically it cleared network content, and created it's own for syndication. Ostensibly this was to prevent the careless leaking of sensitive information. This obvious censorship mechanism operated invisibly, clearing scripts with authority only to advise, not to stop production.however, there was also an Office of Censorship and if the OWI disliked some programming... calls could be made. But in a war couched as one between freedom and fascism, little persuasion was required. More here.

Despite the available muscle, Lewis wasn't big on overt propagandizing. He believed that "Radio propaganda must be painless."  He developed the Network Allocation Plan (NAP). Under his plan, propaganda programs ran either bimonthly or weekly. No programs ran daily. To that end The OWI directly produced several radio series'.  The long list includes This is Our Enemy, Hasten the Day,  An American in England, An American in Russia, Passport for Adams, Uncle Sam and many others.  The popular and free programming led  to conflicts between broadcasters getting dibs. Eventually the OWI began scheduling the broadcasts coordinating with multiple networks to line up air times.

It was quiet at first, but the "war messaging" was in obvious conflict with commercial programming. It was doing harm to what had been the booming tech sector of that era. Commercial sponsors were not happy.  They didn't have to wait much longer though. The Germans surrendered in Berlin in May, then Japan in September. OWI ceased radio operations that month. After it was all over Lewis went back to advertising. 

Radio Signals in Space

I've discussed at length the myth that radio signals always travel at the speed of light. Post here. But I thought it would be an interesting exercise to determine how long it would take radio signals to reach various points in our galaxy . If you get the urge to check my math be aware that many sources cite distances in AU, (Astronomical Unit) which is equal to 149,597,870,700 meters, or about 92,955,807 miles. The basis for that unit is the distance of the Earth from the Sun which is random and pretty useless. More here.

The length of time needed to send radio signals depends on the straight-line distance between the two objects. I will determine that number with the simple equation T = D/C. The variable T is time, D is the distance and C is the speed of light (about 300,000 km/s). Because these are all moving targets and various planets are closer and further from Earth at different parts of their orbit these will be round numbers. For distance I will take an average of the apogee and perigee and then compute these based on that number.I am also omitting Centaurs from this list because their erratic orbits make my math meaningless.

The Sun
It would take 8 minutes for a radio signal from the Earth to reach the sun. Incidentally that's also the amount of time it takes for light from the sun to reach the Earth to traverse the same 93 million mile stretch.

Mercury
5 minutes doesn't sound like long but that's slower than a Youtube video on a shared DSL connection.

Venus
The one-way trip takes about 4.5 Minutes, longer than it takes to microwave dinner. It's distance can be anywhere from 26 to 160 million miles so it's time overlaps with Mars.

Earth
It's not zero, it's a minimum of 250 milliseconds for a radio signal to make the round trip from the surface to a geostationary satellite in orbit back to the surface. The Clark orbit is 22,236 mi above sea level so that's still quite fast.

The Moon
Ham radio enthusiasts routinely bounce signals off the Moon just for fun. The round trip takes about 3 seconds.

Mars
At about 33.9 million miles signals take about 21 minutes to arrive. Notably at it's shortest distance that whittles down to 4.5 minutes, which is similar to Venus. They are not equidistant, but the distance varies with orbit enough that the times overlap slightly.

Ceres (dwarf planet)
Ceres is a a rock–ice body  about 590 miles in diameter making up a third of the mass of the main asteroid belt. The one-way trip takes under 40 minutes, but it's still faster than some delivery pizza.

Jupiter
At about 480 million miles away the trip takes about 45 minutes. Famous for it's Jovian radio bursts, you can actually tune in to Jupiter. More here.

Saturn
It takes about 80 minutes for a radio signal to travel either to or from Saturn.  Yes, Saturn emits radio signals too. They have even been monitored by the Cassini spacecraft. The radio waves are connected to the auroras near the poles of the planet similar to those on Earth. You can hear a clip here.

Uranus
It is the last of the planets you can see with the naked eye. A radio signal takes around 155 Minutes to make the trip to Uranus.  I once had a delivery pizza take that long and I got a free 2-liter for my trouble.

Neptune
The most distant true planet, takes a whopping 250 minutes to receive radio signals from Earth.

Pluto (minor planet)
Though recently demoted, it is still a part of our solar system and also our second most massive dwarf planet. A radio signal would travel 3 billion miles and take over 4 hours to get here.

Sedna (Trans-Neptunian object)
It's not alone out there. Around the 8 billion mile mark you will also find dwarf planets Makemake, Haumea and others with less memorable names. With erratic orbits, radio signals take anywhere from 6-7 hours to reach this region.

Eris (dwarf planet)
We are way out now. Eris is almost 3 times as distant at Pluto at over 9 billion miles away. Radio signals take about 7.5 hours to get here.

Voyager Satellite
Presently on the edge of our Solar System, 11 billion miles away our signals now take over 17 hours to reach it. This satellite is now over 30 years old and still operating despite having less computing power or memory than my phone. It's still sending and receiving data in the  8 GHz range and will for years to come.

Transcription Mystery Disc #147

This is a Silvertone 8.5" acetate recording. It spins at 78 rpm and is a bit beat up. I managed to remove the bits of stuck on label and then coax some decent audio out of it. the recording is of a solo piano performance. I don't recognize the tune, but the playing is competent far beyond the student level, certainly at the level of a performing musician or at least a very experienced hack. The disc is entirely unlabeled and undated. Phonozoic dates their steel ore Silvertone discs to the early 1905s, I have no basis on which to contradict that number.

Silvertone Unknown

The damage to this speaks volumes about it's poor storage. Do not stack acetate discs in a pile. The metal core discs especially are heavy enough that the bottom discs are under pressure and both sleeves and acetate surfaces can stick together. The pressure also exacerbates delamination. This is a no-no. Store your discs like your records—vertically!

TAP vs. SMS

You probably caught it on the news this morning. The story usually starts with "Happy Birthday SMS."  I don't know how kids would abbreviate that today but I'm sure they do. The news stories all quote the first SMS message back in 1992.

"The first SMS message was sent over the Vodafone GSM network in the United Kingdom on 3 December 1992, from Neil Papworth of Sema Group (now Mavenir Systems) using a personal computer to Richard Jarvis of Vodafone using an Orbitel 901 handset. The text of the message was "Merry Christmas."

America didn't text anyone for another six months when Brennan Hayden, an engineer working for Aldiscon  testing their brand new SMS system sent a test message to his boss literally just the word "burp." It speaks volumes about cultural differences. [Source] It's a pretty nifty tech story but it totally skips over all the technological progress that it took to get there. In technology, the struggle is the glory and SMS (Short Message Service) wasn't the first telephony texting protocol by a long shot. 

But there wasn't much innovation in SMS in the first place. Prior to the innovations that allowed us to broadcast voice, we were all sending text by Morse Code be it by cable or wireless. What's really new in SMS is carrying the data via phone protocols over CDMA (Code division multiple access). It was predated by at least half a dozen different text standards for phone: V.21 in Sweden, Bell 103, Turbo Code, and Baudot in the USA, EDT (European Deaf Telephone) in Italy and Spain, V.23 in France, V.18 in the UK and others. Most of those are derived from TTY (Teletype) and worked with 5-bit Baudot code, some used DTMF, but they all worked.

The one that could have beaten out SMS was TAP, the Telocator Alphanumeric Protocol. It was also known as the Motorola Page Entry (PET) as well as the IXO alphanumeric entry protocol until it was adopted by Telocator (now known as PCIA) as a standard in 1988. It was intended to be an industry standard for sending alphanumeric messages to pagers. They had consumer grade gear on the market as early as 1985. It used Bell 103 compatible modems and sent 7-bit data in ASCII at 300 baud. That may sound antiquated but SMS is 7-bit as well. How SMS beat out all contenders I can't begin to guess, but the showdown never happened. More here.

SMS was developed at the GSM cooperation starting in 1984 by Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert. GSM was a project by France Télécom, and German Telecom. I don't want you to get the impression that they did the work, They were chairmen of those corporations. They more or less wrote the requirements document, which is like writing a want list for programmers. The fact that we know their names probably just means their publicists know how to use Wikipedia. They first  proposed the system at a GSM meeting in Oslo in 1985, but actual technical requirements didn't exist for years afterward no earlier than 1987, years after TAP. [EOM]