Radio-hat

I have seen in the last year, clothing, bags, and purses that have little slots built in or MP3 players. Most of them are clearly designed for the Ipod crowd. But it's no new idea to combine functional clothing and mediaplayers. The idea is more than 5 decades old. But it began, for some reason with hats...

In 1949 the American Merri-Lei Corporation of Brooklyn, NY debuted a radio receiver embedded in a womens hat. Thsi was a fairly heavy decive. It was a 2-tube single-loop battery device with a 1S5 tube and a 3V4 tube connected as an "Ultraaudion". The loop antenna is mounted in such a way that it can be rotated for best reception. Just try to sit still. Thetuning knob is mounted between the two tubes. The ear phones are built-in. The powersource are two batteries, a1.5 and a 22.5 volt batterie that are to be carried in the coat pocket and connected with the "Radio-Hat" by a short lead. It's semi-portable by todays standards, the hat weighed 12 oz and the power supply 7-oz.

It was advertised in Popular Science among other periodicals of the day. It was an invention of Victor T. Hoeflich. It only cost $7.95 each. More here, and here. The tradition lives on here, among other places.

As absurd as the device seems it caused enough of a stir that Zenith saw fit to produce their own version to compete in 1952. Their take on the device housed parts of the device in a walking cane to distribute the weight. That’s here with a short documentary.

By the 1960s there were far lighter versions built into visors, some were even solar powered. I think Solar Vision still makes this one. Now of course it costs $26.50 plus $6.50 for shipping. Oh, the pains of inflation.

Obscure WWII propaganda

I've written quite a bit about this catagory. But while we lampoon, and lambast the big names, we forget there were quite a few B and C-list propagandists. Out of the 12 Americans indicted for treason in the aftermath of World War II, seven were radio broadcasters.

Today I am thinking of Axis Sally. She wasn't as glamorous as Tokyo Rose, or as incidious as Goebbels. Not even exciting as those Nazis that wrote propagandist swing dance music to subvert the German youth.

She was a yankee, born Mildred Elizabeth Sisk in Portland, Maine. While still very young she changed her name to Mildred Gillars when her mother remarried a Dr. Gillars. She and her mother moved to New York City and it was here that Mildred fantasized about being an actress. But one million peopel go to hollywood each year to become movie stars. And I beleive it David Cross who estimated maybe 8 make it. So let's just say she was in the majority.

She went on nursing her dream and studied drama at Ohio Wesleyan University, but did not graduate. She worked at a variety of jobs after dropping out of school. She was a clerk, sales girl, cashier and even a waitress. But the dream still called to her. It was the depression and jobs were scares but she found work overseas as an English instructor at the Berlitz School of Languages in Germany. But the teachers were paid very poorly. She kept looking for better work. She got lucky and found employment as an announcer and radio actress with Radio Berlin. She had acheived her childhood dream. Except for the hating Jews part, that wasn't in the original dream.

Gillars did some naughty stuff, and said some very bad things. She posed as a worker for the Red Cross in order to record messages from American POWsthat could be converted into propaganda. "Axis Sally" really liked to air messages from American POWs. She woudl visit prisoners and tell them she was from the Red Cross. Her english was perfect. She enticed them to record happy messages to suggest that nazi improsonment wasn't so bad. Then she'd broadcast them intercut with propaganda messages. Some audio here.

Gillars' propaganda program was known as "Home Sweet Home" and usually aired sometime between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. daily. Although she referred to herself as "Midge at the mike," GIs dubbed her Axis Sally. Her broadcasts were heard all over Europe, the Mediterranean, North Africa and the United States. Most of her programs were aired from Berlin, but some were broadcast from both Chartres and Paris in France or from Hilversum in the Netherlands.

then came the radio play that got her convicted of treason. The one that almost got her hanged after the war. She wrote a radio play titled "Vision of Invasion." It aired on May 11, 1944. In it Axis Sally played the role of an American mother who dreamed that her son died on a burning ship attempting to cross the English Channel. Bay all reports the play had good foley work. The sound effects of the pained moans of the wounded, and of gunfire were very realistic and compelling. Then announcer's voice intoned, "The D of D-Day stands for doom...disaster...death...defeat...Dunkerque or Dieppe."

She was arrested in 1946, charged with 10 counts of treason, tried for 8 of them and then convicted of one in 1949. She did 12 years in prison getting parole in 1961. The Catholic Church took her in as they did many other nazis in that era and gave her a job at a Roman Catholic school in Columbus Ohio. Late in life she returned Ohio Wesleyan to finish up that bachelor's degree. She graduated in 1973. Gillars died June 25, 1988, at the age of 87.

76 NCE!!!!!!!!!!

This is the best news I've read in a long time so I need to share it. The FCC has given the greenlight for 76 new NCE stations. (Non-Commercial/Educational)

What's amazing about this is that the FCC fairly applied their points rules and ruled infavor of schools in some cases over religious broadcasters. Losing a local stick to a inbreeding cult in Twin Falls Idaho is pretty insulting to the community it's supposed to serve, but it happens all the time. Typically the religious broadcaster is sat-fed programming with no airstaff of any kind. But this time, the FCC seems to have applied the points sytem very fairly expecially with localism in mind. Could this be a repercussion of Barbara Boxer outing their supression of the localism study?

read this:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-40A2.pdf

and this:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-07-40A1.pdf

The mighty Note 4.

The FCC is an organization of laws... well it used to be and I've been mocking them of late for their new masonry. Kev seems to be more into political favoritism and back room deals but that's they way he was raised. I blame his parents.

But point being, once long ago the FCC had the stones to decide that entities owning too many stations was baaaaaaaaad. Specificly they refer to it here: 47 C.F.R. Section 73.3555 note 4. And it is there that they say clearly and succinctly "grandfathered status does not survive a transfer of control under theCommission's rules. "They are tolerant in their application of law to keep it's well-behaved broadcasters in a as-is arrangement. But when grandpa trims the fat and sells it off... the status is kaput. The rules apply anew! Great example here.

It concerns Stauffer Communications, licensee of WIBW-TV, Topeka, Kansas. Stauffer tries to transfer all control to Morris Communications. The comission in connection with Stauffer'sownership of broadcast television stations, and granted a temporary waiver of the television-newspaper cross-ownership rule to allow combined ownership by Morris. The stations are all put in trust pending completion of the sale.

Then oops Marris falls out. Stauffer goes to reacquire and noooo the flag comes down. While the multiple ownership was ok in 1975, it's not ok today. The common ownership of the Topeka Capital Journal (newspaper) and WIBW-AM & FM violate Section 73.3555d (at least abscent a waiver.) This one ends well. Stauffer really intended to just sell them again so they ask for 18 moths temporary waiver and to get it done. The FCC says.. ok you can do that. laypeople forget that the FCC has to aplly this in consideration to media outlets.. that includs print. Does it include websites? Nope. should it? probably yes.

Kent Frandsen has an 8 station cluster near Logan Utah. He was just trying to move one of his sticks to Humpy Peak to rimshot Salt Lake City. He had an approved ruel making for the construction. But 47 C.F.R. Section 73.3555 stopped him. He planned to move KNYN, Fort Bridger, WY to Franklin, ID and then KGNT, Smithfield, UT Fort Bridger, WY to Humpy Peak. Then leave KKEX where it is but change the City of license to Smithfield, UT. His ownership limit is grandfathered, and removing KNYN from the cluster kills his exclusion from the rules.

In stead Kent keeps KNYN licensed to Fort Bridger, but still physically moves it to Humpy Peak. KKEX will stays in Preston but KUPI, change reference coordinates to make KGNT’s move legal. oy vey!

The Clicker uses radio

You can thank Nikola Tesla, for this one too. Back in 1893 he described in Patent (number 613809), named "Method of an Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vehicle or Vehicles". It was the first remote control of anything, TV or otherwise... predates TV of course.

Eugene F. McDonald Jr., the founder of Zenith believed TV viewers would not tolerate commercials indefinitely and was convinced that sooner or later commercial television would collapse. He was full bore behind the development of the remote so that people could avoid watching ads.

The Zenith Radio Corporation was the early leader in this arena. Before they unveiled any actual remote controls they released this weird hand held control. It didn't change channels though. It was for a 1948 Garod TV set and what it did was enlarge the picture. they called it a Telezoom. It was wired to the TV set, with a 20 foot long cable. No radio was involved.

Zenith quickly decided that people wanted to change the channel way more than they wanted to zoom in. They released the first real remote in 1950 nicknamed the "lazy bones." It too was tethered to the TV via a 20 foot cable. No radio here either.

In 1955 Zenith figured out that the tether was not popular, it was a tripwire, garrote and jump rope for children and the family pet and it had to go. They then put together the first real wireless remote. It was called the Flashmatic. It worked by shining a beam of light onto a photoelectric cell. It's major shortcoming was that the photoelectric cells couldn't distinguish between light from the remote and light from any other source. it also was very directional and required that the clicker be precisely pointed. and still no radio...

The next year Robert Adler developed the archetypal clicker, the Zenith Space Command. It too was wireless but it worked mechanically to produce ultrasonic sounds. Literally pushing a button struck a bar, each bar emitted a different frequency. The sensor in the TV received these with a microphone. The downside was that the tones were not inaudible. Both young women and dogs often would hear the shrill tones. The channel also could be changed inadvertently by naturally occurring noises. Jingling keys, xylophones and dog whistles among other things. and worse yet.. there was no radio involved at all. More here.

Here's the radio part. All remotes for your TV use either a "near" infrared diode to emit a beam of light to the device, or a radio signal. This beam/wave is a carrier wave with signals that trigger functions being it's modulated frequency. You can actually hear this work with some remotes even on the infrared carrier by playing with the clicker next to an AM radio.

Volume 5 is Up!

Four (4) reviews up

Love is all – Nine Times that Same Song
Print – Highlights of Horror

Bloarzeyd – Delirious insane ventilator of

Die Princess Die – Lions Eat Lions

Citizen of the Day at KLEM

In 1961, KLEM-AM GM Paul Olson started a tradition. Le Mars restaurants. On that day in 1961, Bernie Madsen was the "Name of the Day." For the honor, Madsen received a family pass to the Royal Theatre." ON that first day on September 7th, Bernie Madsen was the first known "Name of the Day.

The KLEM tradition has continued for 46 years. These days Citizen of the day in Le Mars somes with a lot more perks, The Citizen of the Day is given a flower from Le Mars Flower House, movie or game rental from Jo's Movie House, pizza at Pizza Hut, and a car wash from Easy Clean Car Wash. Dinner a movie and a clean car, is not a bad day at all. After 46 years Le Mars Flower House has feted somthing like 12,000 flowers. List here: http://www.klem1410.com/KLEMSALUTES/Index.cfm

On November 3rd2006 Pres. George Bush Jr. was given the award on his first visit to Le Mars. He did not eat at pizza hut, or get his armored limo washed, or rent a movie. He wouldn't even wear the flower. The rose was delivered by [D] Rep. Ralph Klemme, but The Secret Service agents said it was a security concern. Apparently the flower could contain "a substance." I am guessing that substance they feared was pixie dust? George supposedly used to have quite a taste for the stuff.

There's radio in Samoa?

With all of the K and W silliness I've explained in the past, it comes as a surprise to many people that Most United States-affiliated broadcasting stations located in the Pacific have in fact been assigned K calls. Yes this makes no sense in the historical context. The point was originally to be able to discern ship from shore communiques on call alone...
As with all FCC rules, there are some notable exceptions. For example, all the stations in Guam, Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands should all have K calls, Right? But there have also been a few W assignments...

WVUV-AM in Leone America Samoa still has grandfathered calls. In addition to that, they dont observe the 10Mhz spacing there, so it's frequency is actually 648 AM. This gives WVUV the distinction of being the furthest west "W" call sign in the United States. Because of this and for no particularly good reason, The FCC allowed them to use a "conforming" call when they launched a Low Power TV outlet on Channel 30, WVUV-LP in 2005. Great Radio Heritage Story here. (love that site)

But allow me to note, that the FCC had a momentary lapse in 2002. they allowed anew station in Tafuna, also on Samoa to operate for a few months as WDJD-AM on 585. It was eventually required to switch to a K-prefix call. They became KJAL.

Google has taken my pictures!

Google bought Picasa. They've gotten past the bizdev, MBA, synergy crapola and now their techs are gloming all my old pics on one site. Seeing as I've been at this for years, they may take years more to spider and copy.

See how far they've gotten here.

I have a 1GB limit, I expect that won't go the distance.

Graveyard Frequencies

Originally these were called "Local Channels." This was because the AM stations on these frequencies were intended to serve only small communities. On the engineering side they were only allowed to operate up to a maximum of 250 watts, non-directional . It was in November, 1928 that the FCC created this radio dial configuration. It was almost a dumping ground for the many very-low power stations that popped up in the mid-1920s. These Frequencies are:
1230 kHz
1240 kHz
1340 kHz
1400 kHz
1450 kHz
1490 kHz

The DXer's dubbed them "Graveyard channels." That was because each of those frequencies was home to 300 stations in the lower 48. This makes picking out any single station almost impossible. If this sort of challenging DX’ing appeals to you be sure to visit the Graveyard DX blog here. It's inactive, but very telling. In the US, Canada and Mexico stations on the AM dial are spaced at 10 kHz intervals.

In 1960 the FCC finally admitted that some of these small communities had grown larger than the coverage areas of their local stations. So, the suits allowed all stations on the six aforementioned frequencies to increase their daytime power to 1000 watts. This was modified in 1982 to permit the higher power 24/7. the assumption was that they will only interfere with each other. Which they do. Canadian and Mexican followed suit.The result? Congestion is very common, and DXers may hear dozens of stations on a single frequency. As Fybush once wrote :

"Interference... in AM broadcasting is cumulative; Just listen to any of the "graveyard" channels... to hear what it sounds like when 300 stations are each throwing a kilowatt into the ether. "

Now, most stations on the six "Grave yard" frequencies operate at the permitted max of 1000 watts, even at night. A small number of them have had to use directional patterns to suppress interference to each other. You still hear cross talk everywhere in American essentially until you're in their parking lot.

The King of Nostalgia!

"Nostalgia is going through the roof, it's the only way to fly. ...any radio station today that's in the red, within six months of going to all nostalgia, they're in the black. There are at least six 50,000-watt stations doing it now."

Joe Franklin was way off. Though this was written in 1994 he should have already known. It's been a decade, and he was wrong then and wrong now. I do appreciate Joe Franklin's enthusiasm. I like the format myself and I do reccomend reading the Katz Media report on the adult standards radio Power point page here. But to sum it up, in 1990 the average share for a standards outlet was a 4.4. Now it's a 2.4. He's just plain wrong. But unpopular doesn't mean bad. Actually, I've found it to often to mean the opposite.

Adult Standards is aimed at what they refer to condescendingly in marketing literature as "mature adults." It just means anyone older then the age of 50 that isn't dead. Unless you're in Chicago. In Chicago the dead get to vote and everything. It is primarily on the AM band because people under 50 dont listen to AM radio for music.

The format initially known as "Middle of the Road" (MOR) , first acheived popularity in the late 1970s as a way to reach that 50+ group with music programming. As a group they find AC to me too modern and Beautiful Music too much like waiting for the dentist.

The reason that Joe Franklin (real name Joseph Fortgang) was being overtly enthusiastic about a dying format is that he was already known then as "the king of nostalgia". Franklin's career worked in reverse. after a huge career in television hosting the first TV talk show ever, he moved to radio. Franklin played his old records on WOR-AM on Saturday evenings.

The old devil is still alive, and currently interviews celebrities on the Bloomberg Radio Network. His program is actually made at his restaurant in the heart of Manhattan’s theatre district called Joe Franklin’s Memory Lane Restaurant. When the restaurant was designed, in the center of the front dining room they built a triangular stage where, several times a week, Franklin interviews various celebrities via a Soundcraft RM100 broadcast mixer. The man holds the Guinness Book of World Records award for hosting the most TV shows, a total of 31,015.

His old TV show was huge. Franklin interviewed over 10,000 guests during his 43-year TV run. These included five U.S. Presidents, and screen legends such as Charlie Chaplin, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe and Cary Grant.

FACT: It was in 1986, at the eviction sale of legendary broadcaster Joe Franklin, that Henry Sapoznik discovered his first Yiddish radio disk. Thus beginning the Yiddish Radio Project.

Puerto Rico, The Market

It was only about a year ago that the FCC switched over to use arbitron-defined markets in their rulings. But among the 299 markets there is one that even the FCC agrees is the odd ball.

The Arbitron-defined market of “Puerto Rico” is about the size of Connecticut and with half a million more people. By comparison, Connecticut is parsed into the seven markets of Hartford, New Haven, New London, Fairfield, Bridgeport, Stamford and Danbury. somthing is already amis and I haven't even addressed topography.

The mountain ranges central to the island mean there’s almost no signal overlap among the three main population centers, of San Juan, Mayaguez and Ponce. Almost any operator intending to cover the market needs a stick for each market. But this creates an ownership concentraion problem. The existing rules are based on a 30 percent horizontal ownership cap.

Allow me to quote from FCC.gov:

The current rules reflect numerical caps set by Congress in 1996. The restraints are based on a sliding scale that increases with the size of the local market. As a general rule, one entity may own:

A. Up to five commercial radio stations, not more than three of which are in the same service (i.e., AM or FM), in a market with 14 or fewer radio stations;

B. Up to six commercial radio stations, not more than four of which are in the same service, in a market with between 15 and 29 radio stations;

C. Up to seven commercial radio stations, not more than four of which are in the same service, in a radio market with between 30 and 44 (inclusive) radio stations;

D. Up to eight commercial radio stations, not more than five of which are in the same service, in a radio market with 45 or more radio stations.

The rules are well intended and definitely to more good than harm. Though it's often very rationally suggested that the initial losening in 1996 should be "undone." But, adoption of the subjective Arbitron market definitions left Puerto Rico in the wind in regard to even the loosened caps. Even NOAA needed multiple sticks to serve the island with "All Hazards" radio.

All along of course the Bush-appointed FCC comissioners have been trying to limit ownership caps entirely. This is not being done in defence of Puerto Rico. Mostly this is has been persued by lapdog congressmen the at the behest of their mediaowning campaign contributors. Thankfully in 2005 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit blocked their efforts. Of course FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin continues to be a heathen jackass of perviously unheralded proportions. But let's get back to the island pseudo-state shall we?

As I said the FCC has been known to grant exceptions in Puerto Rico. Most recently Arso Broadcasting was permitted to add another station to its existing cluster of 13 stations (6 AM and 7 FM) signals in the market. On the table was 102.3 WMIO, serving Mayaguez primarily.

But as exciting as all thi sis, why is it that comperably sized connecticut is sliced into 7 markets and Puerto Rico only one? Is it racial? I doubt it. The fact is, that Hawaii has a similar problem, and it too is "one island, one market."

Ted Tucker's Personal Jukebox

In 2004 103.1 KCDX began a very unique format. Locally in Globe Arizona it was referred to as "Tucker's personal Jukebox." He was not a Prgram Director or even DJ, nor did you even hear Ted's voice, or any DJ for that matter on the air. Ted's format was a compilation of few thousand thousand old album tracks, and entirely without advertisements. The format won the best rock radio station award in 2004 from the Phoenix New Times.
Today the station remains totally commercial-free broadcasting at 2,700 watts from Florence. The station does not advertise, did nto even bother to put up a website for more than a year. It's owner, a former pharmacist is if anything more furtive himself. Tucker staunchly protects his privacy, refusing to be photographed or fill in many of the specifics of his business and personal life. As to how many radio stations he has sold, his only answer is "several." Tucker has at least some financial interest in five other area stations: KZNO, KSCQ,KNFT, KNFT-AM and KKYZ.

You wont find KCDX in Florence. The station's radio tower is outside of Globe, and its studio as well. Since the station is fully automated the reclusive Tucker is nowhere to be seen. Tucker makes a living "flipping" radio staitons. He owns several Arizona radio stations and has sold many other, but KCDX is the first he turned into his own Ipod. He's made a career upgrading marginal licenses into valulable commodities. For more than 15 years he's been acquiring and creating radio stations in small burgs between metro centers like San Carlos, Oracle, Douglas and Florence. He upgrades their equipment and towers and often files with the FCC for minor and somtimes major improvements.

Tucker makes no promises about the station's future, in fact On in 2000, Tucker filed a Minor Change to a Licensed Facility Application with the FCC to move the main transmitter to a mountain NW of Oracle, AZ. while increasing power to 95 kW. Relating to this he's filed three engineering amendments in 2003 and 2004. If approved, this change would drop KCDX on top of Tucson increasing it's value tremendously. It's hard to beleive with hsi past history that he wont sell it at that point.

Tucker was quoted as saying: "I don't profess to be a master programmer or anything like that. I'm just a guy who likes music," You can listen online here: http://kcdx.com/listenOnline.php

Dr. Mahlon Loomis

All of radio history could have been different. But predictably, Congress didnt' want to give $50,000 to a dentist with strange ideas.

Dr. Mahlon Loomis tried to convince Congress to fund the design and testing of a wireless system to telegraph signals through the air directly between the United States and Switzerland. Congress refused the requested $50,000 in funding, and there are those today who still claim this kept Loomis from developing a radio system two decades before Marconi. In 1865 the good doctor may have been the first person to communicate wirelessly. Between 1866 and 1873 he transmitted a distance of 18 miles between the tops of Cohocton Mountain and Beorse Deer Mountain in Virginia. The embarassment of his public weirdness drove his wife to leave him.

Loomis was granted U.S. patent number 129,971 on July 30, 1872 for an His Aerial Telegraph. "A new and Improved Mode of Telegraphing and of Generating Light, Heat, and Motive Power". At the time, Loomis claimed his system could be used to melt icebergs, make the seasons milder, eliminate malaria, and provide an inexhaustible source of energy. His drawings indicate he was on the right track but his claims tell us he was a carny at heart. He remarked more than once "I know that I am regarded as a crank, perhaps a fool by some, and as to the latter, possibly I am, for I could have discarded this thing entirely and turned my attention to making money."

In 1868 Mahlon Loomis demonstrated to a group of Congressmen and scientists a wireless experiment. He made two kites the bottom of which were covered with thin copper gauze, and the kite string was copper wire. He set a kite sent aloft to alter the of current in another kite connected to a galvenometer located 29 km away (18 miles) from the first kite. This discovery triggered the development of wireless telegraphy for long distance communications. Senator Samuel Pomeroy of Kansas and Representative John Bingham of Ohio were present at this demonstration.

Now in this public experiment he broadcast nothing. His theory was flawed. He beleive that the atmosphere had electrically conducting layers. These of course do not exist. But it is possible that his equipment was so poorly designed or manufactured (or both) that they operated differently than he intended. In his later experiments he erected steel masts on top of wooden towers and replicated the experiment successfully.

Near Bears Den mountain in Terra Alta Cemetery there is a sign commemorating his work. It reads: "From nearby Bear's Den Mountain to the Catoctin Ridge, a distance of fourteen miles, Dr. Mahlon Loomis, Dentist, sent the first aerial wireless signals, 1866-73, using kites flown by copper wires. Loomis received a patent in 1872 and his company was chartered by Congress in 1873. But lack of capital frustrated his experiments. He died in 1866. Virginia Conservation Commission 1848."

AM on the FM

The FCC has been turning over a new leaf as of late. No longer do these pesky "rules" obstruct things. Now just a couple well placed phone calls to senators, and representatives with a few well-timed campaign donations and you too can have a rule-defying Special Temporary Authorization (STA).

Cross-band translation is not permitted by the FCC's rules. There has been some debate for the last few years abotu changing this, but as of bnow, it is illgal for an FM stick to have an Am translator and vice versa. None-the-less certain stuffed shirts in the beltway have been working their mojo down at the FCC and getting around the rules. Here are two examples.

1. This first waiver was assisted by actions of House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt [R] of South Carolina. On Jan. 31, 2007, the FCC issued an STA to Our Three Sons Broadcasting, licensee of WRHI-AM, Rock Hill, SC. This STA permits the AM station to rebroadcast its signal in Rock Hill, NC on 94.3 with an FM translator W232AX. STA posted here in pdf.

2. Murfreesboro, Tennessee based WGNS-AM was the first AM station in America to receive a federal waiver to expand its reach into the FM band legally. By adding two FM booster frequencies it now reaches all of Rutherford County. On March 1, WGNS began transmitting from both 100.5 FM and 101.9 FM along with its regular frequency at 1450 AM. The station claims this is to improve the reach of their emergency broadcasts. really it's a competative move enabled by none other than Bush appointee FCC director Deborah Taylor-Tate, Murfreesboro, TN native. The ladies can be good ol' boys too.

Of course there was another unrelated but far more defiant STA only a few weeks ago. In June of 2006 the FCC raided an illegal station on 100.3 in Tonopha Nevada. Rod Moses, owner of Radio Goldfield Broadcast Inc received a very Special STA from the FCC. It allowed him not only to avoid fines, and jail and seizure of his hardware but also to get back on the air. This time it was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pressured the FCC.

Where is this all going? softer rules, no rules at all? Rules only for those without friends in high places? Who knows, but it aint gonna be pretty.

Barn Dance on the radio!

In the early days of radio, the recording industry divided music into two primary categories: race music and hillbilly music. If you hadnt' guessed those are euphamisms for black people and white people. For the record, the adjective hillbilly is also derived from music. It's first appearance is in Uncle Dave Macon's "Hill Billie Blues" circa 1924. More here.

The Barn Dance was originated in Scotland in the 1860's. It was also known as the "Pas de Quartre" which basically was a generic term for any American folk dancing. A barn raising was a community event, and afterwards a party was given to all involved hands. Pretty much only the amish build barns in America now so we dont see these so much anymore since the Amish don't allow that deviant stuff goin' on.

Early Country Radio Timeline
1910 John Lomax publishes "Frontier Ballads"
1916 Cecil Sharp publishes Appalachian folk songs
1922 Eck Robertson, cuts the first recording of Mountain music.
1922 WBAP launches first barn dance
1923 Little Old Log Cabin by Ralph Peer is a national hit
1925 Carl Sprague records cowboy songs
1924 WLS debuts barn dance
1924 Vernon Dalhart sells 1 million copies of "The Prisoner’s Song"
1925 WSM launches the barn dance that becomes Grand Ole Opry
1927 Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers cut first records
1928 First record is made in Nashville

Timeline contines here.

Eventually there came to be a multitude of small regional radio barn dance programs, (WRVA for example) but there were 3 big national ones. 820 WBAP-AM in Fort-Worth launched the first barn dance progam in 1923 shortly after WSM debuted hillbilly music. Thsi program really defined the radio barn dance. It even had cadance callers like a typical barn dance. A real barn dance has dance callers. A caller is a musician who shounts out dance movements. These are specificly times and on many old time recordings are ill-timed. [When your club DJ tells you to raise the roof... that's the same thing so dont get smug kid.] Little story here .

In 1922, WSM-AM was the first to broadcast these mountain songs to its audience. WSM is famous world-round for the Opry, the afformentoned Mr. Macon quite appropriately was one of the first stars of the Grand Ole Opry. It was Nashville's first radio station and the Barn dance they began broadcasting in 1923 would eventually change name to "Grand Ole Opry". Until his death in 1952, "Uncle Dave" Macon regularly performed on the radio show.

On April 19th 1924, Chicago's radio station WLS-AM began broadcasting a barn dance that could be heard throughout the Midwest. The WLS National Barn Dance had music, comedy and skits. The program ran for more than 50 years. Regularly featured were : Gene Autry, Lulu Belle and Scotty, Pat Buttram, George Gobel, and The DeZurik Sisters. Read about it here. In 1949, ABC attempted to lanuch a version of the program for TV. Sadly it tanked after only a few months. ABC Moved the program to to WGN-AM in 1960. In 1944,the show's origins were made the topic of a feature film of the same name. It sucked.

The barn dances are largely gone now, but some programs try to keep thatlantern lit like Don & Steve's BIG Fresno Barn Dance on KFSR in Fresno here. [Click the header to hear the Coon Creek Girls on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance on WHAS.]

The Loudspeaker Part 5

I barely understand how these work so bare with me... part 5 is about the new toys.

To understand how the NXT flat speakers work, it's best to temporarily forget what you know about NXT technology, but the similarities end there. There is no woofer, no tweeter, no crossover. The parts you'd recognize are a magnet, a voice coil and a panel that could be made of aluminum or paper.
everything I wrote earlier this week. The obvious part with an amplifier powering a loudspeaker doesn't change with

NXT speakers operate in a world of psycho-acoustics and math. I'm not a math major so I'll be brief and quote others who are. "The magnet-and-coil assembly moves a microscopic 40 microns, barely nudging the rigid panel to begin a series of bending waves that travel in all directions." the panel drives waves that bend and crossing at angles and at different speeds.

Flat panel speakers are a British innovation. The British firm Verity bought a patent on public address systems owned by the country's Ministry of Defense and modified the speaker to deliver hi-fi sound. They patented this modified version and now licensing it.

But, there is a challenge to that patent. Sound Advance Systems of Santa Ana, California, claims its founder, José Bertagni, patented flat panel speakers thirty years ago. This time frame means that SAS can't claim royalties, it also should mean that Verity's ownership claim is invalid. The technical description in the patent is a prior publication which the SAS is using to attack Verity's claims. Of Course Verity takes the position that the NXT speaker is unique: the NXT speaker panel vibrates over its entire surface. The SAS speaker pumps air more like a piston. Read on:
http://www.lightspeed-tek.com/files/NXT_WHITEPAPER.pdf

The Loudspeaker part 4

This is the classic electrostatic loud speaker. the design is imperfect, but is revisited even today by audiophiles looking for more accuracy. Nakamichi just unveiled a version that costs about $9,000 per pair. A healthy descendant of patent No. 1,983,377.

One of the big down sides is that they use very high voltages to operate. The 5000 volt DC bias is usually supplied by a power supply running off 120 volt AC electrical circuits which is dangerous enough I'd not recommend it be anywhere children can reach. This nut makes them.

They use a thin flat conductive diaphragm. It's usually a plastic sheet impregnated graphite. This diaphragm is sandwiched between two electrically conductive grids, with a small air gap between the diaphragm and grids. For low distortion operation, the diaphragm must operate with a constant charge on its surface, rather than with a constant voltage. hence the need for the juice and the tube amp and the transformer and the dedicated circuit in the basement. [OK, I'm exaggerating but you're starting to get the idea what nobody uses these.]

The reason they exist is that they are amazingly precise. Which is why the audio nerds at Stereophile Magazine get all dreamy-eyed when some manufacturer ships them a pair for testing. The diaphragm described above is driven by two grids. Using grids on both sides cancels out non-linearity. The result is almost the total elimination of harmonic distortion. it sounds crisp to say the least. The downside to this design other than voltage and cost is that unlike your cheapo speakers it projects this perfect sound over a very narrow area. It's sonic field is very narrow, especially for those of us that are getting spoiled by surround sound these days.

In 1957 Quad ESL marketed as the first real electrostatic loudspeaker, referred to as the Quad 55 or the Quad 57. Those bad boys were designed by Peter Walker (pictured) and David Williamson. But they were based on a patent owned by Edward W. Kellogg's from 1934. that patent was based on a research paper he did way before that in 1925 while still working at General Electric. Kellog worked in tandem with a gentleman named Chester Rice. They published a paper on amplifier design that was important in boosting the power transmitted to loudspeakers. In 1926, RCA used this design in the Radiola line of a.c. powered radios.

The Loudspeaker Part 3

Twenty years later after much well-marketed but insubstantial change in speaker technology, somebody finally brings the goods. In 1954 Edgar Villchur develops the acoustic suspension principle. As great as speakers were for making things louder the bass just sucked man. The sound reproduction was very treble heavy. Villchur's work made your subwoofer possible and by extension the song Low Rider with his patent No. 2,775,309. Great Stereophile article here.

What I like about Villchur is that he was really one of us radio geeks. he ran a radio shop on West 4th Street, in Manhattan building and repairing custom hi-fi sets. He taught at NYU and wrote two books on the reproduction of sound. One of which, his 1965 book, Reproduction of Sound in High-Fidelity & Stereo Phonographs, is still in print today.

Acoustic suspension principle is a mathematical model of woofer behaviour in tandem with the air in a speaker cabinet, it provides a way to design a small speaker system. Before this to produce bass sounds accurately required ridiculous Frigidaire sized chassis. This allowed the development of effective and linear low frequency response in a small chassis. Suddenly with a two way system (woofer and tweeter) a output of 35 to 40 Hz from a box of only two cubic feet or so was possible. Without getting into the math, the idea is as follows:
1. Small cabinet size
2. Tight, clean bass response.
3. improved efficiency
4. The smaller woofer
5. Controlled response below the system resonance

Eddie's company, Acoustic Research introduced the small AR-1 bookshelf loudspeaker that used the this principle. that puppy cost $185 retail. This was followed by the $89 AR-2 in 1956 and eventually by the AR-3 with improved domed tweeters in 1958. The Acoustic Research brand of Hi-Fi loudspeakers became famous with their AR-3 loudspeaker. These had 12-inch woofers and a dome midrange speaker to compliment the high frequency tweeter.

The company prospers even now as they sully their brand name with tiny crappy speakers for the Ipod. But why not, Villchur sold Acoustic Research in 1967. He took the dough and founded the Foundation for Hearing Aid Research. His non-profit foundation developed a prototype device whose basic design is used widely in today's hearing aids.

The Loudspeaker Part 2

When people talk about loudspeakers people talk about Jensen, Siemens and the other big names. Nobody mentions Clair Loring Farrand. Who the hell is that guy? He invented the coil-driven direct-radiator loudspeaker. It was (in my opinion) the next big step in speaker evolution.

Farrand is better remembered for his work at Warner Bros. in Hollywood during the transition from silent films to sound pictures. He died not that long ago in 1981 at the age of 85. his New York Times obit read "Farrand was founder and president of Farrand Industries Inc. of Valhalla, N.Y., and his companies had control of roughly 1,000 patents. They ranged from bombsights for the B-52 bomber to windows for space program simulators." It's true. What they don't tell you is that before inventing the loudspeaker, Clair was a Marconi Company radio operator. He quit at the age of 23 in 1918 before perfecting that speaker.

He invented the Phonetron based on patent No. 1,847,935. His patent was filed Apr. 23, 1921. "An elliptically tapered tube or funnel shaped element is fixed to a loudspeaker so that its large diameter end overlies a central region of the loudspeaker diaphragm and such that its small diameter end extends away from the diaphragm. The loudspeaker diaphragm need not extend beyond the line on which it is connected to the funnel element, but does in the preferred embodiment. The funnel element has a cross-sectional shape that differs on planes parallel to the plane of the base which lie at different distances from the base. A funnel that is circular in cross-section at all of those parallel planes does not exhibit high fidelity response with the brilliance and clarity that distinguishes speakers having the non-uniform cross-sectional shape."

Blah Blah Blah.. The important part is that it's a paper cone. One just like the one in your speakers at home. It worked well, and was accepted by consumers. It successfully competed with the horns used by existing table radios

The Loudspeaker Part 1

Before the fight even starts. Allow me to define "Loud Speaker"
n. A device for converting electrical energy to sound
Loudspeakers are electro mechanical devices working on the basis of electromagnetism. They convert a given electrical signal, using electromagnetism, into moving air, what we call sound.

Early radio had a problem. Things were quiet. Too quiet as they say in the war movies. Things needed to get louder, not loud enough to rattle your windows with the massive sub-woofer in the trunk, but at least loud enough to hear at all. Radio's did not have amplifiers yet. Everything was operating with an output power measured in milliwatts.

Siemens filed the first significant patent for the loudspeaker horn. It was the predecessor to all acoustic models used in phonographs players. His German patent was granted July 30, 1878 and his British patent No. 4685 was granted Feb. 1, 1878. It was not a patent for audible transmission, it never carried sound. (He tested it wish DC transients.) Alexander G. Bell nailed that with his telephone patent in 1876. What Siemens patented was "the mechanical movement of an electrical coil from electrical currents transmitted through it" A moving coil transducer! and we all know from radio production I class that if the coil moves... it's dynamic.

So in 1874 Ernst W. Siemens was the first to scientifically describe the dynamic transducer, with a circular coil of wire in a magnetic field. His model is suspended so that it can support axial motion (be springy).

But what to do with all these moving springs and no sound? Siemens applied for a second German patent, No. 2355, filed Dec. 14, 1877. This one was for a non-magnetic parchment diaphragm as the sound radiator of a moving-coil transducer. His diaphragm had a cone shape, with an exponentially flaring trumpet shape. See picture above.. Many people thought it looked like a daffodil or other flower. Strangely despite the fact that he could plainly see the coil moving, It was the two Americans, Chester W. Rice and Edward W. Kellog, that patented the moving coil principle in 1924.

But like all test models it didn't work so well. It wasn't very responsive. the axial mounting wasn't exactly perfect etc. etc. So this math nerd named Oliver Lodge starting noodling with it. He'd recently decided that math was boring and moved over to chair the physics department at Oxford. During his tine there he conducted experiments in the propagation and reception of electromagnetic waves. It was he that proved in1888 showed that radio-frequency waves could be transmitted along electric wires. It was he that fixed Édouard Branly's "coherer" so that Morse code could even be received. In his spare time he electric spark ignition for the internal combustion engine. Needless to say, he was a bright guy.

Mr. Lodge improved upon the speaker in 1898 with British patent No. 971. He added non-magnetic spacers to keep the air gap between the inner and outer poles of a moving coil transducer. He called it a "bellowing telephone" because of the cone-shape. It's off topic but like many geniuses in his spare time he was also a nutter and a bit of a sun worshipper..

Kevin Martin

You may get the impression that I dislike the man.

That would be an understatment, but true.

The First Radio Beacon

A radio beacon is non-directional transmitter that usually transmits a constant signal on a licensed radio frequency. Before the days of VOR, GPS, LORAN, beacons were used with direction finding equipment to find ones relative bearing to a known location. The beacon being the known location.

There are a few different kinds of radio beacons. There are amateur radio beacons that are used to test propagation of radio signals. At sea, there are marine beacons, though largely phased out. In aviation they use a beacon called Non-directional Beacon (NDB). These are used to help find airports.

In 1921 the first non-directional radio beacon (N.D.B.) went into service. It was operated by the Bureau of Lighthouses to assist marine navigation. A manual radio direction finder that was light enough for airborne use was developed in 1934 for these very NDBs. They were the core of navigational technology for decades.

By June 30, 1955, there were 173 NDBs operating in the United States. Since then a variety of much more dependable and accurate systems have been developed. The current plan is to decommission these beacons over the next few years as they are replaced with newer supposedly better technology. But at least today NDBs still pepper the landscape. These that still remain in service are kept as an emergency backup system in the case that these more "sophisticated" modern systems fail. Old obsolete technology is always more sturdy somehow...

The Eiffel Tower is an Antenna

The Eiffel tower in Paris was built for an Exhibition in celebration of the French Revolution. Construction began earnestly in 1884 and about 2 years and 7,000+ tons of iron later it was finished. It was purely decorative for the first 20 years. Then it became the most famous broadcasting mast in the world.

Since the turn of the century (not that one, the one before that) the tower has been used for radio transmission. The first signals were sent from the Eiffel in 1898! Eugène Ducretet successfully sent these first radio signals to the Pantheon. He took that to the French military authorities in 1901 with a plan to make the Tower into a long-distance radio antenna. thaty liked the idea a bunch. By 1903 a radio connection was made with the military bases around Paris, and then a year later with the East of France. A permanent radio station was installed in the Tower in 1906.

On 20 November 1913 the Paris Observatory, used the Eiffel Tower as an antenna, exchanging wireless signals with the United States Naval Observatory in Arlington, Virginia. The object of the transmissions was to measure the difference in longitude between Paris and Washington, DC. These shortwave broadcasts continued into the 1950s. In 1957 the set of antenna wires the ran from the summit to anchors on the Avenue de Suffren and Champ de Mars were removed. They were connected to long-wave transmitters in small bunkers. In 1957, the tower started transmitting both FM radio and television.

In 1921 when a radio studio was opened in the tower transmissions of the first French radio station, Radiola Paris began. They beat the BBC to the air by one week. In 1924 it changed its name to Radio Paris.

Today the Eiffel Tower has a 70-feet antenna on the very top which makes its height 1,070 feet. Today there is still a radio studio which is underground and near one of the four legs. There are other rooms for the actual transmitters at the top. The transmitter tower is still in active use for FM radio broadcast. Eiffel lived long enough to hear the first European public radio broadcast from an aerial on the Tower in 1921.