------------------------------
The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2004 : Issue 69
A Part of the [removed]!
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
History of car radios [ danhughes@[removed] ]
Judy Garland Coverage - Washington P [ seandd@[removed] ]
pearl harbor--take a listen [ chris chandler <chrischandler84@yah ]
Academy Award show on radio [ "Walden Hughes" <hughes1@[removed]; ]
car radios [ wilditralian@[removed] ]
Early car radios [ danhughes@[removed] ]
Donald Duck [ "John Eccles, Jr." <jeccles@earthli ]
Sherlock Holmes [ "John Eccles, Jr." <jeccles@earthli ]
Car Radios & OTR [ Alec Cumming <arack@[removed]; ]
car radios of the early days [ "ellsworth o johnson" <eojohnsonww2 ]
re: Lossless Compressor [ "Bh420" <bh420@[removed]; ]
Car radios? [ BH <radiobill@[removed]; ]
Car radios [ "A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@attorneyro ]
Re: Car Radios? [ Ken Dahl <kdahl@[removed]; ]
Green Hornet - name taken for herbal [ "Frank Phillips" <frankphi@hotmail. ]
I-pod comments [ Michael Mewborn <mmewborn@designgro ]
Kay Bailey [ "steven kostelecky" <skostelecky@ho ]
re: Car radios? [ Patrick Franzis <old_radios@[removed] ]
Car Radios [ Ed Loyer <eloyer@[removed]; ]
Jack Benny's Maxwell [ seandd@[removed] ]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 16:47:55 -0500
From: danhughes@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: History of car radios
Alec, try 1926 for the first car radios. Here's a bunch of info:
[removed]~u83602320[removed]
---Dan
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 16:48:20 -0500
From: seandd@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Judy Garland Coverage - Washington Post
This article on a new tv special about Judy Garland briefly touches on her
radio carreer, and mentions how the same person who canceled her show also
canceled Jack Benny. Not a legacy I'd [removed]
Sean Dougherty
SeanDD@[removed]
JUDY Garland: The Other Side of The Rainbow
Washington Post - USA
... Notorious network programming chief James T. Aubrey, the man who fired
Jack Benny and turned CBS into a network of gimmick-ridden and cornball
sitcoms, never ...
<[removed];
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 16:59:33 -0500
From: chris chandler <chrischandler84@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: pearl harbor--take a listen
Check out the lengthy explaining and clips of the
alleged first bulletins (2nd clip down)...is there
*any* chance these are genuine?
I am extremely dubious--the John Daly bit sounds
exactly like the "I Can Hear It Now" forgery (or does
it??), and the Albert Warner report wouldn't actually
have started quite this early--but I've never heard
these clips in this particular configuration before.
Is there any chance this is for real?
What do you guys think?
[removed]#news
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 17:41:19 -0500
From: "Walden Hughes" <hughes1@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Academy Award show on radio
Hi everybody,
does any one know if the Academy Award show on radio started before 1944?
Does any copies exist of the broadcast from 1948, 1949, and any after 1951?
Take care,
Walden Hughes
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 18:20:48 -0500
From: wilditralian@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: car radios
Alec Cumming wrote:
Can anyone fill me in a little on the history of car radios? I know that
transistor radios started appearing in the [removed] that when
listening
to radio in cars started happening, or did some autos have radios
[removed]
Yes, they most certainly did have car radios with tubes. A friend of
mine once had a late-30's LaSalle whose radio had 17 tubes in it. They
had devices in them called "vibrators" that pulsated the 6 or 12 volts DC
so that it could go through a transformer (which won't work on straight,
smooth DC). This transformer would then boost the 12 volts up to the
high voltages necessary to operate the plate-cathode circuits of vacuum
tubes. When they started making transistor radios, there was nothing on
the market that had enough audio speaker-driving power to compete with a
noisy 1957 automobile with all the windows down because it didn't have
air-conditioning. So ... tubes were still necessary in car radios.
Somewhere around 1960 they came up with hybrid designs that used
transistors for everything but the final power audio stage. That was
still a tube, but it was a special kind of tube that was designed for a
12-volt plate-to-cathode circuit, thus eliminating the vibrator, the
transformer, and a good 70% of the heat generated by tube filaments (and
the associated wasted power). I would guess that it was somewhere in the
late 60's when they finally developed audio output transistors with
enough power to compete with road noise -- and by then more cars had air
conditioning (windows up) and were starting to get better sound
insulation. I hope this helps.
Jim Arva
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 18:23:32 -0500
From: danhughes@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Early car radios
Another thought for Alec:
Alec, I'll bet you'll get a lot of interesting first-person answers to
your question. I remember as a junior electronics experimenter (I was
born in 1947) playing with old car radios that had tubes. And I remember
the car radio tubes as being quite a bit smaller than the tubes in
regular radios.
Funny, you point out that you never read about automobile radio listening
in the old days--whereas nowadays, the ONLY place most adults listen to
the radio is in the car!
---Dan
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 22:44:18 -0500
From: "John Eccles, Jr." <jeccles@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Donald Duck
I am curious after reading Martin Gram, Jr.'s post about Walt Disney doing
the voice of Donald Duck. To the best of my knowledge Clarence Nash did the
voice of Donald. I have read several books on Disney and have never heard
this fact mentioned. Walt Disney did the voice of Mickey Mouse for many
years until the late Jimmy MacDonald (I think I am spelling his last name
right) took over for him, but I have never read anything about Disney even
"filling in" for Clarence Nash. Do you have any documented evidence in your
research that shows this to be a fact?
John Eccles, Jr.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 22:46:28 -0500
From: "John Eccles, Jr." <jeccles@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Sherlock Holmes
How could I forget Lionel Atwill's taunt to Rathbone in "Sherlock Holmes and
the Secret Weapon" about "the needle to the last." Maybe because it was
more subtle than Rathbone's command to Watson it slipped my mind, but still,
there is a reference to it. I think it is fascinating that even this
oblique reference to Holmes' cocaine addiction managed to slip by the Hays
Office, let alone Rathbone's final line in "Hound."
John Eccles, Jr.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 22:46:53 -0500
From: Alec Cumming <arack@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Car Radios & OTR
Thanks for the responses, Dan. Wow! For some reason, I just couldn't picture
tube radios standing up to the jostling of pre-Eisenhower-era roadways.
I'd be very interested in hearing more reminiscences of folks listening to
classic radio in cars!
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 22:47:50 -0500
From: "ellsworth o johnson" <eojohnsonww2@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: car radios of the early days
Alec: re your post to OTR re car radios. Car radios have been around since
about 1932.
If you wanted one you went to your local radio shop, purchased same and had
them install it.
Car mfgs didn't start supplying radios, factory installed until about late
1930s and then not every mfg. Ford motor company was a pioneer in this
regard and furnished some nice factory radio installations as early as 1935
and built in the auto radio antennas at the factory into the fabric roof of
the car. The radio dial and radio fit into the glove box area of the car and
therefor you lost your [removed]
An early car radio inovation of those days mounted the auto radio antenna
underneath the car running boards.
I personally have been around the car radio scene since 1935.
I and my family owned and operated a radio shop in those days. We sold and
installed many car radios. We used to charge $ [removed] to install one--
installing an antenna for it was $ [removed] additional plus the cost of the
antenna which ran abot $ [removed] additional. on the vehicle if it did not have
one built in by the factory which some makes such as Ford did have. The
radios themselves were tube radios and cost approx. $ 40. Most early cars
would have ignition
noise problems effecting the reception and we charged additional to cure
those problems which usually was a few more dollars.
Some of the earliest car radios had to have dry batterys for the B supply
which were installed in a box in the car floorboards. These were usually the
big 45 volt B batterys and usually required 3 each of those B batterys.
These sort of installations were more costly. These were before my time and
I never had to install same but have seen them in the 30s.
Then in the mid 30s Motorola invented the auto radio vibrator power supply
which eliminated the need for the dry B batterys and auto radios then
started to become much more prevelant.
Then finally when transistors came along it was no longer necessary to have
the vibrator power supply.
Ellsworth Johnson
Spokane, Wa
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 22:48:07 -0500
From: "Bh420" <bh420@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: re: Lossless Compressor
Hi,
What about FLAC [removed] ??
I've heard better things about it then monkeys audio and the new Rio karma
20gb portable supports [removed]
Scott
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 01:36:17 -0500
From: BH <radiobill@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Car radios?
Alec Cumming asked:
Can anyone fill me in a little on the history of car radios? I know that
transistor radios started appearing in the [removed] that when listening
to radio in cars started happening, or did some autos have radios
[removed]
Actually people were installing radios in cars before radios for cars
were produced. I have radio magazines from the 1920's in which articles
describe how some enthusists would install a battery set in a auto,
usually placing it on the back seat (and you think cell phone users are
a driving hazard, just imagine reaching over to the back seat to tune
the radio). The A & B batteries required to supply the voltages might be
mounted in a box on the running board (raise you hand if you know what a
running board is), and the ariel wire would often be strung under the
car or on the roof.
The manufacture of radios specifically for auto installation began in
the 1930's and yes they used tubes. They used a special type of power
supply called a vibrator supply which supplied the voltages for the
tubes from the 6 volt electrical system of the auto. I think is was
Motorola that came out with the first auto radio, but I might be
mistaken, maybe General Motors.
There was an intermediate step between the all tube set and the all
transistor auto radio. In the early days of the development of the
transistor, it was difficult to get transistors to operate at radio
frequencies, especially at frequencies required to receive the FM band.
After autos went to 12 volt systems, tubes were developed that would
operate entirely from 12 volts, the only drawback was, they could not
produce enough power to drive a speaker, so transistors were used in the
audio output to drive the speaker (transistors worked good at audio
frequencies)...hybred sets. With advancement in transistor technology,
transistors were soon developed that would operate at the frequencies
required and tubes in auto radios became history.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 01:36:32 -0500
From: "A. Joseph Ross" <lawyer@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Car radios
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 14:29:38 -0500
From: arack@[removed]
Can anyone fill me in a little on the history of car radios? I know
that transistor radios started appearing in the [removed] that when
listening to radio in cars started happening, or did some autos have
radios [removed]
There definitely were car radios with tubes. My father once told me that when car radios first
came out, he had one which clamped onto the steering column and could be removed and
taken to his next car. The first of my parents' cars that I remember was a 1947 Plymouth,
which had a car radio built in, much like what we're familiar with, with push-buttons to select
stations. It had a vertical dial, with buttons and knobs along one side. Our next car was a
1954 Plymouth, which had a radio with a horizontal dial. Next was a 1958 Pontiac. That
radio started to malfunction, and I kept wishing my folks would have it fixed. I once looked
up behind the dashboard from below and saw the tubes.
It wasn't till the next car, in the early 60s, that there was a transistor radio in the car. That,
as it happened, was also the first car that I drove.
--
A. Joseph Ross, [removed] [removed]
15 Court Square, Suite 210
lawyer@[removed]
Boston, MA 02108-2503
[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 01:36:43 -0500
From: Ken Dahl
<kdahl@[removed];
To:
[removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Car Radios?
Motorola is considered the first company to successfully commercialize car
radios in the 1930's. Radios had tubes until the introduction of the
transistor in the 1950's. For a history of Motorola and it's various
products by the decades, you can check out this site:
[removed],,[removed]
Regards,
Ken Dahl
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 12:10:26 -0500
From: "Frank Phillips"
<frankphi@[removed];
To:
[removed]@[removed]
Subject: Green Hornet - name taken for herbal drug
like Ecstasy
Another challenge for the Green Hornet ...
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government warned consumers Wednesday not to buy or
use a liquid product called Green Hornet being touted as an herbal version
of the illegal drug Ecstasy.
The warning comes after four teenagers were rushed to a Colorado Springs,
Colo., emergency room following use of Green Hornet about a week ago. They
suffered seizures, racing heartbeat, severe body rashes and high blood
pressure, but have recovered.
The Food and Drug Administration is investigating whether Green Hornet alone
or in combination with other substances caused the severe reactions.
Green Hornet is a liquid being sold mostly on the Internet and but also in
some stores, in bottles that list a variety of herbal ingredients, FDA said.
But an FDA chemical analysis has uncovered two drugs in Green Hornet _
diphenhydramine and dextromethorphan, ingredients often used separately in
over-the-counter cough and cold medicines. The agency is trying to determine
if the dosage, the combination or some still unknown factor caused the
teens' reactions.
Regardless, it is illegal to sell medications in the guise of dietary
supplements, and FDA Associate Commissioner John Taylor said the agency is
investigating a Tampa, Fla., company that it believes to be the sole
manufacturer. The company has done business under the name Cytotech;
attempts to reach it for comment were unsuccessful.
The company has quit production of Green Hornet, and shut down its two Web
sites, Taylor said. Colorado's health department has quarantined the
remaining Green Hornet inventory at a Colorado Springs store that sold to
the teenagers, he said.
FDA is concerned that other stores, or consumers, may have unused supplies
of Green Hornet.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 12:09:26 -0500
From: Michael Mewborn
<mmewborn@[removed];
To:
[removed]@[removed]
Subject: I-pod comments
When my Arcos Jukebox kept failing, I took advantage of Best Buy's extended
warranty and got a 30GB IPod instead. I had to pay the difference in price,
but I
have not regretted it for a moment. First, the Firewire connection seems
lightyears faster than the USB connection of the Arcos. To load several gigs of
data (programs) takes a few minutes now, instead of the hours (literally) it
used
to take. I haven't found any bitrates it won't play. It is very easy to use. I
love the Sound Check feature which brings volume levels between programs into
closer agreement, eliminating the wide volume range that exists. The display is
large enough to present a lot of helpful information. I really can't say enough
good things about it. I have no affiliation with Apple Computer or Best Buy.
Michael
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 12:23:32 -0500
From: "steven kostelecky"
<skostelecky@[removed];
To:
[removed]@[removed]
Subject: Kay Bailey
I read newspapers for a living. In my work for a press clipping bureau I
sometimes see otr-related information. In an obituary from the Silver City
Press for Feb. 18, I found that Katherine "Kay" Bailey had died. Apparently,
her husband, Harry, was a writer for Fred Allen. It made me think about the
spouses of otr luminaries and what information they might be able to give us
and what we might do to honor them for their help in producing the work we
enjoy today.
Hats off to them all.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 12:23:58 -0500
From: Patrick Franzis
<old_radios@[removed];
To:
[removed]@[removed]
Subject: re: Car radios?
Yes, cars had radios with tubes. Usually a box was kept (maybe under
the seat) with the tube circuitry and a wire with a "control head" was
attached to the steering column probably for volume and tuning.
Patrick
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 14:28:07 -0500
From: Ed Loyer
<eloyer@[removed];
To:
[removed]@[removed]
Subject: Car Radios
A visit to Motorola's web site is a good place to start exploring the
history of the car radio which dates back to 1930. Ed Loyer
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 15:33:28 -0500
From:
seandd@[removed]
To:
[removed]@[removed]
Subject: Jack Benny's Maxwell
The Chicago Sun-Times TV critic includes Jack Benny's Maxwell on his list of all time great television cars - and is savvy enough to credit Mel Blanc with originating the "character."
Sean Dougherty
SeanDD@[removed]
NO Headline.
Chicago Sun Times - Chicago,IL,USA
... 8. JACK BENNY'S MAXWELL ("THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM"): On radio, the sputtering
and wheezing 1923 jalopy was played by Mel Blanc. The ...
<[removed];
--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2004 Issue #69
********************************************
Copyright [removed] Communications, York, PA; All Rights Reserved,
including republication in any form.
If you enjoy this list, please consider financially supporting it:
[removed]
For Help:
[removed]@[removed]
To Unsubscribe:
[removed]@[removed]
To Subscribe:
[removed]@[removed]
or see
[removed]
For Help with the Archive Server, send the command ARCHIVE HELP
in the SUBJECT of a message to
[removed]@[removed]
To contact the listmaster, mail to
listmaster@[removed]
To Send Mail to the list, simply send to
[removed]@[removed]