iyiyi said:
The clock, itself, was one machine but, inside, were two decks which triggered alternately. I think the original version had just one deck but it never "fast forwarded" - just ran through the "expired" cut. Result was that, sometimes, there was no availability or worse, a cut in progress when you really wanted it. I'm thinking that it may have had cart decks inside, so never had to be rewound but the memory is 'way too vague to be sure. If it were that way then the stop cues would have been 25 Hz tones recorded on the tape. Early cart machines, that used the "Cousineau" type cartridge (originally used with 8MM film for arcade "peepshows") used aluminum tape for stopping. Nasty little machines built on the back of Presto-brand consumer tape decks by a guy in New London. Only nice thing was that there was one and only one stop point so you never had the problem of recording over "the splice" . Prior to that, Shaeffer (sp?) automation used reel-to-reel Ampex machines. When you'd record a spot reel you'd take alcohol to the oxide at the start point for the next cut, creating a transparent window for optical sensing.
I never did meet Jim Pierce.
"Ken Grady" is also someone I never met....wonder if he was any relation to Fred Grady???
The Coventry station had a lot of stuff worked on by Fred Higham and his son, Fred, Jr who was a student there at the time. Fred, Sr. was communications officer for The Warwick PD and, for a time, contract engineer for WYNG prior to Ed Perry taking it on. Ed went on to a certain fame with WATD whose call letters stand for "We're At The Dump". True statement since the transmitter site was built on a converted landfill. Imagine the ground conductivity of all those buried aluminum pop cans!
Only guy with a recording studio who I knew personally was Warren Hartwell who also was the local dealer for Langevin consoles and other audio gear....also for a really powerful monitoring amplifier/speaker combo whose brand name I have forgotten. They kept going with huge tubes long after solid state was all the rage...Mullard tubes....and nothing ever sounded better!