Speaking of Beeps (was: WBZ Delay)

[John Francini]

Tones...

It used to be the case that the CBS tone that's still used on their  
radio net was also used on the TV side. I have many childhood  
memories of the sequence we'd see on the 18" Philco-Ford B&W set at  
the top of the hour when a new show started:

:59:59: Screen would go to black, and the picture would roll once as  
the station switched from internal sync to network sync
:00:00: Bonnng!
:00:00.5: Start of new program.
	"From Television City in Hollywood... Boy the way Glen Miller  
Played..." [All in the Family]
	"[teletype bed] This is The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite"
...etc...

I can't name many of the shows, but I can definitely remember the  
blank-sync change-chime-program start sequence.


For the longest time I had my Macs set up to play the CBS chime at  
the top of the hour (and would again if I could find a high- 
quality .wav/.mp3 of it), and the CBS click (which brackets radio  
commercials on the net) as my beep tone.


[screetchy Jean Stapleton voice] Those Were The Daaaaaayyysss!

john



On 4 Jan 2006, at 16:10, Bill O'Neill wrote:

> Todd Glickman wrote:
>> but shouldn't the time tone be in the airchain after the delay, to  
>> mark the exact top-of-the-hour?
> Can someone point out where one can get a top o' hour tone system  
> that doesn't resemble a Heathkit project?
>
> <harp sfx in> Love the tone.  One of the way-back tones at WCAP was  
> this big, ancient master control studio clock. Under the "12" Ike  
> Cohen had rigged-up some sort of "U" shaped set of contacts, with a  
> contact at the tip of the second hand. When the second hand swept  
> the first contact it opened the line from the tone oscillator in  
> rack (that was always on) and as it swept the second contact, it  
> closed the switch. The swipe time was about 2 seconds. (It actually  
> worked!)   The next generation was that very same tube-job tone  
> oscillator but it was opened and closed by ABC's "00" cue for  
> Information Net.  The twin tone was about 2 seconds apart. Even  
> though WCAP didn't air Information (it delayed Direction at :50) it  
> was a solution that worked for many years. The station has been  
> tone-less for sometime now. When Ike passed away, so did most of  
> the secrets of "the museum of broadcasting."  <harp sfx out>
>
> Bill (Don't use that tone with me, young man) O'Neill