KOMA in Oklahoma City, a 50 KW R & R station used a Schaffer
automation system in the 60s. All the music was on 10" tapes run on
Ampex playback machines. The commercials were on carts like these
and they used the Gates carousels. They were a maintenance headache
for sure.
When the engineer took down the main transmitter for maintenance he
also had to do a lot of head and capstan cleaning. They used a non
audible tone to control everything and sometimes there would be a
musical note that would last long enough to fire the next sequence
leading to two sound tracks at the same time. Even today with the
compute control, I hear that happen. It was mesmerizing to watch
that thing in action. Two complete systems, one for operation and
one for back up.
Jim/W5JO
----- Original Message -----
From: "Todd, KA1KAQ"
On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 11:05 AM, Robert Nickels
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Here's everything you'd ever need to achieve AM Immortality -
just program
it to turn on the receiver once in a while, otherwise there
should be enough
capacity here to keep your AM station ole buzzarding long after
your key has
become silent ;-)
Ugh.....maintenance nightmare, migraine alert! Was just discussing
these beasts recently with a list member. Yes - they look much
cooler
than they [reliably] worked!
Jack K9ACT actually built a nifty little loop system for calling
CQ a
year or so back. Works pretty well. Don K4KYV followed suit
sometime
after. That's as much automation as I'd ever want to have in my
station. And those rotary 8-Track-looking beasts are the reason.
There
has to be some audio evidence out there of one going berserk on
the
air. Makes HAL seem like a pre-schooler.
No sleep tonight, the carousel nightmare is sure to return. Thanks
Bob. Thanks a lot.
~ Todd, KA1KAQ (o:
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