 
	********************************************************
                      ------   # NOTE #   -------
SEE INFO SECTION AT END OF THIS DIGEST FOR UNSUBSCRIBE AND OTHER INFORMATION. 
		====  INFO SECTION UPDATED 8/19/95  ====
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	    [removed]   Volume 95 : Issue 476


Articles in this issue of [removed]:

	 Cassette Dubbing Decks
	 End-of-year howdy, etc.
	 Re: Archiving/VHS-DAT
	 Thanks for the Welcome
	 Andy Blatt to join us soon
	 are your heads out???
	 Re: My intro to you 
	 The McCoys of Richland, Wash.
	 HISS
	 Sqeaking door

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 Dec 1995 12:45:06 -0800
From: Mike Hamm <[removed]@[removed]>
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Cassette Dubbing Decks
Message-id: <01HZDP39BK5G03U0GC@[removed]>

A few days ago I submitted a post about dubbing decks and the quality 
of copies they make.  Since then there have some responses about 
azimuth and tape speed.  These are useful things to know, but miss the 
point I am trying to make.  I don't think *any* of these machines
can make a copy that is close to the master in sound quality.  Maybe
I'm wrong, but I think this machine is the workhorse of the common
OTR collector.  You can buy one of these machines for as little as 
$100, and with a membership in NARA or RHAC, you can build as large 
a collection of OTR as you want.  But what about the quality of that
collection?  What about trading with someone that makes your copy 
with one of these machines?  If you have one of these decks and can't 
tell the difference between the master and the copy, please let me
know the brand name.         

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 Dec 1995 12:15:59 -0500 (EST)
From: SCOTT HOOKER <SCOTTHOOKER@[removed]>
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: End-of-year howdy, etc.
Message-id: <01HZDNXIH8ZM9D5TJT@[removed]>

To all the friends I have made on this list over the time I've been
monitoring it (since April or thereabouts), and to all the rest of you as
well, all the best for '96!

Concerning George Burns's approaching hundredth, is he still planning to
play the London Paladium.  I remember his saying as much as twenty years ago
that he had that hall booked on his hundredth birthday.

Concerning Jewish writers penning songs for the occasions of Christian
holidays, leave us not forget _Easter Parade_, written by the selfsame
Irving Berlin.  (To my knowledge, though, he was *not* the author of Bessie
Smith's _Gimme a Pigfoot_.)  Also as an aside, _Holiday Inn_ was on AMC last
Monday, as were many of the _Road_ pictures, thus affording my six-year-old
son his first glimpse of Der Bingel.  It was also his first glimpse of
blackface (the Lincoln's Birthday sequence), and I think his mother and I
did an admirable job if I do say so myself in explaining the genre of the
minstrel show to him.  I only wish I could remember now what we told him
(sigh).

I guess I'd better think of something strictly OTR before Lou, Bill, or the
rest of you fans holler at me.  Oh yeah, here's one that's kind of obscure,
but I'll toss it out there anyway.  Jazz aficionados on this list are no
doubt aware that W. C. Handy appeared on a Ripley's Believe It or Not
(something like that) broadcast and claimed on that program that he had
invented jazz.  This boast of Handy's prompted Ferdinand ("Jelly Roll")
Morton to respond, by letter and possibly on the radio as well, that Handy
was a fraud and a liar and that *he* (Morton) was the actual inventor of
this art form.  My question:  How much (if any) of all of this took place
over the airwaves, and are any of the programs available, and where?  Thanks
for any insights any of you can give me on any of this.  Happy New Year!

Scott Hooker
scotthooker@[removed]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 Dec 1995 21:15:32 -0500
From: SeptSev@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Archiving/VHS-DAT
Message-ID: <951229211532_80846817@[removed]>

Friends:
Why are VHS Hi Fi tapes unsuitable for archiving? Does the audio signal break
down like the video signal does?
And what about DAT or other digital processes? Does that signal also break
down? In other words, if I were to eventually phase out reel to reel, is it
better to archive on VHS Hi Fi, cassette, or DAT?
Regards to all--
[removed] Bray

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 Dec 1995 21:15:39 -0500
From: SeptSev@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Thanks for the Welcome
Message-ID: <951229211536_80846860@[removed]>

Dear Friends:
Thank you for the wonderfully warm response I received after my posting
yesterday as a new member.  I wish you all the Happiest of New Years.
Regards, [removed] Bray

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 Dec 1995 18:33:56 -0800
From: Platecap@[removed]
To: otr@[removed]
Subject: Andy Blatt to join us soon
Message-ID: <951229183354_21340219@[removed]>

It's great to see more and more old friends who have been part of the radio
hobby becoming part of the cyberworld.

Many of you may already know Andy Blatt of Vintage Broadcasts in Staten
Island, NY.  Andy has a new computer, internet address and I presume will be
joining us here, needing little encouragement.

For those of you who don't know Andy, he has been attending the Friends of
OTR convention for many years and has collected and traded old time radio
shows for more than 10 [removed] or as far back as I can remember.  He has
also been on hand for a few of the Cincinnati conventions.

The number of "Hobbyist-Dealers" has dwindled, but Andy is one of the few who
has hung in there with the rest of us!

Bob Burnham / BRC Productions / [removed] Box 2645 / Livonia, MI 48151
platecap@[removed]  /  platecap@[removed]

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 00:02:08 -0600
From: hhoward@[removed] (Henry Howard)
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: are your heads out???
Message-Id: <[removed]@[removed]>

For cassette machines (and reel to reels for that matter) occasionally take
a "Y" cord and connect 
the output of your cassette player to both "sides" of the "Y".  Plug the
combined side of the "Y"
into your stereo.  If the sound is mush(ier) than what you hear normally,
you have a head alignment
problem (assuming that the tape you are listening to was properly aligned.)

This test is not perfect, but if several cassettes all show the same
problem, you should probably
have the unit checked.

+++++ Henry Howard == The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company +++++
+++++    [removed]   or/artc /audiocraft     +++++
+++++               Produced at Audio Craft  (770) 923-7955
+++++
======================================================= (2)

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 00:58:01 -0500
From: TBell41639@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: My intro to you 
Message-ID: <951230005759_80945229@[removed]>

Hello to my fellow OTR fans;

I'm a new subscriber, and I've been lurking for about two weeks, and decided
it was about time to introduce myself.  

I've been into OTR for about 8 years.  My favorites are AMOS N ANDY, ONE
MAN'S FAMILY, THE WHISTLER, I LOVE A MYSTERY, JACK BENNY, GUNSMOKE, TALES OF
THE TEXAS RANGERS and any soap operas and news.  

I've really enjoyed the recent discussions about Amos and Andy recreations
and the Rochester "controversy".  Being an African-American myself, I, of
course have a lot of interest in blacks in OTR, and was glad to see the issue
get a good airing out.  I have always believed that we must keep things in
perspective when dealing with racial issues in the 30's, 40's and 50's.
 Sure, we have a much more enlightened awareness these days, but people such
as Eddie Anderson, Hattie McDaniel, Canada Lee and so forth, were true
pioneers, and it is a shame that they are not recognized more for that.  I
love Amos and Andy, both the radio and TV shows, and truly consider them part
of Black Heritage.  Many African Americans  today have embraced icons such as
Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben and the Cream of Wheat guy as part of our history,
stereotypic they might be.  The Kingfish and Buelah and Rochester also belong
there.  

In talking about essential radio shows, I was surprised no one included any
soaps.  Certainly, One Man's Family belongs in any good collection.  I would
also include a sampling of some long running shows such as Ma Perkins, Helen
Trent, Just plain Bill, and anything from Frank and Anne Hummert.  Some of
these shows lasted into the 60's, long after many of the big time network
nightime shows had left the air.  It is fashionable to put them down, but
they are extremely important to getting a total picture of OTR the entire
day, not just primetime.  I would also agree with some recent posts that
commercials should be left in the old time transcriptions to give the modern
day listener a real flavor of what people were listening to.  I was born long
after some of my favorite shows went out of production, so I don't have the
experience of being there when OTR was in it's heyday.  I rely on the
commercials as well as old news broadcasts to help me imagine what it was
like when radio was the main entertainment.

That's all for now.  I enjoy this digest a [removed]'s a highlight of my day.
 Thanks for the good work.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 01:45:13 -0500
From: ErikS74342@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: The McCoys of Richland, Wash.
Message-ID: <951230014502_27108573@[removed]>

This is one of those announcements that might be called "for the good of the
order." A  vendor many readers of this Digest have dealt with in the
past is in the process of donating his reel-to-reel collection to Washington
State University. Some of the reels in Pat McCoy's catalog are no longer
available -- though there are still, oh, about 5,000 to choose from.

I suppose I should point out that I have no commercial interest in his
business -- just an aesthetic one. I'm a 33-year-old newspaper reporter in
Kennewick, Wash., who has been a nut about OTR ever since the shows started
popping up on the air 20 years ago. I was astonished upon moving to the
Tri-Cities eight years ago to learn that a private vendor was selling
reel-tape copies of old-time radio shows at a reasonable price, from an
almost encyclopedic collection. (I figure it has about 80 percent of the
surviving programs.) I paid a visit shortly after starting work at the
Tri-City Herald -- a business like this one is a natural for a newspaper
story -- and I was astonished to find an entire suburban-home basement filled
with shelves of tapes and banks of open-reel recorders. I have bought perhaps
200 tapes from Pat McCoy's operation over the years.

The news here is that Pat has decided to "retire" some of his earliest reels
-- the ones that were his first acquisitions back in the early 1970s. Those
of you who already have the catalog -- cross tapes No. 1 through 293 off the
list. Also being donated to the WSU School of Broadcast are his CBS Radio
Mystery Theater and Sears Radio Theater tapes. Considering the copyright
troubles discussed in the Digest over the past few months, this selection
might be for the best. 

This is part of an annual program of donations that Pat plans. There are
significant tax advantages to such a donation; the family has a number of
other business enterprises.
I have no idea what the school plans to do with the tapes -- I hope the
school takes steps to preserve them -- but it is silly to expect it to offer
a commercial tape-dubbing service like Pat's.

Probably the donation of the first 293 tapes cannot be considered a major
"loss" to the hobby. Most of these reels were of the sort that had been
passed from collector to collector in the late '60s and early '70s, and are
haphazard accumulations of shows several hissy generations from the source.
Many of the programs contained are available in better sound quality later in
the catalog. Because of the notorious problems with the Ampex tape of the
'70s, a few of these early tapes had already disintegrated, and I have to
assume that many of the tapes will not survive to the millennium. In looking
at my copy of the catalog, in these early reels I see only about 10 shows of
high collector interest that might be considered "unique" (and that I hadn't
already bought myself).

I told Pat I'd like to mention this development in the OTR Digest. He says he
wants people to know he is definitely still in business, but is beginning a
gradual transition to cassettes. He is dubbing his best shows to cassette,
seeking out better copies of shows, and is developing a cassette catalog with
comprehensive runs of some of the most desirable programs. He plans his next
donation at the end of 1996 -- taxes, you know.

But I suppose I see it with a sense of loss, as much for the open-reel format
as for the content of those early reels.  We all know that this economical
format isn't going to be with us much longer -- the machines are becoming
hard to find and to repair. You might consider this a reminder that time is
short.

I thought I'd mention the McCoys' address, and I hope no one considers this a
commercial. I really think an easily-accessible collection like the McCoys'
is a national resource, and that we ought to respect the "little guys" like
Pat who ensured the preservation of OTR after America's radios had gone dark.

The address is [removed] Box 1069, Richland, Wash., 99352. The current price for
the "full" catalog -- with its 5,000 reels -- is $15, refundable with an
order. Prices for reels are $10 to $12 on the standard re-used Ampex tape.
Cassettes also can be dubbed from the reels, for a fee. What the McCoy's call
a "starter" catalog -- cassette-only -- is available for $2.

Erik Smith
Kennewick, Wash.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 02:44:38 -0500
From: SeptSev@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: HISS
Message-ID: <951230024437_80979917@[removed]>

Friends:
(Here's my third entry of the day, and I promise, my last:)) I've been
experimenting w/ VHS Hi Fi as masters, but when I mix down I get an awful
amount of hiss, even with noise reduction. Does anyone know how to control
this? Is it anything an EQ filter could correct, or is it a matter for Dolby
systems?  And why does hiss travel from master to dupe, anyway?
Regards
[removed]

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 30 Dec 95 11:59 EST
From: Jim Widner <jwidner@[removed]>
To: [removed]@[removed]
Cc: RadioDays@[removed]
Subject: Sqeaking door
Message-Id: <m0tW4d6-000JitC@[removed]>

Not sure about the specifics of that series, but one sound
effects artist from that period, Barney Beck, uses a special
device with leather strap that when stretched evokes a very
specific squeak.  

Hopefully someone else can be more specific.  I recall it as
a strap pulled across a piece of wood and attached to a handle
looking something like an antique vice.  When the handle is
pulled, it is stretched across the wood and the squeak is very
clear.  Depending on how it is pulled, creates the various effects.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Widner                      INTERNET: jwidner@[removed]
Dayton, OH                      WWW: [removed]
COMPUSERVE: 74566,3041          AOL: JimWidner  
                          

                                                 

------------------------------

    


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---- 
End of [removed] Digest V95 Issue #476

