that horrible BEEP

[Paul Anderson]

On Jan 19, 2008, at 1:31 PM, Sid Schweiger wrote:

>>> ABC radio always had a tone at five seconds before a newscast  
>>> started.
>
> Nope.  Ten seconds.

Yes, you're right.  It was ten, not five, seconds.  Our clock at WCCC  
was always off, so we depended on the VU meter showing ten seconds  
before the newscast so as not to step on the ABC announcer.

> In the ABC Radio air studios, the button that generated the ten- 
> second warning tone also automatically fired cart machine #1 exactly  
> ten seconds later, so that's where you put the opening theme cart  
> (or left it empty, in the case of the FM Network).

And for the Contemporary Radio Network, too, sometime after 1976.   
They made the sounder optional, as in stations could play it themselves.

>>> They also had a tone that would activate an optional alarm at the  
>>> station.  This was used for bulletins or special reports.
>
> 2930 Hz.  It wasn't used much, but I remember well one night when we
> used it frequently, once even in the middle of a commercial break:   
> July
> 24th, 1974...the evening on which the House Judiciary Committee took  
> its
> first vote to recommend impeachment of President Nixon.

It was used daily in the afternoon, too, IIRC, for the reading of what  
network spots had changed since the sheet listing all the  
availabilities was printed.

Paul