What's an EKKO Stamp ? - AM/MW Radio Reception Verification Reports
 

"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:
"Telamon" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote:

"dave" wrote in message
...
Why not just record the station as proof you received it?
EKKO stamps ended after The War, and until the 60's, recording was
impractical. In fact, even in the 60's it was not a good idea... most
tapes
made in that era deteriorated rapidly. Most of my prized audio IDs did
not
make it into a more advanced media as the tape flaked... some nice ones
like
HCRE1 855 and CX28 were lost that way, although verified by letter or
card.
There were wire recorders. Very durable. You could also record on vinyl
records.

Have you checked the price of a wire recorder, in today's dollars? They
cost more than a car did when they were available.


Oh, you're so full of ****, you're scary. You can pick up an Armour type
wire recorder in pristine condition at a high end antique shop for less
than $300.


Cost. Past tense. When they first came out, they were in the price range of
a cheap car.

My point is that the average DXer in the era could not afford a wire
recorder. Or a disk recorder. Keyword: average.


Home recorders recorded to an acetate, sometimes vinyl (higher end
blanks which were available later) coating on an aluminum substrate. Those
were also not expensive.

If you don't recall one, your experience is lacking.

By 1959, when I started, the only place we saw disk recorders was as a
fading way of sending spots to stations. When I got to Ecuardor, all
agencies sent spots out on disk; we were the only one of nearly 300 stations
that did not play the disks on the air, dubbing them instead to cart.

I'm glad I never had to have the recorders in a station.


As for expense...again, not VERY expensive. I have one by Meissner that
was less than $130 new.

That was when minimum wage was less than a buck. In other words, the home
recorder cost a mont's take home pay. That is not cheap.

And we had a pair of professional machines at WEW.

The miserable daytimer in St Lousi?

What's an EKKO Stamp ? - AM/MW Radio Reception Verification Reports
 

David Eduardo wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:
"Telamon" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote:

"dave" wrote in message
...
Why not just record the station as proof you received it?
EKKO stamps ended after The War, and until the 60's, recording was
impractical. In fact, even in the 60's it was not a good idea... most
tapes
made in that era deteriorated rapidly. Most of my prized audio IDs did
not
make it into a more advanced media as the tape flaked... some nice ones
like
HCRE1 855 and CX28 were lost that way, although verified by letter or
card.
There were wire recorders. Very durable. You could also record on vinyl
records.

Have you checked the price of a wire recorder, in today's dollars? They
cost more than a car did when they were available.

Oh, you're so full of ****, you're scary. You can pick up an Armour type
wire recorder in pristine condition at a high end antique shop for less
than $300.


Cost. Past tense. When they first came out, they were in the price range of
a cheap car.



Full of ****. Present tense.

Webster-Chicago model 181, $98, 1953.

Webster-Chicago model 80, $149, 1948.

Even Henry Ford wasn't selling cars for that.




My point is that the average DXer in the era could not afford a wire
recorder. Or a disk recorder. Keyword: average.


Keyword: Horse****. Recording gear was in the same cost range as the
receivers of the period.

Many receivers were far and away more expensive. Even Bill Halligan
was building rigs costing more than the cost of a top line wire
recorder. We won't even go where Oscar Hammarlund's prices were.





Home recorders recorded to an acetate, sometimes vinyl (higher end
blanks which were available later) coating on an aluminum substrate. Those
were also not expensive.

If you don't recall one, your experience is lacking.

By 1959, when I started, the only place we saw disk recorders was as a
fading way of sending spots to stations. When I got to Ecuardor, all
agencies sent spots out on disk; we were the only one of nearly 300 stations
that did not play the disks on the air, dubbing them instead to cart.

I'm glad I never had to have the recorders in a station.


So, you admit you don't know what you're talking about. Thank God
I lived to see that.




As for expense...again, not VERY expensive. I have one by Meissner that
was less than $130 new.

That was when minimum wage was less than a buck. In other words, the home
recorder cost a mont's take home pay. That is not cheap.


Again, your experience is lacking. A good radio cost that, and more.
Recording toys were fairly common. Not free, by any means, but hardly
out of the price range of someone who wanted one.



And we had a pair of professional machines at WEW.

The miserable daytimer in St Lousi?


The pride and joy of Charlie Stanley, and the poster station for FCC
attention. Yes, WEW. The station with more dial positions than a 40's
Zenith FM. The station with more shared frequencies than Heidi Fleiss's
cell phone. WEW. The station that had to monitor it's program line,
because WABC came over the top of the air monitor in late afternoon.
Yes, THAT WEW.

What's an EKKO Stamp ? - AM/MW Radio Reception Verification Reports
 

D Peter Maus wrote:


Oh, you're so full of ****, you're scary.

Geez, get a ****ing grip, Pancho.



When did you go bad?




mike

--
Due to the insane amount of spam and garbage, this filter
blocks all postings from Gmail, Google Mail and Google Groups.

http://improve-usenet.org/

What's an EKKO Stamp ? - AM/MW Radio Reception Verification Reports
 

m II wrote:
D Peter Maus wrote:

Oh, you're so full of ****, you're scary.

Geez, get a ****ing grip, Pancho.



When did you go bad?



Probably when I got left out of my Tupperware on a hot day.

What's an EKKO Stamp ? - AM/MW Radio Reception Verification Reports
 

D Peter Maus wrote:

When did you go bad?



Probably when I got left out of my Tupperware on a hot day.


Yes..I suspected as much. Listening to Salmonella Fitzgerald at the same
time, no doubt.




mike

--
Due to the insane amount of spam and garbage, this filter
blocks all postings from Gmail, Google Mail and Google Groups.

http://improve-usenet.org/

What's an EKKO Stamp ? - AM/MW Radio Reception Verification Reports
 

m II wrote:
D Peter Maus wrote:

When did you go bad?


Probably when I got left out of my Tupperware on a hot day.


Yes..I suspected as much. Listening to Salmonella Fitzgerald at the same
time, no doubt.




Don't give up your day job.

What's an EKKO Stamp ? - AM/MW Radio Reception Verification Reports
 

"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...

Full of ****. Present tense.

Webster-Chicago model 181, $98, 1953.

Webster-Chicago model 80, $149, 1948.

Even Henry Ford wasn't selling cars for that.

Run back the thread... my original answer to the recording issue had to do
with tape, which is a format that endured. Wire had a short life and, in
retrospect, is nearly impossible to reproduce today. Most ETs of the
pre-60's period (and I was talking of the post WW II period) were 78's...
and the life of acetates is also limited.

Wire also was very fine (something like 2000 feet on a 3 inch reel) and it
was next to impossible to edit. The devices ran at very high foot per second
speeds and the delay while rewinding (you rembember there was no removable
pickup reel at least on all I have seen) makes, like the changing of an
acetate, the devices not quite appropriate for non-stop DXing.

And you neglect (more later) the enormous cost of supplies.


My point is that the average DXer in the era could not afford a wire
recorder. Or a disk recorder. Keyword: average.

Keyword: Horse****. Recording gear was in the same cost range as the
receivers of the period.

I'll get to it later, but I spoke of cost, not just the purchase price of
home devices (the ones you mention would never have held up to the recording
requrements of a DXer devoted enough to want to record... 60 or 70 hours a
month or more.

Many receivers were far and away more expensive. Even Bill Halligan was
building rigs costing more than the cost of a top line wire recorder. We
won't even go where Oscar Hammarlund's prices were.

An lower range Hammarlund was in the $129 range. The cheapest Hallicrafters
was about $60. I had one of each. But that was a full 15 years after the
War.

Recording technology, until the early 60's, was not accessable by the
average DXer. The receivers of the post-War period that most people used
were much less costly, in fact. The supplies, maintenance and such were not
what the average DXer was into, either. Tape allowed recorded reception
reports (where you only heard a brief piece of a station, but hearing the DJ
could net a verie out of it).

Home recorders recorded to an acetate, sometimes vinyl (higher end
blanks which were available later) coating on an aluminum substrate.
Those were also not expensive.

If you don't recall one, your experience is lacking.

By 1959, when I started, the only place we saw disk recorders was as a
fading way of sending spots to stations. When I got to Ecuardor, all
agencies sent spots out on disk; we were the only one of nearly 300
stations that did not play the disks on the air, dubbing them instead to
cart.

I'm glad I never had to have the recorders in a station.


So, you admit you don't know what you're talking about. Thank God I
lived to see that.

You continue to move from era to era to make your point.

You fail to recognize, and a horrible failure it is, that the "cost" of such
a device is not just the purchase price but also the other costs. In the
case of a disk recorder, a DXer would have to record at all times he was
listening. Let's say an average DXer listend 15 hours a week for DX... they
would spend something, at near minimum wage, all their salary on blanks in
the 40's or 50's. There were no "Acetate RW" blanks available. And then,
they would need a second recorder to dub the IDs to... not really practical
since recording was pretty much a continuous process.

As for expense...again, not VERY expensive. I have one by Meissner
that was less than $130 new.

As I said, plus the disks. I know in Ecuador, agencies charged us S/.250 for
broken disks, so the cost much have been substantial to them.

And $130 in 1946 was about, what, $1500 in today's money? Or if the year is
1950, $1200 in 2008 money.

That was when minimum wage was less than a buck. In other words, the home
recorder cost a mont's take home pay. That is not cheap.


Again, your experience is lacking. A good radio cost that, and more.
Recording toys were fairly common. Not free, by any means, but hardly out
of the price range of someone who wanted one.

Again, even the low end devices (which were delicate, temperamental, etc.,
just like early tape devices) required you run non-reusable media every time
you listened. The cost of that would make it prohibitive for all but very
rich people.

DXers who adopted tape in the early 60's first had to find a deck that did
not spit noise all over the BCB. Then, they paid a lot for them, but the
media could be used hundreds of times, and dubbing from tape to tape was
easy if you knew somebody with another machine.


The pride and joy of Charlie Stanley, and the poster station for FCC
attention. Yes, WEW. The station with more dial positions than a 40's
Zenith FM. The station with more shared frequencies than Heidi Fleiss's
cell phone. WEW. The station that had to monitor it's program line,
because WABC came over the top of the air monitor in late afternoon. Yes,
THAT WEW.

So the WABC stories are true. That is one of the daytimers that was worst
hit by an eastern clear.

What's an EKKO Stamp ? - AM/MW Radio Reception Verification Reports
 

In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote:

"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:
"Telamon" wrote in message
.
..
In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote:

"dave" wrote in message
...
Why not just record the station as proof you received it?
EKKO stamps ended after The War, and until the 60's, recording was
impractical. In fact, even in the 60's it was not a good idea... most
tapes
made in that era deteriorated rapidly. Most of my prized audio IDs did
not
make it into a more advanced media as the tape flaked... some nice ones
like
HCRE1 855 and CX28 were lost that way, although verified by letter or
card.
There were wire recorders. Very durable. You could also record on vinyl
records.

Have you checked the price of a wire recorder, in today's dollars? They
cost more than a car did when they were available.


Oh, you're so full of ****, you're scary. You can pick up an Armour type
wire recorder in pristine condition at a high end antique shop for less
than $300.


Cost. Past tense. When they first came out, they were in the price range of
a cheap car.

My point is that the average DXer in the era could not afford a wire
recorder. Or a disk recorder. Keyword: average.

SNIP

Nothing special about me. I'm average and I could afford one.

I refuse to engage in your hallucinations.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

What's an EKKO Stamp ? - AM/MW Radio Reception Verification Reports
 

In article KVG5k.2022$L03.1107@edtnps92, m II wrote:

D Peter Maus wrote:


Oh, you're so full of ****, you're scary.

Geez, get a ****ing grip, Pancho.



When did you go bad?

When will you wake up?

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

What's an EKKO Stamp ? - AM/MW Radio Reception Verification Reports
 

In article ,
D Peter Maus wrote:

Telamon wrote:
In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote:

"dave" wrote in message
...
Why not just record the station as proof you received it?
EKKO stamps ended after The War, and until the 60's, recording was
impractical. In fact, even in the 60's it was not a good idea... most
tapes
made in that era deteriorated rapidly. Most of my prized audio IDs did not
make it into a more advanced media as the tape flaked... some nice ones
like
HCRE1 855 and CX28 were lost that way, although verified by letter or
card.

There were wire recorders. Very durable. You could also record on vinyl
records.


I have a pair of Webster wire recorders. One, I bought at a local
junk shop and spent a year restoring. The other, I got from my
grandfather. Along with a rack of wire spools. Some dating as far back
as the Truman inauguration with some very cool recordings of shows like
the Sealtest Variety Theatre, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, Have Gun Will
Travel, and the Stan Freberg Show. I still find spools of wire at
antique shows, flea markets and junk shops. Always a bit of an adventure
to hear the audio.

Print-through is less of an issue, and the wire definitely doesn't
slough off magnetic material. But they are susceptible to elevated noise
from stray magnetic fields. So, storage environment is as important as
it is with tape.

I've also got a couple of disc recorders. And an armload of home-made
records. As well as some made in drug store recording kiosks. They're
not quite as archivally stable as they may seem. Many are not vinyl, but
acetate on an aluminum substrate. The acetate breaks down, becomes
brittle, often lifts from the substrate, or shrinks. And the low quality
vinyl used also tends to be less stable over time than that used more
recently.

I've spent a lot of hours recovering audio from wire and disc
recordings, for friends and colleagues. Sometimes, all you get is one
pass before there is too much damage to continue with the discs. And
magnetically contaminated wire will often develop a whining noise mixed
with the audio as it passes through the head. So a very great deal of
care is required when handling these recordings.

By far, the wire recordings are a lot easier to handle without damage.

Both may be more durable than tape, but they're not for casual
listening after long spans of time.

One careless pass, and the recording may be irretrievably lost.

Before the vinyl disk there were the cylinder recorders and players. I
had a neighbor with one of those.

There were very inexpensive tape players in the 60's. They were just
fine for voice. They were little reel to reel type. The reels were only
a few inches in diameter and the tape was thick. The head was offset so
you could record on the other side by turning the reel over. I had one
as a kid. Other kids in the neighborhood had them. Then the high
performance audiophile units were developed with the big reels. The
main problem with tape was the high end audio was weak and the
amplifiers had to be biased for more gain at the high end.

The problem with these over many years is the tape formulation kept
changing to improve the high end so you needed to have amplifiers with
selection switches depending on the tape formulation. Some even required
different heads (gap) depending on the ferro grain size in the tape.

And then to make matters more complicated there was dolby noise
reduction for tape hiss so you equalized for the tape formulation and
noise reduction. That's were I first learned to hate hiss. Now I can
listen to hiss from IBOC to get ****ed off or just read an Eduardo post
as it has the same effect.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California