Declan Moriarty writes:
>these days but isn't in it :-/. A hell of a lot better than 15 '2000 turn'
>pots in a row to be adjusted, which was the old way.
How about the really old way of the acoustical remotes in
the late fifties and early sixties?
Those technomarvels had a little microphone that listened
for a sound at just above human hearing range.
This sound was supposed to be created by twanging a
little metal reed when the operator pushed the remote button. It
could also be made by dropping coins or keys rattling, etc.
The tuner was a conventional rotary wafer or turret style
clunk-er with a solenoid mechanism added to it to make it a
stepper switch. There were sets of contacts which one would
program, probably by plugging in jumpers so that the stepper
would stop on the local channels for that town.
The remote had a Channel button which started the process
and another button which stepped through three or four volume
settings.
If you were watching Channel 2 and wanted to change to
channel 6, you pushed the button and heard the stepper go,
"chug chug chug chug." Voila, you were on Channel 6.
I saw one such system, once, in which the remote only had
one button. If you pushed it quickly, the tuner clanked its way
to the next channel. If you held the button down and let the
reed ring a little longer, the tuner clunked and then a relay
shut off the power to the set. I guess power stayed on to the
acoustic receiver since you could press the one button again and
the set came back to life. Ah, . . . Those were the days or is it daze?
Martin McCormick
--
Author: Martin McCormick
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