We had the McKenzie repeaters in the studio at KFXM (riv.sb ca.)in the 1960's for the jingles loaded all the time into the 5 banks it had and regular cart decks for spots. Also had a gates 101 in our beautiful music fm. I recal in 1968 or 69 our pd/om Al Anthony called me into his office for a demo of a Tom Cat. We both liked it but the owner didn't want to spend the money for them.
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Carts as a piece of history
- Thread starter johnbasalla
- Start date
A Gates 101 Spot Tape on FM?? 
That must have sounded GREAT.
Actually IIRC the manual for the 101 recommended it not be used for music. The thing had horrible noise, wow and flutter. The transport speed of the window-shade magnetic tape changed as the rollers wound/unwound, but it 'averaged around 5 ips, I think....
That must have sounded GREAT. Actually IIRC the manual for the 101 recommended it not be used for music. The thing had horrible noise, wow and flutter. The transport speed of the window-shade magnetic tape changed as the rollers wound/unwound, but it 'averaged around 5 ips, I think....
As a kind of sidebar to this thread:
Many years ago I worked at a small station in the Green Mountain State. A gent walked in one day and asked if we used tape cartridges. I said we did and he handed me what I guess was a 4-track cart. He was the owner of a 'mom & pop' quick shop nearby that had an advertising device that, when a customer stepped on a mat, activated a tape player that play a sound effect of a cow going 'MOO' once. (Specifically, it was 'Elsie', the Borden cow.) The cartridge he handed me didn't work any more and he wondered if we could fix it. He had used the device for 'years' and told me it just stopped working. Since the gizmo at the store was plugged in, he thought it had something to do with the tape that was the problem. I opened the cart(ridge) and found that after a bazillion plays, the splice had come apart. I fixed the broken splice and handed the tape back to him. I believe there was a piece of foil for the cue purpose. There was only one 'MOO' on the short tape, so the tape had taken a beating but kept on playing. I never heard from the store owner again and I declined an offer of payment for services rendered. I may have suggested making a contribution to a local charity as an option.
Many years ago I worked at a small station in the Green Mountain State. A gent walked in one day and asked if we used tape cartridges. I said we did and he handed me what I guess was a 4-track cart. He was the owner of a 'mom & pop' quick shop nearby that had an advertising device that, when a customer stepped on a mat, activated a tape player that play a sound effect of a cow going 'MOO' once. (Specifically, it was 'Elsie', the Borden cow.) The cartridge he handed me didn't work any more and he wondered if we could fix it. He had used the device for 'years' and told me it just stopped working. Since the gizmo at the store was plugged in, he thought it had something to do with the tape that was the problem. I opened the cart(ridge) and found that after a bazillion plays, the splice had come apart. I fixed the broken splice and handed the tape back to him. I believe there was a piece of foil for the cue purpose. There was only one 'MOO' on the short tape, so the tape had taken a beating but kept on playing. I never heard from the store owner again and I declined an offer of payment for services rendered. I may have suggested making a contribution to a local charity as an option.
Back when 8-track audio was common in cars, we would occasionally have people come in and ask us to fix broken cartridges (this happened in one of the smaller markets, Elmira, NY in the early 70s.) As Cranky Yankee relates, this was often caused by the splice parting, but sometimes the cartridges would self-destruct. The tape lube would dry out from the cartridges being left in the baking sun on the package shelf or dashboard. You'd open the cart to find an unrepairable rats'-nest snarl of mangled tape.
I also found it difficult to open the cartridges without risking breakage in many cases. 8-tracks were generally glued together, sometimes too securely. They weren't like broadcast carts which obligingly popped apart with the removal of a single screw.
I also found it difficult to open the cartridges without risking breakage in many cases. 8-tracks were generally glued together, sometimes too securely. They weren't like broadcast carts which obligingly popped apart with the removal of a single screw.
D
Darth_vader
Guest
Hmm...most I've seen are held together with a few (usually 3-5) plastic prongs accessible through holes in the bottom. (The tan A&M and gray/orange Columbia carts all seemed to have them in the top.) The only sealled (glued?) ones I've ever seen are the RCA and (some) Capitol carts. Although the prongs on some of them (particularly the Ampexes and Lear Jets of the world) held so tightly they may as well have been sealled!
...And there were a few 8-tracks that followed the broadcast cart example and obligingly popped apart with the removal of a single screw (*cough*Audiopack*cough*). Easiest to repair, but there was almost always the risk of damaging the top label.
...And there were a few 8-tracks that followed the broadcast cart example and obligingly popped apart with the removal of a single screw (*cough*Audiopack*cough*). Easiest to repair, but there was almost always the risk of damaging the top label.
D
Darth_vader
Guest
(^-- above post timed out)
The lubricant on the reverse side of 8-track tape is graphite (basically pencil lead) so it doesn't "dry out". Most likely what had happened is the prolonged and repeated exposure to the heat from the sun softened and distorted ("cupped") the tape to the point where it could no longer efficiently be moved through the path, resulting in the mess you described. I've also encountered a number of them where the reel had gotten so heat-distorted that it'd drag on the bottom half of the cartridge, which could also cause something like that.
I think 3M or somebody had developed a type of silicone-lubed cartridge tape, but I don't know if it ever was put into (wide?) use or not. Almost everything I've seen uses graphite.
The lubricant on the reverse side of 8-track tape is graphite (basically pencil lead) so it doesn't "dry out". Most likely what had happened is the prolonged and repeated exposure to the heat from the sun softened and distorted ("cupped") the tape to the point where it could no longer efficiently be moved through the path, resulting in the mess you described. I've also encountered a number of them where the reel had gotten so heat-distorted that it'd drag on the bottom half of the cartridge, which could also cause something like that.
I think 3M or somebody had developed a type of silicone-lubed cartridge tape, but I don't know if it ever was put into (wide?) use or not. Almost everything I've seen uses graphite.
Speaking of old cart machines, ran across this posting of some Collins cart machines for sale:
http://www.w5jv.com/For_Sale_or_Trade/Collins/212F2 type Cart Decks.jpg
He has them listed at 212F-2, but I am almost sure 212F-2 is an audio console.
No interest in this, other than passing along.
http://www.w5jv.com/For_Sale_or_Trade/Collins/212F2 type Cart Decks.jpg
He has them listed at 212F-2, but I am almost sure 212F-2 is an audio console.
No interest in this, other than passing along.
I didn't work weekdays (some weeknights/afternoons) but it was my impression that the show came down the line at 9:06:00 ET (Until it left the air, Linkletter followed at 10:06:00). There was a break at 9:29:40 for a local ID.
The carts we worked with at WJAD, the old gray Fidelipacs, tended to jam because of that metal rod inserted across the top. We took out those rods much of the time. (Easy to do: just spread the two halves apart slightly towards the opening, and the rod just fell out.) And the pads got flat and kind of mushy/gooey over time. We had a few Scotchcarts which had no pads. I preferred them over the Fidelipacs.
We had BE Spotmaster machines in the control room and one in the production room. When we finally got an ITC machine for the production room we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. Automatic erasure and splice finding!
The spots had a phasing problem for a while, and the engineer at the time solved it by rigging the cart machines' two channels for sum/difference instead of left/right. When that engineer left, his replacement restored the left/right orientation.
WJAD had its spots arranged in alphabetical order. They never numbered their carts. This was a major annoyance to jocks who previously worked at other stations where the spots were numbered.
We had BE Spotmaster machines in the control room and one in the production room. When we finally got an ITC machine for the production room we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. Automatic erasure and splice finding!
The spots had a phasing problem for a while, and the engineer at the time solved it by rigging the cart machines' two channels for sum/difference instead of left/right. When that engineer left, his replacement restored the left/right orientation.
WJAD had its spots arranged in alphabetical order. They never numbered their carts. This was a major annoyance to jocks who previously worked at other stations where the spots were numbered.
rnigma said:
That's a first for me. Would have driven me bonkers. Makes me wonder if this happened to Howard Stern.
My dad had a Muntz 4-track in his cars in the mid and late 1960s. I think I may still have some of the pre-recorded cartridges but don’t know what happened to the player, which was mounted under the dash .
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