No Drone Zone

It's somewhat sad that it had to be said.. but it had to be said.

How To Buy A Cordless Phone

I bought a new phone recently. I've moved to VOIP, but still consider this my "land line," despite the fact that there's not POTS connection. I still find that cell phones are not reliable enough to replace that land line. Disagree if you must. I know that in much of the 3rd world the opposite is certainly true due to the lack of infrastructure. However... locally it's a pure reception issue. So after fruitlessly cleaning the push-button contacts on my cordless GE phone with deoxit I gave up and bought a new one. I needed all nine buttons to work, even the 2 and the 0. It was time.

So lets discuss how that jobby works. The base and the handset operate over a pair of different frequencies allowing the handset and the base to communicate simultaneously. This allows you and your friend to talk and listen simultaneously. The base unit receives voice signals from the handset and converts them to frequency Modulated (FM) electric signals that transmit through a phone line (or your ISP) to the other person on the call. The base is wired no differently than an old school corded base. Modern cordless phones operate on frequencies as assigned by our friends at the FCC. There are six primary frequency band options: =

• 43-50 MHz
• 900 MHz
• 1880–1930 MHz (PHS)
• 1920-1930 MHz (DECT)
• 1.9 GHz  (DECT 6)
• 2.4 GHz
• 5.8 GHz

The frequency your phone uses to send signals to the base is not crucial to call quality. This is not a bandwidth issue. It's actually an interference issue. Today there are oodles of wireless devices that can cause interference with your cordless phone. There are local Wi-Fi networks, cellular networks, wireless microphones, Bluetooth devices, wireless printers, tablets, baby monitors.. I recently read about a wireless microwave. These "smart" appliances will only make the situation worse. More here.

While the oldest cordless phones used 46-49 MHz, higher frequencies are not inherently better. The PHS systems is actually newer than the 5.8 GHz and 2.4 GHz technology. Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) is also marketed as the Personal Access System (PAS) and in China it's branded as Xiaolingtong. This system is used primarily in in Japan, China and some South American nations. It's a good system that uses TDMA but is not available in the USA.

DECT stands for Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications Technology.  So since that lacks a frequency it's worth nothing that DECT and DECT 6 operate on different frequencies as noted above. Also DECT in North America is different from DECT in Euope. In North-America the band (1920-1930 MHz) has ample sources of interference. In Europe DECT was assigned a larger band (1880-1900 MHz) and more power, 4 mW compered to 10 mW. 

DECT 6.0 isn't even permitted in Europe because of  interference with their cellular networks. But in the US system uses both TDMA and FDMA making for pretty good audio. And while those older phones operating between 43-50 MHz were easily snooped on with a police scanner, DECT can provide encryption via the DECT Standard Cipher (DSC). The encryption is fairly weak, using a 35-bit initialization vector and encrypting the voice stream with 64-bit encryption. But it's better than nothing which is probably what you have right now.

Hackberry Ramblers

They have been called the most important Cajun band of the 1930s. ten years before Harry Choates and the Melody Boys popularized the genre, the Hackberry Ramblers where cutting records. Also known as the Riverside Ramblers, they recorded Jole Blon over a decade before Choates. Suffice it to say their claim to fame is completely legitimate.


Accounts differ. One says the band was formed in 1933 by Luderin Darbone. Another says it was formed in 1930 when the fiddler Darbone met the accordionist/guitarist Edwin Duhon in 1930. Regardless the pair formed the nucleus of a band that was to play together for another 60 years. When they covered Jole Blon in 1936 they did so as a trio with with guitarist Lennis Sonnier on vocals. But more often Darbone himself handles the vocals.

In 1933 the band found work at 560 KFDM-AM in Beaumont, TX. Some sources put the station Lake Charles, LA but that's just the other side of the LA/TX border. The station was founded by the  Magnolia Petroleum Company in 1924. So by the mid 1930s it was an established 500 watt station. The confusion comes from their remote broadcast abilities. The trio was performing at the Majestic Hotel in Lake Charles, LA and broadcast live on KFDM. they started with a 15-minute spot on Monday mornings.

The broadcasts increased their fame across the region. They began playing more and better dance halls. then came the recording deal with RCA/Bluebird in 1935.  They added to the line up guitarists Glenn Croker, Lonnie Rainwater, Floyd Shreve, and Joe Werner, bassist Johnnie Parket.  Initially they preformed and recorded mostly in French. but another radio station was to change that.

In 1936 they made a deal with  Montgomery Ward to sponsor a program on KVOL-AM in Lafayette.  The band would perform and record under the name Riverside Ramblers named after Ward's brand of tires. However, these programs and their recordings would be in English.  Joe Werner provided most of the English vocals. They performed their program from a Montgomery Ward tire showroom. The arrangement produced just 8-sides.

The band continued to endure, even surviving a break for WWII. In 2002, Duhon and Darbone received a National Heritage Fellowship from the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts. Duhon would die 4 years later. Darbone only in 2008.

Transcription Mystery Disc #250

I've been saving this one for a special occasion and I think #250 has a nice ring to it. It's a 12-Inch metal-core acetate. This disc is a Star Sound Studios disc. It's further labeled "Cavendish Square, Langham 2201 London  W.I. England" the backside of the disc is just clear lacquer over metal.. it's actually quite heavy, clearly has a very thick steel base. This is doubtlessly a pre-WWII recording.  The handwriting reads "WDDM,  Difference a day made."

What a Difference A Day Makes


Star Sound Studios dates back to 1937. Originally just named "Star Sound" it was designed as a small theater for the recording of live audience shows for Radio Luxembourg.  They recorded tens of thousands of radio programs and commercials. In 1990 the Studios became AIR Edel. I can't find enough good information on the dates of their various labels to corroborate a date. Actually, I never even found another label that looked like this one.

This isn't' a transcription exactly. This is a master recording. Before magnetic tape, (which at Star Sound debuted in 1949) master recordings were cut into acetate lacquer with a lathe. They're jsut like hoem recording acetates but of a much higher quality.  The song What a Difference a Day Made" was written by Maria Grever in 1934. The Dorsey brothers recorded it the same year. (Dinah Washington won a Grammy Award with it in 1959.) I've heard the Dorsey version and it's similar to that swing version but it's not the same recording. This is some unknown, other jazz version that I estimate to date from the early 1940s. It's possible it dates to the 1930s but that would make it one of the earliest Star Sound Studios recordings. I'm not quite that optimistic.

Tweether not Twitter

Twitter is just vapid piffle. So it's a wonder to me that any new product or service of substance would knowingly chance that kind of pointless brand confusion. I'm looking at you Tweether. It's really unbecoming.  But their website begins with the phrase "Traveling Wave Tube Based W-band wireless Networks with High Data Rate, High Distribution, Spectrum, and Energy Efficiency."  They had me at wave tube. Their stated goal is as follows:

"The objective of the TWEETHER project is set a milestone in the millimeter wave technology with the realization of the first W-band (92-95GHz) wireless system for distribution of high speed internet everywhere. The TWEETHER aim is to realize the millimeter wave Point multi Point segment to finally link fiber, and sub-6GHz distribution for a full three segment hybrid network.. The TWEETHER system will provide... broadband connectivity with a capacity up to 10Gbps and distribution of hundreds of Mbps to tens of terminals"

Tweether isn't a couple college kids in the garage with a bit of inheritance. It's a project at Lancaster University funded by Europe's Horizon 2020 program.  The few quotes out there on the topic all seem to have come from either Prof. Andy Sutton, the Principal Network Architect or Claudio Paoloni, Professor of Electronics who is the Project Co-coordinator. Paoloni describes our current spectrum as crowded, even congested. The solution he says is to distribute traffic onto unused spectrum such as millimeter waves. This is a block of spectrum lying between microwaves and infrared waves. More here.


But they're not going it alone. You can see the complete list of "partners" here, but it includes: Goethe University, Universitat Politècnica de Valencia, Thales Electron Devices, Fibernova, and OMMIC. Those last two are ISPs. Honestly I'm surprised there aren't more of them on board but that may be by design.

Not all the big players beleive in harnessing the millimetre wave (mmW) radio spectrum.  Tweether is intended to operate at 92-95GHz. In the US, this band is limited to indoor use form a fixed position. [SOURCE] Also average power density is limited to 9 uW/sq at 3 meters. Peak power density of any emission shall not exceed 18 uW/sq. By comparison Bluetooth is essentially operating at 3 watts.  But the University of Lancaster claims Tweether could deliver up to 10Gbps. The test started this month so I'm looking forward to field measurements.

The Pat Sajak Show on AFVN

Thom tipped me off to the existence of this. You probably know the name Pat Sajak as the host of the TV game show Wheel of Fortune. But before that he was a longtime radioman even briefly at AFVN. You can read more here.

The Sad Tale of the KickSat Femtosatellites

It was a fine idea and they had a good plan, and just enough funding. But there are enormous graveyards dug exclusively for good ideas in our world. I'll warn you now that this tale has a sad ending.

The project was envisioned by Zachary R. Manchester. The idea was that there were advantages in the  low power and low mass of femtosatillites and picosatillites that might make orbital communications more economical and efficient. The idea isn't completely new. The airforce issued a report on the topic back in 2007. There was also project West Ford back in 1961, but let's not get into that.  He got his crowdfunded through Kickstarter. Zac asked for $30k. His Kickstarter campaign raised $74,586.


KickSat was not a production network. It was a test. Each Sprite femtosatellite was supposed to be able to transmit just a few bytes. I've read some of the submissions that were online and most were under 16 bytes in length. The little Sprites themselves were only about the size of a saltine cracker. The payload of 104 Sprite satellites was carried on a CubeSat on an ISS commercial resupply mission, SpaceX CRS-3 on April 18, 2014. But things went wrong quickly.  On April 30th the microcontroller managing the master clock reset due to a technical issue. This woudl delay the release of the individual satellites. This delay was detrimental. On May 3 Sac announced the impending doom of the project. More here.

The Master clock problem meant that the CubeSat couldn't release the 104 Sprite satellites before it burned up in the atmosphere. The unit was not designed to allow ground control to send a release command. Thsi is because the uplink radio used to trigger deployment were unable to power up. On May 14th CubeSat reentered the atmosphere and burned up. Accounts record that "virtually" all sprites were lost. However there was at least one message received.

The Radio Violin and Miscellaneous Radio Organs

I am amused with the existence of the Theremin. It is often claimed that it is the only instrument you can play without touching it.  That's not actually true. Excluding the human voice as an argument of semantics, the theremin is just the only one that is well-known. Early electronic instruments are most often bulky, clunky and difficult to use. All of these were tube-driven and had the downsides of being both hot and fragile. The
Theremin was pretty elegant compared to the others. Most people are at least passingly familiar with early keyboard-based devices. But there were many others more like the Marimbalite— a several hundred pound device containing more than 60 photo-electric tubes...early optical sensors requiring no direct contact to play. Steam-punk genius yes, but practical instrument, no.


I've found a number of these luthier's-nightmare devices in back issues of radio and electronics magazines: the Trautonium, Telepiano, Pianotron, the Syntonic Organ, The Polytone, the Electo-musical Trombone, the Radio Organ and the Radio Violin... Let's pause on those last two.

The Radio Organ contained no radio. Much like the Marimbalite, it worked mostly from a series of photo-electric cells. But in 1934 a lot of gadgets had the word 'radio' tacked on the front of them for marketing reasons. In 1934 James Nuttall and Fred Sammis built a "radio organ" from an old keyboard, tin cans, a loud speaker, a dishwasher motor, and photo-electic cells. The organ contains a film-track disc of recorded tones. Light passes through a shutter through disc and to strike the photocells and a tone is generated.There is little hardware on board you'd mistake for a radio.

The Radio Violin is a bit more elusive. There were two different "Radio Violins" written up in the 1930s. The first was in Radio Craft magazine December of 1931. The article was short but the opening sentence made it sound like the amalgam of violins and radios was some long heralded event: "Radio programs may now be received through the medium of the violin."  The small diagram that followed described the soldering and attaching of a earphone earpiece to the violin so that it's sound may resonate int he violin body. The violinist may then accompany the radio live. 

But there was another radio violin that debuted in August of 1934. It was written up by Modern Mechanix and Popular Science. That Radio Violin had no soundboard and consisted of only the exterior violin-shaped frame. the vibrations of the strings were picked up by a magnetic pickup much like a modern electric guitar. From the violin a cable then connected that signal to an amplifier and loud speaker. No radios were harmed in the making of this device.

Transcription Mystery Disc #249

This is an 8-Inch, paper-core, Wilcox-Gay Recordio. It's unlabeled and in rough shape. The acetate lacquer coating is spider-cracked throughout, and it's somewhat warped. Where metal-core discs can sometimes be carefully unbent, paper just cracks and de-laminates more with the application of force. Thankfully the recording levels were set pretty high on this recording and it can be heard well above the noise.

"You Come On Out"

As with most discs, condition improves as you approach the center. But with the outer-edge start being the standard (as it is here) much of the recording is in poor shape. I've edited out the worst of it from the start of the recording to spare your ears. Notably at the very end you can hear an emcee speak to the crowd. It appears to be a recording of a live broadcast but he only gets in three words before the recording ends "You come on out..."

MLK at NATRA

In August of 1967 Martin Luther King addressed the National Association of TV and Radio Announcers (NATRA.) His place in civil rights history is indisputable at this point. But he was also one of the last great American orators. MLK had a lot of respect for the power of media figures large and small and he goes on at length urging them to respect and acknowledge their role and responsibility..

Below is that speech at NATRA in it's entirety with thanks to Davey D for posting it on YouTube. 

The Skinderviken Transmitter Button

In 1931 This text appears in  Telephony Magazine:

"It was customary in the past to refer to the bridge back transmitter as standard. Since the advent of the Skinderviken Transmitter Button however, opinion has been passed in favor of this new type of transmitter, which operates on the principle of complete vibration.  (i.e. the whole carbon chamber vibrates)"

The big advantage was that bridge back transmitter buttons operated at between 2 and 20 Ohms. The Skinderviken operated at 80 Ohms. That's about 75% less power. Today we'd list that on our LEED certification. Ads for the device can be found as early as 1919. The units were still in use a decade later becoming common-enough to appear in the parts lists of children's electrical projects.

So to start with, what is a bridge back transmitter button? Let's go back to 1878 and early carbon mics.It was known that if two conductors were in contact with each other, the increase of pressure between them diminishes their electrical resistance. In 1878, Thomas Edison exploited this behavior and came up with the the first practical variable resistance telephone transmitter. He called it a "Button transmitter." More here.

It consisted of a mica diaphragm clamped an iron case.Over that is an ebonite cap mouthpiece.  Applying pressure to the mica forms a vibrating cover to the chamber between the ebonite sides. In that space is carbon powder or lamp black. The amount of pressure on the carbon is adjusted by a set screw. Sound waves hit the diaphragm causing it to vary its pressure upon the carbon producing variations in the electrical resistance of the circuit.  This is not a "button" in the touch-screen cell phone sense of the word. More here.

The Skinderviken was designed to replace the original transmitter in telephone handsets. This may sound like a cheap knock off but Johan Skinderviken was awarded patent US1275776 on August 13th 1918 for the device. In his design the transmitter is directly connected to the diaphragm. A conical shell between them contains the carbon powder. He had filed the submission on November 7th, 1917... barely a year before the ads started appearing in electronics magazines.It was not his first telephone patent but his second, the former being granted in 1916. That one notes that he is a subject of the king of Norway, and resident of Chicago. In 1922 he sold the international rights to his button (retaining US and Canada) to Mikro Ltd.

Shortest Lived LPFM

I think this set a record for the shortest-lived LPFM radio station. 95.7 WXDB existed for all of 6 weeks on paper. In reality it probably wasn't even that long. The seeds of it's destruction were sown in it's genesis. Let's rewind back to February of 2014. More here.

The station was founded by Burr Beard. You may know him as the somewhat controversial GM who left 91.1 WTJU-FM after just six months in the drivers seat. [SOURCE] If you know that WTJU is in Charlottesville, VA you may have already figured out that Beard relocated to Chareston, WV to start a community radio station. The "community" part was surprisingly not the whole problem. Burr wanted to start an American a radio station in Charlottesville. In other words, WXDB was his second try. The prior  year he did a stint as SM 88.7 WNCW, and later GM of 90.3 WXLV before it's sale to Four Rivers. His real claim to fame was a 9-year stretch running 88.1 WDIY in Bethlehem, PA. He'd also been a DJ at WYEP, WUNC, WXYZ, and WRQM. More here. He also plays a mean hammered dulcimer.


As "Roots Town Radio" the station began raising funds to build WXDB. Beard organized and trained a staff of volunteers:  Larry Hoskins, Alasha Al-Qudwah, Emmett Pepper  and many others. They raised $1,000 from a crowd funding campaign on the website Indiegogo and managed to score $10,000 in grants from from the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation, and the Tamarack Artisan Foundation. It was enough to turn on the lights and start broadcasting September 7th of 2014.

The first sign of a problem was when Dawn Warner, Beard’s ex-girlfriend, the President of Roots Town Radio fired him. Yeah. So, about a week after the station debuted, Dawn and Burr were splittsville. The station engineer alerted staff that Burr was out and their Facebook page even bore that update. But then by September 15th Burr was back. This was further complicated by the fact that Dawn Warner’s son, Nemo, was serving on the station's governing board, but also not showing up. But by September 29th it was Dawn leaving the station and Burr staying. If you felt it was volatile you're right. On October 18th Burr quit.

Two days later hat day, Dawn Warner the ex-president of WXDB contacted the FCC and surrendered the station’s construction permit, shutting down the station for good. Most news sources liek to point out that the station volunteers blame her. On 10-23 the FCC recorded "Construction Permit Cancelled and Callsign Deleted 10/20/2014 per permittee's request"

Anarchy, WA

In 2013 there was a petition logged on Change.org to extend Anarchy Radio with John Zerzan from one hour to two hours. The rationale was "John Zerzan is totally rad, and only one hour with him once a week is a crime against humanity."  This is the work of what we call a superfan. Sometimes they're harmless but sometimes they're Adam Lanza. No joke, the Sandyhook shooter was a fan and frequent caller to this Eugene, OR based radio program.

In Anarchist circles Zerzan is a minor celebrity. Zerzan was one of the editors of both Anarchy Magazine Green Anarchy, two anti-authoritarian magazines. He's also written for the Fifth Estate,and  Adbusters a publication which should require no introduction. He's published several books and does extensive speaking tours.  He's also the host of Anarchy Radio in Eugene on the University of Oregon's radio station KWVA-AM. There isn't a lot of anarchy on the radio, but there is one full hour of anarcho-primitivisim on Tuesdays at 7:00 PM PST at 88.1 FM in Eugene, Oregon. At 1,000 watts ERP, the station blankets the metro, population of over 150,000. But webcasting increases their reach indeed. More here.

Zerzan began his program sometime after the start 2000. Zerzan's own website claims his program has been airing since "the millennium" KEZI-TV (ABC) pegs it in 2002. [SOURCE] regardless the content is intelligent, philosophical even. While Zerzan is genuinely "anti-civilization" his views are interesting, and expressed in strictly intellectual and not pushy or aggressive. He does take callers and they are not always as eloquent or as professorial as himself. More here.

But even with his bookish delivery, Zerzan has managed to find himself some controversy. First it was the Unabomber. After reading the so-called "Unabomber Manifesto" Zerzan met with Ted Kaczynski and even chatted him up between court proceedings. They remained friends after Kaczynski 's imprisonment but had a falling out after wrote a Kaczynski wrote a harsh critique of Anarchoprimitivism in 2008. LINK. Zerzan ended up a footnote in the news again in 2012. It was revealed by the NY Daily News that Lanza had been disguising his voice and calling in to Zerzan's program Anarchy Radio 3,000 miles away. More here. Zerzan's connection to each of these characters was indirect at best, but it makes a little radio program in a small market all the more interesting.

Transcription Mystery Disc #248

This is a paper-core, 8-Inch Wilcox-Gay Recordio. It is not labeled or dated except for the single pencil marking on the sleeve "655 Warren." I would guess that number and name were part of a filing system. The recording itself is pretty peculiar.

655 Warren


It's a recording of two comedians. One man sounds a lot like the Ed Norton Character from the Honeymooners. The other man has a very deep voice which was difficult for the hardware of the time of record. I've compensated with EQ and compression to make him more clear. There is an audience you can hear laugh and titter through out.

Mac Odell the WLAC Dream Interpreter

Odell McLeod was known by his stage name Mac Odell. He was a country and gospel singer who wrote a number of tunes performed by the Stanley Brothers, Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, and Flatt & Scruggs to name a few. But he was also a frequent radio performer. He sold song books, harmonicas, and even live baby chicks. He also was a radio "Dream Interpreter." (see above) Nobody does that anymore either.

Born in 1916 in Roanoke, Alabama, Mac first played on the radio as "Harmonica Mac" at the age of 12. According to a biography in Bluegrass Unlimited he later added mandolin, guitar, banjo, piano, and vocals to his act. But that would have been in 1928.  There is one AM station local to Roanoke but WELR-AM didn't sign on until 1952. Back in 1928, the whole state of Alabama only had 5 radio stations: WAPI, WBRD, WKBC, WJBY, and WIBZ. It is not recorded where his debut occurred but I favor WKBC. Regardless by 1934 he was performing on WWL-AM in New Orleans with Slim Bassett as Mac & Slim. More here.


After Odell  married Addie Wood in 1940 they became a husband and wife team "Mac and Little Addie." They were played for Suppertime Frolic show on WJJD-AM until the start of World War II. During the war, McLeod was a factory worker, btu continued songwriting. After the end of the war in 1948, they went to Nashville and began performing at 1510 WLAC-AM  still under the brand Mac and Little Addie. Some sources describe him as leaving the station in 1952, but he was still using the callsign in his advertisements as late as 1959. This includes a classified ad  in the February 1959 issue of Popular Mechanics offering to write songs to peoples poems. Odell was on Mercury Records label from 1949 until 1952, leaving then to join King Records, where he cut a few more sides.

 In 1957 (or 1959) McLeod moved to Benton Harbor, MI where he ran a signage business. In the late 1970s, he began songwriting again and wrote and recorded for the label Folk Variety in Germany. In the 1980s he was sort of rediscovered and with Addie he traveled to the Netherlands for a gospel tour. He died in 2003.

WIOV

A portrait of WIOV.
I wonder who mows that enormous lawn.

KGY: Where The Cedars Meet The Sea

Back in the 1920s a Benedictine monk began experimenting with radio. According to the book The New Washington Father Sebastian Ruth was teaching radio at St. Martins College as early as 1921. The Encyclopedia of American Radio he was a "genuine renaissance man." There is little else written about him but it was his work that brought KGY into existence.

The KGY-AM call letters were issued on April 4, 192. It operated initially at 5 watts on on a wavelength of 450 meters and then 258 meters. They used a small shack for at least three years before building something resembling a proper studio in a log cabin. (Yes, a real log cabin, see below.) They were known in that time as “The log cabin station." and used the slogan "Where the cedars meet the sea.” In a strange coincidence, the same slogan was used by the city of Sea Girt, NJ.

It wasn't until 1932 that the station relocated it's facilities to the Capital Park Building at 11th and Capitol Way... an actual office building made of concrete and steel. the reason for the move was that Archie Taft took over the station. He already owned KOL-AM in Seattle. Archie was not like Father Ruth, he was not a "renaissance man" in any sense of the words. But he was a radio man and in 1934 the antenna moved to a 480 foot tower, and began operating at 2500 watts daytime, 1000 watts nighttime.  In 1935 both KOL and KGY joined the Mutual Don Lee Network.

In 1939, Tom Olsen, a newspaper reporter and native of Olympia, WA purchased 1240 KGY-AM. Olsen was a serious news guy and was involved in organizing the Capitol Radio News Bureau and had ownership stakes in other stations and some local papers in the region. The station was honored in 1997 by the state government of Washington. His daughter, Barbara Kerry still owned the station until 2006. She took over KGY in 1984 when her mother Theresa died. In 2014 her ingrate offspring sold it to Sacred Heart Broadcasting who began sat-casting as KBUP immediately. More here.

Kelvin Doe Does Radio

Sierra Leone hasn't been in the US news much lately in the last year except for the brutal tales of their Ebola outbreak and occasionally some sports coverage of their embattled soccer (football) team. But back in 2009 there was a 13-year old kid really that built his own radio station. Human interest stories rarely go national, but this one did. More here.

Kelvin Doe was born in 1996. If you want to feel old remember that was the same year that Jerry McGuire came out. didn't see it?  Well so did Fargo. We're also feeling old because at 13-years old this kid was wiring together a pirate radio station while you were watching Beavis and Butthead. It's rather impressive. You can see above his rig. From the alligator clips you can tell it's quite mobile. there's no visible antenna but that's probably a length of wire. That round object is clearly a portable CD player. I can see two different mixers, one mounted to a square of cardboard the other an off-the-shelf Midiman Multimixer 6. that let's him pan left and right in addition to straight line mixing. You can get one on Ebay for about $25.  But that "Lion Generator" is something special.

The infrastructure of west Africa in general is pretty terrible. In Freetown, Sierra Leone, week-long power outages are common. Doe conquered this problem by gathering up some acid, soda, metal, and duct tape and made his own battery. Some relatively non-technical reporting on this led to some confusion on what he actually built, one even comically suggesting the generator was made from two DVD players: [SOURCE]  it's actually made from an old voltage stabilizer. He probably had to fix it, then use that to level out the erratic output of his homebrew batteries in series. His transmitter looks like a modified FM translator. More here.  More here and here.

He was discovered by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) doctoral student, David Sengeh, who was in Sierra Leone to run a national high school innovation competition: Innovate Salone. Kelvin was then invited visit MIT's Practitioner’s Programme back in America. Prior to that his furthest trip from home was about 10 miles. He has since appeared on stage at MakerFaire as a guest at “Young Makers” in New York and as a guest presenter at Harvard School of Engineering and more recently on TedX.

Transcription Mystery Disc #247

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.This is another recording by Frank Eulau. I have not tired of ripping these sides, it's clear Frank was a man with his ear to the asphalt like some long lost A&R guru man. The last of his mojo is cut into these grooves and this unknown Turkish band with him.

More from Frank Eulau



I really need to get about to digitizing the rest of these...

Jimmy The Greek

I had heard of Jimmy the Greek as a bookie, a famous bookie. A list of his best picks were even canonized in the infamous Book Of Lists. In the 1970s he published handbooks on college and pro football and baseball to help other gamblers gamble. He was eulogized in the movie The Legend of Jimmy the Greek, the book Farewell Jimmy The Greek (1996) by Ginger Wadsworth, an autobiography, and even a 1974 board came called "Odds Maker."  But he was also a radio man. That twist will take a little explaining.

Born in 1981, Jimmy Snyder got into gambling as a teenager in Stubenville, OH. It's long rumored that he was involved with the mob. Regardless, by 1948, he was so established he was giving odd on the presidential election and correctly called it that year for Harry Truman on a7:1 odds. In the parlance of the times he was a high-roller. He tried to parlay this into more legitimate stock investments but failed. He moved to Las Vegas in 1956 and began a weekly pro-football betting line. Sometimes you have to go with what you know.

Somehow his blue-collar fame as a sports gambler led CBS to hire him as an analyst on The NFL Today program...the pregame show for National Football League games. He started in 1976 and the stint lasted for 12 years. He appeared in segments with totally legitimate reporters, radio hosts and sportscasters like Phyllis George, Irv Cross, and Brent Musburger. Brent had been on the program since it's debut in 1975. Together they would make predictions about that week's NFL games. On the program everyone still called him Jimmy The Greek and he became a minor celebrity. This led to endorsement deals, books and that aforementioned board game.  But Jimmy blew the whole sweet deal.



On January 16th, 1988, Jimmy was fired by CBS.  On that very day he made an amazingly racist comment to WRC-TV reporter Ed Hotaling.  He was explaining that in his opinion African Americans were naturally superior athletes at least in part because they had been bred to produce stronger offspring during slavery. The exact quote was “The black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be that way."  Note: It was Martin Luther King day. Complex magazine rated this as one of the most racist statements made in the last 25 years of sports reporting. [source]

Snyder suffered from diabetes in his later years and died of a heart attack on April 21st, 1996 in Las Vegas, NV, at the age of 77. He was buried at Union Cemetery in his home town of Steubenville, OH.

America's First Radio Tour

The year 1922 was the year of America's First Radio Tour. In June the Detroit Board of Commerce, the Detroit Automobile Club and the Lincoln Highway Association sponsored a traveling radio event. Two cars were supplied by the Rickenbacker Motor Company. The Tour left Detroit on June 1, 1922 and arrived in Los Angeles July 13th, 43 days later. More here. But this was no broadcasting bonanza, it was a listening tour. On July 10th in San Francisco Mrs Blood was quoted:

"Every night we would tune in, no matter where we were along the Lincoln Highway. One night, when we were nearing Omaha, we listened to Eddie Cantor and Fanny Brice, who are with the Follies in New York. We had a vaudeville star for an entertainer nearly every evening."

The two men in charge were Wallace Blood and O. William Heinz, both Detroit business men and radio aficionados. They were accompanied by their wives. They were showcasing new radio equipped cars following scheduled concerts along their route. William Blood was (probably) the ad man, a partner at Campbell, Blood & Trump. It was a promotional tour.. plain and simple. But in 1922 reception was not a given. In parts of Nebraska and Ely, NV they couldn't receive anything either due to conditions.

The lead car was outfitted with an exceptionally sensitive seven-tube radio receiver built by Tesla Labs. It came with two powerful antennas and a Magnavox "Magnaloud" speaker. The first antenna was a 200 foot loop on the roof, and the second (a back up antenna) was just a 200-foot aerial mounted on the running board. The second was also a supply car to carry stocked with replacement parts to keep the radio working. More here.

Contemporary articles claim they drove 2,800 miles. But even in 1922 that drive wouldn't take 43 days. That's only 65 miles per day. On the other side of Carson City is Lake Tahoe. I suspect they made a lengthy stop there. Route 80 didn't exist yet so it's probable that they took the Lincoln Highway as per their sponsors. But clearly they took breaks, stopped often and didn't exactly hurry. While in Nevada alone they stopped in Ely, Eureka, Austin, and Carson City.

Happy New Year!

Happy new Year. I'm taking off the first. See you Friday.