------------------------------
The Old-Time Radio Digest!
Volume 2003 : Issue 25
A Part of the [removed]!
ISSN: 1533-9289
Today's Topics:
Re: Facsimile [ Bill Jaker <bilj@[removed]; ]
Re: Mutual Pearl Harbor Coverage [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
Re: Radio Facsimile Service [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
Richard Crenna [ "bkidera" <rkidera1@[removed] ]
Re: Brace Beemer & a Tale of Two Gle [ SanctumOTR@[removed] ]
"... In a Plain, Brown Wrapper" [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
OTR Comedy Summa Cum Laude [ "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@ ]
RIP Richard Crenna [ bloodbleeds@[removed] ]
Highway Patrol [ "Bob & Carol Taylor" <qth4@[removed] ]
Re: LP to CD [ "Matthew Bullis" <MatthewBullis@run ]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 23:02:30 -0500
From: Bill Jaker <bilj@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Facsimile
From: chris chandler
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: WLW facsimile service
On another [removed] just heard some 1939 WLW
[removed] of them advertises an hour of
'facsimile service' at 2:15 AM. I never heard this
term--what is it? TV? Modern day 'fax' of some kind?
Why did they do it in the middle of the night? Any
info appreciated.
Facsimile is now all-but-forgotten as an adjunct of the broadcasting
industry. An ancestor of present-day fax machines, the technology of
sending still pictures and text over a wire or through the air dates
back to the early years of the 20th century, and by the 1920s there were
several radio stations experimenting with fac-simile (as it was
sometimes spelled). Newspapers were attracted by the possibility of
delivering their editions by radio, and in 1923 the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch was sending out articles from station KSD.
In the 1930s the Mutual Broadcasting System established a facsimile
network which included WLW in Cincinnati. Transmissions were scheduled
for the wee hours so that the few people so equipped could awaken and
find the morning paper next to the radio (or whatever was sent - WLW was
cooperating with the [removed] Department of Agriculture in sending out farm
news). Also, the overnight hours were preferred because facsimile audio
sounded so awful. If you want to hear what it sounded like, just call a
fax number.
Facsimile never caught on as a broadcast medium, even if it was given
one last chance when the FCC established the current 88-108 FM band in
1945. The top few megacycles were originally intended for facsimile.
Neither the broadcasters nor the public took to facsimile (among other
things, the ink smeared) but it can be seen as a precursor to the
Internet.
--Bill
Jaker
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 23:03:41 -0500
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Re: Mutual Pearl Harbor Coverage
On 1/18/03 1:02 PM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:
Fulton Lewis, Jr. was just a marvel, at one point
mounting an extemporaneous 20-minute commentary from
the White House press room! I gather Lewis is better
known for his latter-day political views, but he get
my vote as one of THE top wartime broadcasters, and
there's little hint of politics in his work on the
'big' wartime days.
I agree with this completely. Personal politics aside, I've always
thought that Fulton Lewis Jr is one of the most consistently underrated
radio commentators of the 1940s-- whether you agree with him or not, his
commentaries were always well-thought-out and clearly presented, and his
only rival as an extemporaneous speaker was probably H. V. Kaltenborn.
His Pearl Harbor commentary is one of the sharpest pieces of
work-under-pressure that I've heard.
NBC was playing by an old
set of rules, on a day that saw all the rules
changed--and the network came up miserably short as a
result.
I think this is where the real difference between Mutual and the Big
Networks comes thru: as you mentioned, Mutual's decentralized nature was
a key factor in enabling it to put together the day's broadcasting on
short notice. There was no moss-covered bureaucracy, no little grey men
on the seventeenth floor who had to initial forms in triplicate with a
carbon to Legal before decisions could be made. Each Mutual affiliate
knew what had to be done -- and went ahead and did it, and the result was
coverage that really stands out.
Of course, having said that, one also has to keep in mind that where
NBC's Sunday night schedule was packed with high-rolling sponsored
programs, Mutual's certainly was not -- it was the usual mishmash of
humdrum musical sustainers, newscasts and public-affairs programming that
seemed to fill every night on Mutual during the early forties. There was
certainly no financial or contractural reason for Mutual not to go all
out on its coverage.
Elizabeth
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 23:03:55 -0500
From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Re: Radio Facsimile Service
On 1/18/03 1:02 PM OldRadio Mailing Lists wrote:
On another [removed] just heard some 1939 WLW
[removed] of them advertises an hour of
'facsimile service' at 2:15 AM. I never heard this
term--what is it? TV? Modern day 'fax' of some kind?
Why did they do it in the middle of the night?
This is Finch process "radio facsimile service," an experimental
text-and-graphics transmitting system which enjoyed a brief vogue in the
late thirties. Certain stations were licensed to transmit text and
graphics using their regular frequencies after signing off their audio
programming for the night -- and this information would be picked up and
decoded by special "radio facsimile receivers." These were units which
reconstructed the transmitted image as a pattern of scanned lines and
traced it on a moving roll of thermally-sensitive paper very much like
that of a 1980s fax machine. Content usually consisted of news items
cribbed from a cooperative local newspaper, or weather maps, or comic
strips, or photos of newsmakers of the day.
WLW was hot in the middle of this experimentation, since the Crosley
Radio Corporation manufactured and marketed a radio facsimile receiver
called the Crosley Reado, which looked suspiciously like a Crosley
table-model radio phonograph cabinet with the innards torn out and
replaced by a thermal printer. In addition to Crosley, equipment was also
manufactured by RCA and the Finch Telecommunications Laboratories
(company founder William G. H. Finch invented the system.)
Eight stations were authorized to transmit facsimile material as of 1939:
WLW, WGN Chicago, WOR New York, WHO Des Moines, WHK Cleveland, WSM
Nashville, KMJ Fresno and KFBK Sacramento. In addition to operating
independantly, WOR, WGN, and WLW experimented with "networked"
transmissions, sending material back and forth from station to station
for local retransmission.
Experiments with this technology proved inconclusive due to the
difficulty of overcoming signal interference, and further commercial
exploitation of the idea by broadcasters was delayed by the war. The
primary use for the process in later years was for the transmission of
weather maps and related information by shortwave to ships at sea.
Old-school ham operators would sometimes modify old Crosley Reado units
to intercept these transmissions.
Elizabeth
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 23:01:37 -0500
From: "bkidera" <rkidera1@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Richard Crenna
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain
It was sad to learn tonight of the passing away of radio and tv actor Richard
Crenna, at age 76. The account of his death stated that he began in radio back
in 1936, at the age of 10, with Burns and Allen. I have always enjoyed
listening to his work on Gunsmoke, YTJD, and other shows from the '50s. He was
an all around fine actor who will be missed.
Bob Kidera
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Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 23:55:03 -0500
From: SanctumOTR@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: Re: Brace Beemer & a Tale of Two Gleasons
In a message dated 1/18/03 10:08:29 PM, mmargrajr@[removed] writes:
James Gleason substituted an ill William Bendix for one LIFE OF RILEY radio
broadcast. Slight amuzing cast note because Gleason at the time was
television's Chester Riley.
When Brace Beemer died in 1941 in the auto accident, a very sick and wounded
Lone Ranger was played by some obscure radio actor uttering words in pain so
the children wouldn't recognize the voice difference.
***Actually, it was Jackie Gleason, not James, who substituted for the ailing
Bendix. James Gleason specialized in portraying Irish cops and promoters
(and was nearly cast as Hopalong Cassidy before William Boyd won the role).
And it was Brace Beemer who took over as the wounded Lone Ranger in the
transition series after Earle Graser died in the auto accident. Beemer
continued as the Masked Man until the radio series left the airwaves in the
mid-1950s.***
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 00:15:47 -0500
From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: "... In a Plain, Brown Wrapper"
B. J. Watkins, writing about my delight in getting auction-won OTR
premiums in small brown envelopes or boxes observed,
And Stephen, remember in the 1980s when Ovaltine had those swell
offers! Just send in some Ovaltine labels and you got a Captain Midnight
watch which came in the little brown envelope and the Captain Midnight
T-shirts which came in the larger brown packages!
True enough, but the auction stuff came first. There were three 1980s
"Captain Midnight" Ovaltine premiums: the watch. the Tee Shirts, and the
1989 Secret Squadron Member Patch. These were all based on the TV show
rather than the much different OTR program. One could even give a nod to
the post Captain Midnight Ovaltine Secret Decoder Ring.
But the real charm of the auction winnings wasn't just the small
envelopes, but that the contents were exactly the same premiums I'd sent
off for in the 1940s.
Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 00:16:05 -0500
From: "Stephen A Kallis, Jr." <skallisjr@[removed];
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: OTR Comedy Summa Cum Laude
Dixon Hayes, in recommending OTR comedies, noted,
"The Jack Benny Show" and "The Great Gildersleeve" are two high-profile
shows that definitely live up to their reputations. They still hold up
surprisingly well.
True enough. But the show that really works as well today as when aired
is the Phil Harris - Alice Faye Show. Brilliantly written most of the
time.
Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 00:21:34 -0500
From: bloodbleeds@[removed]
To: [removed]@[removed]
Subject: RIP Richard Crenna
Alas, the great squeaky voice is gone. I had wanted to interview him for my Gildersleeve
book, but was told he didn't talk to many people in the last few years due to a stalking
fan incident. Was this true? A few people I know wrote to him, but had their letters
returned REFUSED. I was never sure why.
But he was one of the greats.
Ben
It's That Time Again!
[removed]
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 00:41:15 -0500
From: "Bob & Carol Taylor" <qth4@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Highway Patrol
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X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain
I wonder if Highway Patrol was ever on the radio? Also was Bradrick Crawford
ever in any radio shows. My dad met him in Southbridge MA. and he said he
was a drunk. Another thing about Highway Patrol, I don't ever remember police
cars being only two doors.
Does anyone have any Hawkshaw Hawkins radio shows? Lee Moore when he was on
WWVA called himself The Coffee Drinkin Nighthawk, Hawkshaw was on the
jamboree at that time and his band was called The NightHawks. So Lee took the
coffee drinkin nighthawk cause he did the overnight or graveyard shift at that
time.
Bob Taylor
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------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 22:03:14 -0500
From: "Matthew Bullis" <MatthewBullis@[removed];
To: <[removed]@[removed];
Subject: Re: LP to CD
Hello,
[removed]
will do it for a charge, if you send them your material. If you want to do
it on your computer, then you can use software that records .wav files and
then turn them into mp3 files, after you split them up first. E-mail me
privately if you want more info about how to do this type of thing on the
computer.
Thanks a lot.
Matthew
--------------------------------
End of [removed] Digest V2003 Issue #25
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