The Clicquot Club Eskimos

The Clicquot Club Beverage Company was bought and dissolved by Cott Beverages in 1960, then Cott by Canada Dry in 1965. Nobody born after that seems to remember who they were.  They were founded in 1881, in Millis, MA by Henry Millis with a little family money. The name "Clicquot" probably was trying to absorb some of the respect and brand recognition that the French champagne Veuve Clicquot already had. But the Clicquot Club Beverage Co focused initially on the more pedestrian hard cider, but branched out into ginger ale, root beer and other soft drinks. Millis sold off the company in 1901. In 1938 the company became the first to sell its beverages in a can. We know them at Arcane Radio trivia because they sponsored a radio show in the 1920s. More here.

Since at least 1913 The Clicquot Club Beverage Co. has used a cherubic cartoon Eskimo boy as their mascot. It was really just a Caucasian Rockefeller painting-looking kid in a furry parka but that was enough to work in Massachusetts apparently.They used other advertising with random women, patriotic eagles, bucolic scenes and at one point, deriding the ingredients of their competitors. They were aggressive advertisers. But in that era advertising was not permitted on the radio, but sponsorships were.

The Clicquot Club Beverage Co. ended up with a variety show on WEAF hosted by Harry Reser. WEAF production manager George Podeyn to approach the Clicquot company about sponsoring a band led by Reser. Podeyn envisioned it as a gimmicky banjo orchestra. A two-sided color advertisement itemized the banjos as follows: Paramount tenor banjo, two Paramount Plectrum banjos, Paramount Melody banjo, Paramount B-Flat Melody banjo,saxophone, Piano, Tuba Bass, Drums, and Paramount tenor harps. You might have guessed already, but they had a sponsorship from Paramount banjos.

It's hard to get firm dates but the first program could have been as early as 1923 or as late as 1925. According to one source  It launched on January 23rd 1933,on the NBC Blue Network, Mondays at 8pm and held that slot until that July. Then went off air for two years. It returned December 21, 1935 but this time on CBS running on Saturdays at 8pm. Continuing on CBS until January 4, 1936 when it returned to NBC running Sundays at 3pm finally ending on April 12 of that year.This does line up nicely with the discography, but I can find no citation for this history.

Whether it started in 1925 or 1923, Reser had already been performing banjo music on WEAF for a few years to mixed success. So maybe it was the banjo orchestra, or maybe it was the brand recognition, but the Clicquot Club Eskimos were signed to Columbia records and began releasing 78s in 1926. The first of these was recorded on 12/24/1925. Their discography included over 50 sides, the last of which were recorded on 02/11/1931. (Some of these were later re-released on Perfect, Banner, Conqueror, Regal and other labels.) For this reason I doubt that the program ran much later than 1931, that it's full duration was at least  6 years. You can see their discography here. Sometimes Harry led the same band under the name the "Goodrich Zippers."

Tunes For Moderns

WRIU is the gift that keeps giving. This post comes to Arcane Radio Triva by way, indirectly of Neville.In interviewed Neville, the host  of "Noise From Neville" an iconic WRIU program. Kevin reached out to me and filled me in on some more WRIU greatness.

Zahm is a former member of The Philtres, and former member of the Etruscan Loveletters and former WRIU DJ. The Philtres were semi-finalists in the 1987 WBRU Rock Hunt; back in the days that WRIU actually stalked rock n' roll. He is (of course) a  University of Rhode Island alum.  He sent me a number of classic WRIU clips. He has kindly consented to my posting them here. That's the Etruscan Loveletters in the pic below. I think that's Kevin 2nd from the left.

Rather than paraphrasing I'll quote the man directly.  

"I had a show on WRIU called Tunes For Moderns when he was at there, he recorded a promo with my room-mate/"co-star" that I'm attaching.  My room-mate was Igor and Neville was, naturally, The Master."

The Igor Promo

"...the Heartbeat and AD1082 are both me, and the one labeled Duane Severa was Duane Severa (obviously); he was a friend of mine from a year ahead in high school who had the Tunes For Moderns show initially and turned it over to me."

Heartbeat PSA

"For better or worse our policy was to play whatever was unopened in the mail when we came to the studio each week.  I particularly remember Modern English, Let's Active, The Thought, The Incredible Casuals, The Weather Girls (yes, I put "It's Raining Men" on the air without a preview!), and Duran Duran. My band was from Newport - same town as Throwing Muses - so it was cool to play stuff from them when it showed up too."

 Duane Severa

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Hello Neighbor on KOA

For a series of years in the 1960s "Hello Neighbor" was carried on both radio station 850 KOA-AM and KOA-TV Channel 4.  Through it, KOA sponsored a community cookbook based on the call-in show. It ran 10:30 to noon Monday through Friday for most of it's existence. It had two hosts over those years. Host Merrie Lynn began in 1966 and was preceded by the original host Maxine Mulvey who did the program until 1962. Merrie stuck with the show for 10 years and ended up in the Colorado Broadcasting Hall of Fame. She also married a former governor of Colorado.She went on to have her own "Merrie Lynn Show" on KOA-TV. She is probably the same Merrie Lynn that was on 630 KHOW-AM prior to 1963 also in Denver.

 The cook books came out starting in 1960 and continued until about 1968. The one pictured above is from 1966.  The ones below from 1960, 1962, 1965 and 1967. The program began in about 1960, and was broadcast usually from the Elitch Gardens amusement park. It still exists but is somewhat modernized.  The show had guests including the unexpected like Charleton Heston. It wasn't exclusively about cooking, it was also about other household-related paraphernalia.

 The show ran until at least 1968 as there are no cook books that date after that. But other information puts the show as running until as late as 1974. Cooking shows are among the most poorly documented radio programs, so in these cases the most information we have is typically from the cook books they sponsored.

DJ Slim Willet

Slim Willet is not a name you hear every day. Often played as Slim Willet and the Brush Cutters. You probably have never heard of that particular western swing band. But you have heard some of his songs. He wrote Dont' Let the Stars get In Your Eyes, a single that became a standard.  He was born Winston Lee Moore on December 1st, 1919 in Dublin, Texas as you read above he was a musician, a songwriter and most importantly for Arcane Radio Trivia... he was a DJ.

That single was written in 1951. Slim once recounted that he learned the meter in 1937 at a CCC camp from some Mexican guitarists who played ranchero music. The lyrics were inspired by a letter from a GI in Korea. He liked letters from soldiers, he served in WWII himself. After the war he went to entered Hardin–Simmons University in Abilene. Many histories claim he headed their student radio station KHSU.  I have found contemporary records that indicate KHSU existed from newspapers. It launched in 1949, and I have found in their school newspaper that it still existed until at least 1961. according to those papers, It only regularly broadcast from 5:00 - 9:00 PM Monday through Saturday. Billboard magazine lists them under campus Attractions in 1964. Then nothing. Strangely they never appear in any radio log. I have assumed they were some kind of unlicensed closed cable system.

In 1949 there were 2 real AM radio stations in Abilene: 1470 KRBC-AM and 1340 KWKC-AM. Neither license was owned by Hardin-Simmons University. It could have been a closed cable station... but I doubt it. He got a journalism degree and began DJing and selling ads on local station KRBC. At this time he was already writing songs including Pinball Millionaire which was recorded by Gene O'Quin. He started doing promotional work. He started hosting the KRBC Big State Jamboree around 1954.  He booked Elvis's first appearance in Abilene in 1955. He was a friend of Bill Mack the famous WBAP-AM disc Jockey and sometimes brought him talent back when he was just a DJ at KWFT in Wichita Falls, TX. More here. 

His own recording career began in 1950 with the 78 rpm disc I'm Going Strong  / I'm a Tool Pusher from Snyder that came out on Star-Talent, a Dallas-based label. Hillbilly researcher has a great discography here.
Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes came out on  in 1952 and was re-recorded and released nationally on 4-Star. It went to #1 on the Country & western Billboard chart. Perry Como took it to #1 on the pop chart.  The song exploded. It was even covered by pop artists in Japan. It was a once in a lifetime hit and Bill McCall at 4-Star stole most of the royalties. Apocryphal accounts say that Willet threatened to kill McCall and that got him a partial payment. More here.  The song's popularity won him guest appearances on the Big D jamboree on KRLD-AM, WFAA-AM in Dallas, the Louisana Hayride on KWKH-AM, The Grand Ol' Opry on WSM and even as far away as KFI in Compton, CA.

In 1957 he started  Winston Records, his own record label. He used it in part to releases some forays into rockabilly which he recorded as Telli W. Mils... Slim Willit spelled backwards.  That same year he quit KRBC and joined radio station 1280 KNIT-AM.The station was a brand new Key City Broadcasters station. He started a booking agency, an ice cream parlor, and bought a gas station. He became diversified.
He never had another single as big as that #1 hit, not even close. In 1964 he became general manager of KCAD.  At the time it was one of the only all-country music stations in all of Texas.  He died two years later and was finally inducted into the Country Music DJ Hall of Fame in 1994.

Transcription Mystery Disc #32

In this rare example I have the call letters clearly labeled on the transcription disc. It is an outside start 78 rpm transcription disc as labeled.The condition is pretty good.

But what's odd is that Nelson Ideas was an advertising firm located at 208 State St., Schenectady, NY. It's president was George R. Nelson. I know little of them except that they're listed in a few directories in 1957 and 1960. It was around long enough and with at least enough local standing to be noted in the autobiography of Pee Wee Erwin This Horn For Hire.
 
At first I considered the possibility that KCMC are not radio call letters.  In 1959 (our approximate window) KCMC was in Texarkana on 1230 kHz. The station had been on the air since 1932 which explains why the heritage calls are still in use today, albeit on 740.  While Nelson Ideas and KCMC are easily 1500 miles apart the customer Dillards was a national retail chain. For a Little Rock-based chain, Texarkana is a local market. Their connection to KCMC could have been very strong as an account. Dillards was founded in 1938 but didnt' start expanding with investors until the late 1950s. So what we have here is an advertisement from very early in their history. But the question remains.. did it run?

STUPID DJ TRICKS: Part 16

After a week of Stupid DJ tricks I start to lose interest. In real-time, I lose interest even faster than that.  I don't care if they're snorting their Cheerios down at the frat house, the morning zoo doesn't grab me. But this one is no morning zoo moment. It's nuanced, in a daytime TV drama sort of way. More here and here.

Our tale begins in Cincinnati on WLW-AM with radio host Eric Deters, who is also a licensed lawyer. You can see his own website here. He was very vocal and very active. According to the Kentucky Trial Court Review he has tried more civil jury trials than any lawyer in Northern Kentucky. That may or may nor be a good ting depending on your point of view. He's also a mixed martial artist cage fighter... yes a bit of an odd duck.  So don't get on his case, he'll sue you, kick your ass then tell everyone about it on WLW.

Despite his legal training Deters ended up in a big of legal trouble. The Kentucky Bar Association brought a suit against him that levy's six charges against him for violating the rules of professional conduct. One of them specifically dealt with his evening program on WLW.  He is accused of calling Grant Circuit Judge Stephen Bates an "unfair."  Bates had ruled against him in the case of a Grant County school bus crash in January of 2007. Apparently this is not something you can say about a judge on the radio.

Being a lawyer Deters filed a federal lawsuit against the Kentucky Bar Association to stop the proceedings against him. He felt the rules of professional conduct stifled free speech. Deters suit even claimed that the trial commissioner, Frank Doheny, was biased and refused to recuse himself. Deters is known for filing medical malpractice suits and Doheny for defending them. Deters has run for public office against some of the other members which intimates other personal motivations. The situation just sounds a bit off, you might even think that they had it in for him a bit. Well so did he.

Deters asked for a restraining order to prevent a trial and for an injunction to stop the bar proceedings against him.  He sought a new trail commissioner and a ruling that the bar’s Rules of Professional Conduct stifles free speech. U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves held a hearing in Frankfort, KY. Reeves shot down Deters and he ended up having a confidential disciplinary proceeding with the bar association. He lost the injunction, and he lost the appeal. But the tumult continued, Deters evening program on WLW was terminated, but his part time talk-program continued. Whatever was going on behind the scenes, Deters sued Kenton Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders for libel over comments he posted on twitter. Kenton Circuit Court Judge Martin Sheehan tossed that one too and made a side comment that summarized the problem nicely:

“The state’s interest in protecting the free and open expression of opinions cannot be lost on Deters, an individual who, when not practicing law, hosts what can certainly be termed a highly opinionated radio talk show.”

Stupid DJ Tricks: Part 15

Dominic Dieter is one of those DJs that is going to end up in the Darwin awards. He's a 29-year-old Ohio native. He went to Mount Union College in Alliance, OH.He started as a phone screener on "Rover's Morning Glory" on 92.3 WKRI in Cleveland.  But then he made the mistake of saying he'd do anything to get on air. Thus began the Friday morning "Dare Dieter" segment of the program. each week Host Shane "Rover" French makes a new effort to do new and sadistic harm to Dieter.  It wasn't long before he was licking a bug zapper, eating a human placenta and snorting cremated remains.

In July of 2007 came a dare that sent Dieter to the hospital. The dare involved rolling him in an 85-gallon drum down a steep hill  near the Marginal road off I-77 near East 49th Street. partway down the hill the lid came off and Dieter was partially ejected repeatedly slamming his body against the ground until he came to a stop. But really, after you've put your hand in a bear trap and set yourself on fire what else can you do for attention?

Initially Dieter complained of not being able to feel his feet.  A spokesman at Cleveland MetroHealth Hospital said that Dieter was treated and released.Initially Host Shane French said he no longer would be airing the "Dare Dieter" segment. True to his word, no further dare's have been issued, but as recently as April of 2008, Dieter was asking for further abuse.

Stupid DJ Tricks: Part 14

My two least favorite genres of Stupid DJ tricks are fake contests and fake celebrities. Firstly they are numerous, which both makes them pathetic, but also it makes the catastrophes foreseeable. But we're talking about DJs here not normal human beings who are able to learn things. In that regard they are like small poorly trained yippy dogs. But, yippy little dogs rarely get sued.

In the year 2000 Susan Santodonato, wife of Paul Santodonato died during a promotional event staged by WMRV in Binghamton, New York. She hit her head on a garage door a during a human stampede and died from the injuries she sustained. Susan fell and hit her head in a crowd of about 100 people chasing a limo that was supposed to to have Britney Spears riding in it.  But the limo did not have Britney Spears riding in it. The blond in the limo was a celebrity impersonator hired by Clear channel for a hoax by WMRV.

As a part of the hoax, the station aired a pre-recorded interview that was made by splicing together pre-recorded answers with live questions. The station made every indication that it was live and that Britney herself was live in the studio at WMRV. The impersonator arrived at WMRV by limo with staffers wearing Britney Spears record label: Jive Records. As they had hoped, this attracted a large crowd. I'll quote the case file on the particulars

"Decedent and her 10-year-old daughter were among those present. At some point during the interview, the limousine moved from the front of the station to a side entrance, causing the crowd to shift in that direction. It was at that time that decedent fell to the ground and sustained a head injury."

Interestingly the legal liability of WMRV wasn't exacerbated much by by the Britney Spears impersonator. The real Britney would have generated the exact same situation.  It's a question of negligence. Paul Santodonato accused WMRV of inadequate crowd control. In 2006 a New York circuit Appellate court dismissed his $1.2 billion lawsuit.  The ruling is here.

Stupid DJ Tricks: Part 13

This is probably old news to anyone who lives in Davenport, Iowa but probably not to you. This is the story of David Jonathan Winkelman, the man who tattooed his forehead with a radio station's logo. I can't decide if he's stupid or crazy... but I know a DJ somehow is to blame. The story of Winkelman's famous tattooed forehead came up after 10 years because Mr. Winkleman got himself arrested.  The mugshot was the kind of thing that the internet itself was invented for.

Back in 2000, an unnamed DJ on air at 93.5 KORB offered a six-figure payout” to anyone who tattooed the station logo on their forehead. So  48-year old Winkleman and his stepson, Richard Goddard, went to a local tattoo parlor together. In some versions of the story Goddard is described as his nephew. regardless of familial connection, both got a forehead tattoo with the logo and branding for  "93 Rock, The Quad City Rocker."  Then when   Winkleman went to the station to cash in on the deal, the station reneged. The DJ described his on-air statements as a practical joke.

As you might expect, Winkleman sued both the DJ and Cumulus Broadcasting (the owner of  KORB). Within just a few months of the filing the lawsuit, Winkelman dismissed his own complaint.  Goddard filed a separate suit  which was later dismissed by a judge for failure to appear in court. When I first heard the story, I thought Cumulus woudl settle out of court for sure.
 
From 1995-2004, the station broadcast an active rock format. But just 4 years after the Winkleman  episode, 93 Rock changed format to AC with the new calls KQCS, Star 93.5.  Cumulus moved the active rock format to KBOB with the brand Rock 104.9. Nobody yet has tattooed that on their forehead.

KUSF IS DEAD, LONG LIVE KUSF

WE INTERRUPT THIS INSTALLMENT OF STUPID DJ TRICKS TO BRING YOU AN IMPORTANT NEWS BULLETIN

KUSF is dead. At 10:02 AM today KUSF went off air suddenly mid-song. The news started to trickle out from the bay area a few hours later. There had been no preamble, no hints or rumors. The fact is that the University of San Francisco sold 90.3  to the University of Southern California. USC intends to use the 90.3 frequency as a part of their Classical Public Radio Network (CPRN) currently heard on 91.5 KUSC Los Angeles.

In much the same way that WCRB Boston, KING Seattle, and WQXR in New York all made the move from private to public, the change has come to San Francisco. This is a relaunch of the failed Classical Public Radio Network.  In this version Entercom is transferring moving the 102.1 KDFC programming to a simulcast on 90.3 KUSF San Francisco and 89.9 KNDL in Santa Rosa. KDFC is rumored to be flipping to Classic Rock. The move comes with a $3.75 million dollar price tag.

This all came as a surprise to me because I remember that only two years ago, on June 30th 2008 CPRN shut down its broadcast operations with KUSC and Denver Public Radio going their separate ways. KUSC and Colorado Public Radio began developing CPRN in 1998. But even at the outset it looked weak. Lacking it's own backers, the CPB had to lay out a $850,00 grant before the launch. Then after ten lean yearslater, it closed up shop. It made sense at the time, Classical is not a growth format. Ten years ago we watched the commercial classical panel shrink: WNCN New York, WNIB Chicago, KKHI San Francisco, WFLN Philadelphia, KVOD Denver, WQRS Detroit, WTMI Miami, KFSD San Diego and many others dropped the format.. More here. There are presently only about 20 commercial classical stations in the whole country and that number is still dropping.

At the time CPRN aired on about 60 stations and six HD Radio sub channels. CPRN laid off it's staff of 15. Left in the lurch, those stations had to generate their own programming or take one of the two existing classical satillite feeds: Classical 24, from American Public Media or Chicago’s WFMT Radio Network. CPRN never had more than about a quarter the affiliates of Classical 24. That same year an NPR study found the total number of news programming hours was growing while classical hours shrank or stagnated on public radio stations. Classical was in full retreat.  More here. The CPRN 2008 epitaph is here.

To get right to the point of it, statistically nobody listens to classical music. The roll out of PPM to the top markets only spelled out what we already knew.  According to the New York Times the top 12 radio metros (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles Etc) showed almost an 11% drop in the listenership of classical programming just in the roll out of PPM. That's a lot of AQH. In other words, this is a mistake and it's one that they've made before.

Stupid DJ Tricks: Part 12

I decided to really kick-off the year by revisiting a classic. This week will kick off my third installment of Stupid DJ Tricks. It's not that all DJs are stupid, it's that some of them are amazingly stupid. That minority does the rest of the group a disservice... Because those are the DJ's that get national press coverage. You never read about a DJ making a donation to a respectable charity.  You read about a DJ in a nun costume handing out Jello shots at the rifle range. On that note, let us recall the story of Joe Grande.

Today Joe Grande is better known for his work in television. In 2004 Joe guest starred on HBO's hit show Entourage. He's also been in two movies since then, he had a bit part in Party Animalz and played more significant roles in the movies Unwelcome Strangers and Blaxican Brothers. But that is not where he was 8 years ago.

Back in 2002 Joe Grande got a very unpleasant visit from the Los Angeles Police. It was the kind of visit that in any normal universe would have been the end of his career. The LAPD said they got complaint calls reporting that there was a man exposing himself to a school bus.  The man was not Joe Grande. The "man" was a 17-year-old kid participating in the "dare of the day" on Power 106 KPWR. Joe Grande was a flunky on the program "Big Boy’s Neighborhood." 
 
Joe Grande started his Radio career in San Jose. While a college student he street teamed for KHQT Hot 97.7 FM. Eventually he became known as "Big Joe" a cast member of the "Morning Doghouse" program. He also has done sports on  KIIS FM's Mornings with  Ryan Seacrest and had his own weekend talk show on 570 KLAC-AM. (In 1995 KHQT became a simulcast of KFOG, with the new calls KFFG)

The crime was conspiracy and soliciting a person to engage in a lewd act in public. Prosecutors had a wide variety of options beyond even that: soliciting a prostitute, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, child endangerment... the list goes on. If Joe Grande wasn't on a morning zoo radio show, he would have been in jail. The prize for the unnamed boys nudity was at least ostensibly, concert tickets to see the band P3. There are three bands named P3 in the US. One is a jam band in North Carolina, one is a 50s rock cover band from Illinois and one is a christian rock band. For irony's sake, I'm hoping it's the Christian rockers.

While on location, Grande announced on air that he wanted someone to do something crazy.  he suggestion was that someone remove all of their clothes and walk to all four corners of the intersection —naked. A 17-year old boy volunteered and claimed he was 18. Grande presumably did not check his ID. The teen was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of intentional and public exposure of one’s private parts, Police Officer Jack Richter said. Inexplicably his brief flirtation with kiddie porn didn't derail Joe's career.

Replacing Capacitors!

Instructional video for those with a soldering iron and a steady hand.

Radio News May 1930

This is the May 1930 issue of Radio News. It includes articles on Distortion, marine radio, air navigation, radio beacons, the history of the decibel, amplifiers, radios in hotels and of course classic advertisements. It also has a great feature article on the "evolution" of the vacuum tube.These early-era radio articles are about completely outdated, archaic technology but remain interesting from a historical perspective. It's 100 pages chock full of radio arcana.

You can download all 31.8 MB

HERE

Radio is the R in NRAO

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a federally funded research and development center of the United States National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc for the purpose of radio astronomy. NRAO designs, builds, and operates its own high sensitivity radio telescopes for use by scientists around the world.

Lew Snyder thought that the vacuum we assumed to be space was a lot more than that. He knew that many chemical compounds are dipolar. These have one positive side and one negative side, like a magnet. He also knew that charged particles in motion release energy. If these are in space, floating freely they could spin and emit radio waves. More importantly, each type of molecule would broadcast at a set frequency. These could be received distantly to determine the make up of regions of space.

There were setbacks due to initial resistance, but after Nobel prize-winning physicist Charles Townes identified ammonia molecules in space... it was game on.  In 1969 the hunt began in earnest. The first molecules that Snyder's team identified was Formaldehyde (4.8 GHz.)  The list grew from there to include over 150 different molecules. More here.

The way this works is that every molecule hypothetically. Linear molecules have a simple microwave spectrum, with lines at integer multiples of a fundamental frequency. Some of the data is direct and some of it is deduced. You cant just look for a molecule; sometimes you have to look for the components that would product a reaction creating a particular molecule. In the case of HCN (Hydrogen Cyanide) they looked for two CH3 + N = HCN + H2 and 3CH2 + N = HCN + H. It sounds complicated because it is. You can find the heavy math here. I'll summarize as best as I can, (since I barely understand it.)

My understanding of thsi comes from spectroscopy.  The spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum. It could be deficiency or excess of photons in a narrow frequency range so it's "bright" or "dark" in comparison. They are the result of molecules (in this case) interacting with photons. When the photon has the right amount of energy it can be absorbed by the molecule and then re-emitted.  If the molecule returns to it's original state this emission happens at the same frequency as the original absorption. But they also occur in the millimeter-submillimeter portion of the spectrum and that is directly related to the result from molecular rotational transitions. The emissions will correlate to the isotopes that the molecules contains. They can have one spectral line, or many. You can see HCl here.

If you happen to score some time on a radio telescope you can start by looking for a few of the known molecules:

• Formaldehyde - 4.8 GHz
• Hydrogen Cyanide - 88.6 GHz
• Isocyanic Acid - 87.9 GHz
• Deuterated Ammonia - 389 GHz
• Semiheavy water (HDO) - 464 GHz
• Acetonitrile - 220.7 GHz
• Sulfur Dioxide - 222 GHz
• HC15N - 258.16 GHz
• Cyanopolyyne - 345.34 GHz

Transcription Mystery Disc # 102

Much of the usual mystery is absent with this particular disc. The date was June 25th 1948 and this is a recording of the rematch boxing match between Joe Louis and Joe Walcott. The disc is a Recotron, and spins at 78 rpm with an outer edge start.

Their first match was on December 5th 1947. Walcott was a 33-year-old veteran with a 44-11-2 record, nonetheless he entered the ring as a 10-to-1 underdog. He knocked down Louis twice, leading to a split decision in favor of Walcott. For the rematch about 42,000 people came to Yankee Stadium to see the champ. He was knocked down only once this time but knocked out Walcott in the 11th round. This was his last real right, after Walcott, he found only exhibition matches.

The program was carried by ABC live on the program "Cavalcade of Sports." It's hosts Don Dunphy and Bill Corum did play-by-play and commentary. Gillette sponsored the program. It first debuted in 1942, but that was at least 3 years into the Gillette sponsorship of sports radio having programs on ABC, NBC and Mutual at the same time Hockey, baseball, Football... Gillette clearly knew their target demographic.

Cavalcade of Sports ran on NBC's New York City station WNBT-TV (channel 1) starting in 1943 it's original experimental callsign was W2XBS. In 1946 it became Channel 4, and the calls changed to WNBC-TV in 1960. They carried Cavalcade of Sports twice a week, the program was picked up by the NBC network in 1946. Television was not a 24 hour service at the time so when the last bout ended, the station signed off the air.  The program continued to run until June of 1960. Bill Corum also wrote for the New York Journal-American. He wrote some shockingly racist stuff.  He died in 1958.  Don Dunphy kept announcing fights anyway. He died in 1998.

Meteor Scatter

Meteor scatter communications are also known as Meteor burst communication. It's a types of signal bounce possible only under specific circumstances. When a meteor enters the atmosphere of Earth an area of the E-layer is ionized.  This area is roughly cylindrical and like the tail of the meteor, it is long. When it first forms it is able to reflect and scatter radio signals.This ionization is brief, lasting from a few seconds to about a minute. The effect is observable from about 25 MHz up to about 10 GHz. Meteor skip allows a radio signal to bounce upwards of 900 miles.

 The earliest recorded observation of meteor scatter was by Hantaro Nagaoka of Nagasaki, Japan. He was then the chief physicist at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research in Tokyo.  In 1929 he published a paper on his findings titled "The Possibility of radio Transmissions Being Disturbed by Meteoric Showers."  It sounds dry, but the 1929 Volume 5 issue of the Imperial Japanese Academy of Tokyo became a classic. The NRAO described his breakthrough

Nagaoka was impressed with the coincidence of height (~100 km) between the ionospheric layer and where visual meteors occur. Not only might meteors directly cause quick ionization, but he argued that long-lived fine dust resulting from disintegration of the original meteor particles would act as nuclei for collecting ions or electrons from the surroundings, thus causing a region of less ionization, or a "disturbance"

In 1931, Greenleaf Whittier Pickard made his own observations on the phenomena. He noticed that bursts of long distance propagation occurred during meteor showers. He published his paper "A Note on the Relation of Meteor Showers and Radio Reception" in July 1931.

 At about the same time Albert. Melvin Skellett a researcher at Bell Labs was theorizing a relationship between the kinetic energy of a meteor and the ionization of the ionosphere. Skellett spent 2 years testing his ideas with his colleagues. In November of 1932, during the Leonids meteor shower they tested the meteoric effect. More here. He assumed three crucial and correct details:

1. Meteors as a class could contribute, along with cosmic rays, the bulk of the energy needed to maintain charged particles in the ionosphere.
2. A large meteor could produce as many as 1,000,000 electrons and a critical mass of ions. (enough to effect radio) 
3. The variation in the strength of shortwave radio signals indicates turbulence in the ionosphere caused by the constant mixing action of the meteors.

The first signifigant attempt to use meteor scatter for anything useful was by the Communications Defense Centre in Canadia (CRC)  In the 1950s they launched project, "JANET."  It was code named JANET for Janus, the Roman god of the doorways, beginnings, endings and time. Janus is often depicted with two heads, facing opposite directions. I take that as a metaphor for transmission and reflection. In JANET they sent bursts of data when conditions were ideal trying to catch those short partial minute windows. to detect the window they broadcast a 90 MHz carrier wave and monitored it for sudden changes in strength.  They bounced signals from their radar research station in  Saskatchewan all the way to Toronto, a distance over 600 miles. The system was operational from 1955 until about 1960. The average character error rate was only 1.5 percent!  the Friends of CRC sumarized their data and bandwidth allocation:

"It may seem that the Janet technique was somewhat wasteful of spectrum space because of the relatively high instantaneous signaling rates which are required to achieve modest average information rates. This defect was offset by the fact that Janet systems, using the same frequency assignments, can be located much closer to each other than can other systems operating over comparable distances."

It is generally the case that frequencies between 50 to 80 MHz are ideal for meteor scatter communication. The FM band itself  (88.1 – 107.9 MHz) also works quite well. During meteor showers, laypeople can still perform basic experiments and get recognizable results. All you need is to know when the metoer showers are. Here's what fun to look for in 2011

• Quadrantids - January 3
• Lyrids - April 21
• Eta Aquarids -May 5
• Perseids - August 13
• Draconids - October 8
• Orionids - October 21
• Leonids - November 17
• Geminids - December 13

WIP and the Liberty Bell

Generally speaking, people are not permitted to ring the Liberty Bell. But it was not always that way.  In the late 1800s it travels to expositions and was frequently rung, often further damaging the relic. In February 1915, the bell was tapped gently with wooden mallets to produce sounds which were transmitted to the fair as the signal to open  the 1915 San Francisco Fair, a transmission which also inaugurated transcontinental telephone service.  The bell returned to Philadelphia by train.  Since then, actual touching of the bell has been diminishing. But to preserve the bell this had to stop, the bell had to go to the people without physically moving. Later events were held in Philadelphia, and broadcast live by radio. By that conduit it continues to be struck on special occasions. FYI: it's an E-flat

 In 1926, the sesquicentennial of American Independence, the wife of Philadelphia’s Mayor Kendrick tapped out 1-9-2-6 in Morse code using a rubber mallet. It was carried live on the radio. About a third of Americans had access to radio in those years and it was estimated that several million tuned in. It was also rung on New Year's Eve in 1924, 1925, and 1926, each was broadcast live on the radio.

At President Franklin Roosevelt’s urging, the bell was tapped for his radio broadcasts to pump up patriotism. The tapping went out over the radio waves throughout the war: tapping “V” for Victory in October 1942 to mark the 31st anniversary of the Chinese Republic; for “I am an American Day” on May 16, 1943; for July Fourth in the same year; for the opening of two new war bond drives in September 1943 and January 1944. The recording of the 1926 sesquicentennial was re-broadcast on June 6, 1944, to signal D-Day, the WWII the invasion of Europe. Former Philadelphia Mayor Bernard Samuel tapped the bell once, gently at the start of the broadcast. No recorded text of the event that I've found mentions any radio station by name, but the one image (above) clearly shows the 610 WIP-AM nameplate on the microphone stand. It is my assumption that all these early broadcasts were carried on WIP.

WIP-AM was the first commercial radio station in Philadelphia. They were started by Gimbels Department store and began broadcasting in 1922. It makes them one of the few stations that were available locally for these events all the way back to the first noted radio broadcasts of these events starting in 1924. As an affiliate of the Mutual Broadcasting System in the 1940s, they were able to feed the programs out to the rest of the network

To open a 1950 Savings Bonds Independence Drive Drive then Secretary of the Treasury, John W. Snyder, tapped the original Liberty Bell in Philadelphia near the close of an hour-long nation-wide radio show featuring an address by President Truman and a number of celebrities. By then radio coverage of any Liberty Bell event was guaranteed along with TV news coverage. But that was probably the last event they covered directly. In the 1960s WIP began adding more soft rock to their day shifts until by the early 1970s they were an AC station with hourly news casts. Over the 1980s they made room on their schedule for syndicated talk programs. the end came in 1986 with a flip to Sports-Talk in 1986 thus severing their connection to news programming and local coverage of the Liberty Bell.

The Al Jazeera Network

Al Jazeera has been trying to make real American inroads for almost five years now. last week I read an article in the Hartford Advocate that three non-commercial stations in connecticut were considering carrying Al Jazeera (AJE) news. This list included WPKN, WESU and WHUS. the network is owned and funded by the emir of Quatar and it's English language radio broadcast is already carried in at least three markets: Burlington VT, Toledo OH, Washington D.C.  All those are for TV News. For me this is pretty exciting. It brings a third big voice into a news arena that's presently totally dominated by NPR, with Pacifica playing a distant third following the BBC in it's total number of affiliates. More here.

Talks began in September and then by early December it was announced that Pacifica was adding news broadcasts from the Al Jazeera English TV news channel to Pacifica's five stations across the United States, including WPFW, KPFA, KPFK, WBAI, and KPFT. With that move, Pacifica became the second American Radio Network to air programming from AJE. The first was MHz Networks, an educational broadcaster based in Falls Church. They have carried AJE TV broadcasts since 2009.

Their pace is pretty impressive. The CBC, the government-funded network of our northern neighbors was founded in November of 1936 and barely has any presence in the United States at all. actually it's primary conduit into the US is on available on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 137.  A handful of CBC programs are carried on america radio stations. American Public Media has distributed "As It Happens" from CBC Radio One for years but few stations carry it. Only A handful of other CBC programs have crossed the 45th parallel:  Definitely Not the Opera, The Vinyl Cafe and Q I know have all recently aired inside the United States. But that's it. After 75 years their toehold remains tenuous at best. Pacifica by comparison has over 100 affiliates.

Nonetheless AJE has held onto it's toehold. In 2004 Vidéotron  applied to the the CRTC for permission to carry AJE programming. The request was met with opposition from Jewish and pro-Israel groups, including B’nai Brith Canada, the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Christian Friends of Israel. The CRTC was not intimidated and granted the license with certain restrictions. 

Pacifica first added the programming in December but they just added AJE to their morning line up.  Yesterday KPFA dropped their Morning Show and split the 2-hour time slot between Democracy Now and Al Jazeera English which is produced in Washington, D.C. That move was less political and more abotu cost-cutting but it isn't helping AJE's awkward entry into the market.

Toledo got their first peek at AJE programming in March of 2007. Buckeye Cable in Toledo picked up AJE in and received mixed reactions. Buckeye serves approximately 150,000 people in northwest Ohio. Buckeye has described the feedback as "overwhelmingly positive."

In Burlington by May of 2008 Burlington Telecom was already openly discussing dropping AJE. They had received 200 complaint letters after 2 years of carrying the network. By a 7 to 0 vote (with three abstentions), their city council urged Burlington Telecom to keep AJE in it's channel line up. It was a bold move for the a small, publicly owned fiber optic network that at the time was only 3 years old. More here.

In Washington D.C. three networks carry AJE: Comcast - Channel 275, Cox – Channel 474, and on Verison FiOS it's on Channel 457. The last of these was in beginning in July 2009, when Fios began carrying their feed 24/7 via the through the MHz Network. Strangely in our Nation's capitol this barely generated a ripple of discomfort.  Personally I'm glad to see the conflict is petering out to a murmur.

INTERVIEW: Antique Phonograph Music on WFMU

This week I interviewed Michael Cumella, ak.a. MAC the host of the Antique Phonograph Music  Program at 91.1WFMU.  It runs Tuesdays at 8:00 PM. His show is one of a handful of radio shows in America that still plays music from before 1930.  Not only does he embrace the music, he plays it from the original shellac pressings, both 78 rpm platters and cylinders. His program is conducted hand-crank phonographs with mikes in the horns —and it's live. There is nothing more authentic in all of radioland. More here.

His focus on early 1920s music makes his program an anthropological statement on a lost era of music. But his commentary is so light, that he keeps the program accessible to laypeople. At the same time, his analog playback makes his program eerily similar to the programming of early experimental radio stations. The earliest broadcasts by DeForest and even Fessenden were comprised not of only of live music but of 78s played on acoustic phonographs. More here. For those of us born after 1910, this is as close as we'll ever get to the real thing.

JF: Could you describe the Antique Phonograph Music Program for a new listener.

MAC:  I play must from the acoustic era, which is roughly pre-1925, when music was recorded and played back without electricity. The recordings were played back on what you might think of as the quintessential antique: the horned phonograph or a Victrola. These were crank-up machines with a big steel needle, spring-driven motors and a very distinct sound. There’s no nostalgia for it, because anyone who listened to it in that period is dead. But, there were huge stars of that period, and also interesting kinds of music most of which are also dead. But many styles survive like blues, jazz and country. Many kinds of music debuted in that period. So it’s an interesting time in American recorded history that really doesn’t get much play anywhere. So I enjoy collecting the records and sharing this period of music with people.

JF: Care to tell me about your playback devices?

MAC: I use three machines, two disc and one cylinder phonograpg in the studio. I use a Victrola XIV, that's one of those upright machines, which you might think of with the tall cabinet with a lid and the little doors that act as volume controls. It has an internal horn. Then I use a Victor II which is an external horn machine from about 1905. Then also I use an Edison Standard that plays 2 and 4 minute cylinders.

JF: When did the program Antique Phonograph Music Program debut?

MAC: I started around 1995.

JF: Did you do any radio before WFMU?

MAC: I did one other thing on this cable channel radio thing, but that was playing rock music and other things. It was in Jersey, this guy had an audio feed going to a Public Service Announcement video channel on the local cable network. He had a feed from his basement going to the channel that went to everyone in that cable system. It was free-form. That’s fun.

JF: Did you have any connection to The Thomas Edison's Attic Program?

MAC: I knew Jerry [Fabris]. We had shows alternating weeks. He was playing super rare stuff from the Edison Archives. He had access to incredible material. He had access to sound tests, unreleased recordings, diamond disc cylinders, rare live radio recordings, and live broadcast recordings... an incredible amount of material. I play more common stuff that anyone might have gone into a record store in 1910 and bought and played on their home phonograph. My show is about playing what people might have been listening to in 1905 or 1920.

JF: You ever have technical difficulties with that antique hardware?

MAC: That’s part of the show. Sometimes I’ll be playing a record and it starts to slow down. I was having a problem with the brake last week on my show; it was kind of messing up and stopping the record in the middle. Parts break. When that happens I try to fix it and I talk it through.

JF: What gets a piece of shellac spun on your program?

MAC: I’m not really playing stuff I like all the time. Partly it’s a historical show. I’m playing music from the period. Stuff people might have bought during that period. If I’m playing say a string quartet, it’s not anything I’m really into but it’s period music. I’ve come to love zither records and there were quite a few zither records. I play ethnic music. There were a lot of ethnic groups of course immigrating to the United States at that time. I do some early electrics sometimes, but I don’t get to 1930. I get to the late 1920s. There were some cheap labels that were making acoustics in the late 20s. I’ll do some Victors from the late 20s that were electric. I definitely don’t get to the 30s. I rarely get to 1928. I want people to hear what was out there then. Some ballads are the same crappy ballads you’d hear on the radio today. The same format existed in 1905.

JF: Most of what you play is in the Public Domain then.

MAC: Mostly it is. That only goes back 75 years.

JF: what’s the oldest thing you’ve played?

MAC: An 1896 cylinder. But it wasn’t mine. It might have been a Columbia recording.

JF: Is there anything you won't play?

MAC: I used to think that about the coon songs and the nigger songs: Stuff like "If the Man in the Moon were a Coon," "Nigger Loves his Possum." People who listen to the show understand I’m playing music from the period. Here are some more records from the period that people could go into a store and buy. I don’t try to give it a big disclaimer or explain it way or talk about the historical significance of it. That’s what they were and it’s what people listened to. Actually I find the context is not negative. They’re happy. But it’s a caricature we don’t like to see, it’s a terrible stereotype but there’s no hate in it. There are Irish, German rube, and Southern [stereotype recordings] too.

JF: Is there anything you won’t play for fidelity reasons?

What I do with those is I save them. Every 2 or 3 years I’ll do a fake show as a collector who has come on and someone else will host it. I’ll be the embodiment of every cranky, odd, eccentric collector I’ve ever met or heard of. I’ll save the noisiest and most annoying records and come on and be very serious about it. I play with that whole idea. One of the last ones I did I got in a fight and broke the records and stormed out. If I find something that’s really torn up it goes in that pile.

JF: have you heard things from that era that really blew your mind?

MAC: Sure, There’s some early country music that’s been great. There is some pre-Jazz orchestra and band records that you can hear the steps between Ragtime and Jazz. I love early blues lady singers, Bessie Smith is of the period. There are some other early Blues women who are really fantastic. Eubie Blake had a fantastic Band.  W.C. Handy was also fantastic. I also personally like early yodeling records. I have some German acoustic yodeling records. It’s not like what you think of yodeling. This is coming out of Austria in 1915.

JF: How do you put together a show playlist then?

MAC: I don’t put a tremendous amount of thought into it. Sometimes I’ll put things aside, or if I bough some new records I’ll play that. I usually do it in sets: some blues, some country, some instrumentals…I’ll do 3 or four of each. It’s only an hour show so that’s about 15 or 16 records. What’s happened in the last few years is that I’ve been asked to do appearances so I’ll go out and DJ with two horned phonographs. I enjoy doing it. I like getting people’s feedback.

Transcription Mystery Disc #40

This disc The label is straight, but it's pasted over an AFRTS label whose underlined text gives the impression otherwise. This Olmsted disc spins at 33.3 rpm and is stuck to a standard 12-Inch vinyl platter. I can just barely read part of one side of the the AFRTS label. It's RL-22-4, SP-1752, SSL-15734. It features the Living Strings. The recording is certainly still within copyright so I won't sample it here. Plus it's the Living Strings... nobody wants to hear that.

This matches the hand-written Olmsted label exactly which is boggling, even the times match. I have no idea why someone would hand write out a label that's already on the transcription. I did find that through RCA Camden it had a separate commercial release.[source here]  But my copy is definitely an AFRTS disc, it was even in a AFRTS sleeve when I acquired it. I started by researching Olmsted.

It's probably Olmsted Sound Studios which was located on 54th street in New York City. It was started by Richard Olmsted.It was started in the early 1950s and closed around 1975.  A huge number of commercial recordings were made there including work by Sinatra, Janis Ian, Tony Williams, Gerry Mulligan, The Four Seasons and The Tokens. But despite my research I can find no AFRTS recordings made at Olmsted Studios. The paste-over seems random, and maybe it is.

Crumb and the Blues and the Radio

Robert Crumb is enigmatic to say the least. Most people consider him a disturbed man. That said, his Book of Genesis illustrated is probably the most inspired and insightful biblical interpretation in the last thousand years. You can in fact be smart and crazy. It may even be easier to be creative and crazy. But I didn't come here to give my armchair diagnosis of Americas favorite savant comic book artist. I came here to write about R. Crumb and radio.

People that know Crumb, or even know of Crumb, usually know that he is a fan of dusty discs almost on par with Joe Bussard. Crumb has recorded his own albums and even a couple 78 rpm singles in the early 1970s. The Cheap Suit Serenaders are an old time string band mostly doing covers of song from the 1920s.  It's strangely wholesome. When he relocated to France, he started a new band Les Primitives du Futur.  But that was it so far as I know. He was a music geek, not a radio geek. He's always avoided discussing his work with the media and was very distant even in his own documentary footage. His discomfort is apparent. 

Then I found that in September of 2004, R. Crumb participated in a radio program.  He and host, U. Penn Professor Jerry Zolten produced a one-hour one-shot program on 91.5 WPSU. Crumb could have probably picked any non-com in America.. and he picked a 1,700 watt college station in State College PA. It's market # 249 of a possible 290. Even with the stations 3 repeaters: 102.5 W273BE Huntingdon,  104.7 W284AK Clearfield, and 106.7 W294AE Altoona... it's still one of the smallest and least dense markets he could possibly have selected.  The show was called "Chimpin' the Blues" and they spent it spinning old blues and gospel and discussing the various oddities and gems in Crumb's personal 78 collection. The program is archived online at prx.org. It is very much worth listening to.

But this was not Crumbs first foray into radio. But they are very rare. Like an endangered bird, there have only been two other sightings. In 1978, owing to some trouble with the IRS Crumb hosted a 90-minute program on 94.9 KSAN. He spun 78s, talked with callers and plugged a fund raiser to get himself out of debt.  Back then KSAN was a free form FM station that was wildly more interesting. It's impossible to imagine the modern KSAN, "The Bone" doing anything that novel. The event was as epic as you might imagine with wild mockery of all things modern. It's recorded in the book R. Crumb: Conversations by D.K. Holm. The KSAN-FM of the 1970s was on 94.9, the station that's now KYLD; they flipped calls in 1980.

He also hosted a half hour, four-part radio series on BBC Radio 3 as part of the Jazz File program. (one source says it had 5 parts) The Jazz File runs for half an hour on Saturday nights at 5:00 PM. BBC 3 mostly airs Opera and Classical so the program is a "specialty program" in the western sense. Crumb spun 78s from his own collection focusing on the 1920s and 1930s primarily. I cant find an exact date but it appears to have run in 2001 or 2002.