Re: WMBR and stereo (was Re: WHIL/WWEL)

[Dan Strassberg <dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net>]

At 12:01 AM 11/25/98 -0500, you wrote:
>On Tue, 24 Nov 1998, Shawn Mamros wrote:
>
>> I keep wondering whether the MIT students that first built the Walker
>> Memorial studios, including the broadcast consoles, knew that FM stereo
>> would soon be coming into being or not.  After all, the FCC authorized
>> FM stereo in the same year that WTBS-FM signed on, and WCRB at least was
>> using it by the end of the year.  The consoles had two mono channels and
>> a cue channel - in theory, at least, one could've combined both mono
>> channels into a stereo channel.  For a while after we went stereo, we
>> actually did try to use one of the old boards on an occasional basis.
>> Doing a stereo show was possible, but extremely awkward, and most people
>> of course preferred the brand-new board with the built-in stereo faders.
>
>Actually, I remember the WMUA equipment of that vintage (new in 1963) 
>being used in a similar fashion to broadcast a program in stereo.  But
>since we weren't equipped for FM stereo, they did stereo by putting one
>channel on the AM carrier-current system and the other channel on FM.
>
I think the undergrads who designed and built the (then carrier-current)
WRPI studio facilities over the summer of 1953--between my freshman and
sophomore years--were way ahead of everybody. The home-brew console was
stereo. And as soon as the first stereo tone arms became available they
hooked one up. (Anyone else remember those arms and the records they were
designed to work with? The only place you'd be likely to find one today is
at the Smithsonian. The arms looked rather like large tuning forks. They had
two pickups. The records had two sets of concentric grooves perhaps three or
four inches apart. Getting the needles to stay in the correct grooves and
not jump one groove too close or too far apart was damned-near impossible.)
So, OK, we then had (for a few days) the ability to play the (one or two)
stereo record titles that then existed. But unless you were _in_ the control
room listening to the monitor, you couldn't hear it in stereo. The
transmitter was, of course, mono.

Then Frank Gicca got this great idea... It's really a post for another time,
but maybe Joe Ross, who lived in the Capital District at the time, remembers
the program. It was a live broadcast that originated at the '87 Gym on the
RPI campus and featured the RPI Glee Club, Band, and Orchestra. The
"occasion" was the 30th anniversary of WHAZ (AM 1330--six whole hours per
week) that RPI then owned. The program (which took place a year or so late;
WHAZ first signed on in 1922) was claimed to be the first mass demo of
stereo in the U.S. with four AM stations carrying the left channel and four
others carrying the right. You needed two AM radios to hear it in stereo.
Thanks to that program, Gicca, who was a master of self promotion, earned
himself a slot in Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities. He went
on to become a major corporate executive (head of all of BASF's US
operations, I believe), and he may still live in greater Boston.

- -------------------------------
Dan Strassberg (Note: Address is CASE SENSITIVE!)
ALL _LOWER_ CASE!!!--> dan.strassberg@worldnet.att.net
(617) 558-4205; Fax (617) 928-4205

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