A Brief History of Radio

[John Quincy]

Good read for anybody who started in radio, say, prior to the '90s:

www.danoday.com/articles/abriefincompletehistoryofradio.shtml

[Max]

This is a good read from this morning's paper. Check it out:

www.newsenterpriseonline.com/articles/2007/07/03/news/news05.txt

[bruiser]

Good reads.

Has anyone actually heard HD radio?

[John Quincy]

There's an online demo here:

hdradio.com/

From what I understand, it's trickier to do HD on AM than FM, especially at night when the AM waves travel further. Some AM stations do HD during the day, then at sundown have to turn it off to avoid interference with other stations.

[Travis]

Ah, yes. The days of reducing power at local sunset. There were some stations that would announce that they were about to do so and then throw the switch, but then there were others that would just throw it and not make any mention of it.

There I was. I had waited all afternoon with my trusty General Electric portable reel-to-reel tape recorder, waiting to capture a clean copy of my favorite tune. And finally, there it was and I had started my recorder right on time. Even better, the jock had done a clean segue into the tune without any announcing and I had it all going down on tape. Suddenly, about mid-way into the tune, a very low "frummmp" was heard, followed by a moment of silence, and then the tune resumed. AAARRGGHHH!!!

It was local sunset and WAKY had reduced power from 5000 to 1000 watts. My would-be pristine recording was ruined and I began shouting words that were very unbecoming of any 16 year old (at least in those days). My mother shouted from the next room that she was going to wash my mouth out with soap if I did not watch my language. She further said that if I should ever meet that nice DJ on the radio, I should apologize for my actions. Well, 37 years later, I guess it's time.

Dude Walker, I'm sorry. ;D

[Max]

travis said:

Suddenly, about mid-way into the tune, a very low "frummmp" was heard, followed by a moment of silence, and then the tune resumed. AAARRGGHHH!!!

Travis, are you sure you're not talking about listening to an 8-track? ;D

[Travis]

You're right. An 8-track sounded much like a power transfer when the metallic splice would close a circuit and shift the head to the next 2 tracks. There was even a "frummp" sound at times.

I'm not sure, but in the case of WAKY reducing the power during the late '60s and early '70s, the reduction of 5000 watts to 1000 watts was actually accomplished by switching from one transmitter to another (usually an older transmitter). Perhaps Rudy and/or Mike Griffin can clarify just how WAKY did it.

[bpflederer]

Travis, you are correct about actually switching transmitters at power and pattern change. I really do not remember ever keeping the Federal transmitter on and lowering the power. The Baurer transmitter was used for nights and N-DA for daytime, if we ever had to go that route if the old Federal was down. The Bauer was built from a kit. The Federal had a 10KW modulator section for the 5KW operation. I did keep the low voltage on during storms, etc, just in case. It took some time to get it warmed up.

There were a lot of memories and some stories that can not be told at Tucker Station. The Tucker Station site had the conforts of home, you might say. We also had a work bench for tinkering and building of equipment, etc.

Rudy did his program from the transmitter site maybe once or twice, sources were limited when operated in the cave.

[bpflederer]

Travis, forgot to mention, we went from an older transmitter (Days) to a newer transmitter at night.

[mikegriffin]

A Gates transmitter replaced the Federal by the time I came to WAKY in '72.