THE RANDOM ACCESS FILE

PAIR SEES RARE FAIR MARE'S HAIR IN AIR!

2011-07-03T20:15:00.000-04:00

This week, as Zach and I arrived in the parking lot at the Golden Phoenix Chinese buffet in lovely Niskayuna, New York, I spied in the sky above a curious shimmering rainbow-like cloud or contrail. I took a number of stills. While the photos don't really due justice to the cloud phenomenon observed, I post them here for your viewing pleasure. The quiet Tim W2QAC referred to this cloud type as a "Mare's Tail".

Here Is A Special RANDOM ACCESS THOUGHT For Saturday June 25TH, 2011! All The Action At The Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association's Field Day!

2011-06-26T17:15:00.000-04:00

Here Is A Special RANDOM ACCESS THOUGHT For Saturday June 25TH, 2011! All The Action At The Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association's Field Day 2011! Among The Usual Gang, The Quiet Tim W2QAC, Crush W2CCR, Tony W2BEJ And Dave NF2G! 20 Meters! PSK31! Cheese Fixes, Knitting Looms, Antennas! A Good Time Being Had By All! AND! AND!! The BuckEye Bullet Too!

http://soundcloud.com/the-buffetline/ratp110625-smara-field-day

AMATEUR RADIO FIELD DAY ON THE MIGHTY MOHAWK!

2011-06-26T14:00:00.001-04:00

This Saturday, Zach and I made the scene at the Rotterdam Kiwanis Park in lovely Rotterdam Junction, New York for the annual Amateur Radio Field Day. The Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association (SMARA) had established an in-the-field multi-operator ham station which ran entirely on emergency backup power, in this case, a basic every day gasoline-driven generator. Among those on hand were: Tony W2BEJ, Chris (Crush/Crash) W2CCR, Dan KC2VEX and Tim W2QAC. There were many others participating but I was not able to secure their names or call signs. Several vertical antennas along with a wire dipole were raised and while we were on site, a multi-band Yagi antenna was being constructed. Computers were linked via a wireless router.

The weather initially left a lot to be desired as it poured big time but eventually the clouds and precip gave way to a sunnier sky. Herewith a handful of still shots take at the 2011 Amateur Radio Field Day with all the guys and gals at the Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association.

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1) Heavy rains have brought the Mohawk River to uncomfortably high levels but the guys and gals at SMARA forge on with Field Day 2011!

2) Just below Tim W2QAC and a fellow ham scrutinize one of the station setups at Rotterdam Kiwanis Park operating under the club call sign W2IR!

3) Chris W2CCR works the PSK31 position, having just worked W1AW, the amateur radio station of the American Radio Relay League, on 40 meters!

4) This tent houses the SMARA GOTA (Get On The Air) station for interested visitors who might have an interest in becoming an amateur radio operator!

5) While the Quiet Tim W2QAC works Field Day on 7 MHz, My Number One And Only Son Zach KC2VWY works Link and The Legend Of Zelda on one of those amazing Nintendo 3DS devices!

6) Here, Dan KC2VEX works Facebook on 800 MHz/1900 MHz!

7) I came across a cornerstone for the Rotterdam Kiwanis Park with a date of 1939 on the face plate. The shoes are mine!

THE SUBWAY ENTRANCES THAT NEVER WERE! Back For Another Look...

2011-06-19T13:30:00.000-04:00

1) Six months later, these concrete artifacts from another time in Albany, New York's history are still here, though under siege from dense plant growth. These stills were taken from the Van Woert Street perspective.

2) Here, the same cryptic number-letter code is still visible in the bright afternoon sun.

3) In the shot below is something not seen during our winter visit. What appears to be a kind of skylight is located at the rear base of the street tunnel entrance. The glass is of a heavy translucent block design, meant to allow light but no detail in either direction.

4) There is a thin metal pipe that extends from the base of the street tunnel which may been installed to vent any gases that might accrue in the space below the structure.

5) My Number One And Only Son Zach was able to peer under a plywood panel covering the entrance and see a tire just inside. He also discovered that the passageway below the structure was filled with water by dropping rocks through the damaged skylight.

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2011-04-01T20:00:00.000-04:00

THIS AIN'T YOUR FATHER'S BLUEBOX!

2011-01-02T21:15:00.000-05:00

The other day, the Internet Radio Players that I had downloaded into my Sony Playstation Portables had stopped functioning. About a week later, Sony made it known that they were overhauling these same players. But meanwhile, I had discovered not one but two third-party freeware Internet Radio Players from the following two sources.

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http://pspradio.co.uk/
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http://pspradio.co.uk/sc/

Both players work on both Sony and PSP homebrew operating systems. The first address provides a really neat custom player with many useful features while the second address offers a custom Shoutcast-only option. But the most important aspect is that we can now install addresses for almost any audio stream available. Quite a step up from using a Sony Internet player with factory established channel presets and no option to choose beyond those. While there is a virtual universe of audio feeds offering anything from any conceivable genre of music to police scanners to old time radio, here is a one address worth plugging into.

http://gamebird.ehhh.us:8000/bluebox.m3u

This stream is billed as BLUEBOX RADIO which offers a continous program schedule of what appear to audio books, the content of which is mostly science fiction based. In the just the past few days, I have tuned into The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, stories by Arthur C. Clarke amd much much more. The stream was established and maintained by Byron Lee. Mister Lee is involved with an organization known as Horizons For The Blind and also has a background in audio post production and conducts a number of Internet radio programs which can be heard over SkyScanner Satellite Radio and Radio Free Dishnuts.

BLUEBOX RADIO can be copied on any contemporary computer system and not just Sony PSPs, which I use as a kind of portable 2.4 GHz wireless radio.

THE SUBWAY ENTRANCES THAT NEVER WERE!

2011-01-01T23:00:00.000-05:00

There's an excellent website location called FORGOTTEN NEW YORK which is sponsored by an online group devoted to the more obscure if not truly forgotten places in and around the five boroughs of New York City. This site is a visual repository of lost cemeteries, disappearing architecture, such as street lights, building facades, advertising on building walls and more. So popular is this assembly that they conduct a tour several times a year in search of this much loved Obscuribilia. Every city has its share of forgotten and little old Albany is no exception. My Number One And Only Son Zach and I tooled around downtown Albany on the very first day of 2011 and came across those physical manifestations which you see in these attached still shots.

I remember as a little kid seeing structures like these situated at two locations on Central Avenue. In each set, one entrance was positioned on each side of the street. I seem to recall saying to my mother that I didn't know that Albany had a subway system. Her response was: "No, there is no subway. Those are tunnel entrances used for crossing the street". There are sections of Central Avenue that are extremely long between intersections so it appears these tunnels were constructed to alleviate unnecessary and certainly more hazardous jay walking.

As the years went by, the Central Avenue street tunnels were torn down but it turns there are at least three remaining entrances in town, two located on North Pearl Street with other across the way at Van Woert Street. There are tracks between them so they were constructed for people to cross under the tracks, rather than over them. Just how long the shells have been there I couldn't tell you but there may have been some sort of station stop there at one time. As to why there are two entrances on the North Pearl Street side is anybody's guess. Zach thought that perhaps it was a very busy access point and that's most likely the best guess.

1) Not sure why the sides were painted over in light gray or purple. These first four stills were taken from North Pearl Street.

2) The following four images were taken from the Van Woert Street angle. The entrances have been boarded up for years although you may notice a small space at the bottom . Zach refused to get down on his hands and knees and look inside.

3) Another minor mystery is this marking. It looks less like graffiti and more like some kind of meaningful notation.

4) One of the North Pearl Street tunnel entrances as seen from Van Woert Street.

5) These entrances appear to have been constructed of concrete, and for a number of years, they had steel grates to block entry. Ultimately, they were boarded up with plywood.

More Theories From Bill W2XOY! Reactions To A Contemporary REACT!

2010-12-10T20:45:00.001-05:00

This last Sunday, a bunch of hams got together at the Empire State Plaza in downtown Albany for The Great Train Extravaganza! In attendance were Tony W2BEJ, Bill W2XOY, Zach KC2VWY and myself N2FNH. After the show, we convened at the Wolf Road Diner in Colonie for a little late afternoon lunch. Bill offered tales of his recent involvement with REACT, a national volunteer emergency services organization. Naturally, these stories were documented by yours truly and packaged as another ongoing edition of the RANDOM ACCESS THOUGHT. Here is the link to that presentation:

http://twaud.io/q5Hr
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And don't forget! This Week In Amateur Radio lives on at the TWIAR home page at:
http://www.twiar.org/
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And also via Twitter, at this location:
http://twitter.com/TWIAR
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And of course, on Facebook. Try this boatload by clicking:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118165121555935#!/group.php?gid=118165121555935&v=wall
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If this mess doesn't gel, then search "TWIAR" at your Facebook search bar.

SHIP AHOY! W2XOY'S HIGH SEAS ADVENTURE!

2010-12-03T19:00:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, a small group of intrepid amateur radio operators convened at the local Crate And Barrel in East Greenbush, New York to meet with Bill W2XOY. Listeners to This Week In Amateur Radio will recall W2XOY as the author of the Ancient Amateur Archives. In attendance were Tony W2BEJ, Dave NF2G, Zach KC2VWY and me N2FNH. Bill had just returned from a radio packed cruise to the Bahamas and wanted to regale us with tales from the high seas. With the expensive digital field recorder in hand, Mister Continelli delivered a remarkable forty minute vocal extravaganzo which was then summarily subdivided into three RANDOM ACCESS THOUGHT episodes. As of this writing, all three segments have been launched via TWAUDIO to Twitter to Facebook, but I make this notation with links to all three programs offered so you can listen to the entire Continellian extravaganzo while lurking around in Twitter or Facebook.

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W2XOY'S HIGH SEAS ADVENTURE - PART 1

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W2XOY'S HIGH SEAS ADVENTURE - PART 2

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W2XOY'S HIGH SEAS ADVENTURE - PART 3

2010-11-21T00:36:00.002-05:00

A FLIPNOTE...

Blog title...

2010-11-18T23:31:00.001-05:00

This is a TEST TRANSMISSION from a Nintendo DSi. This transmission is directed to Facebook and http://ping.fm/jmOiX

This is only...another test...

2010-11-18T23:04:00.001-05:00

This is a TEST TRANSMISSION for circuit adjustment purposes. This transmission originates at some distance from Moo Moo City, Arizona.

THE HOME OF BAB-O! ...Once.

2010-10-31T23:00:00.000-04:00

Back in February, I posted some historical information concerning B.T. BABBITT, INC, the company which was best known for manufacturing BAB-O, a once very popular household cleanser. B.T. BABBITT had a number of factories around the United States and there was one of those located here in upstate New York, just a few blocks north of the PORT OF ALBANY. The company folded in the 1960s, it's registered trademarks scooped by other former competitors. But the buildings remain, in various physical states. The following two stills are of the main factory, now derelict some five decades since.Given today's economy, this once thriving manufacturing center will remain so until the structure is finally condemned and demolished.

The next shot displays a twin silo, which most likely housed tons of sand, which is the principal inert ingredient in scouring power. Back in the 1960's, the silos were painted to look like an enormous can of BAB-O and a container of GLIM, a liquid detergent also produced by B.T.BABBITT. This section is currently used as a garage by TRAILWAYS, a nationwide bus service.

The following two images show the third building, once associated with Babbitt, now under the aegis of EAST GREENBUSH LABEL AND TAPE and the PORT INDUSTRIAL CENTER.

Since Zach and I were in the neighborhood, we drove through the PORT OF ALBANY and got some extra detail such as this dockside crane.

These two structures are owned and operated by CARGILL, a producer of grains and other industrial materials.

This last shot was taken at GRECO CONSTRUCTION, displaying an ambiguous but quite curious sign on a cargo bay door.

More every day odd pictures later!

And Yet...

2010-10-10T14:05:00.000-04:00

Perhaps my recent posting of "A Letter To This Week In Amateur Radio" may have helped to jump start events. Please check TWIAR for an update to my previous posting. And yet, despite the up-to-now comatose condition of This Week In Amateur Radio over the past year, some loyal hams did continue to write in for the TWIAR QSL CARD!

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Here, in no particular order, are a few recent e-mail requests for an Official This Week in Amateur Radio QSL Card. The more traditional pathway of writing a reception report and mailing it to: This Week in Amateur Radio Post Office Box 30, Sand Lake, New York 12153 has given way in recent years to an e-mail request sent to n2fnh@capital.net. So, whether you receive the program over your local VHF or UHF repeater, copy the show over WBCQ or download the latest weekly Internet Podcast, you can get your own TWIAR QSL Card by taking pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard. either way works!

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Hi this is Brandon, KB1THM listening to TWIAR via iPod. I would like some info on the schedule that twiar plays on WBCQ ad I'd listen to it there. I'd like a podcard I don't know how you send them email, mail or what ever but my info is on QRZ. I love the podcast, it's a nice mix of news and funny stuff. I wonder how you do those funny voices? Anyway 73 from CT.

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Brandon -kb1thm
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Howdy! Remember me? Ron Bicksler from Des Allemands, LA. Still enjoying TWIAR via podcast. Got my license now. Trying to get the fam to get their licenses too but I suspect I'll be renewing mine before they do. May I have the new podcard?

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Ron Bicksler - KE5PFE
Thanks gazillions!
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Hi;
I listen to you via the podcasts via WBCQ. The signal is strong on the IP stream here in Oslo, Norway, hi. Would love one of the podcards!

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73, de LA1PCA
Oslo, Norway

A Letter To This Week In Amateur Radio.

2010-10-08T22:00:00.000-04:00

Bill,
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I used to listen too TWIAR every week on my way to work and totally loved it of course... well I don't exactly know what happened a few months ago which caused your team to stop making POD-CASTS but really do miss you all!!! Any plans to start up again or what is the scoop over there that lead to going off the air on? I used to also have your POD-CAST playing due VE TESTING sessions here every month so future HAM's would hear some latest HAM NEWS while going through the testing process. I know the international version is still going on but don't listen to that one.

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Please if you have a few moments can you let me know...
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Jeffrey (...callsign and e-mail address held)

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Hi Jeff,
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Many thanks for dropping me a line concerning This Week In Amateur Radio. You should know that you are not alone in asking these questions. The short story is, that I believe TWIAR, TWIARi and TWIAR-NEWS HEADLINES are now in the full autumn of their run. While this is one man's opinion, here is the background on the programs' current state...and eventual fate.

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Up until about two years ago, George Bowen W2XBS produced This Week In Amateur Radio each Friday night and Saturday morning with such an amazing professional consistency that you could set your time piece upon it's arrival over local repeaters around the country. It would be actually be a big deal if the show was released a day late, albeit rarely, with George's affiliates clamoring at the e-mail inbox.

In late 2004, This Week In Amateur Radio expanded from the original ham radio service with the inception of This Week In Amateur Radio International, which was more entertainment oriented. The special features like the Ancient Amateur Archives, the Random Access Thought and Leo Laporte The Tech Guy plus some additional musical content moved more toward center stage mixed in with a twenty minute news block and a broader technology-based news reporting style. Soon after TWIARi, George began production on a one-hour news-only version of TWIAR for those organizations, clubs and repeater owners who wanted just the news and not the special features and expanded additional tech coverage.

The bottom line is that George was now generating three programs each week instead of just one. Failures to meet program deadline began when George gained employment in a job where his weekly schedule varied dramatically from week to week, thus putting pressure on the ability to produce. Around the same time, George decided to reacquaint himself with personal health and fitness, something he had been big on in his twenties. You may notice now a special feature revolving around the overweight state of many amateur radio operators. This feature is a sonic manifestation of that change in lifestyle.

George has also joined a local YMCA and now applies the same zeal to cardio that he once had for TWIAR. His wife says that he is largely burnt out. After seventeen years, it would appear that he may be thinking of letting go of the franchise, but who knows for sure? I have had several discussions with him suggesting maybe a bi-weekly or once-a-month program but there has been no real response to these any of these thoughts. He continues to speak as though he is still producing big time.

I think too that George may been affected by the fact that he was never able to "sell" the TWIARi program. Since that show is carried over WBCQ, a stateside shortwave station, along with the matching Internet podcasts, there have always been promotional requests running within the presentation for interested advertisers. Due largely to the sad state of the economy and a clear difficulty in being able to demonstrate actual listener numbers, there have been no takers. I believe George had high hopes that TWIARi could generate a few dollars, something that the ham-only shows can not do because of legal restriction.

So in the end, it is my opinion that the future does not look good. I hope I am wrong. George produces shows when he has the available time and often it is the International that makes it out the door. Currently on the website, there is an announcement indicating that TWIAR is on summer hiatus. I believe the last two weeks were no shows for any shows. I know that George was going to prepare a music-only program for air over WBCQ on the fourth of July and I already had an all-music Random Access Thought in the can to go with it but...

Perhaps the saddest part of the story may be that the TWIAR programs may just end at a untimely point when no one will be around to listen and to notice.

I decided to go in depth in answering your letter because I thought someone such as yourself, a loyal This Week In Amateur Radio listener, should know.

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Thanks again for writing.
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Bill N2FNH

TALKIN' SOUND!...Armchair Analysis Of Popular TV And Motion Picture Effects!

2010-09-19T22:15:00.000-04:00

What follows is some correspondence with a fellow Sound Effects Aficionado. I thought I would publish some of the content to show that we can be just as enthusiastic but but not goofy about the the subject.

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Bill, I love your past stories beyond the sound effects and I do think you are excellent at combining sound effects and blending them together and adding embellishment to an effect as you have done before too with previous tracks. I'm curious as to how the wind effects have been done: real wind recorded or artificially produced on a synthesizer? And all of those laser beam effects: how they basically made? And the Star Trek materialization and warp drive: I'm curious as to the origin of those sounds too. I look forward to hearing from you,
Sincerely, Bill

Up front, let me say that some of my analysis of these effects may be what you could call educated speculation and some is based in fact. Since STAR TREK -THE ORIGINAL SERIES (TOS) was produced in the mid 1960's, everything was analog. This is not to say that there were no electronic sounds, but "synthesis" or "synthesized sound" is more synonymous with contemporary computer generated audio. As an example of the former, the music score and futuristic sound effects designed for the 1956 classic science fiction film "The Forbidden Planet were authored by Louis and Bebe Barron, using funky 1950's vintage vacuum tube driven "cybernetic" circuits. You can get the entire soundtrack through GNP Crescendo Records.

Curiously, a lot of TOS effects were sounds recorded from shortwave radio receivers. The hand held communicator static is obvious but one sound, that of the ATAVACRON, was unique. The ATAVACRON effect was actually a real life digital signal that was part of a five minute transmission generated by WWV, a National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Science and Technology) time and frequency station situated in Boulder Colorado. There was and still is a sister station at Kokole Point, Kauai Hawaii WWVH and both transmit on the following frequencies: 2500, 5000, 10000 and 15000 KHz.

The WARP DRIVE for the USS ENTERPRISE sounds quite similar to an accelerating subway train rolling on rubber tires! When I was a kid, we all went to EXPO 67, a big time World's Fair held at Montreal. The transmit system consisted of shiny new and very clean subway cars which moved on rubber tires rather than rail trucks. The sound made by the trains as they moved out of the station was remarkably different from the New York City trains but sounded exactly like the ENTERPRISE taking off at WARP speed.

As far as the winds are concerned, the recordings you sent appear to be mix of real wind, wind chimes and possibly some man-made wind effects. In the heyday of network radio programs in the 1930's and 1940's, sound effects men and possibly some sound effects women invented various Rube Goldberg contraptions to make wind noises.

The PHOTON TORPEDO can be traced back to at least 1953 where the effect was heard in George Pal's "WAR OF THE WORLDS". In this movie, the sound is referred to as a SKELETON BEAM". The SKELETON BEAM then became the PHOTON TORPEDO in TOS. This same sound is heard in STAR TREK - THE ANIMATED SERIES, although when used, it was played approximately 1 1/2 times faster then the original speed. STAR TREK - THE NEXT GENERATION also used the effect but variously mixed it with other sounds. In one episode, editors ran the sound at half speed. The late Sam Horta did do some editing on STAR TREK so the movement of various TREK noises to FILMATION and HANNA-BARBERA is no surprise.

The PHOTON TORPEDO is similar to the LASERS heard in STAR WARS. Sound designer Ben Burtt is quoted as saying that he made his sounds by whacking a radio broadcast tower guy wire with a hammer. The PHOTON TORPEDO sounds very similar albeit heavily amped up.

The ENTERPRISE PHASERS are an end product of something referred to as REVERBERATION FEEDBACK. What the source audio was is anybody's guess but here's how this works: Since audio was recorded on either magnetic tape or 35mm magnetic film and since both devices had a separate record heard and a separate playback head, one could patch the playback audio into the record head either directly through a cable or through a mixing console. As sound is recorded at the record head, the playback head plays the result which is then fed back to the record head. Depending on how the editor sets each level, the effect could a simple echo...OR...it could go into infinite feedback. After a few seconds, the definition or signature of the original audio is totally lost and then begins to sound like a WAWAWAWA. The recurring or pulsing interval is a product of tape speed against the physical space between the heads. It appears TOS editors played their feedback LASERS at various speeds to depict weapons of various size.

There were several other effects where this technique was employed. Any sound with a ringing decay is most likely a feedback product. Similar feedback effects can be heard in EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS. The mind control machine, the foo lights and the ray guns were all feedback generated sounds.

With regard to the TRANSPORTER materialization, I do not know. It would appear to be a tonality perhaps generated by some musical instrument such as an organ. There is some echo but I couldn't tell you otherwise. According to the website FILMSOUNDS the transporter materialization was done with a piano wire stretched across a physical beam. Since this document will be posted on my blog as well, maybe some knowledgeable audio aficionado will have a more concise answer. Likewise, some of the TOS bridge noises have been around since the late 1950's but their source remains a mystery to me.

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So that's it for the moment. More later!
Bill.
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Hi Bill,
OK, let's take a look at your recent correspondence and see what I can answer and what I can speculate on.

With regard to the ATOM SMASHER clip that I sent, the Universal Frankenstein Laboratory effect you speak of is the sound of a really big Van DeGraff electrostatic generator! This sound was sourced form the Universal Sound Effects Library. A number of years ago, I visited a science museum in nearby Boston, Massachusetts where such a device was not only on display but was run as part of the visitors tour through the museum. The generator consisted of two vertical cylindrical metal shafts. At the top of each shaft was a huge metal sphere. Inside each shaft are moving components which move very quickly and produce enormous voltages of electrostatic energy.

Electrical sparks in excess of 5 to 10 feet rise off the spheres and make contact with nearby grounded metal elements. The sight and sound is quite spectacular! Other Frankenstein laboratory machines included Jacob's Ladders. Jacob's Ladders consist of a hefty transformer with two vertical rods attached. When the juice is applied, a nasty spark rises up between the two elements. When the spark disappears, there is a loud pop or snap. One of the stock electric shock effects heard on Hanna Barbera cartoons is just such a device.

Editors at HB got a lot of mileage out of the Jacob's Ladder by speeding the recording up and mixing them with many other of their remarkable science fiction sounds. In one of the Jonny Quest episodes, a scientist is seen playing a videotape of a missile launch. As the video finishes, a raspy electrical sound is heard, which is the same Jacob's Ladder with the sparks or snaps edited out.

In the SPACE BATTLE sequence, the far away sounding sonic vibration sounds were taken from the Hanna Barbera Sound FX Libary but to add something more interesting to the track, I rotated the perspective or listener's point of view through a 360 degree spin. This effect has been around since at least the very early 1960's. It was used on occasion in the animated series SPACE ANGEL in various ways. This recording was generated using a device known as an audio generator or variable frequency oscillator, a VFO, with the output passed through an echo chamber. When I was a kid, I had an Eldon audio generator. It produced sine wave or square wave audio from 20 Hz (cycles per second) through 200 KHz. Anything above 20 KHz is only readable by dogs. The VFO had a tunable dial which could be swept up or down in frequency and sounded weird enough without an echo.

With the WAR OF THE WORLDS, the reversed electric guitar effect applies not to the heat ray or skeleton beams but to the effects heard just before the heat ray fires. That sound, along other WOTW effects, is also included on Disc 3 of the Hanna Barbera Sound FX Library. How they made the ACK ACK ACK heat ray, I couldn't tell you. I have listened to this this at much lower speeds/sampling rates) but couldn't really come up with a good answer.

I have a three disc DVD set of 1950's science fiction films which includes EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS. It was stated in the commentary that much of the film was done on location in some sort of filtration plant. The equipment inside this facility was the source of the roaring saucer sound. The playback speed was jockeyed from slow to very fast to match the saucers lifting off and landing. My initial guess for the flying saucers was that of a vehicle driving over a bridge. There are a few bridges in this area that when you cross the span at high speed, the resultant audio is very similar to the sound of those stop-motion animated saucers.

The SPONGE BOB effect, I couldn't tell you. Initially, it was hard to hear because I was listening via laptop with tiny speakers. When I put it on bigger speakers, it was readable but still I couldn't hazard a guess. As far as the generator sound is concerned, I believe it to be just that, a generator. The Hanna Barbera version was altered by wowing it up from slow to a playback speed slightly higher in pitch than the original recording. On occasion the effect was equalized or muffled to make the generator more background. Anytime Jonny Quest and company used an electric boat in the story, the generator noise was used but it was quite muffled and run at low gain.

With the USS Enterprise warp drive, I believe the sound used was that of a rubber tire driven light rail or subway. The listener's perspective appears tobe from within the rail car.

There were two versions of the magic effect heard in BELL BOOK AND CANDLE and also heavily used in MISTER MAGOO'S 1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS. Both composites used the same initial musical chord which I believe to be an organ. The note is sustained for about four seconds and than ascends in pitch. The following effect is a chord struck on a piano. The piano element is run at twice normal speed. In the first version, the third element is a chime which is warped downward in pitch. The organ is edited end to end against the piano element, while the warped chime is mixed with and overlays the piano chord.

The second version of the BELL BOOK AND CANDLE effect uses the same organ note along with the edited in speed up but the piano chord is of a slightly higher pitch. This is quite apparent when listening closely that the piano chord is a distinctly different recording rather than a slightly sped copy of the first piano chord. How's that for excruciatingly painful and remarkably obscure detail? What follows appears to be three overlapping chimes or bells that go into reverberation feedback. This is the version that Hanna Barbera used for the Wonder Twins Power "Shape of a (fill in the blank)". To me, the first version sounds more magical while the second version is more spacey. In fact, the ringing tail was heavily used as various ray guns and other devices and played from half speed to 4X speed. The opening drone tone in the ATOM SMASHER I sent is the organ from these effects but I looped it.

All the various Warner Bothers airplane and jet plane sounds I have here are recordings of real aircraft played at double speed. In the case of the classic World War II vintage dive bomber, the clip that runs in excess of forty seconds, there is some interesting background. This is the effect you hear in just about every WWII war flick and related television program. Although identified as a "dive bomber" in the Hanna Barbera package, in the Universal library, it's listed as a "single prop TBF". The two recordings are of the exact same aircraft and are the exact identical recording and yet the two are not quite the same. There is a significant difference between the two tracks. When I first got the Universal Sound Effects Library and listened to this clip, it just did not sound the same, but then I figured it out. The Universal recording is the original unmodified recording. The aircraft goes into the dive and flies by but what is missing is the classic screaming or wailing. The screaming effect was added after the fact to better sweeten the recording. After all, it IS a sound effect recording. How the scream was produced, I could not tell you. In reality, the aircraft best known for the dive bomb sound were the German Stuka fighters. Due to this aircraft's unique wing design, when the Stuka went into a dive, a screaming sound was heard.

Now to the one question I knew you would ask! The additional flute music I mixed in came from a CD entitled DISNEY'S HAUNTED MANSION. This disc is identified as "the complete original Disneyland attraction soundtrack". Included is music, sound effects, voice clips, outtakes and more. I got it on eBAY a few years back. The flute music and wind were from this disc. In fact, it's actually only one half of a stereo recording where the music and wind are on one track and bells tolling are on the other track. Check eBAY. At one time this disc was commonly seen so it may still be there.

With regard to the Scooby Doo bats, I listened to the intro music and could only discern what sounded like one set of squeaks even though the animation displays many bats. In the HAUNTED MANSION composite I sent, I used the original reverb effect mixed with the gargoyles. If you want, I can generate something similar with the bat sounds you sent. Mixing multiple sounds is easybut the original doesn't sound as busy as the visual shows.

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OK Bill,
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Enclosed in this package are a number of recordings. You mentioned the Hanna Barbera generator slowing down sequence. I have included two versions. The first is the forward to start and reverse to end. I first heard this in the episode of the Jetsons where they are shopping for a new car. There is a brief scene where the family and the car salesman are traveling on a moving floor and this sound is utilized for the effect.

The second version was heard more often in later HB science fiction oriented programs where the the generator sound is slowed down in pitch to a stop through the use of a variable speed control on the the playback machine.

I created an effects composite based on your request for a Frankenstein Laboratory with all sorts of snapping electricity, Jacob's Ladders and thunder. I have also included a separate clip of the VanDeGraff machine taken from the Universal Sound Effects Library.

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With regard to the phaser effects, it was not the radio frequency static. The actual source I couldn't tell you but the final audio is the result of reverberation feedback, the theory behind which I detailed in one of the previous letters.

Thw wind in the Disney Haunted Mansion music does not not appear to be a real wind, more like a synthesized filtered white noise. In fact, if you listen carefully, you will notice that the wind tonality changes pitch in step with the musical notes of the spooky tune. Many electric organs have this and many other effects programmed in as a specialty where the pitch is controlled by the keyboard.

I was able to secure a copy of the music intro to Scooby Doo with the bat noises to use as a map for replication and so have included three clips. The first is the one I sent previously with the womp-womps and the gargoyle screams. One of the bats you sent is very close if not the same as what's in the original recording with one bat and the second with multiple bats.

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So there you go, more stuff. And so! More later!
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Bill.>

The BuffetLine! Sounds Of The Satuday Chinese Buffet! And Other Stuff!

2010-06-13T12:00:00.000-04:00

Work on the Random Access Thought has throttled down considerably in the last year or so but not for lack of interest. Our executive director George W2XBS has a current work schedule that varies quite dramatically from week to week and now includes extensive weekend work. This, along with the usual family responsibilities, plus a renewed personal interest in health and fitness, has effectively pushed This Week In Amateur Radio to the back burner with only the occasional program update. This is a substantial sea change from the weekly news shows that were once the hallmark of this highly regarded on-the-air and over-the-Internet audio news service.

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Since there is now a certain amount of additional free time to do audio on this end, yours truly has produced some speciality sound for friends who do their own satellite radio and Internet broadcast programs. In addition, I have spent some of that discretionary time restoring vintage audio for a fellow Facebooker who is quite the sound effects enthusiast.
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In a previous entry to this blog, it was noted that I had retired my cheap forty nine dollar RadioShack audio cassette recorder, otherwise known as the C49DRSACR, which was replaced with the expensive two hundred and fifty dollar Olympus PCM recorder, from this point to be known as the E250DOPCMR (that is if I can remember this remarkably clumsy acronym).
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This recorder I take everywhere now, catching recordings of all sorts of things including some of the goings on at a weekly Saturday Chinese buffet get together of local amateur radio operators here in the Capital District. I have started generating a short two or three minute podcast called "The BuffetLine" which I post at http://twaud.io/users/N2FNH on a weekly basis. Basically, we try to determine just what it is we are eating in these joints. But do see my previous entries entitled "VACATION!" and "VACATION?" for my...theories.
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Just how long I can keep this kind of a audio thread going remains to be seen but it is fun to reel in these these sound balloons along with the once in a while photo depictions which I post on Facebook.

Retiring The C49DRSACR!

2010-05-30T17:00:00.001-04:00

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Back in 2004, I decided to expand the range of the Random Access Thought (File) venue for This Week In Amateur Radio by adding in-the-field interviews at local hamfests, amateur club meetings and with individual characters worthy of Random Access note. At the time, I considered the purchase of some kind of a digital audio recorder and so did some typical Internet research. What I found was that while there were several half way decent machines on the market, there were two principal issues. These devices, with the exception of some inexpensive mp3 recorders, were still physically large, boxy AND they were very expensive.
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Due largely to self-inflicted laziness, I drifted over the mighty Hudson River to the local RadioShack in East Greenbush and found a solution, For a cheap $49.00 plus tax and tip, I was able to secure a RadioShack CTR-121 CAT.NO.14-128 portable audio cassette recorder, custom manufactured in China by people working in fire trap sweat shops for three cents an hour.
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This cassette recorder, otherwise known as the C49DRSACR, was actually a fairly decent investment. The first in-the-field assignment was to record events at the Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association's Field Day. Using the built-in microphone, I was quite surprised at the good voice quality but the first of two and a half irritants soon came into sonic focus. This machine has a tape counter which can used to roughly ascertain where something might be located on the cassette. The counter makes use of some unseen mechanism linked to the capstan that moves the tape. However the counter would make a faint tick-tick-tick which acoustically translated directly onto the tape into a much more noticeable THWACK THWACK THWACK.
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The solution to this problem was to use an equally cheap external RadioShack computer microphone CAT.NO.33-3025A, which took us away from the unwanted imposing tick-tick-tick, but the tick-tick-tick continued to manifest itself by imposing a wow-wow-wow on the tape normally not be heard unless a sound such as a bell or tone were picked up, which made recording such sounds problematic.
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The second concern was common to many such portable cassette machines. To assist in better capturing more distant voices or sound, there is a built-in automatic gain control or AGC. But the AGC is set similar to the AGC in a single sideband radio receiver with a fast attack and slow decay. Thus, if someone spoke close to the microphone, the subject would playback loud with background audio pushed way down. When the near-field speaker stopped speaking, the background audio would rush up to almost full gain. Experiments using digital noise reduction, hiss reduction or forcing levels was usually not really too terribly satisfactory.
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But I lived with it anyway until a few weeks ago when, after a typical Saturday Chinese Lunch, we all walked next door to the Guitar Center. The short story is that I purchased an Olympus LS-10 Linear PCM Recorder. The long story of this remarkable device will be forthcoming once I have more to say about it. In the meantime, I have no intention of disposing of the C49DRSACR. While it is becoming almost impossible to locate new stock audio cassette product, I do have a small collection of those here in the N2FNH Magnetic Tape Library and some kind of hardware is needed to play those. But should the C49DRSACR unceremoniously crap out, I might have to go to yard sales to buy somebody else's junk to replace it.

It's To Laugh! (zwee-wee-wee-wee) It's To Laugh!

2010-04-16T11:01:00.001-04:00

I made mention over on Facebook that I had been experimenting with laugh tracks and that just for the fun of it, I would be adding some of those sort of enhancements to future Random Access Thoughts, Files and the myriad promotional announcements(such as PODCARD/QSL/TWITTER announcements) generated for playback on TWAUDIO and This Week in Amateur Radio.The subject is not only one of the eclectic aspects of audio post production, but certainly one of the most interesting. So herewith, a compact list of bookmarks on the history and current state of the laugh track.

http://www.tvparty.com/laugh.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laugh_track

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2218/why-do-sitcoms-have-laugh-tracks

http://www.andheresthekicker.com/ex_ben_glenn.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/26/arts/charles-douglass-93-inventor-of-laugh-track-for-tv-dies.html

http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=24803

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2009/10/four-old-gadgets-we-love-and-four-we-hate/

A Message In A Bottle! Fanmail From Some Flounder?

2010-04-16T11:00:00.000-04:00

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heard about the pod card WBCQ 21.56 UTC i would like to get one of these cards you were 5-9 in stamford CT.
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Hi
I started listening to TWIAR via iTunes and love it!
Could you send me a PodCard? (not sure if it is physical or electronic, do I need to send a SASE somewhere?).
Thank you very much,
n7dil (aka Martin Dill)
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Please send me a This Week In Amateur Radio POD Card. I recently discovered your pod casts and have really enjoyed listening to them.
73s
KD0JPE
John Kennedy
Longmont, CO

NOW IT CAN BE TOLD! Something Subliminal! At Least One Listener Heard This!

2010-04-11T21:15:00.001-04:00

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Last week, My Number One And Only Son Zach and I attended a "Bring Your HT Night!", a special how-to-get-on-the-air presentation for new hams sponsored by the East Greenbrush Amateur Radio Association. It was through this group that Zach took his technician class amateur radio examination and subsequently became KC2VWY.
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While at the meeting, another new ham, and one whose name I am sorry to say I did not catch, approached me and thanked me for years of late night radio entertainment that I had provided over a local broadcast outlet. This new amateur radio operator was now a retired State University of New York policeman and was referring to a program that I had done in the 1980's variously entitled "The All Night Scene" and "East Of Midnight" which aired via WROW here in Albany. For about six years, I got away with a lot of my own creative programming because station management simply did not regard late night radio in the same way they coveted their morning and afternoon drive time broadcast real estate.
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In a way, The All Night Scene was a precursor to the much shorter Random Access Thought program that is currently heard by way of TWAUDIO and This Week In Amateur Radio so many of the sound effects, music cues, voice clips and quirky writing and program development styles were transferred directly.
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Working in radio oft times means doing more than one assigned shift and many extra duties and one of those was occasionally board-opping New York Yankee Baseball games. I am not a sports fan as such but I did enjoy running the games because in those days Phil Rizutto was one of the game announcers who always made for enjoyable and certainly unpredictable listening. My air shift was something like 10 to 6AM, so the summer months guaranteed quite a few games. Each night as I would tool in to work, I would occasionally hear something subliminal on the air that only a fellow WROW staff member might detect if they were listening.
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Because baseball games are played outside and most stadiums are not enclosed, the threat of rain and thunderstorms is a factor which may induce a delay or result in cancellation. So in the studio, we had a special broadcast tape cartridge or "cart" with a seventy second recording of ambient low level crowd noise that had been lifted from the Yankee feed prior to a game. On this same recording, there was also some distant organ music playing and this aspect is important.
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This cart could be used if a rain delay came up and the play-by-play was interrupted and everyone stopped talking, which was not unusual. Likewise, if for any reason, there was a loss of audio from the Yankee feed, at least the board-op would have another minute to decide whether to go back to regular programming.
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On the drive into work each night, I would often hear that distant organ music playing in the background. Announcer Joe Condon was mixing the rain delay effects with the real time crowd noise, largely for his own amusement. So of course, I continued doing the same into my air shift but I decided to take this theory several steps further. Over the course of a few weeks, I began to integrate other effects, such as the low turbofan whine of an approaching commercial airliner, the rattletrap sounds of elevated trains and classic castle thunder, which would begin to rumble in if the discussion of rain delays came up. For a split second, the sound of a high power Winchester rifle came to mind. But this was a family show. For me, the New York Yankees Baseball broadcast became an experiment in real time audio production.
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Great care was taken to keep these sweetening elements including the rain delay recording at extremely low levels, usually on the order of minus 30 to 50dB. Over the air, these added elements would flawlessly wander in and out, wrapping around the real time audio. And to be sure, certain sounds would be dropped if the home team were playing in a competitor's arena. Unless I had personal knowledge of the proximity of an airport or an above ground rail system, these effects would be sidelined.
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I kept up this shtick for several months until one evening music director Jim Gagliardi frantically called me at home to advise that Bill Patrick, our esteemed program director, had just received a serious complaint from a listener. The caller accused WROW of programming subliminal program content into the Yankee broadcasts. He spent a lot of time traveling as part of his job and was also a big Yankee fan. Because he listened A LOT, the caller became aware of the enhancements but most specifically the organ music. The listener was smart enough to do an A -B comparison between WROW in Albany and WABC in New York City and could hear the difference. This fella couldn't figure out what the music meant but he knew it had to be something sinister. Bill Patrick found himself bewildered and annoyed, then asked around but no one was talking.
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Jimmy scrambled and scooped up all the incriminating recordings and hid them deep within the bowels of his office which was not hard to do since Jim was a big time desk clutter guy. There was no free space to found so no incriminating evidence could be found. Fortunately Bill regarded the complainer as a nerd, a word which he liked a lot. But since this was the early 1980's, "nerd" was synonymous with "jerk".
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For the rest of the season, the New York Yankees played without benefit of sweetening and so was quite dull by comparison. The various transportation and weather effects were permanently laid to rest but I had made copies of the rain delay tape with the organ music and so on occasion...on occasion, it would be possible to hear something subliminal in Adirondack Red Wings Hockey broadcasts heard nightly over WROW AM 590.

WHO IS THIS GUY? WHAT IS THIS GUY?

2010-02-16T20:30:00.002-05:00

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SO! After maybe a year or so of deploying various software enhanced digital images of the ominous HAL 9000 to grace the face of this blog and also my accounts at Twitter and Twaudio, I decided to change my avatar from HAL to "Bubbles", a truly esoteric cartoon character that possibly one in a million may actually recall seeing somewhere on a bright and shiny kitchen counter in the mid 1950's.
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If you were living, breathing and sentient around back then, you may have seen Bubbles on a brilliant green can of Bab-O Cleanser. I can, only at the very vaguest, remember watching this cute Madison Avenue creation in a Bab-O commercial over a black and white television screen zipping around an animated cartoon kitchen cleaning things up. I couldn't even tell you if this was a he or a she or whether it even spoke or sang but I do know that by 1958 Bubbles was no longer on the container.
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Bab-O Cleanser was once an extremely well known and popular household scouring powder made mostly of sand and manufactured by B.T. Babbitt, Inc. The company had it's executive offices in Manhattan but actually had a production plant based here locally down near the Port of Albany. In fact, one of the main buildings had a pair of silos painted to look like a giant can of Bab-O and a huge container of Glim, a liquid detergent, which at one time you could see driving across the Dunne Memorial Bridge into Albany from the City of Rensselaer. This derelict structure somehow remains standing to this day, airbase to wings of pigeons, crows and ravens, home base to the homeless with a rusted and corroded "for sale" sign still flapping in the bone-chilling winter night air.
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In addition to Glim, B.T. Babbitt manufactured Cameo Copper and Aluminum powders and sold a spray starch, an all-purpose ammonia cleaner and soap pads under the Bab-O label. The company also made Quickee waterless hand soaps and at one point, owned the Charles Antell cosmetics line and the Curley Company. Based in Camden, New Jersey. the Curley Company produced a fleet of private label household cleaning products. There was also an institutional division that used the company's copyrighted labels as monikers for their industrial strength product analogs.
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Bab-O had it's heyday in the 1930's and 1940's but by the 50's began to face serious competition from Colgate Palmolive Peet with Ajax The Foaming Cleanser and Proctor and Gamble with their equally bright green cans of Comet. But by then, B.T. Babbitt was suffering to the point where any stockholders who held stock with Babbitt had assets in name that could yield no dividends. Finally, by the mid 1960's, the deal was done and the company's registered trademarks were summarily sold to other players. I do recall that Bab-O Cleanser and Bab-O 4-In-1 Spray Starch were sold to the Purex Corporation, which subsequently fell prey to some other company gobbling conglomerate who's name I do not know.
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I recently came across a good visual of Bubbles and decided put him to use as a profile photo on Facebook and then extended the image here at the Random Access Thought Blog, the Random Access File shadow blog, Twitter and Twaudio. SO! One could call it a blast from the past...so far in the past...I was still on the floor in my Doctor Dentons playing with my little wooden Fisher Price Puffy 444! But that of course is another story.
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WANT? ASK! GET! GOOD!

2010-02-16T13:00:00.001-05:00

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requesting a podcard
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TWIAR, Thank you for your wonderful program. It is by far my favorite show on Shortwave. I have been listening regularly for several years on WBCQ on 7.415. This week's program was heard ending at 2200 with a very nice signal 59+. I would enjoy receiving a QSL card. Michael Maher (NJ2X) 121 Taylor Ave. Hillsborough, NJ 08844 Michael NJ2X
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Been listening to the podcast. AJ4FJ -Greg
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Hi,
I heard the Random Access Thought on TWIAR podcast and it was great!
Please send a PodCard.
73, Eric Taylor KB1PJN

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night!!!

2010-01-30T21:00:00.000-05:00

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It was a dark and stormy night! Well...actually...the night sky was clear and star-lit but it was icy cold in the single digits, Fahrenheit-wise, with blustery winds wailing incessantly through the cracks. And, it was time to retire for the evening. My standard procedure is to tap in one of any number of select frequencies into the bedside Sony 2010 to catch a few minutes of "Coast to Coast AM with George Noory". After listening in to George's real world and "Coast world" headlines, I then enter some other frequency as a dial tone channel. Typical choices include China Radio International at 6020 KHz or 6040 KHz. By this time of night, those signals are wavery and weak, and the languages spoken are not in English. Sometimes I plug in 391 KHz (lower sideband) where DDP, a non-directional aeronautical navigation beacon beeps its way north from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
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But also on occasion, I'll dial in random frequencies above 1600 KHz where many signals can be heard from Canada and also the West Indies. So this past Wednesday night, I keyed in 1670 KHz as my dial tone and could hear a fading, fluttery signal with a haunting choral musical selection playing. But the voices heard were those of children's and not adults. When the song concluded, a very young girl speaking in French provided commentary and then another children's group vocal aired and I dozed off.
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Several times during the night, I awoke. More chorus. All children. More talk, all children. Now here was something completely different! When compared to the principal provider of kids programming over stateside AM and FM radio dials, Radio Disney, this station seemed truly alien, or at least from another time. But unlike the over-compressed, over-hyped and over commercialized Miley Cyrus and Vanessa Hudgens audio chozzerai that Disney pumps out, these children sound so innocent and so child-like that it was a pleasure to listen.
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One issue in listening to this facility was that there did not seem to be any sort of identification. But then again, it was in French, a language I no speak. SO! Over to Google and a jump to Wikipedia and I got the following stub.

CJEU is a Canadian radio station licensed to broadcast a French language children's radio format at AM 1670 in Gatineau, Quebec. The license is held by Fondation Radio-Enfant, a non-profit educational agency. Fondation Radio-Enfant was originally granted a short-term license, with the call sign CIRC, on 96.5 FM for the duration of the Rendez-vous de la Francophonie 2002 and in 2003, Fondation Radio-Enfant was also granted to operate at 1250 kHz on the AM dial, however, due to possible technical issues, the station never went on the air. The 96.5 frequency in Gatineau was later reassigned to CFTX-FM and Fondation Radio-Enfant was granted a permanent AM license in early 2007 to operate at 1670 kHz. CJEU was reported to be operating on December 10, 2009, playing music mainly in French and sung by children.
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And this addendum from http://www.dxing.info/news

CJEU operates 24/7 at a power of 1 kilowatt both day and night. The radio not only aims its programs at children and youth, but the programs are also made by children to some extent. The station is located at Atelier Radio Enfant Inc, Studio de la Maison de la culture, 855 boul de la Gappe pièce 310, Gatineau, Quebec J8T 8H9, Canada. CJEU can also be contacted by email
mailto:info@radioenfant.ca or by phone at +1-819-243-6226.

My Son, The Maker of Playing Cards!

2010-01-10T23:57:00.000-05:00

Ever since my Number One And Only Son Zach got his MacBook over a year ago, he spends a lot of time creating things. Whereas I produce specialty audio programs for podcasts and also collect and create sound effects, Zach has generated some interesting computer animation, has produced his own practice audio features and makes his laptop make remarkable Spirograph (if you remember Spirograph, then you are one of the Elders!) images. SO! His latest endeavor is making his own anime and manga based playing cards. But this is not new for the Z Man. He also mastered a pack of ECards which I mail out to our This Week in Amateur Radio listeners. Why not stop by Zach's blog base at http://thezachblog1.blogspot.com/ for more examples of his latest creative efforts!

The Random Access Thought Covers KIDS DAY 2010!

2010-01-09T02:09:00.001-05:00

On Sunday, January 3rd, my number one and only son Zach and I made the yearly pilgrimage to the Schenectady Musum to participate in KIDS DAY. KIDS DAY is a nationwide ham radio event sponsored by the American Radio Relay League and covered on the local front by the Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association. On hand to greet visitors young and old alike, and to show them the mysteries of amateur radio, were Mike KB2VQS, James N2UZQ, Jerry WA2IWW, Daniel KC2VEX, along with Zach KC2VWY and yours truly Bill N2FNH.
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Armed with my trusty cheap forty-nine dollar Radio Shack audio cassette recorder, otherwise known as the C49DRSACR, I was able to secure what I like to refer to as audio snapshots. These audio snapshots were then clipped, trimmed and rolled up into a neat seven and a half minute Random Access Thought special feature currently posted on TWAUDIO and soon to be heard on an upcoming This Week In Amateur Radio. Zach did the hosting chores while I got in close, microphone in hand, with some really amazing kids who were equally amazed by everything they saw and heard. Factored into the mix too are some vintage late 1950's animation sound effects. A RAT is not a RAT without some of those!
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So! Check out the SMARA webpage at http://www.smara.com/ for more on this ham radio club's special events activities. Likewise, click on http://www.twiar.org/ for all the latest amateur radio news and views.
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What follows are some mug shots of the usual suspects:

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THE MIKE DEVICE KB2VQS!
JAMES N2UZQ!
JERRY WA2IWW!

DAN KC2VEX!

THE Z MAN!

THE SMARA DISPLAY TABLE!

All The E That's Fit To P!

2010-01-01T20:00:00.001-05:00

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Please send me a TWIAR podcard at your earliest convenience.
Thank you!
73
de russ/n3yi
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Just heard TWIAR via podcast. If I think of it and conDX allow, I'll listen Saturday afternoon on WBCQ, but that doesn't always happen, so this allows me to listen whenever, and to take it with me around Boston.73'sDan MalloyEverett, MA 02149
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I lesion via a pod cast and love the program. TWIAR is saved into my favorites on my laptop, keep up the great work!Jacob Fields (kb0zia)Amateur Radio
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Request for TWIAR podcard. 73 MM6ADR

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Listening to that last podcast, and i would love a copy of the new card.PS tell Leo Laporte keep up the good work.Tom Tishken Ham Radio: KD4WOV GMRS: WPON678 US Army Mars Member Currently Hold a Commercial FCC License (General Radiotelephone Operator License GROL)(licensed FCC Radio Tech) 10 10 international: Member #74478 Central states VHF Society: Life Member Founder of the Florida 10 meter Group Founder of the Florida Amateur Radio Technical Society Strait Key Century Club #3684 ARRL Certified Volunteer Examiner W5YI Certified Volunteer Examiner Founder of the Cypress Chapter, and was removed member of the chapter.

FOR ALL YOU SOUND EFFECTS FANS OUT THERE! IF ANY!

2009-12-25T23:28:00.001-05:00

The following is an email recently sent to a fellow sound effects aficionado who frequents the ToonZone Animated Cartoon Forums. I decided to also publish this email on the Random Access Thought Blog with audio links via TWAUDIO.
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Hi Bill! Merry Christmas!
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I had mentioned in a previous transmission that I would relate some additional background information on the remarkable but truly esoteric subject of motion picture sound effects. SO! Here is more of that detail:
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MY VISIT TO UPA PICTURES!
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Back in 1979, I took a trip out to Los Angeles to visit a friend of mine, a Mister Ronald Gordon, who was trying really hard to convince me not only to visit southern California but also to live in southern California. I spent about five weeks hanging out in lovely Glendora, a typical suburban tract some sixty miles out from LA. While I ultimately did not relocate, I did spend much of that time visiting various animation houses, broadcast music syndicators and radio stations, littering each one of them with my most likely not-too-impressive resume, since at that time I had only been employed by two local radio facilities, one in here in Albany and the other in New Haven.
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I dropped by a number of AM and FM stations including KBIG and KNOB in Los Angeles, along with numerous others whose callsigns I can no longer recall. I also made a point to visit Drake Chenault which, at the time, was one of the largest purveyors of pre-programmed taped music for low-budget automated broadcast outlets. But the most fun was getting inside such studios as Hanna Barbera, Jay Ward and Walt Disney Studios.
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What I learned in these places was that you needed to be in a union to get a job but you couldn't get a job if you weren't in a union. But getting into a union was extremely difficult since there was, and presumably still is, intense internal competition for employment. Disney is in Burbank but so was UPA Pictures, which was only a few blocks away. So of course I stopped by with many questions about their editorial department and their unique effects. What I learned at UPA was that unlike HB, JW and WD, UPA Pictures "farmed out" their soundtrack work and actually did not have much in the way of audio facilities onsite. Custom music, such as the songs performed by Robert Goulet and Judy Garland for "Gay Purree!" were taped at Capitol Records, with voicetracks and sound effects recorded at other third party vendor locations.
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In fact, if you check film credits, if any, you may see names like Marne Fallis and Sam Horta (flag this name, I have more!). These names have been billed on numerous late 50's and early 60's low-budget animation efforts like "Popeye". Another fella, Phil Kaye, did effects for Rankin-Bass features like "Frosty The Snow Man" (Jacky Vernon:'Happy Birthday!'), plus all the "Roger Ramjet" stuff and some Jay Ward work, including "Super Chicken" and "Tom Slick".
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These gypsy-esque editors collected their sound effects from studio to studio along the way and deployed them from film to film along the way and this is why you, as viewer and listener, may hear sounds from Hanna Barbera or Walt Disney, in a 60's "Popeye" cartoon produced by Paramount Pictures which, by the way, had a remarkable library of their own, and which has never been released. Furthermore, many of these effects ultimately came to rest in post houses like Ryder, Edit-Rite and Producers Sound Service. I visited Producers Sound Service on the Sunset Strip just a few blocks downrange from Jay Ward, and had I been truly evil, I could have stolen reels of magnetic film containing these same effects right off the shelf in the lobby. But I was a Good Boy!
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So, when you view a "Pink Panther" cartoon and Pink is riding a bicycle making the famous Hanna Barbera squeak noise and then the bad guy flies overhead in a jetplane that sounds like the "Rocky The Flying Squirrel" sound, know that some freelance sound editor came through those doors, did some editing and left copies of those marvelous effects behind in their library as he or she moved on to the next assignment. The ending to this story is sad though because companies like PSS and Edit-Rite did finally close their doors, What became of their libraries? Who is to know?
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THE STORY BEHIND STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES SLIDING DOOR EFFECT!
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Back in the early 1960's, if you were watching TV on a typical Saturday night, you were most likely watching "My Three Sons" (because what else was there to do back then), which starred Fred MacMurray and William Frawley. The program was sponsored by Hunt's Tomato Ketchup (or Catsup). One fairly persistent theme and catch phrase for Hunt's was that "It takes one whole fresh tomato to make one bottle of Hunt's Tomato Ketchup". While this slogan was smoothly intoned by an unseen, offscreen and uncredited voice-over announcer, the camera lens (and our electronic, though analog, third eye) focused on an empty ketchup bottle. A human hand missiles in and places one whole fresh tomato on top of the one completely empty bottle. There is a "hiss-squeak-thump" noise as the tomato miraculously slips right into the bottle! 60's special effects! How cool was that? It was a neat sound and while the effect never did appear in any cartoons (to the best of my knowledge), it did show in an episode of "Hogan's Heroes" as a flag popping out of a cannon and a couple of times in "Bewitched", when Samantha had a power failure.
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But the Hunt's Tomato effect does live on in truncated form. The "hiss-squeak" part was somehow appropriated, and, with a little audio compression added to give some heft, this same sound is now heard as the sliding doors on the USS Enterprise in "Star Trek: The Original Series" (STOS). This clip, along with all the other STOS effects, was made available some years back on a consumer CD produced by Crescendo Records. I don't know if the compact disc is still in print, but many copies are available on eBAY. According to the liner notes, The sound was created by recording a pneumatic airgun and then playing it backwards. I have rendered the effect in reverse myself and it sounds like a plan to me.
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THE HORTA, THE BATHTUBS, THE GENERATORS AND THE TRANSPORTERS!
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One of the sound guys who worked on the original "Star Trek" series was Sam Horta. This name is frequently seen in sound editor credits, especially in 70's vintage Filmation cartoons, like the "Archies", "Fantastic voyage" and "Star Trek: The Animated Series" and also more recently with "Ren and Stimpy". When access to the Internet became commerically available by the mid 1990's, I hoped to seek out and contact Sam but sadly he passed away at just around the same time. But Sam lives on in name as well because one of the many cockamamie alien species encountered by Kirk and Spock were the silicon-based cold-stone lifeforms known as the Horta!
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I had mentioned in a previous email that, at Hanna Barbera, many new effects were created out of existing sounds. Included in this transmission is an mp3 containing the so-called UNNNG bathtub sound plus additional familiar derivatives of the same effect, which goes to show you can get more bang for the buck through audio recycling! Also included is a short clip of the GENERATOR effect restored fairly close to its original frequency and pitch. This is what you may want to listen for should you decide to scope out the "UFOs-through-the-tollbooth" scene in "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind".
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One other noise I'll toss in for this session is a vibrato-like effect usually heard during the transport sequence in STOS. Like the sliding door, this sound has become synonymous with "Star Trek" but predates the series by upwards of eight years. You can hear this twang in "Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol" when the titled character is seen careening around his bed in the morning after his experience with the three ghosts of Christmas. Also too, in "Gay Purree", as Jean Tom spies a mouse, his feline talons come popping out of his paws just prior to launch.
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That's it for this time. More stories later! I hope you had a Merry Christmas and all the best to you and your family for a Very Happy New Year!
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Bill

The Invasion Of The PODCARD Snatchers!

2009-11-09T00:00:00.001-05:00

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Hi Bill,
So you have the new Podcard? Sign me up.
I still continue to listen to TWIAR and look forward to your segments.
I also follow you on Twitter. (I'm ArcaneRadio)
Please send the card to
Jim Deneen kd8lwp
Pinckney, MI
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Hi,
Just heard about the new podcard in podcast edition 863, sounds good, could you email me one please?
Thanks
Tony
Twitter: swlistener
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Bill,
I really, really, did visit your blog. Awesome job.
Secret promo code: RATRAT
Would love to have an Official This Week in Amateur
Radio QSL card.
I am:
Charles Schaaf (wb8sho)
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Please send the new PODCard to
Bill Alpert, KG6NRV
Alta Loma, CA USA
Thanks!
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These are the latest This Week In Amateur Radio listeners to receive our brand new TWIAR PODCARD (with the secret mystery message). For more details, check out the following addresses:
http://twaud.io/qFQ
http://twaud.io/N2FNH
My good buddy Boleslav Krasnov, senior technician at Canarsie Wireless in Brooklyn, explains it all!

A TWILIGHT ZONE KIND OF WHAT IF?..AND A SIGN OF THE TIMES?

2009-10-12T13:00:00.001-04:00

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Please make point to download this week's editions of This Week In Amateur Radio and This Week In Amateur Radio International for the Random Access Thought!. On the TWIARi side, a submitted for your approval: What If. What if the 50,000 watt short wave radio giant WBCQ at 7415 KHz was, perhaps in a parallel dimension, a 70's vintage beautiful music FM station and This Week In Amateur Radio consisted of program elements reduced to thirty second stop sets in a string-driven musical ocean of Mantovani, Percy Faith and the 101 Strings?
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Actually, I wonder if anyone even remembers this once formidable format that became manifest in the mid 1960's, flourished the 1970's and died a slow and painful death by the late 1980's. Stations like WROW AM and FM in Albany, WKCI in New Haven and WEZG in Syracuse were just some of the remarkably successful broadcast outlets that were programmed by such top gun syndicators as Bonneville Broadcast Consultants, Master Broadcast Services and the Big One: Schulke Radio Productions. I remember these stations because I got a chance to sit in the air chair and make a living in all of them and now these many years since, I began to wax nostalgic, or at least I did in 2005 when I first produced this Random Access Thought. And now, four years later, while dusting off the cobwebs in the N2FNH Virtual Vaults, this lost treasure has been rediscovered and updated for air...or pod...as the case may be.
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Meanwhile on the TWIAR Ham Radio Service Side: The Virtual Wife! Fellow ham and close friend Jeff Bennett WA2AIB took to wife hunting in the twenty first century not too long ago, but inside of flowers and candy, he sweet talks his young lady with Ventrilo and Skype. If you don't know what these things are, you'll just have to download, listen and find out! This special Ham Service RAT is an interview I conducted with Jeff and his virtual wife Kristen and recorded around the same time I cut the "TWIAR In An Alternate Reality".
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If, for any reason This Week In Amateur Radio is not accessible or if you simply wish to cut to the chase, these two Random Access Thoughts have also been posted as mp3 files at http://twaud.io/users/N2FNH and http://www.twitter.com/N2FNH

A BOY AND HIS RADIO!

2009-10-11T00:00:00.000-04:00

Now, in addition to the Sony PSP, the Nintendo DS Lite, the DSi and the MACBook, Zach totes around his new ICOM IC-V82! Also spending lots of time gabfesting on the local 27 machine!

THEY'RE HERE! THE NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK!

2009-10-09T00:00:00.000-04:00

Here's a partial list of brand new callsigns e-mailed to me this Thursday. These are the new callsigns for MNOAOS Zachary and his friend-who-is-a-girl Jessica. April Chunski is a friend of ours and a member of the Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association.

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KC2VWW Chinski April
KC2VWX Bowen Jessica
KC2VWY Baran Zachary

THE GODFATHER!

2009-10-06T00:00:00.000-04:00

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So MNOAOS Zach and I got together this Monday evening with our very own Bill W2XOY. We made the scene at the classic old folks watering hole, the Cracker Barrel, located in nearby Defreestville on Route 4 in Rensselaer County, here in upstate New York. Bill wanted to get together with Zach to offer congratulations on passing the Technician Class amateur radio exam, sponsored by the East Greenbush Amateur Radio Association. Bill, in addition to being the author and the voice of the globally famous Ancient Amateur Archives, is also Zachary's Godfather. And so it came to pass that the Godfather made an offer Zach could not refuse, by presenting him with a ICOM V82 two meter handheld transceiver.
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Bill also offered the speculation that Zach's call may fall in the KC2VVx block, possibly a KC2VWx. And should it come to pass that my number one and only son cares not for his freshly inked call, he says he may opt for my father's old two land as a vanity callsign. Thus Zach is actually a third generation amateur radio operator. And there's more!
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Turns out, Zach's friend-who-is-a-girl Jessica, George Bowen's daughter, will also be third generation. Whether Jess goes for her Grandfather's callsign remains to be seen. Stay tuned for a callsign update, hopefully sometime this week!

TWO NEW HAMS!

2009-10-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

That guy on the left...and that gal on the right are two new amateur radio operators. Both took their Technician Class License exam at the Masonic Lodge in East Greenbush, New York on Sunday morning October 4th. The two day class and examination was sponsored by EGARA, the East Greenbush Amateur Radio Association. Who are these kids? Stay tuned! Details to follow!

MAIL'S IN!

2009-09-19T09:14:00.001-04:00

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Subject: Re: @GOWRONE A QSL FOR YOU! BEST 73 DE N2FNH
wow that was cool! hahah funny too! you should do one with all the voices you have lol. i know some of the names of them, but who all do you have running the machine? lol.
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Hi Bill,
Jim Fidler here, VO1RV.
I'm a recording artist, white caner and have been doing a show called Republic Of Avalon Radio for 5 years now. Oh, did I forget to mention a huge fan of the Random Access Thought? I've been radio since birth; starting with a transistor radio, tuning around the AM band at nights, SW listener, broadcaster and advanced amateur operator since 1984. Due to RFI problems, I've been off the air for longer than I'd like to say. Recently, I've ordered the IC706 MKIIG. Those pesky nabours will have to follow me around in the mobile now if they want to complain. I'm beyond happy about finally being able to get back on HF, as you could well imagine.Well, the long and the short of it is, in celebration of my revived status as a ham, a radio ham that is, I've been the other kind all the way through, I'm producing a special edition of our show all about radio. As part of this show, I'd be tickled if I had a piece from you for inclusion. It need not be anything too complicated; even a brief bit just IDing Republic Of Avalon Radio would be fantastic. I'd love to have an ID from you anyway and link to you and TWIAR through our website at: www.republicofavalonradio.com So, what do you think? Can ya help a guy out??? Well, hopefully, thanks in advance. Cheers and a big 73 from myself and 88 from my XYL Lillian, who's call just happens to be VO1XYL.
Best, Jim
http://www.jimfidler.com/
http://www.republicofavalonradio.com/

Thanks a million Bill!
I very much look forward to it. Well, it's off to play some more with my new IC MKIIG. What a nice little radio. Can't wait to get it into the mobile and tak'er on the road.
Cheers and 73,
Jim - VO1RV
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lost my QSL card for TWIAR during my move. Please send me a new one! I still listen to you via the podcast. No one in my area seems to be broadcasting the show.
Jim Deneen - KD8LWP
I'm ArcaneRadio on twitter.
Thanks

We Got Mail! Mail Is Good! We Like Our Mail!

2009-09-06T17:14:00.000-04:00

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Hi! Thanks for your great blog entry regarding packet radio! Your mention of upstate NY prompted me to send this email. I will have been in the hobby for 2 years in Sept, and am involved with the Saratoga and Warren County groups. Saratoga does have a node that I really can't hit with my antenna (tuned too high), but I hope to eventually resolve that. I am also in a position to suggest that a digipeter be placed on Gore Mt, along with the APRS setup there. Last month, while in Saratoga after our NYSDOH Hospital drill, I messed around on the K2DLL machine and got into TARA's packet BBS. It was quite interesting :) I was heavily involved in Fidonet BBS's back in the late 80's and early 90's, so I have something of a clue. I'd really like to build a packet BBS here and tie into the Flexnet system, and have dreams of building some internet gateway services into it. I've emailed Rusty KE2PW, and he has offered a TNC, that may need some work, toward the project. I'd love a 9600 baud system, but the other links are just 2400, so I'll go slow at first. It's interesting to note that my internet access is also wireless, via satellite, thru wildblue.net, since cable is 5 poles down the road and I'm about 5 miles too far from the nearest CO for DSL. It's not that I'm really wanting to beat a dead horse, but I see the value in experimenting with an aspect of the hobby so close to my interest in computers, as well as it's value in emergency communications. I'm also interested in HSDD "hinternet" stuff, but I'm in "the boonies" so I hay have to wait for interest in that to restart. Anyhow, thanks again for the history lesson to this newbie. :) I can hit the Schenectady .06 machine fairly well from here, if you want to try a 2m QSO, and also have 10-80 HF available. 73 de Jeff KC2SDS Jeff Archambeault
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Hi!
I'm Etienne Ali, VA2SSS, listening through mp3 file downloads. I wish to receive the twiar qsl card. My address is: Etienne Ali Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
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Hey........
Love listening to ya'll. I listen at work while designing Electrical Circuits for commercial laundry equipment.
Keith w5kb
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this is kc0qjj. i've been a ham since 2003. not sure how qsl's work, just know the theory behind them. no idea what i need to put here? i live in springfield, mo. i listen via the podcasts (bcq can be hard to get and no repeaters here carry any of these cool ham radio shows) and i synch them to my new iphone!!!!!!!! beats having to be tied to the computer. the phone uses the built in screen reader so blind and visually impaired and blind people like me can use the phone. everything i encounter when i touch the screen will speak to me. it's wonderful! it's the same screen reader in my imac. i just followed the twitter account. i'm gowrone. if you guys tweet, feel free to follow me!!!!! i like your shows that you guys make! i also subscribe to the ar newsline, arrl, and rain podcasts. am i missing any? grin. oh yeah world of radio too....... lol am i still missing any? :). 73.
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Greetings! I been downloading TWIAR onto my iPod and listening to it while at work. Great way to keep up on things.

Billy (N4WJT)
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Mr Bill Baran N2FNH.
Greetings.
My name is Greg McCulkin, VK1TEQ, and I'm from Canberra, Australia. Finally I took a proper look at your blog. Saw the photo of You and Bill Continelly W2XOY Now I know what you look like. Always waited anxiously for your segments in TWIARI. Your segments have a thought provoking moral, "The Process Is More Important Than The Result". True. It seems indeed that the human race seems to prefer "presentation" than "functionality". I work in retail, my chosen career was supposed to Electrical Engineering. A long time age. P.S. Iv'e been here for 18 months, I'm a Sydney man born and bred, will "go home" one day. Always look forward to Bill Continelli's, W2XOY, segments as well. Would you please be kind enough to pass onto Bill too, thankyou. All the best. Gre.J.McCulkin VK1TEQ, (formally VK2TEQ

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We also received written letters from the following folks:
Hank Vandenbrand, of Merlin, Ontario Canada and Gori Roberto, of Livorno, Italia! Many thanks to everyone who contacted This Week in Amateur Radio: QSL cards are on the way!
Bill N2FNH

Running Gags, Inside Jokes, Continuity Issues And Other Stuff Inside The Random Access Thought!

2009-08-16T10:00:00.000-04:00

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Listen to This Week in Amateur Radio long enough and eventually you will begin notice some of the more unusual elements within the program, such as the Random Access Thought. And at some untimely point thereafter, you may also start to actually hear those short promotional announcements for the Random Access Thought and the little movies-in-sound pushing our custom TWIAR QSL cards, our This Week Blogs and Twitters, and our KXKVI podcast download site.
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Believe it or not, it may take as many man-computer hours to generate a 90 second promo as it does to develop a complete seven and half minute Random Access Thought or Random Access File segment. Coming up with fresh ideas for these mini-radio shows can be creatively challenging but on occasion, a simple storyboard idea may manifest itself and carry across multiple promos and even into the RATs themselves. Here's an example: Back last year, after we decided to start posting via Blogspot, I made the observation that George W2XBS had launched several preliminary versions of his blog before finally settling in on a specific custom page design, but several posts that he had published had subsequently disappeared. Why?
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George indicated that he was not happy with some of his written material and so deleted those, saying something to the effect: "I want to get it right the first time". BINGO! I cross-haired, locked and loaded as his passing thought passed on by.
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Thus, in a July 2008 TWIAR Blog proclamation, the 45 year old fail-to-launch, chain-smoking Cigman is plinking away at his keyboard when MNOAOS Zach asks: "Hey Cigman, whatcha doin?" Cigman says: "I'm working on my new blog!" Zach says: "How long have you been at it?" Cigman says: "About three hours!" "Wow, that's a long time!" says Zach. Says Cigman: "I want to get it right the first time!"
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In a follow up September 2008 pitch, the highly cylindrical TANK is busy at work lead-fingering (assuming he has fingers) his keyboard when Zach asks: "Hey TANK, whatcha doin?" TANK says: "BLOG!" Zach says: "How long have you been working on it?" TANK says: "THREE DAYS!" "Wow! That's a long time!" says Zach. Says TANK: "I WANT TO GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME!". The gag is running.
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In an upcoming promo for the Random Access Thought, Cigman is rehearsing his big one line as an intro for a RAT entitled "Now For Something Completely Different". Zach says: "Hey Cigman, whatcha doin?" Cigman says: "I've been rehearsing this line for tonight's big performance!" Zach says: "How long have you been practicing?" Cigman says: "About three weeks!" "Wow, that's a long time!" says Zach. Says Cigman: "I want to get it right the first time for opening night!"
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Then there's Cigman's sister Marilyn. There is an occasional pop-up theme which picks up on Marilyn's peculiar fascination with watching paint dry. When I did a RAT feature on non-directional aircraft radio beacons, the promo script called for Zach to stop by at Marilyn's house where she is feverishly painting the living room. Marilyn says: "I like to watch paint dry. I paint a wall and I watch it dry!" So later on, in another segment, when Cigman sees his sister watching a blank analog TV screen after the big switch to digital television, he makes the suggestion that she would do better watching paint dry. To which, in perky Pavlovian response, she says: "I like to watch paint dry. I paint a wall and I watch it dry!" And of course, she does just that!
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George was also able to provide yet another little gem for an inside joke that plays out in a TWIAR QSL Card offer that first aired this January. I was in QSO with George one day on the local 146.82 machine. I'd been bugging him to get a SONY PSP. His terse response was: "I'd would rather invest in a good pair of gym shorts". George said this because he has taken to daily visits to his local YMCA.
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BINGO! In the next QSL promo, when little kid Bix's vintage Hallicrafters S38 shortwave radio goes on the fritz and he runs to his Dad begging for a new receiver, Mister Nix sternly intones: "Well my Son, shortwave radios are very expensive! I would rather invest in a good pair of gym shorts!"
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There was an issue of continuity for another QSL promo which still occasionally airs. The story involves a somewhat incredulous scenario where Marilyn is doing time in the Big House. The scene opens with the sound of a large jail door sliding open and footsteps are heard as she makes her way to a payphone. She calls Pauly, Ricky and Bobby (presumably her associates in crime) to advise them of the new This Week in Amateur Radio QSL card "with the asteroids"(flag that thought) that she has secretly come into possession of.
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But it was the sound of the footsteps that was flawed and got noticed by at least one of our most valued WBCQ shortwave listeners. When I first outlined the piece, I had planned to do the voice of a La Cosa Nostra-style Goodfella making that outside call but I got lazy and decided to have Marilyn do the voice over instead, thinking to myself that it would be funnier. Since I had already sourced all the effects prior to the scripting, the sound of the footsteps were of a man's shoes. In fact, they were my shoes.
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As a sidebar, the first occasion where I needed footsteps was for the Random Access Thought entitled: "The Internet Tubes Are Real". The premise had me as the host, entering a service tunnel at Big City Cable, making my way to a main distribution Internet tube. I needed footsteps, so I put on my shoes, placed my cheap forty-nine dollar Radio Shack audio cassette recorder on the kitchen floor and took four steps. The footsteps were then loaded onto a hard drive, cleaned up and looped.
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Meanwhile, back at prison, it did actually occur to me that Marilyn's sensuous British dialect plus my man shoes were a sonic mismatch, but then I thought: "Who will notice? It's only a little commercial!" A week later, a postcard arrived at Box 30, Sand Lake, NY 12153 from Peter Bently of East Aurora, New York, who wrote: "It's a dilemma. In your promo for the new QSL card, Marilyn walks like a man". Peter further wrote: "I was going to suggest you change the sound FX, but I realized it's probably impossible to find a recording of Una Espia, sneaking around in her bedroom slippers. Oh well, perhaps Marilyn is more the Nancy Sinatra type".
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This oversight resulted in three consequences. First, the voice and effects mismatch was indeed observed. Second, the mismatch may have skewed one man's mind's eye view of just what kind of a gal Marilyn might actually be. And thirdly, in the end, the bit was even funnier because of the shoes!
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Going back to that flagged thought, when we first started issuing QSL cards, the job of creating and printing them was assigned to George's long-suffering wife Cheryl, who was running some kind of a MAC computer that could make a nice three by five picture and then copy it to the same size card stock. After two or three print runs, we decided we wanted something new so George got one of his news anchors to draft up a cool outer space scene showing the sun and the nine planets. He even went so far as to include the asteroid belt which you could barely see in the image. BINGO! The asteroids became the focus of the QSL card sales pitch. For well over a year, various characters in equally various QSL card promos extolling the virtues of having a custom QSL card with the asteroids in your personal collection.
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With these items top of mind, look elsewhere in this blog for "The Voices at -18 dB". That post, linked with this one, just goes to show what kind of nut cases are busy at work producing stuff for This Week in Amateur Radio!

VACATION! A Visual Definition!

2009-08-03T15:15:00.000-04:00

I came across this image while searching for wallpaper for my Sony PSP. Elsewhere in this Blogulation are two posts entitled "Vacation!" and "Vacation?" Go read those posts and then carefully view this picture. Although rendered as an amusing visual blip for momentary note, you may discover that this simple JPEG dovetails nicely with those articles but also provides the final solution to the puzzles posed.

As it was in 1999: Packet Radio, Packet Politics and the Land Line Lids!

2009-08-03T15:14:00.000-04:00

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Hello there! It's me again! N2FNH with more on those amazing Packet Internet Gateways,Amateur Radio's Best Kept Secret! This time around, it's Packet Politics! I have learned there is a raging debate in the Digital Domain these days concerning Packet Radio, world-wide message forwarding and the Internet. Up to until recently, I thought Packet was just about the only safe harbor in the Hobby shielded from the passionate and sometimes ugly political scene that can manifest itself on the Low Bands or local VHF and UHF repeaters. I was wrong!

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It is an on-going war-of-the-words between the so-called Land Line Lids and the Radio Frequency Lids. You can march right down to the front line by simply connecting to your local Packet BBS and begin reading all those verbal Scud Missiles under the DEBATE and Land Line LID headers and decide for yourself just who's winning and who's losing.

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Here's the story: Best I can tell, it goes this way: When Packet Radio first made the scene some 10-15 years ago, a lot of figurative blood, sweat and tears went into fashioning the AX25 protocol and then, extensive efforts were put forth in every Ham community to develop and refine regional Packet Networks to enable users to reach out and touch somebody else someplace else in another town or state. But it was the idea of sending messages that really got a lot of folks into the Packet scene and so message-handling and the subsequent forwarding of those messages moved from the local VHF and UHF circuits to a globe-spanning HF Network making heavy use of the 75, 40 and 20 Meter Bands.

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With this new network, you could use nothing more than an Hand Held Radio, a computer and a TNC to send Packet Mail to other Amateur Radio Operators overseas. A typical message might take a few days to get across the country and maybe up to a week or so to reach distant ports of call in other countries. And this system functioned very well and still does, in most places around the world. However, there have been a few changes. It may have started with LONNY back in the late 1980's when some NBC and BBC broadcast engineers who were also Hams got this great idea to link London and New York City together by taking a couple of Packet Nodes and connecting them to each end of a commercial undersea transmission cable. And it worked! Very well! Now, Amateur Radio Operators could enter through Manhattan and exit into foggy old London Town and explore each other's local Packet environments, enjoy keyboard QSO's and exchange third-party messages, which by the way, opened a big can of worms a few years back...but that one is another story.

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In any event, this was the first instance where a non-Amateur Radio medium was used big time to extend the communications range within this aspect of the Hobby. There was a lot of debate at the time, but nowhere near the amount of verbiage generated over the arrival of the Packet Internet Gateway Bulletin Boards and their effect on message-handling. Like an Invasion of the Body Snatchers, these amazing devices began to insinuate themselves into many localities allowing Ham Operators to connect by Radio and leave by Telephone and end up thousands of miles away all through auspices of the Super Information Highway.

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It appears that some BBS SysOps may have decided that using HF was at best an inefficient means of message-forwarding and decided to attach an extra cable and modem to their Packet BBS's and suddenly the mail moved a lot quicker! I found this out myself. A year ago, I sent a special test message through my local packet BBS and then chased that message over the next week using a regional Internet Gateway to see if and when that test message showed up at strategic BBS's in other states and in other countries.

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It took a day for the message to move across the state and into Eastern Canada. It took a week for the original test to reach places like Turkiye, Lithuania and the Canary Islands. Then, a few months ago, I tried it again. Same deal: a day to move across the state and into Eastern Canada but now, about a day to reach places like Ecuador, Italy and Russia. At some point in its journey, my message slid into an Internet Storm Drain, did the wormhole bit and washed up on a distant shore, just like that.

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And this is the focus of the Packet Politics! The Land Line Lids say marrying Amateur Radio with the Internet enhances the hobby by streamlining the process and speeding up the message forwarding. Besides, they say, the Internet is here to stay and is not about to go away. It is better to make the best use of this powerful communications tool rather than reject it wholesale. Meanwhile, the RF Lids offer the strong opinion that where Packet Internet BBS's spring up, the local Packet Network suffers since the need for that Network is sharply reduced or simply not needed at all, resulting in neglect and eventual disintegration of the system. The analogy is similar to a virus infecting a healthy, thriving organism and inflicting irreparable damage to that organism.

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I have discovered many SysOps of traditional Packet Networks within a specific Packet environment will not support any message forwarding that they feel in some way involves the Internet. However, it is possible to find within the same environment, an active Packet Internet Gateway allowing users Telnet access to remote Gateways overseas. That same Gateway may also be used by HF DX'ers to link with distant stations to arrange schedules and compare notes. And that same Gateway may also be a launch ramp for global APRS traffic, bypassing more traditional HF and VHF pathways in favor of the Internet as a grease-lightning transmission medium.

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I would be tempted to say I am neutral but I would be lying since just about every aspect of my Amateur Packet activity involves the Internet in some way. For me, if the plugs were pulled, I would not be happy because I have made many very fine acquaintances over the wires and radios in many states and in many different countries. I am not sure how healthy Amateur Radio is your community, but here in Upstate New York, VHF and UHF repeater and simplex activity is at an all time low. Finding a conversation in progress is like trying to win the lottery. Good luck!

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You know you got problems when a local Ham Club runs an article in its newsletter with the headline: "Problems With Our Repeater" and you read on to discover the club president is begging his members to please, please use the repeater more...it's not being used enough. You know you got problems when the January, June and September VHF Contests arrive but you have no clue because your scanning radio intercepts no signals on contest channels. Some say the HF Bands are flourishing and it appears they are but isn't the vast bulk of Operators mostly aging Baby Boomers who might just the last wave of Hams to key down and talk up before those highly valued and much exalted frequencies eventually fade into nothing more than scratchy and clicky static?

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The debate goes and on but it's academic. The Internet has successfully infiltrated and infused itself with our Hobby and there it will stay until we Amateur Radio Guys and Gals decide to put it to the best possible use or until Amateur Radio is finally and completely decommissioned, leaving us with just our cordless phones, pagers, garage door openers and CB Radios.

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In closing, I say if there's a Gateway or BBS in your neighborhood that's cooking with gas because it's connected to the Internet, use it and use it well. Support your SysOp if he or she needs the help. If somebody suddenly gets the bright idea to hook up his Voice Radio to Internet Phone or VoxChat, see what you can do to help out and then use it when it's built. Otherwise, one by one, Radios will be turned off for the last time, big Pentiums will boot up night after night all over town and it will be www.insert your favorite web page here.com or even worse, Amateur Chat Room on some unseen fully wireline VoxChat Server. So give it some thought! In the meantime, this is Bill Baran, N2FNH, saying 73 for This Week In Amateur Radio.

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30-

Twitters! Hamfests! And! Some of the Faces Behind the Voices!

2009-05-17T00:15:00.001-04:00

Make a point to download both this week's and last week's This Week. After acouple of TWIAR and TWIARi launch delays, (and you can certainly head on over to http://www.twiar.org/ for the inside skinny on that story) there are two new Random Access Thoughts to tune into and turn on with. Last week's RAT for the week ending May the 9th was the first fresh production from the House of N2FNH for 2009.
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The topic of note is a Thoughtfully Random Access view of the current hot-to-trot social network Twitter. MNOAOS Zach, along with a quorum of Krasnovs, Marilyn, Cigman and Mother Radio, discuss significant aspects of Twitter in a one-of-kind and time-intensive-to-edit presentation, vocalized in Tweet form and laid out in phrases of less than one hundred and forty characters. Although only about five minutes in length, I worked hard for no money so please download, please listen and please make me happy.
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For the week ending May the 16th and that's today as I diligently and digitally describe all this, the second brandy new Random Access Thought for 2009 ready to air and is entitled "Springtime is Hamfest Time". The younger Mister Baran and I, along with my cheap forty nine dollar Radio Shack audio cassette recorder, dropped by the East Greenbush Amateur Radio Association's big little hamfest which was held last Saturday in, where else? East Greenbush, New York. A ten or less most wanted list of remarkable characters who made it to the final print, aside from MNOAOS and I included Dennis KB2SBL, Bill W2XOY, John WB2HZT, Sid Wolin, Frank N2FF, Mike KB2VQS, Tony W2BEJ, Woz N2SQO, Frank WB2PUH and Glenn WB2FOB. All these voices, along with a hot, steaming pile of crazy sound effects, make for an enjoyable ten minutes. Speaking of voices, here are a few snapshots of some of the faces behind those voices:

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SHE WASN'T THERE BUT I GOT YOUR ATTENTION!
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THE RATMASTER AND HIS SON! BILL N2FNH AND ZACH!
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AUTHOR OF THE ANCIENT AMATEUR ARCHIVES AND RAT REGULAR BILL W2XOY!
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A MAN OF 3000 WALKIE TALKIES! DENNIS KB2SBL!
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A MESS O' RADIOS! AND MOST OF THE FOCUS OF THIS WEEK'S RAT ON TWIAR!
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A MAN OF MUSIC! PUSH HIS BUTTON ELSEWHERE ON THIS PAGE! MIKE KB2VQS!

FLUNGING AND EEE-BEE-BEEING! TONY W2BEJ!

CEASE COMMUNICATIONS IMMEDIATELY! GLENN WB2FOB!
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eQSL! Who Knew? Part 2! So Nu?

2009-05-04T01:15:00.003-04:00

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This is funny to me. I went back to http://www.eqsl.cc/ and updated my personal profile. After plugging in what apparently passed for pertinent data, the unseen machinations of the eQSL robot machines promptly generated for me personally, a generic eQSL, which is displayed here within the bounds of this very specific blogulation.
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This generic, yellowishy-hued eQSL brought back a very specific Memorex of my Father's own yellowishly-hued aQSL or Analog QSL Card, printed with thick black stock ink on a fairly thick paper stock, almost like cardboard. My Dad's QSL Card was dollar store quality, decades before the advent of the dollar store. No pix. Just the bare facts.
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Back then, my Father was a factory worker at Colgate-Palmolive-Peet in Union City, New Jersey. Colgate-Palmolive is still around but Peet beat a hasty retreat sometime in the late sixties or maybe he was bought out but I digress. My Father, like most hams, was cheap. We saved a lot of money on household cleaners, soaps and experimental test products that never had the chance to gather dust on a supermarket store shelf. Further, most of these freebies were brightly packaged with foreign language descriptive, but Ajax was Ajax, Fab was Fab and Colgate toothpaste was the same no matter what the lingo.
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Somehow, the OM got the guys in Product Labelling to fabricate these third world yellowishly-hued three by fives with the thick stock black ink. Sadly, I no longer have any of these but seeing something so similar pop up forty eight years later on a twenty-first century computer screen gave me pause to reflect.
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eQSL! Who Knew?

2009-05-03T21:20:00.000-04:00

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It's another typically bland early Sunday afternoon here in the little village down by the Hudson and there's a QSO currently in progress on the local 87/27 machine. Local lad Lee K2HAT has just advised the gregariously glib Glenn WB2FOB that the latter has eighty electronic QSL "cards" waiting for him at http://www.eqsl.cc/
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Glenn expresses his total amazement as he confesses to having no prior knowledge of the website and then begins to wonder how many QSOs he has had over the years that had resulted in no QSL, some of which may have been inboxed at this Internet based paperless repository, just waiting to be unearthed, or unfiled, as the case may be.
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I am eavesdropping on this conversation airing over my vintage Uniden Bearcat 800XLT as I am wading waist deep through my daily steaming e-pile of e-spam. Since I am presently online, I tab over to eQSL, register and login. Remarkably, I learn there are two electronic QSL jpegs addressed to N2FNH.
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One such confirm came from Mark KA4MAY of Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. The date of the QSO was June 24, 1989! Twenty years ago! I haven't kept written logs in years but it's a fair bet the exchange took place since at the time, thanks to a healthy sunspot maximum, I was working a ton of stations on ten meter single sideband, almost all of it in the mobile with the then new Uniden President HR-2510. This was the controversial mobile rig, that with a simple modification, went from being just a 28-29 MHz multi-mode, to a more versatile 26-30 MHz multi-mode. I had that radio. I loved that radio. AND! I still have that radio! And yes, it was duly modded. Would you expect otherwise?
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The second eQSL was a little mystifying: an alleged 20 meter QSO with Richard N5ZC of Amarillo, Texas, dated January 17th, 1998. This claim is in jeopardy since I was a Technician at the time and what's more, I had no HF gear usable on twenty. There is an outside chance that the conversation did take place though. From 1996 through 2004, I spent the majority of my discretionary ham time doing packet radio, and all that discretionary time probing various international packet networks linked together by way the Internet. Many of these gateways offered access to local radio ports, most often VHF, UHF or SHF outlets but on occasion, there were also HF ports. And quite often, I did HF by proxy through these shortwave links. As an example, I was able to connect to a PBBS in Shanghai via a 15 meter HF link from a telnet server near Kyoto.
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During the time frame specified on the eQSL, I was heavily mining a remarkably rich regional packet environment in the Dallas area and had several keyboard-to-keyboard chats. However, the N5ZC eQSL offers no reference to a packet QSO.
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I feel the same way about eQSLs as I do about homebrew prepared reception cards. Both are OK, but kinda bland. Like the weather here in the little village by the historic river. But nothing beats bounding over to the mailbox and finding a crisp, or even even crunched, custom-made QSL CARD!
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Lotz-O-Slotz!

2009-05-02T00:31:00.000-04:00

VACATION?

2009-05-02T00:30:00.000-04:00

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PROLOGUE: There's a cramped four shoulder-wide little Chinese take-out slot in a wall down at the decaying strip plaza right on the corner here in the village at which I've been stopping by at least once a week ever since I relocated back in 2006. This Chinese take-out is the standard fare that serves the standard fare with the thick, greasy, gooey, artery-choking, junk Chinese food that just about everyone loves to inhale. And true to stereotype, the Boss Lady and her motley minions, including her electronic cash register-wielding ten-year old son, could only manage the slightest grasp of our ever-so-slowly-but-most- assuredly fading English language.
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So difficult was it to exchange typical menu selections by word of mouth, that a mountain of brightly colored menus printed on cheesy, just-a-bit-more-than-toilet paper stock was stacked high on the counter with a worn-to-the-nub Number 2 standing sentinel, impaled in a close proximity plastic tub of invalid rice. In an effort to make each visit as easy and efficient as possible, I would always request the same three food items: two pork egg roll:one quart sweet and sour chicken:one quart won ton soup. This never flagging consistency in menu selection soon jelled into the YOOZHU...the usual.
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In time, this never flagging consistency in menu selection would no longer require any sort of spoken word at all. The scene opens: I walk in. I spy her. She regards me. She questions with but a single nod. I affirm with the same. Observant patrons intercept the Q & A but appear mystified. So focused and so closed circuit the signal. The same signal that also bound me to the same take-out order time and time again. The YOOZHU.
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Picture a fiery, frenetic far eastern woman, say in her late thirties, not unattractive, stiff black hair, severely restrained in a tight bullwhip ponytail. Tiny, but not an oompaloompa. A whirling, swirling Asian Ricochet Rabbita, built like a petite brick shit house, barking out food orders to the minions in her hometown dialect, which was all Greek to me. Her ten-year son, at various assignments: answering the phones, manning the cash register, doing his homework at one of the few tables, at ease, an addict, doing time, in the dim blue flicker of his Nintendo DS Lite.
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Many cooks and ancillary grunt personnel would appear and then disappear with disturbing regularity. This winter, an college-age dark-haired, fair-skinned, white guy enlisted part time, answering the phone and making the deliveries. He spoke the house language like a homie but seemed to regard his employer with just a little less than disregard.
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But always, the Boss Lady, her son and her husband, or maybe he was just the boy's father. They were always there.
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This has changed.
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ITEM No.1: Four weeks ago, I arrive at the take-out on a bland Tuesday afternoon, only to find that the Boss Lady, her son and her husband, or maybe he was just the boy's father, were not there. Who was there was a young studious looking Asian girl, just barely in her twenties, wearing politically incorrect-to-mention Coke bottles. Demur she was, but she spoke the King's English quite well. Her presence and the Boss Lady's absence allowed me to opt out from the YOOZHU so I got an H2 instead, which is a big aluminum deep dish of pork fried rice with a boatload of those blood-red colored meat strips that look like carvings of car seat vinyl piled on top. I thought ask where the the Boss Lady might be, but jepped the query instead.
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ITEM No.2: Two weeks ago, I arrived at the take-out on a bland Friday afternoon only to find the same as before. No Boss Lady, no son, no husband, or maybe just the boy's father. Who was there was the same young studious looking Asian girl. Being a creature of some habit, I got another H2. I thought again to ask where the Boss Lady and the family might be and this time, I did it. "Where's the boss?"
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The young studious looking Asian girl, now startled, nervously adjusted her Coke bottles and groped for the Engrish words that might frame an answer. She then sputtered: "She went to the place!" "Vacation?" I intoned with a arched Spockian eyebrow. At the word "Vacation", a Scooby Doo double take. Then, as if under threat of US Government sanctioned water boarding: "No! No! She went to the other place!" The inquisition was over. It was all too clear. She was truly rattled. I have found that "Vacation" in the ubiquitous Chinese buffet carries with it an unspoken, onerous meaning. I wanted to know what this "other place" was but I had already pushed my luck. I left the Chinese take-out with my H2 concealed in an unmarked brown paper bag.
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ITEM No.3: This past Monday, another typical bland afternoon, I couldn't resist. But things had changed again. At the counter, another young Asian girl, also just barely in her twenties. But she was not studious looking, did not wear the Coke bottles. Could barely utter more than a few words in the local lingo of the land. Curiously, she looked a lot like the Boss Lady, maybe a younger sister, maybe a younger cousin. More delicate and China doll-like. Prettier. Less hardened, less muscular and less sweaty. Her minimum pronouncements would provide no answers. But as I left the Chinese take-out with my new YOOZHU, my H2, concealed in an unmarked brown paper bag, the young college-age, dark-haired, fair-skinned white guy was on his way in. "WHERE'S THE BOSS?" I shouted. "MANHATTAN! PERMANENTLY, I THINK!
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EPILOGUE: Here are the focal points.

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Much like the larger Chinese buffet, employees at Chinese take-outs at strip malls and down on the corner appear and then disappear with disturbing regularity.
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The English word "Vacation" spoken within the environs of a Chinese buffet bears a remarkably significant meaning and tone that is not synonymous with "deportation". This appeared to be further verified during my recent stop-bys at the local Chinese take-out.
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The reference to "the place" and "the other place" seems to match the delivery guy's reference to New York City but mere mention of it also appeared to evoke an intense, far-less-than-positive response from the currently installed prettier, less hardened, less muscular and less sweaty counter girl. Thus, "the other place" just may be the final cattle car off ramp to...Vacation.
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And...Vacation...is another story.
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BLOC-I-TUDES!

2009-04-17T23:57:00.001-04:00

ECHELON Wouldn't Be Interested...But You? Maybe!

2009-04-17T23:56:00.001-04:00

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Hey Bill, I must say I have enjoyed your blogs and musings on TWIAR for some time. Just thought I'd drop you a quick line to say "hello"! As a wise man once said: "The static has ears"! On that 158.400 thing. It turns out there are a couple of blogs on the popular wireless on the topic. You kinda have to wind your way around that site to find them. I have my theories about how this might be happening. I will not say yet though. I will say that one of those blogs had someone track one of their sites to near Brunswick NY. I will also say that if you listen in the early morning to 158.400, you will hear some somewhat "regular" QSO's from guys who I think are the real "players" on this - one of whom's voice sounds very familiar??** Coincidence?? Apparently this has been an ongoing thing for the past 4 years or so and involves a network of repeaters which spans Northern Jersey to Northern NY. Hmmmm........ If you can stand it, listen to 158.4000 in the backround for a couple of days.
73's - Joe
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** JOE MADE A REFERENCE TO A REGIONAL SYSTEM IN THIS AREA WHICH I WITHHELD UNTIL MORE INFORMATION COMES FORTH. DON'T WORRY BE HAPPY!
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Hi Bill;
My name is also Bill. I visited your Random Access Thought blogspot. I enjoyed reading it. I also listen to you on radio station WBCQ, 7.415 Mc Shortwave, when I can hear the station. I used to listen to you on a local amateur radio repeater on 145.19 Mc, but you are not there anymore. I would like a QSL card. I just had lunch, a bowl of Cream of Mushroom soup. I made it with milk instead of water. My computer, with which I visited your blogspot, is a Dell INSPIRON E1505 laptop. I have many shortwave radios, but I use a Kaito 1103 to tune in WBCQ.
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I enjoyed your blogspot very much. I made it a Favorite on my computer, and will visit it again. A friend of mine, also named Bill, wants me to start a blog. After visiting this site, I may.
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I like the name Bill, don't you? Although sometimes I want to be called "Louie". Some people call me "CLO", I don't know why. Please send me a QSL card. The secret code is RATRAT.
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My address is
Bill Continelli
Rensselaer, NY

PLAQ-I-TUDES!

2009-04-17T23:55:00.001-04:00

VACATION!

2009-04-13T09:00:00.001-04:00

PROLOGUE: Just about every Saturday noontime, a bunch of us hams convene at one of any number of local all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets. The usual bunch of bananas includes Tony W2BEJ, Mike KB2VQS, Tim WA2QAC, along with a cast of thousands who routinely rotate their way through a laundry list of weekend Asian dining experiences, with just one of these digitally preselected via e-mail the night before. Here in New York's Capital District, there are many such establishments running in plate-to-plate competition with the more meat-and-potatoes kind of national chains like The Golden Corral and The Olde Country Buffet so there there is certainly enough room to chow down for everyone. A virtual landfill of standard Chinese feasting fare awaits the drooling, dribbling, delighted, double-chinned patron as he or she painfully squeezes through these portals to the orient, festooned with happy, big belly Buddhas and endlessly waving, mechanized Lucky Cats. Lo Mein! Chow Mein! Chop Suey! General Tsaos! Sweet and Sour Anything! Wonton! Egg Drop! And Fortune Cookies! You name it! It's all there!
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ITEM NO.1: Not so long ago, I had an enjoyable QSO over the local 79 repeater with Pat N2HUB (now N2WWW) where the focus was on Chinese buffet food. Pat had taken the time to peruse Google in search of recipes for all the usual dishes but could find precious little detail, either in terms of content or in terms of the cost in preparing the food in such volume for that matter. To be sure, speculation ran high that evening on the most likely core elements going into such common offerings as General Tsaos. And to be sure, the cliched ingredients soon bubbled to the surface: canine, feline, you know, that kind of stuff. It did occur to me that seagulls might be a practical component, since they are prolific in these parts and can be found shopping daily at all the better Chinese buffet garbage dumpsters. AND! There is never a shortage of foodstuffs. A Chinese Buffet never runs out of anything!
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ITEM NO.2: Not so long ago, I performed a late afternoon pig out with Tom N2SQO at one of the more popular China houses in Colonie. We certainly ate all we could eat and then took our conversational banter and Tom's fetid cigarettes out to the parking lot where we made a remarkable observation. A large, unmarked moving van had arrived and was backed up to the restaurant kitchen door. The big meaty stevedores were unloading several single size mattresses, about forty in all, and dragging them in through the kitchen. I expressed amazement at the scene. But then, as Tom arched back and exhaled a blueish-grey-green toxic cloud of vaporized cancerous particulate matter, he calmly advised that this may not be so unusual since he had it on good account that employees at another all-you-can-eat joint in Latham actually slept in the restaurant kitchen and on the dining room floors after hours. So the new mattresses might just be an extra-added luxury for this particular collective of workers.
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ITEM NO.3: Here in the Tri-Cities of upstate New York, just about every Chinese buffet has been systematically raided by the Immigration and Naturalization Service at least once, and usually many more times than just at least once. If you find yourself to be a regular patron to one of these places, it can be quite disarming to arrive, only to find the doors locked with an INS search, seizure and deportation notice attached. Then, two, maybe three weeks later, the same facility is once again open for business just as it was before. Everything inside looks just the same. The same motif. The same tables. The same paintings, The same Far East Muzak. Everything the same. Everything the same, except that all the personnel have been completely replaced. Likewise, such INS raids have also swept through private residences where single family homes have been found to harbor as many as forty illegal aliens at a time.
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Other full scale personnel sweeps may occur, apparently without Uncle Sam's intervention. It has been observed that on several occasions, with the exception of maybe the hostess, all the familiar grunt labor faces are now all unfamiliar grunt labor faces. All apparently swapped over at the same time. Does this staff change carry any significant meaning? Who is to know for sure?
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ITEM NO.4: Some Chinese buffets may offer an interesting dining diversion, sometimes referred to as "The Mongolian" or simply "The Stir Fry", where raw materials, such as meat, vegetables, bamboo shoots, mushrooms and sometimes non-Kosher aquatic foul, is harvested into a bright white porcelain bowl and then summarily flung onto a huge cylindrical gas-driven, heated flattop metal platter. The stir-fry guy then wields his two mighty, three-foot long, heavily charred, scorched and smoked wooden stilettos and splays the ingredients back and forth across the steaming, smoking Teriyaki-stained platter, occasionally dumping in water, usually from a badly discolored stainless steel teapot. At some predetermined moment, he then swipes the contents into a fresh clean bright white porcelain bowl for you to nosh on back at your seat.
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At one such eatery near Schenectady, there was a young Asian stir-fry guy, quite westernized, who spoke the English with a flair all his own. Very likable, he was the kind of fella you would always want to stuff a dollar tip into the always-present plastic one-gallon tip jar. A nice guy. And then one Saturday, the nice guy was gone. I queried the requisite always gorgeous and always mysterious very young hostess as to where the young man was. "Vacation" came the response. A few weeks later: still gone. Same answer: "Vacation". More weeks later: still gone. Same answer: "Vacation". The likable westernized Asian stir-fry guy was never coming back. We would never see him again. It occurred to me that "vacation" must have meant "deportation". But then again, deportation in these places is almost always a mass eviction, unusual for just one to be pulled and sent packing. But perhaps the westernized Asian dude just decided to return to his homeland. Who is know for sure?
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ITEM NO.5: It is absolutely amazing how many varieties of Chinese buffet food are prepared using chicken and chicken by-products and also how absolutely amazing that almost none of it really looks or tastes like chicken. Take the time to examine the Bang Bang Chicken. Chunky lumps of meat analog oozing in some sort of thick, murky, yellow-brown goo. But not meat. More like cartilage. Like the plastic stuff in your body that shapes your kneecap or your elbow.
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ITEM NO.6: There's another Tom in this area, KB2NAV, a big fan of conspiracy theories. When talking with Tom, you can never be sure if he is simply relating what he was researched. Either a really good actor, or a true believer. Who is to know for sure? Anyway, one of his ongoing scenarios is that untold numbers of mainland Chinese have emigrated to the United States, legally maybe, but most likely, legally not, and said to have constructed thousands of miles of underground tunnels beneath our cities, the idea being that when World War III begins, the insurgent ground forces are already here, ready to seize and secure our blessed country. True? Who is to know for sure? So in the meantime, starting digging to see for yourself. But if it were true, and if nothing else, an enormous head of human livestock would be corralled just six to twenty feet down, depending on the constraints of local underground infrastructure.
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ITEM NO.7: Not so long ago, upon entering one of our popular Chinese hangouts, the requisite always gorgeous and always mysterious very young hostess beamed oh-so-brightly when my son Zachary and I coursed through the door. "It has been a while since last I see you! Where have you been?". Without thinking, I responded: "Vacation!" A look of primal terror flashed across her exquisite China doll cheeks as she slapped her tiny hands against her bright crimson flushed face: "VACATION!?!" At that moment, I knew. I knew that "vacation" was not "deportation".
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EPILOGUE: Here are the focal points.
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There is never a shortage of food to be found in a Chinese buffet.
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A broccoli is a broccoli. A noodle is a noodle, A pineapple is a pineapple. The meats we consume appear to be analog. The Chicken is another story. The beef is another story's sequel.
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Untold numbers of foreigners enter this country illegally and may be sequestered deep within the physical confines of businesses such as these restaurants, factories or even private residences.
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Conspiracy theory holds that untold numbers of aliens lurk just below the concrete, corralled within a vast labyrinth of tunnels and human mole holes beneath our cities waiting.
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Employees in such restaurants appear and then disappear with disturbing regularity.
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The English word "vacation" spoken within the environs of a Chinese buffet bears a remarkably significant meaning and tone that is not synonymous with "deportation".
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These focal points form the basis of a question.
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What is the answer to this question?

THERE'S A LETTER IN YOUR MAILBOX!!!!!

2009-03-29T14:01:00.000-04:00

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(Editor's Note: With reference to The Random Access Thought: The Story of Reginald)
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Great job be it true or fiction just a great story. Since you are in Buffalo I would have liked to heard a short WKBW clip worked into to show.
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Jerry Fisher
VE4SAT
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Hi, I didn't write for a QSL..But would like one....My comment was about the Security Gard/CB story. I don't know if this was true or fiction but a great piece. If it was in Buffalo I thought you could have worked a WKBW clip into the background... KW is Buffalo..The last time I was there was in 1999. I turned on the radio expecting KB to be rockin away instead a baseball game-times change. I lived in the Springfield,Mass area in the early 60's and remember WKBW and WTRY in their prime as rockers.
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Jerry Fisher
VE4SAT
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Hi, I am sure that a good segment of your audience are Viet Nam Era Vets...Stratovision was used during the early phases of the War. A mention of this would have been great.
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Jerry Fisher
VE4SAT
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Hi Jerry, Thanks for writing! During the course of research on Stratovision, there was no direct reference to Viet Nam era deployment but I have also heard that such techniques have been used by the USA in Afghanistan in recent times. The orginal concept for Stratovision took place in 1940's and 50's as a non-military educational apllication. But perhaps we have some core material for a future Random Access Thought. I've been on hiatus for a few months and plan to start cutting new programs soon, so this may be good follow-up. > Anyway, thanks for writing. I believe you wrote for a QSL Card. I was wondering if you received it. More later!
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Bill/N2FNH
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found your programs on backmasking and oija entertaining (though the latter was creepy). My friend in Pennsylvania recorded the programs and sent them on a CD to me (in Kansas city, mo) and I found them cool. My friend has lots of radio equipment and an huge antenna he strings through a fence, so he can record stuff from WOKIE and WBCQ, which is probably where he got your program from. I don't have much use for a QSL card (except as a coaster), but anything else would be cool. I guess my friend could use such a card, but I'm not sure. Anyways, please make more shows about weird or silly stuff and less rants about radios.
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"Wagner, Christopher"

Boxing! Branding! Bandwidth!

2009-03-29T14:00:00.000-04:00

Amateur Radio In The Print Media! No Matter How Obscure!

2009-03-15T14:48:00.000-04:00

Here's an FYI, an interesting backfield reference to amateur radio, that I came across while perusing The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell, as authored by Luca Turin. This book is first and foremost a volume about chemistry, molecular structure and how we and the other animals can detect them with our schnozzes. Anyway, here's the quote:

Physics is unusual in that people either do theory or experiment, seldom both. Experimentalists laugh at the armchair generals who send them on fruitless missions or declare impossible something which turns out to be easy. Conversely, theorists frequently deride the glorified radio hams who, when faced with a brilliant idea, have the audacity to ask whether it is worth spending years testing it. Mostly, though, they can't live without each other.

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The Secret of Scent. Harper Perennial copyright 2006 by Luca Turin.
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ISBN: 978-0-06-113384-8 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 0-06-113384-1 (pbk.)
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I got my copy at the Barnes & Noble (FREE PLUG!) at the Colonie Center in Albany, New York. Easy to find in the science section.
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BLOCKSHOT!

2009-03-07T09:02:00.000-05:00

TWO! TWO! TWO AUDIO EXTRAVAGANZOS!

2009-03-07T09:01:00.002-05:00

Before I even begin to blogulate, let me advise that I am savoring (gobbling) the extremely addicting Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookie (I bought five boxes) that some shameless street pusher in my business office...mmmm...mmmhrff...that's good!

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Anyway, make a point to download not one but two This Week in Amateur Radio Internationals this weekend. One for this week ending March the 7th, and one for the week ending on February the 28th. Nestled at the core of each program: a tasty Random Access Thought. Not just any Random Access Thought! But two of my favorite and most heavily post produced efforts! I really should have posted for the 28th sooner because one of my more truly eclectic Random Access Thoughts: "The History of Backward Recorded Sound" was up for an encore performance.

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This unique and certainly quite esoteric offering first took flight in April 2005 as an exclusive production solely for play over the shortwave giant WBCQ. But now that TWIAR Internet podcasts are a weekly must do, this presentation is more universally available.

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Because it was top of mind at the moment, I decided to put focus on the arcane alchemy of reverse recorded sound, first engineered for use in film animation and motion pictures from the 1940s and then continuing the saga (eh...) into the 1960s with the emergence of Musique Concrete and tape music where, thanks to the development of the first commercially available analog audio synthesizers such as the MOOG, notes and noises of all sorts could then summarily sped up, slowed down, played backwards and even sliced and diced to achieve some truly remarkable effects.

From the tape music, we move into the twilight zone of back masking in music, beginning with the Beatles' audio masterpiece Number 9, where subliminal and maybe not so subliminal messages were parked in reverse gear just so us kids could spot our fingers on the vinyl and force the record backward against the groove and the needle to hear the words of...SATAN???? Then! An easy leap to the equally hellish commentary to be unearthed deep within the folds of reverse speech where the conscious mind says the nice politically correct words in forward time but speaks the not-so-nice, not-so-politically correct realities in time reverse.

Lots of backward noises, forward sounds, reversed melodies and forward tonalities abound! The RAT as a separate element will soon be available for download at http://www.twiar.org/n2fnh/RATParts The WAV file to watch for will be RAT0504O2_BACK_BCQ_R1.CAB. In the associated promo, PROMO_RAT_BACK_BCQ_R1.CAB, a young nine-year old Zachary learns how to say his name backwards into to a microphone and then play the recording backwards so what he said forwards is now heard backwards, which was his name said backwards which now sounds like he said it forwards with a Swedish accent. Savvy?
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This photo taken with my Sony PSP displays a edit screen with two audio clips. Both are the sound of a cast iron bathtub being dropped. Both are ready to be played backwards.
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Whereas "The History of Backward Recorded Sound was a Sonic Extravaganzo in the extreme, "The Story of Reginald" allows my extensive post production technique to stroll down a more dimly lit, more tightly refined and far more subtle three o'clock in the morning avenue in sound.
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But Mister Continelli is at his best as a teller of tales, when he sits back, pipe in hand, with a thin wisp of tobacco fragrance rising above, to tell us True Believers one hell of a really cool bedtime radio story. "The Story of Reginald" is Bill's recollection of working as a security guard at a dog biscuit plant in 1970s Buffalo, New York. The tale intertwines radios, a CB walkie talkie bad guy, radios, social intrigue, radios and radios. Savvy?

Adding environmental sound to Bill's reminiscences required subtlety. Background ambiances such as Buffalo's city traffic was aged, distant, muted and tinged with brown. Effects for radios were quite authentic though in some cases, were played in reverse to mask content since what might have been heard on track may also have been inconsistent with the story line. "The Story of Reginald" is a must save for your MP3 player personal library.

You can download this week's This Week in Amateur at http://www.twiar.org/ or even better yet, connect to: http://www.twiar.org/n2fnh/RATParts and look for file number RAT071127_REGI.CAB. Right click on the title and "Save Target As" to your hardddrive. Use your WinZIP or IZArc to extract the select RAF audio WAV file inside!

What's This? My Train of Thought was Derailed!

2009-03-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

MOFW! My One Foot Wife!

2009-02-25T23:32:00.001-05:00

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Attention Cat Lovers! The other day, I picked up a Sony PSP-300x camera for the Sony Play Station Portable. This is a Japanese import that I purchased at a local Play and Trade video game outlet which comes packaged with the camera itself, a set of instructions laid out in every language except English and a proprietary UMD or Universal Media Disc (like a miniature encased DVD) containing editing software for both static and moving images. This software is written in Japanese. However I downloaded an English language version some time back identified as GO Edit! At this point, the image quality seems on par with cellphone cameras but as I master the finer points, if any, I may be able to produce better quality shots.

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SO! In various virtual locations within the bodies of either this real blog, my fake blog or via subsidiary commentaries posted on vehicles such as Twitter or 73s, I have made occasional reference to MOFW My One Foot Wife. And indeed! What a wife she is! Like many wives. Bossy! Pushy! Demanding! Always Nagging! Always Hungry!

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I took the above shots in ambient room lighting but didn't care much for the reddish yellowish overtones which I was subsequently not able to sufficiently filter out using third party image modifying software so I reduced them to black and white, boxed them and framed them for display. The shots are not the greatest but here she is: MOFW! My One Foot Wife Suzie at 16 human years of age!

What's This? An Altered State!

2009-02-20T00:17:00.000-05:00

Much like my voluminous library of sound effects, I have somehow managed to build up an equally overwhelming pile of images of all sorts. On occasion, something simple comes in and I will make alterations. Perhaps I was a tailor in a previous existence, but now instead of cloth, it's the five or seven senses, depending on where you're from.

So here a be a simple image that has been radically altered. What do you think it was before I got my software on it?

Seen the Price of Stamps? Yikes! E-mail Us Already!

2009-02-20T00:16:00.000-05:00

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February 17, 2009

This Week in Amateur Radio
P.O. Box 30
Sand Lake, New York 12153

Dear TWIARi,

Greetings from Brampton, Ontario, Canada!

I would like to report reception of your program from station WBCQ, broadcasting on 7415 khz on February 15, 2009 from 21:00-22:00hrs.UTC.
I am using a Grundig G6 receiver and its telescopic antenna indoor located in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. The SINPO rating is 54344.

The broadcast was overall good. I was listening to the program â??This Week in Amateur Radio Internationalâ?. I find the program very interesting.

Program Details:
21:00 Station ID, TWIAR INTL program commences. Amateur radio and UFOs,Area 51,
Random access thought, â??ancient amateur archivesâ? by W2X2Y,A talk about computers.
Topic on Amateur radio in schools.
22:00 hrs station ID

I find your program very informative.I would like to receive your special edition QSL for this broadcast.

Please confirm reception with a QSL card, a pennant, sticker and your program schedule.
Thank you very much.

Joel Baile
63 Sweet Clover Crescent
Brampton,Ontario L6R 3A1
Canada

e-mail:jabyet@yahoo.com.

As It Was In 1998: Packet's Radio's Best Kept Secrets! The Double Oak Story!

2009-02-20T00:15:00.000-05:00

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So while tacking my way through the shoals and tidal inlets of the great Digital Sargasso Sea, I took a moment this past Sunday afternoon to click on http://archive.org/ This remarkable location is just one of a number of online virtual libraries that harvests and houses all sorts of Internet flotsam, including complete web pages that date back in time to at least 1996.
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I then looked up http://nobleharbor.com/ which, among other things, is a personal shrine to the art of Tea as hosted by Tim Maxwell KA2PKH. I also recalled that Tim used to have a few copies of my now defunct TELNET NEWS packet radio newsletter ranging from 1998 to 2000 posted on his site and sure enough, they were still accessible. This was a significant find since a now archaic Toshiba Satellite laptop in my possession harbors the entire TELNET NEWS documentation with one minor glitch. In it's current state, the computer does not see the floppy drive. Maybe a corrupt driver, maybe not. I'll get around to it one day.
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Anyway, in 1998, I was already performing a monthly special segment for George Bowen's This Week in Amateur Radio but this was well before the installation of the Random Access File and Random Access Thought programs which I currently produce. In fact, those features focused mostly on amateur packet radio from the user's perspective, especially with regard to the overlap between various regional AX25 radio networks and access to the Internet from those networks.
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What follows is radio copy dated October 31st, 1998 detailing a then existing packet environment deep in the heart of Texas. Whether any these network devices still exist, I must admit I have not taken the time to verify but if you have a nifty client such as the last and best version of Winpack version 6.80 or any other functional telnet program, go see!
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---
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Hello George, Here's copy for the next packet installment for TWIAR. n2fnh/Bill.
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Coming up next on This Week In Amateur Radio, ME! N2FNH! With more on those amazing packet Internet Gateways. Don't you dare touch that dial!
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Hello there! It's me again! N2FNH with more on those amazing Packet Internet Gateways. Listen, I have a three-year old son. His name is Zachary. And Zachary LOVES trains. This kid has more train toys than AMTRAK and CONRAIL have rolling stock. You name it, he's got it. Everything from amazing remote control jobbies to all those little Thomas The Tank Engine bits, pieces and parts. When he gets a little older, I plan to take my son, the train expert, to the Mecca of all train stations, Grand Central Station in New York City where we can convene and converse with our fellow trainiacs, co-passengers, concessionaires, the bums who pee in the street and all the other denizens who live and work in the bowels of one of Gotham City's best known landmarks.
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Thinking about Grand Central Station somehow got me to thinking about packet radio, the Internet and all kinds of crazy communications networks. How I made this mental segue still mystifies me but it does give me the chance to profile a kind of Grand Central Station I discovered in the world of packet Radio. There's a guy named Larry Story who lives down in Double Oak, Texas. He's a professional airline pilot who is also an enthusiastic amateur radio operator who loves the digital domain. His call is WB5CQU and he runs a gateway using JNOS software that bridges the Internet with not one, not two, not three but four different types of packet networks, not to mention the local neighborhood AX25 stuff. Larry's system allows the user access not only to the usual local NETROM environment but also entry into a regional system known as the ROSE X25 Network. There is also access to another protocol called TEXNET, as well as a solidly established TCPIP collective.
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There are a few ways to access WB5CQU. If you are currently connected to another Packet Internet Gateway, then check your nodes list and look for the alias IPCQU. If it's there, then try the usual NETROM connect. If it works, you will be seen by IPCQU as an amateur radio link and should allow you full access. If you decide to telnet in from your gateway or from your Internet service provider, you will need to send a message to: wb5cqu@wb5cqu.ampr.org after you login requesting access to the site. It usually takes a day or so to get the nod of approval. Right now, the way IPCQU is configured, Larry is using a point To point protocol or PPP connection to the Internet. What this means is that you must use Larry's domain name to establish the telnet session rather than the 32-bit IP address. With the PPP connection, Larry's server is operating with something called dynamic IP addressing which means the numeric address tends to change from session to session. Although the IP address changes, the domain name does not. Should you get a busy signal from IPCQU, hang out for a few minutes and then give it another go. So the address to remember is: IPCQU.DYN.ML.ORG or INDIA PAPA CHARLIE QUEBEC UNIFORM dot DELTA YANKEE NOVEMBER dot MIKE LIMA dot OSCAR ROMEO GULF.
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Once you are in, take the time to really scope out IPCQU. Check the nodes lists, the ports lists and the IH lists. Check out the message areas for updates on the ROSE X25 Network and the emerging FPAC protocol. Larry tells me FPAC is an extension of the ROSE standard and appears designed to replace the existing software. Also scan the hard drive with that W command for even more information. You will need it because the ROSE and TEXNET local area networks have different command structures. They're easy to learn but there are some differences. The fun, for me at least, was to actually discover and try out these network protocols that I could only read about in those two ARRL best seller publications, "Your Packet Companion" and "Practical Packet Radio".
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Here's how Larry describes the ROSE protocol in one of his text messages: The ROSE X25 Packet Switch is a replacement for the common digipeater or other node switching EPROM. The ROSE Switch represents the latest state of the art in Packet Networking technology using international standard protocols. The ROSE switch is the first Amateur Packet Networking program to use International Standard protocol known as CCITT X25. The program is burned into a EPROM and placed in any of the standard TNC2 clones. This EPROM replaces the standard system chip in the TNC.
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The ROSE X25 Packet Switch offers some interesting features:
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HOP by HOP Acknowledgements between Switches providing higher reliability and throughput.
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A 9600 BAUD or higher BACKBONE that is completely Transparent to the user.
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VIRTUAL addressing. The user only needs to know the address at the exit point and not all the intermediate steps.
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DYNAMIC route selection. The Network will automatically attempt other alternate paths if a link is down.
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PREDETERMINED Network paths. The network will not attempt impossible links that are heard during a band opening.
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SUPPORTS all packet protocols including TCPIP, NETROM and AX25.
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Larry goes on to say that an organization called the Radio Amateur Telecommunications Society or RATS were the developers of this networking system which currently stretches from Texas to Oklahoma as well as Florida, Louisiana, Michigan and Illinois. I have also found other ROSE networks in places like New Jersey and a few localities in France. I spent a few nights playing with the WB5CQU system and figured out the commands necessary to navigate both the ROSE and TEXNET systems. I should also say that the TEXNET protocol appears to be a cross between the common NETROM networks and ROSE is designed to be a reliable high speed networking system that meshes well with the coexisting ROSE environment. Once I was familiar with the networks, I then took the opportunity to establish some really enjoyable keyboard QSOs with the good folks who live the Double Oak area. From all this experimenting, I made two really good friends over the IPCQU Packet Gateway. They are Bonnie KC5MSV and her brother Terry KC4EYD who lives near Jacksonville, Florida. I've been QSOing with Bonnie and Terry for just about two years now. In fact, we even took it a step further for a couple of voice QSOs over the Internet using VoxChat. And that's really what this is all about. There are thousands of Packet to Internet Gateways in some 100 countries around the world and much of your time will be spent negotiating with other computers but the best fun is using all that technology, all that gear, all that stuff to get your digital self all the way over to somebody else's keyboard for the sole purpose of saying Hello! Bon Jour! Saludos! Shalom! Merhaba! or just plain old How the heck are ya? with another guy or gal who digs the Ham Radio scene as much as you do!
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And that's it for this time around. Remember: "Today the Network! Tomorrow the World!" This is Bill Baran N2FNH saying 73 for This Week In Amateur Radio!
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-30-

Shop The Union Label! These? Doubtful...

2009-02-20T00:14:00.000-05:00

In The Shape Of A Square...

2009-02-17T11:29:00.000-05:00

From the RATFILES Circa 2004: Linnix, Lynux...Whatever!

2009-02-17T11:16:00.002-05:00

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Editor's note: The Random Access Thought and the Random Access File can be heard in produced form, complete with expensive licensed sound effects, exclusively over This Week in Amateur Radio, North America's premier amateur radio audio news bulletin service, heard on hundreds of VHF and UHF repeaters around the world. This Week can also be downloaded in various audio formats by clicking on http://www.twiar.org/ What follows is a text script for a RAT which should available Saturday evening April 24th, 2004.
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The other day while I was perusing various items for bid on EBAY, my inner voice, my alter ego,a voice from the id, decided to pop up up like a lousy two bit Internet ad:
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BILL?
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Yes?
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DID YOU SEE PAGE 92 OF THE MARCH 2004 QST?
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No, not yet.
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YOU SHOULD CHECK IT OUT.
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OK, I will.
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DO IT NOW!
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You know you're very pushy.
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YES, I KNOW.
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OK, so I'm reading already. I see it's the Digital Dimension column by Stan Horzepa WA1LOU. It's about going online with Linux. What am I looking for?
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YOU KNOW YOU'RE MISPRONOUNCING THAT NAME.
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Yeah? So what do you say, Linnux?
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I DID, UNTIL I READ THAT ARTICLE. LOOK TOWARD THE END WHERE IT SAYS: HOW DO YOU SAY LINUX. GO AHEAD AND READ IT!
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You know you're very pushy.
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YES, I KNOW.
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Why don't you read it yourself?
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OK, I WILL, SO LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY!
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HERE IS SOME LINUX TRIVIA. THERE ARE VARYING OPINIONS ON HOW TO PRONOUNCE LINUX. I HAVE HEARD THE 'LIN' IN LINUX PRONOUNCED WITH A SHORT 'I' AS IN 'LINDA' AND WITH A LONG 'I' AS IN 'LINE'. BOTH ARE INCORRECT. ACCORDING TO LINUS TORVALDS, THE FATHER OF LINUX, THE 'I' IN LINUX IS PRONOUNCED LIKE A LONG 'E', THAT IS 'LEE-NUX'. GO TO http://www.paul.sladen.org/pronunciation/ AND HEAR LINUS PRONOUNCE IT HIMSELF.
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So Boys and Girls, today's lesson is. It's not Linnix. It's not Lynux. Now get this. It's Leeeennix. Leeeeeeeeeenix. Did you get that? Leeeeeeeeeeeenix!
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SEE, I WAS RIGHT.
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You know you're very pushy.
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YES, I KNOW!

THE FNH UPDATE: Fortunately, it appears the above address is still valid :)

From the RAT FILES Circa 2004: The Dead Are Among Us! The Dead Are All Around Us!

2009-02-08T00:52:00.000-05:00

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The following was originally composed as radio copy for air in May of 2004 in a feature entitled THE RANDOM ACCESS FILE over THIS WEEK IN AMATEUR RADIO, North America's premier amateur radio audio news service. Please click on the following http://www.twiar.org/ for additional details.
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The dead are among us. The dead are all around us. The dead reside in our attics. The dead lie buried within our basements. The dead are parked in our living rooms, lodged in our bedrooms and concealed in darkened back corners in our places of work.
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The dead are among us. The dead are all around us. There are corpses to be found everywhere. But they did not decompose. Nor did they rot. Nor did they go rancid. Or grow fetid with age. As you might expect. More than likely, they may have rusted badly or they may have simply become dusty or dirty or possibly moldy or grimy or gunky at the very worst. But the dead among us. They never lived to begin with. But they may have provided a valuable service or perhaps a pleasant mood.
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Case in point: In the attic space above me in this very house, even as I now write, several multi hued plastic milk crates are stuffed chockful of paper cardboard sleeves, festooned with colorfully creative and in some cases, outrageous psychedelic artwork. And inside those sleeves, large twelve inch diameter black and shiny and often slightly warped but otherwise nominally flat, grooved plastic vinyl discs with a little hole in the center, specifically designed to rotate on a motorized platter precisely at 33 and a third revolutions per minute and to make a sound which would come out of two speakers in such a way that the effect was to be called "stereo".
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And in those same multi hued plastic milk crates, many smaller though quite similar seven-inch diameter plastic discs with a much larger hole in the center, made to spin a little faster at a speed of 45 RPM. Why, there are even a few additional discs made of some kind of heavy Shellac or Acetate. Their nominal speed of rotation was set to 78 RPM, although this was really supposed to 78.26 revolutions per minute, so I am told.
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All dead. Things that don't play anymore. Dead media. Early analog software with now very hard-to-find hardware to play them on. More than likely your own Victrola, your own record player doesn't work anymore and the cost to replace that hardware with what few record players that are still being manufactured is beyond belief. And thanks to current technology and the widespread cheap availability of digital compact discs and MP3 players, the lowly, low quality audio cassette is now on death row, doomed to extinction as is the equally lowly and equally low quality video cassette. The message is clear for videotape since you can go to WalMart and buy VCRs for under $49 and formatically transitional hybrid VCR-DVD players for maybe twice that amount. The once and future LP and EP is now the now and soon to once CD and DVD.
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And where are you hiding your laserdiscs and attendant laserdisc players? Did you get any bids on eBAY? Did anyone give you five bucks for them at your local garage sale? You and I both know they are corroding away in spiderweb enshrouded damp and moldy cardboard boxes in your cellar. It's just our dirty little secret. No one else need know.
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And what of the office secretary's most valuable friend and formidable ally? That gallant and valiant prince of print, the ultimate analog communications medium, the typewriter, terminated without pay! The IBM...retired! The Olivetti...expired! The Smith Corona...recycled and melted down into molten slag! Collateral damage includes carbon paper, the very bane of those very same secretaries and those equally messy mechanical marvels, the Mimeograph and the smudgy purple Ditto machine.
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In fact, the secretaries themselves have become a dead medium. Alas, not only analog but also expensive to run, almost all of these lovely ladies laid off and replaced with a onetime investment in a little black box which answers the office telephone with its cloying and annoying digital voice that says: PRESS 1 for residential services. PRESS 2 for business services. Or stay on the line for the next available representative. Estimated serve time: 61 minutes and 19 seconds - Please hold!"
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Other communications media were tried and died. Stop to think: The town crier...fired! Smoke signals...faded! Only the Vatican still uses smoke signals. Two colors: white and black for new Pope and dead Pope related information. The passenger pigeon,finished and extinct! Back in 1849, the Reuters News Service actually had a functional pigeon-delivered stock-price reporting network but now? Grounded! The Morse telegraph, a big deal in 1837, a dead deal in 2004. Although thousands of amateur radio operators still employ the Morse code as a means of communication, virtually every business, government and military agency has forsaken those sinusoidal continuous waves. Why, do you realize that the American Radio Relay League Radiogram is indeed a dead medium? The Internet and e-mail has effectively blown away that method of information transfer.
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Some dead media continue to claw for life in highly specialized environments. Like the rare sea-faring Marine Iguana, found only on the remote shoals of the Galapagos Islands, the pneumatic transfer tube is a now-archaic technology that curiously can be found only within the concrete shade of the savings bank teller drive-through window but nowhere else.
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Meanwhile, there may still be a few DATs, not bats but DATs, that is, Digital Audio Tape machines that may still be flourishing in the back rooms of some sound studios and post-production houses but DAT never got a toe hold in households. Some future media came into this world stillborn and never got off the ground. Witness the the promise of the Bell System PicturePhone unveiled at the 1964 New York World's Fair: DOA man! Dead on arrival.
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Some species of dead media simply refuse to die. Go to any Chinese laundry in New York City and find an abacus in prominent daily use. The abacus has been traced back to ancient Egypt as far back as 500 BC and is still here. Meanwhile,many old people live on in quiet desperation in their rent stabilized apartments with their out of date Bakelite rotary dial telephones which can be of no use when the digital voice on the other end of the line intones:"PRESS 1 for residential services."PRESS 2 for business services. Or stay on the line for the next available representative. Estimated serve time: 2 days, 14 hours, 5 minutes and 42.3 seconds. Please hold!"
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While I was a resident in the little town of Sand Lake in upstate New York, my local barber shunned both ancient mechanical and futuristic computerized cash registers in favor of the ultimate dead medium for handling currency, counting the cash and coin using his hands and counting it correctly and storing it all in a cardboard shoebox! Like money, the deceased can be tallied in legion numbers, an endless list that includes such things as slide rules. Electronic calculators did Murder One on that device.
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Little cheap chip-sets have made obsolete all those plastic Chatty Cathies, Teddy Ruxpins and other talking dolls that relied solely on a string pulled plastic disc for playback. Another casualty, a low tech toy that I still own, 2XL, a wisecracking little plastic robot with a Brooklyn accent and a flair for being educational to children could not match the Speak And Spell master chip with his own custom made eight track tapes.
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And how about those Eight track tapes. Those four track tapes. Those two track PlayTapes. Those BetaMax Video tapes. Those UMatic professional 3/4 inch videocassettes. Those weird boxy little video broadcast cartridges. Those weird boxy little Fidelipac audio broadcast cartridges. Those monster 2 inch Quad reel to reel video tapes. Those Quadraphonic four channel sounds, both discrete and matrix. All outmoded, deep sixed in dumpsters, entombed in landfills. Or up for bid on eBAY! Even the stereo optical ViewMaster, a child's gem of the 1960s is invalid.
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In the unreal, surreal and sometimes, all too real, universe of motion pictures, the lumbering Vitaphone record player gave way to the clanky 35 millimeter magnetic film machine or the smoothly spinning magnetic tape machine that came in various tape widths and inch per second speeds, all of which were surpassed by hard drive or optical drive workstations where the mere idea of working with magnetic media is seen as being akin to playing with little strips of plastic littered with rust. And whatever happened to Cinerama and Cinemascope anyway? And whatever happened to those Bell and Howell eight millimeter home movies? And whatever happened to those Bell and Howell Super eight millimeter home movies? Gone! And forgotten! So much dead media! Things that don't play anymore. So many impossible to find devices! The list never ends.

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Some final considerations: Whistling networks where guys actually hooted really loud in an effort to span vast mountains and valleys with their mouth noises. And how about those humongous Alpenhorns like you see in those old Riccolo TV commercials? The Pony Express, the U.S. Army's Myer Code Semaphore system, a circa 1860 technology and other things like the A.T.&T. wire photo, big in 1925 and the RCA Radio Photo equally big in 1926. Wire recorders, my Uncle Fred had one of these. It was big! It was bulky! It smelled funky! But it was cool! Toss in those 16-inch diameter aluminum transcription disks, some Magic Lanterns, a few Elcassettes and a couple of Atari 400s. Oh, don't forget DOS and Windows 3.1, 95 and 98. All dead! dead! dead! The dead...are among us. The dead...are all around us. The dead are still here. And now, this monologue is dead too. This is Bill Baran N2FNH for This Week in Amateur Radio.
- 30 -

Business Cards!

2009-02-01T19:37:00.001-05:00

Dead Media! Funny Sounds! And Cigarettes!

2009-02-01T14:00:00.001-05:00

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This week's Random Access Thought is an encore performance featuring the return of the THE DEAD ARE AMONG US Guy with more announcements of technological dead ends, including legacy devices like serial ports, the Western Union Telegram and primordial electronic organizers, such as the Sharp Zaurus and the Palm Pilot along with primitive video game consoles like the Nintendo Gameboy. The special feature first aired in April 2008 and features commentary from Marilyn Krasnov, her Mom Mother Radio (Beverly Krasnov) and her father Boleslov. Marilyn's enigmatic brother Cigman makes a cameo appearance in this Random Access Thought piece.
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As a sidebar, Cigman has been trying to quit smoking. For anyone out there who pays any attention to the intentionally obscure minutiae deposited deep within the RAT programs and promos and the QSL, Twitter and KXKVI commercials, Cigman was a three pack a day smoker,just like my Mother and Father were. Since December of last year, Cigman has avoided the cigs. Here's hoping that he won't relapse. It's tough being a smoker since in a recent promo announcing our KXKVI TWIAR podcast portal for wireless devices, Cigman and his sistu Marilyn are dining in a nice restaurant where smoking is certainly not allowed. It would appear that video games have replaced the butts.
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Speaking of TWIAR promos, I devised a new TWIAR QSL promo which features Bix, his father Mister Nix, Mother Radio and Marilyn. There is an inexplicable reference to gym shorts after Bix's shortwave radio vaporizes which goes largely unexplained. If you're curious about this audio neutrino, send me an e-mail.
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The electric shock vaporizing sound I created a few years back for my "When the Repeater Blows Up, Will Anyone Notice" RAT. To give the shock sound more meat, the effect was uber-compressed. The Mother Radio Whack Noise is actually a vintage Disney effect that I've tracked back to Peter Pan which I believe debuted in 1937. Nomadic sound editors apparently exported this clip across town to the UPA Pictures and Hanna Barbera sound effects libraries. This particular effect got some discussion in an animated cartoon forum which I took part in a while back.
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http://forums.toonzone.net/archive/index.php/t-184789.html
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The quasi-musical electronic backdrop behind Marilyn's QSL Card pitch was generated on a Nintendo DS Lite portable video game console using the KORG DS-10 Synthesizer program. These noises were then salad tossed in with other analogs that I had developed previously. The are two versions of the promo, one for TWIARi, the other for TWIAR. The differences are subtle but if you enjoy sound design, you may find it all quite interesting.

LONNY LINES!

2009-02-01T14:00:00.000-05:00

..
Many years ago, in the very early 1990's, I recall hearing a QSO on the local 147.12 RACES repeater where the topic of conversation was something called LONNY. Local hams were talking about connecting down to New York City and then connecting overseas to London. My personal knowledge of packet radio was nil and this was also just before the Internet burst forth as the Information Superhighway. The concept was quite intriguing but it was also clear from the content that there was some confusion as just how the LONNY infrastructure was laid out. By 1996, I was into the packet scene bigtime, quickly mastered the NEDA (North East Digital Association) network node maps, located useable although far flung packet-to-the-Internet gatways and discovered LONNY.
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Perhaps due to whatever genetic peculiarities I may harbor, I documented virtually every system I probed, scanned and employed. LONNY was no exception. I came across some text files I preserved from my exploration of this remarkable amateur radio communications system, along with an eventual death notice from one of LONNY's SysOps. These text files have been repaginated for display within the Blogspot message posting environment.
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LONNY SYSTEM OVERVIEW
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The LONNY system consists of 2 BPQ netrom nodes connected together at 9600Bd full duplex over a commercial data circuit. The London end is located in the NBC NEWS buro next to centre point (io91wk) the New York end ,30 Rockefeller Plaza central NY at NBC NEWS HQ. A further 9600 Bd wormhole also connects NY to Burbank in California. The node calls are LONNY GB7GBR-1,NYHUB WA2NDV-10 and BURBNK W6RCL-2 LONNY and NYHUB also have co sited BBS and TCPIP routers,#gbbbs gb7gbr,IPNBC gb7gbr-5,BBSNDV wa2ndv-4,NYTALK wa2ndv-9. All the nodes are fully integrated into their respective local packet networks,NYHUB and LONNY both supporting 2 9K6 links each to their neighbouring nodes plus other 1200Bd links. The data circuit is owned by NBC NEWS and the ham service is multiplexed into the primary 128KB data stream carrying the networks news computer links. The service is tolerated as the amount of data added by the amateur network is negligble relative to the main service. The circuit is carried over an undersea transatlantic fiber optic cable TAT9 with a back up path available via 56 kb ISDN dial up. The Lonny node and BBS run on a 386 33 mhz machine while IPNBC is running on a seperate 486 dx 66 machine. The system has been running for approximately 4 years continuosly and in the last year tcpip routing to an internet gate in New Jersey has further enhanced the available connectivity of the system. Users should be aware it is illegal for uk stations to originate msgs on USA BBS systems and vice versa. BBSNDV and GB7HSN forward twice hourly so launch your mail from the right side of the pond please. Equipment for the system is all donated by and maintained by local amateurs and the nbc radio club. In particular G1HSN and G4ZEK who both have invested substantial time and equipment in providing various Rf links and computer equipment.
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regards Julian (g4nqo sysop lonny UK)
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This system is co sited with the Lonny BPQ node/wormhole which is linked to WA2NDV-10 in New York USA on a private data circuit at 9600BD WA2NDV-10 has a 9k6 rf link to the internet gate k2mf-5 in New Jersey. LONNY has 2 9k6 rf links to g1hsn-1 and gb7me and IPNBC has 2 1200bd rf links on 4m linking to the catrad network and 6m user access with no links. Telnet connects from this site to any of the ham/internet gateways typically take 5-10 seconds sometimes less. All international tcpip traffic from this site routes via k2mf-5 44.64.20.2 If you wish to reach the IPBBC gateway please note telnet connections route to it via k2mf-5 (recommended as its fast). Alternatively you can use the RF path by connecting to g8lws-1 then IPBBC. An AXIP Link to IPBBC also runs from WA2NDV-10. To use that connect to NYHUB (wa2ndv-10) then connect to IPBBC. This will again route via k2mf-5. Due to differing route quality standards in the US and UK I do not advise you try netrom connects more than one node out from lonny to any UK nodes as many netrom routes are one way ie lonny is on node tables of nodes that don,t appear on lonny,s node table. Best go to WIGGY or MOTTHM or CATA40 or GB7ME and then netrom out further from those nodes. Avoid using the world wide converse server on IPNBC as it hammers the memory resources. This system provides international links for most of the SE UK if it crashes a lot of people are affected. Check NEWS and RULES for more help or info.
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***** DO NOT *****
Telnet to non 44. XX ie non ham ip addresses.
Multiple stream connect to or through this system
Access the IPNBC converse server unless your desperate
Converse link your converse system to IPNBC without asking
Access converse servers along way away..use your nearest one thats linked
Drag me or this system into pro/con debates on BBS,s
***** -X- *****
ENJOY
de G4NQO
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World Wide Converse in the UK
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The worldwide converse (WWC) is made up of numerous converse nodes around the world linked together over internet and amateur packet links. Generally the international links use very hi speed internet links while the links around a particular country utilise amateur packet links. A station logging onto a linked WWC node can expect to find anything upto several hundred stations logged on at any particular time on dozens of different logical channels.
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Obviously this amount of traffic generates huge amounts of data every frame of which must be successfully carried to every node on the network and if the system is to work correctly, be carried pretty damn quick. Consequently if we are all to enjoy this relatively new facet of packet
radio some simple rules should be followed to minimise the loading it imposes on the amateur network.
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1) Stay Local! use your nearest converse server. Each node you hop through to reach a converse server will have to carry the full converse load just for you. If you go the same route the converse links are already using you double the traffic load,jam the converse network and gain nothing..don,t do it...EVER!!!!!
2) Keep off the default channel 0. Its the busiest most chaotic thing you will ever see on packet
3) use the /w q command rather than /w. to see who,s connected.200 calls plus their names,qth,age,sex and the weather is an awful lot of traffic. Unless you have a very good link its unlikely the converse server will get all this info to you before it times out and dumps you. /w callsign will tell you a stations personal text on jnos systems.
4)You want to be a converse server? If so you will need to conv link your nos station to an exsisting converse server. Golden rules 1) ASK first! 2) make sure you have a fast reliable route. 3) Don,t link to two linked converse servers at the same time you will generate a converse loop and you will cause chaos ultimately someone will disconnect the converse link to the UK to maintain the service and its real embarrassing having to ask to be reconnected afterwards. Not too much to ask is it??
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73 Julian (sysop Lonny/ipnbc/gb7gbr)
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Message #16
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 16:00:37 +0000 (GMT)
From: Gareth Rowlands
To: all
Subject: *** LONNY CLOSEDOWN ***
Message-Id: 4430_GB7BBC
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Hi Lonny users
I have reluctantly decided to shut down the Lonny node RF ports for an indefinate period while various licence issues are addressed. To date i have tried to quietly keep abreast of of the various issues that have been raised on the packet network and the represnetations made to the DTI/RA/RSGB and have felt fairly confident of battling through but with the latest warning that BBS are restricted to operation from home addresses, the front end node restrictions, technical problems at the site and a lot of work going on I just havn,t got the time at the moment for something that is rapidly having all the fun taken out if by seemingly endless red tape..I,m an engineer not a pen pusher!all the best for now
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Julian (g4nqo sysop Lonny/IPNBC/GB7GBR)

From the RAT Files Circa 2003: The Hobby of a Lifetime!

2008-10-18T01:01:00.000-04:00

The following was originally composed as radio copy for a feature entitled THE RANDOM ACCESS FILE for THIS WEEK IN AMATEUR RADIO for airing on October 25, 2003. For more information on this audio news service, please click on http://www.twiar.org/

I remember this little kid. Cute kid. About nine years old. I remember this little kid sitting in the front room at his house at 644 Morris Street which was actually a huge rambling apartmentthird floor up in the Pine Hills section of Albany. Crouched by the big bay window, tightly gripping a heavy chrome microphone with the big quarter-inch plug jacked into a Roberts upright reel-to reel tape recorder, he sat there belting out a play-by-play commentary over the fly-in, the fly by and the fly away of the glorious Goodyear Blimp , a silver helium-filled, lighter than air baggy cigar gliding gracefully high in the starlit skies over the city on a crisp and chilly Friday October evening with its glittering red, yellow, green and blue pinpoints of light that spelled out the word GOODYEAR in giant sparkling letters across its massive broadside.

Then I remember remember this other little kid. He's about a year older. About ten. He's feverishly tape-recording the warbling, the chortling and the singing noises of the Three Amigos coming out of a big beige-colored RCA Color TV three-inch speaker from a NBC show called "The Wonderful World of Disney". He's doing this with the same grey wrinkly-metal clad tape machine with it's light-glinting plastic seven-inch diameter Scotch Brand magnetic tape reels coasting around and around at an amazing seven-and-one-half inches per second. All the funny music, the silly voices and the bang-clang sound effects preserved on a thin quarter-inch slice of acetate plastic and magnetic stuff that the 3M Company called type 111, all of which is basically just coherent rust.

Of course, all this this happened some forty years ago and all this courtesy of Dad, who faithfully made the commute upstate every Friday night after work because he lived in the Bronx and who sometimes lugged the twenty-five pound Roberts with him just so some little kid could practice blimp announcing or generate an endless succession of mouth-fart noises or sometimes even secretly spied on Mom and Dad's kitchen conversation using the heavy chrome mike with the big quarter-inch plug jacked into the Roberts all weekend-long.

And then there was this other little kid who finally got his own portable Airline tape recorder from Montgomery Ward with the tiny three-inch reels. The big fist-sized microphone was concealed on the front face of the machine which unhinged along with a long thick coily cord, which then could be parked in front of the TV in order to snag the cool Hanna-Barbera sounds from Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear and Top Cat plus neato noises from Hollywood flicks like "Forbidden Planet", "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Robinson Crusoe On Mars". All these little kids soon grew up to be me who's talking to you right now.

The Roberts machine would eventually return to me and stay with me and finally die with me many years later but not before a succession of other tape recorders came along, like the monster WEBCOR that I borrowed from Kurt Hackel down the block. It never got returned because he and his family moved away and he said he didn't want it anymore. Then there was the Mercury five- inch reel-to-reel portable and another Wards Airline seven-inch reel job, both of which I played and plowed into the ground until no reels would turn anymore.

But during the associated tenures of all these machines, many more hours would be spent recording silly sounds off the TV or the sometimes seemingly bizarre noises right outside my bedroom window. The Goodyear Blimp would make many more migrations to our city over the course of a half-score of years and on many occasions, the mike would be thrust out the window to document the low "brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" of the blimp engines. Scary space noises also came in over the crunchy static on a shortwave radio, a big one down at Terry O'brien's house. Terry and his brother Mike had this huge ominous pinewood-finish shortwave radio console with the eerie green tuning eye circa 1940 in their attic bedroom and the WEBCOR was dragged over to archive the weird burbling teletypes, the oodly-doodly howling facsimiles, the impending BEEP..BEEP..BEEP of CHU , the monotonous drone of the WWV and other boinking, beeping and blipping baudot blasts that boodled and oodled their way beyond the heavy cloth speaker and into the microphone.

The many hours spent tape recording soon gave way to many more hours spent hunched over a splicing jig, mounted on my little desk which was hand painted a horrible stark blue color by my well-meaning Mom who felt that wood-aging and antiquing was her personal calling. These hours would be spent carefully slicing and carefully splicing and carefully matching the forty-five degree sliced ends of the tape together with some very sticky milky-white splicing tape, all of which you could get at the Lafayette Electronics store or the Radio Shack. Splicing the tape meant you could connect a bunch of sounds together or maybe shorten or maybe lengthen a song, which seemed a really cool thing to do.

And so this became my hobby. At least it was my indoor hobby. I wasn't a total nerd though. I did actually go outside and do the skateboard and sprain my ankle, many times. And I did go and bat the ball and break the window, many times. And other kid stuff like that too. I did also get into the fine art of throwing stainless-steel razor-edged boomerangs with intent to kill. But here, I digress.

The concept of sound effects as a hobby was further cast in stone when I chanced to see a 50's vintage George Reeves Superman re-run on the tube where some kid running around with a tape machine collecting sounds actually helps Superman catch some big bad thugs by using the recorded sounds of the Man of Steel flying and landing to drive them crazy. I figured if it was good enough for Superman, then it was surely good enough for me. Now of course to our well meaning but terminally-misdirected though-most times kindly Certified Social Workers of our latter day, such an activity would be tagged to as "therapy". Because I was a kid doing all this, the CSWs would pencil it in as "play therapy".

Basket weaving is therapy. Potholders is therapy. Making a lamp out of some chunks of wood is eighth-grade shop class. Drawing pictures of Boogie men is not only play therapy but is also disturbing. Manipulating sounds at your very whim is magic. More than a hobby. Beyond an adventure. Magic! Those hours and hours of taping sounds and splicing sounds did become a minor obsession and this is actually how I got into broadcast radio. At the time, my primary goal was to gain access to sound recording equipment and that I did for about twenty years at various radio stations here in New York and Connecticut.

Access initially came in the form of big glowing rosy red tube-amplified AMPEX 350s and then the solid-state 440s, Scully 280s and Studer REVOX A77s. To be sure, I loved doing radio. But I loved playing with the sounds even more. A universe of monster ten-inch reel-to-reel tape machines, lead-weight sixteen-inch diameter turntables and audio consoles with audio gain knobs, known to the insiders as "pots". These pots were as big as a stevedore's meaty hands, all of which would maintain into the early 1990s when without much fanfare, an IBM 386 with Windows 3.1 and an on-screen virtual production studio-in-a-box called CARD-D materialized. This unseen epiphany unfolded at WROW here in Albany and now things could be done in way not seen before. Play a sound backwards? Click on a tab which said REVERSE. No more physically flipping the tape reels on a full-track tape recorder just to get the same effect. Play a sound at half speed? Click on a tab which said SAMPLING RATE. Change the rate from 44.1 KHz sampling to 22.025 KHz sampling which amazingly equals an analog recording run at half-speed. No more seven-and-a-half or fifteen inches per second mechanical speed switch.

But this was only the beginning. Things began to accelerate and began to become far more accessible beyond the professional broadcast or recording studio. Soon, the expensive IBM clone, the obnoxious proprietary software and hardware, indeed the studio itself was no longer restricted to the pages of Broadcasting Magazine but now sat on the shelves at COMPUSA. Another interesting bit of Karma phased in around the same time. A Canadian company called SOUND IDEAS managed to get its corporate fists wrapped around some remarkable and very well-known sound effects libraries. Here was something I had wished for for many decades and now for a few dollars, well, a lot of dollars, all the sounds I used to tape from the TV, all the sounds from Hanna-Barbera, all the sounds from Warner Brothers, all the sounds from Jay Ward were mine for the purchase. Sadly, the original tapes I had recorded those many years ago are gone. Some were lost through moves from place to another but most of them did not survive the decades well. They simply became unplayable through advanced age despite attempts to carefully preserve them. In their stead though, several small brightly-colored boxes with pictures of cartoons on them and each box loaded with many silver digital disks encoded with the very same things I had lost so long ago. They were back. And what's more, while I still have a functioning Studer Revox A77 sitting on the floor in my bedroom, I have do also nine different computers sitting in the living room loaded with various flavours of COOLEDIT and GOLDWAVE available to me at my very mouse tip. And so that which became my hobby is still my hobby.

In the evening hours when it's just me and Suzie (my one foot wife), I sit before a beige-colored computer monitor with the COOLEDIT displayed upon the glowing screen. There is no tape now. No splicing jig. But there is the mouse which works much better and certainly much safer than the razor blade. And sitting on track 30 of the disk which I just this moment slid into the CD player is a two-minute audio clip of the Goodyear Blimp recorded in 1961 by Audio Fidelity Records as it was nosing it's way up the Hudson River, heading due North and on course for little old Albany, New York. And did you know this COOLEDIT has a multitrack feature?? So there's one track for the blimp, And one track for Bill. And I've also got this long, thin plastic Radio Shack microphone right here with the tiny one-eighth inch plug jacked into the computer. Hmmm, what should I say next? -30-

The N2FNH Sound Effects Library 3B: Simple Sound Design!

2008-09-28T14:15:00.001-04:00

I've gotten a lot of mileage from the basic everyday Microsoft Windows 98 ding wav. I currently use CoolEdit Pro Version 2.1 so when I produced a Random Access Thought on the JingTong general purpose handhelds, I needed a show and tell slideshow bell, like what you might have heard if you've been around long enough to recall those clunky junky 35mm slide film and vinyl audio record machines. The bell was the audio cue to jump to the next visual slide.

I would have used the Microsoft ding wav but as simple as it was, it was all too closely associated with PCs, so I downshifted the frequency of the bell by ten per cent. The original duration was maintained and the resulting effect was a dull and uninspiring sad little bell. But this was exactly what I wanted.

At another earlier time, I took the ding wav and time-stretched out to about four seconds. The DING became a DIIIIIIIIG. Then I passed it though a so-called CoolEdit Pro"Martian Echo" and the resultant effect was more of a DEE DOO DEE DOO DEE DOO. I then looped a lot of these DEE DOOS in sequence and they made for an appealing high tech background sound, especially when tossed in with other custom produced ambiances.

Bored one day, I took the DEE DOO loop file and adjusted the sample rate from 22.050KHz to 19,2000 KHz. Flanged it. Then, reversed the file. Flanged it again. Adjusted the sample rate back to 22.050KHz. The result was startling! A nifty very 1950's vintage vibrato-like outer space music effect. I use parts of this track now quite often.

I've produced a number of Random Access programs and promos which revolve around the theory of the Internet Tubes. I was able to assemble a unique mini-library of Internet Tube effects, going back to the DEE DOO noise as a source effect. But remember! The Microsoft ding wav was the source of all of these!

Two things I did to the files: First, I Dopplered them all, including the ambiances - I wanted an aural feeling that things on the super information highway burbling by at high speed, like cars and trucks zooming by with that distinctive sweeping high to low WHOOOOM. Second, the DEE DOO noise was subjected to extensive modification to shift the DEE DOO into a more brassy tinkling sound, as if the e-mail and file transfers flitting by were feverishly flapping their tiny metallic wings. Finally, these same sounds were passed through a so-called CoolEdit Pro"Tunnel Echo" which really made the flying wavs sound even more tinkly and brassy.

You've seen photographs of a house-sized ball of string with a man standing next to it. The Nutty guy started with a strand maybe an inch or two long when he was seven. Fifty five years later, there's a fifteen foot diameter cloth sphere in his front yard that the neighbors wish he would just roll away. But the theory is the same. Start out with something small and simple and you can build, assemble and construct things that look or sound nothing like the original, but of course, much better and far more exciting!

That's what creativity is all about!

Visual Sound Effects! More Optical Onomatopoeia!

2008-09-20T19:45:00.002-04:00

Here are a few more images associated with visual sound effects or optical onomatopoeia. Most of these are from stateside comic publications. Remarkably, many of these seemingly silly words are very similar to names assigned to audio sound effects in commercially available libraries such as the Hanna Barbera Sound FX Library.They use such nonsense words to label sounds that can not otherwise be titled.

Words like FLBONK, BILP, PEEONG, GEDUNK and BRONK, can not do justice to what each effect actually sounds like but at least you know which is which. In my own effects library, I am forced to do the same so equally baffling phrases like JAWUBBA_WUBBA and ZACHBLIP_BLOOP show in my inventory lists.

Some End Slices!

2008-09-15T19:33:00.001-04:00

Here are some quick lower case randomly accessed thoughts:

In a previous post, I made mention of Hanna-Barbera Drop-Ins Volume 1. For what it's worth, I come across an image of the vinyl album cover in case you should ever come across such a copy at a record convention, assuming that such get togethers are still held. As a reminder, some of the recordings on Drop-Ins appear on the O'connor Crazies compact disc which is still available. Jersey City FM radio station WFMU offers an excellent commentary on Hanna Barbera Records, the company's division that produced long play albums and 45RPM singles for public consumption, some of them downright odd! http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/08/the-vinyl-side-.html

The Japanese don't have exclusive franchise to print based onomatopoeia. From 1956 and 1987, MAD Magazine's Don Martin had some remarkably creative verbal effects bursting forth from his full page Don Martin Department feature liberally littered with print sound effects. My personal favorite effects was "ZWIT FAT!!!!", which he would pencil in as a whip crack effect or what a lizard tongue might sound like zwitting out of some weirdo's face in order to catch a fly!

http://www.collectmad.com/madcoversite/index-dmd.html
http://www.geist.com/curiosa/don-martin-department

Even television cashed in on the visual onomatopoeia thing. The original BATMAN TV series served big balloon word fonts when Batman and Robin engaged in fisticuffs with the bad dudes. Click on this address for an online repository of BATMAN thought balloon effects!

http://www.batmania.com.ar/paginas/serie_onomatopeyas.htm

Japanese Sound Effects! More Images and Addresses!

2008-09-15T19:32:00.000-04:00

I have a few sample giseigo and giongo images that I harvested last night, and what's more, here are a few more addresses which may offer the availability of additional publications on the subject of Japanese manga sound effects. Some of these websites may be presented in languages other than English, but if you take a few extra moments to carefully scan each page, you will be able to discern useful information even if you do not know the operative language.

http://www.virtualitesjaponaises.net/quotidienlivres.php

http://www.commecadujapon.com/dokuwiki/japonais/onomatopees

http://www.kaboodle.com/reviews/illustrated-dictionary-of-japanese-onomatopoetic-expressions-~-nihongo-gitaigo-jiten

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-9g-49-en-70-198v.html
(related information)

http://www.howtojapanese.com/HtLang.html#lang_336
(related information)

http://www.trussel.com/jap/jbooks01.htm
(related information)

Get the Book! Kana de Manga: Japanese Sound Effects!

2008-09-15T19:31:00.000-04:00

The paperback volume Kana de Manga: Japanese Sound FX is authored by Glen Kardy and illustrated by Chihiro Hattori and offers some interesting detail on the subject of Japanese manga sound effects.

The collective term for these Japanese sound effects is giseigo. There are categories: giongo for voiced sounds, gitaigo to display feelings and gijogo to reflect psychological conditions. With the exception of some graphic novels and comics published here in the United States, this form of visual onomatopoeia is more prevalent in Japanese manga and other print material. Japanese sound effects are composed in both hiragana and katakana. Deciding which to make use of is essentially an artistic judgment call. But as a rule, hiragana will be employed for soft,pleasant sounds and Japanese words while katagana comes in handy for harsh, loud sounds and foreign words.

This publication offers less in background detail but more on select sound effects across several chapters, including Animal Sounds, Human Sounds, Mechanical Sounds, Nature Sounds and other Miscellaneous Effects.

MNOAOS Zach is a big fan of Doctor Slump And Shaman King manga currently available at your hometown book stores but these are apparently recent English language reissues from the Japanese originals first published in the 1980's. Unfortunately, the unique printed sounds have been replaced with Romaji or English transliterations: largely just big silly words.

Addendum: Actually, not true! The big words are more in keeping with comics published in the USA in the sense that they are monster sounds. This Saturday Zach and I stopped by Borders Books and Music and picked up the latest copies of Shaman King. Like stateside comics, big, heavily fonted words like RAAAAAAH: crowd noise, WOOOOSH: wind, and SPLOOSH: water splashing are standard fare. There is the more enigmatic DOOM and SHEEN for sunlight. What is missing is the far more subtle print sounds for emotions and psychological mindsets, something that western audiences would have no reference for in such publications.

This book is available from Manga University at http://www.mangauniversity.com/ but I was able to obtain a copy right off the shelf at a Borders Books and Music here in little old Albany, New York.

Such a Big Deal? Japanese Manga Sound Effects?

2008-09-15T19:30:00.000-04:00

A few weeks back, while doing a random Google search on "sound effects", I came across references to "Japanese Sound Effects" and "Manga Sound Effects": the art of expressing sound through imagery within the panels of manga, or Japanese graphic novels. I was fortunate to discover that a local Border's Books and Music had a copy of KANA DE MANGA: JAPANESE SOUND FX!(created by Glenn Kardy) in stock. I will read and report in a few days. I have also discovered that a fair majority of web surfers stopping by here at The Random Access Thought are keenly interested in this subject!

The N2FNH Sound Effects Library! Part 3A: Sometimes it's better if you record it yourself!

2008-08-29T15:16:00.002-04:00

Back in 2004, on the weekend of MNOAOS Zachary's birthday, we held a small party with some of our friends at the house. Late in the afternoon, while Zach was engaged with his new presents and old pals, fellow hams Bill W2XOY and Jeff WA2AIB offered up some extemporaneous content for the then-relatively new Random Access Thought. Bill documented his thoughts on something referred to as "The Communicator Citizen Band Radio" while Jeff reflected on how it was he got interested in medium wave AM radio DXing when he was a kid back in the early 1960's.

For Jeff's feature, I needed two elements: a hollow wintry background wind, which I already had on hand, and the sound of an AM radio being tuned, which I did not already have on hand. So I spent about 20 minutes mining my existing stock libraries but could not found any interesting samples of AM radios being tuned. In fact, most of what was available were 1930's vintage floor consoles or just clips of squealing heterodynes. Out of minor annoyance, I grabbed a nearby Sangean SG-796 AM/FM/SW portable, held it up to the microphone, tuned the radio myself and recorded the sound.

This was the effect I wanted, but while listening to the playback, as short as the blips of radio voices were, I could hear comments concerning President George Bush and one or two other contemporary references. Since this was to a be more of an ambient effect, coupled with the fact that it was supposed to be the early 1960's...and given that I was too lazy to edit any further, I played the sound in reverse. The resultant effect was so pleasing that I have relied solely on this sound-played-backwards since then for any radio being tuned. Thus, if one of my characters, say Mother Radio, is tuning a shortwave radio, this is the recording you will hear. But this same sound has also been customized and mixed with heterodynes and other kinds of radio noises to make each use more unique.

Thunder recordings abound in commercially available sound effects libraries. There is really nothing more fun than using the original thunder sounds used in the 1931 Universal Pictures classic motion picture Frankenstein, but on occasion, you may want something a little different and while each library may offer a wide selection, usually they are very intense, explosive clips. Since summertime thunderstorms are a frequent occurrence here in little old Albany, it was easy to capture a few of my own using my cheap forty-nine dollar RadioShack analog cassette tape recorder.

Because of the audio characteristics associated with the C49DRSACTR, recordings of thunder will mix well with in-the-field audio recorded using the same device. For Field Day this year, Zach and I got together with the Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association during which time, a few roving thunder boomers trenched on by, While I was able to capture the sound of the downpour, I was not able to get any thunder. Not a problem! I already had various samples recorded with the C49DRSACTR in my library which would then match in terms of overall audio quality.

Speaking of rain, my best rain recording I made myself again with the C49DRSACTR. I stuck a microphone out a laundry room window to catch the loud ploppy droppy sounds of bloated globular raindrops impacting on mud and stones between two houses. I prefer this sound over any of the CD quality samples I have elsewhere.

Same deal with a car's electric window motor. I needed this sound for a TWIAR TWIARi QSL Promo but none of the samples on hand had what I wanted. So! Out the door with the C49DRSACTR to my 1996 Pontiac Grand Prix. The electric window motors are over ten years old so they already have that really cranky, buzzy, not-so-new sounding sound which is exactly what I wanted.

Designing sound effects is not always the same as recording music. In many cases, I can get away with a comparatively low-quality recording because the raw recording is going to be reconfigured anyway with the end product sounding remarkably better than the original item.

Japanese Manga Sound Effects! Not Sound...Pictures!

2008-08-09T10:30:00.001-04:00

Here's a web page I came across last night. One could imagine George Takei a.k.a. Star Trek's Mister Sulu dulcetly (such a word?) enunciating these verbally onomatopoeiac (such a word?) effects.

The link is http://www.oop-ack.com/manga/soundfx.html and is part of a larger page apparently devoted to Manga which, as My Number One And Only Son Zachary will advise, are Japanese comic books, jammed pack full of these Original Batman-like print effects. . Not your Silver Age Green Lantern or Aquaman stuff of the 1960's...

In fact, this is bigger than I thought! Here are a few other locations that expand further on this topic:

http://www.angelfire.com/geek/tetrisnomiko/sfx.html

http://www.jbox.com/PRODUCT/KDM002

http://www.reimeika.ca/aku/gunnmlastorder/Kana.html

http://www.reimeika.ca/aku/gunnmlastorder/kana4.html

Producing the Random Access Thought: The 5 Stages!

2008-08-03T15:32:00.003-04:00

The creation and completion of a typical Random Access Thought, sometimes also known as a Random Access File, for This Week in Amateur Radio is essentially a process laid out in five stages which if carefully crafted, will produce a viable result. Here are those stages:

1) THIMK:
Before production can embark in earnest, a subject is required. Although the focus will be lodged somewhere deep within the expansive electromagnetic domain, the very nature of this feature will be a random selection. Therefore, topics can range from amateur radio repeater IDs and long wave non-directional aircraft radio beacons to business band radio bootleggers and onward to the history of the Internet Tubes.

At this point, thought will also given into what sort of environment the episode is to be presented. Thus, if the subject is Stratovision - an experiment in the 1950s for wide range distribution of television programs by high flying airplanes, then the setting will be on board a post WW2 commercial Douglas DC-6, which brings us to stage 2:

2) SOURCING SOUND:
Prior to writing the script, voice clips, primary sound effects and environmental backtracks or music will be sourced from the N2FNH Sound Effects Library. For a recent feature on Business Band Radio Pirates, I recorded individual voice and radio sound clips direct to harddrive from a Uniden BCD-396T scanning receiver. These recordings have been preserved and may show again in extremely modified form in future releases.

For the same episode, I decided to go with an indoor radio room environment, which in this instance resulted from a merge of two previously designed tracks. The first was a background consisting of radio scanners in a room mixed with the sound of birds coming through an open window. The other was made up of additional scanners with distant muted city traffic. The two separate tracks were carefully balanced to provide the right environmental flavor. On many
occasions, a custom mini-library of specialty effects will also be designed. When the subject was the infamous Network of Internet Tubes, audio was composed to simulate what it might actually sound like being inside one of these alleged tubular worlds.

Likewise, a voice must be assigned. For a number of years, I hosted each week's performance but as weekly production became increasing more complex, other actors were recruited. My Number One And Only Son Zachary was drafted into service at the age of ten to handle announcing chores in the RAT and RAF promos that proceed the feature. Bill Continelli W2XOY has on occasion hosted a Random Access Thought with material he has written that falls beyond the realm of his popular Ancient Amateur Archives, also heard on This Week in Amateur Radio. Recent entries from Bill included "CQ MARS!" and "The Story of Reggie".

Some of the characters who appear in the RAT, BLOG and QSL promos have also been employed as hosts. Mother Radio, Cigman, Marilyn and Boleslav Krasnov have appeared as RAT emcees. During this phase, certain sounds and music components may be processed (compressed, equalized or filtered) to work better against the primary voices.

3) WRITING:

This is the hardest part. My procedure is to first research the topic either through text literature currently on hand or by trolling via the Internet. Using my trusty text editor, the Norton Commander, significant facts, keywords, and phrases are collected and digitally jotted down. Then, copy is composed and arranged around these core elements. From keyword insertion to final draft, the copy may be rewritten five times or more over a three day period, while at the same time assembling the voice clips, the effects tracks and anything else I need.

I can sometimes escape extensive writing if the content is taped in the field using my cheap, inexpensive, forty nine dollar RadioShack cassette analog tape recorder. In covering the local Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Association Field Day this past June, most of the RAT consisted of field recordings of club members with commentary scripted around each clip.

4) RECORDING:

Recording the final document is easy if one of the virtual characters reads. Very little clean up is needed plus the virtual voices read exactly as I tell them. "Clean up" is defined here as unwanted, extraneous noise that detracts from the quality of the presentation. When analog voices are used, there may be more "tone" and incidental noise. Likewise, breaths and other peculiar artifacts are also deleted.

5) FINAL MIX:

At this time, the TWIARi RAT, BLOG and QSL promos are mixed down to two tracks while the Random Access Thought is configured as a single track. I say "two track" because they are not stereo or binaural recordings but the result is a stereo effect. Voices and primary sounds will be assigned a "position in space". For example, Zach may be positioned 38 per cent left of center while Mother Radio is located 63 per cent right of center. This is sometimes referred to as ping-ponging but the payoff is that Zach is to your left and closer to center while MR is stage right but somewhat farther away. In some cases, environmental backtracks and ambiances may have actually been recorded in full stereo which further enhances the "two track as stereo" effect.

In the end, it's a labor of love. It's just a part of my amateur radio hobby that keeps me out of trouble.

N2FNH SFX: 2

2008-07-26T02:21:00.002-04:00

No matter how many sound effects libraries you have in your possession, there will always be some sound or noise that you need that you do not have on a storage disc, a magnetic tape or a non-volatile memory card. This leaves you with two options: produce the effect yourself (something which I will detail further in the next installment) or you can turn to the Internet.

You can view the Internet as an endless planetary ocean of digital detritus (a five dollar word - used in crossword puzzles and by science fiction writers everywhere) text, sounds, images, videos, all reduced to their digitally diatomic lowest common denominator, liberally sprinkled across an equally endless coral reef of web pages, each page covering yet another equally endless array of subjects, topics,thoughts, ideas and opinions.

Pursuant to this metaphor, you should be able to find just any sound or noise you may want, but of course, it's not always so easy. Go to Google and insert an argument such as SOUND EFFECTS AUDIO CLIP or SOUND EFFECTS WAV and you soon discover that SOUND or SOUND EFFECTS more often than not refers to voice clips from popular motion pictures and television shows. If this is what you were looking for to begin with, then you're all set. Otherwise you may need to spend a few extra minutes refining your search strategy and then trolling around for just the right source.

There are a number of sound effects web page categories:

1) Non-commercial or Commercial List Sites - A list of sound effects websites.
Akin to an online 411 directory assistance. An individual or group has scrutinized the Internet. The result is a list of site recommendations: sometimes nothing more than a wholesale rundown, sometimes select personal choices.

2) Non-Commercial Websites - Free audio file downloads:
An individual or non-profit group harvests public domain audio content from other Internet sources or creates custom in-house or in-the-field recordings and posts the product for royalty-free access via a web page or an FTP site. Find Sounds is a good example of a non-commercial website which offers no cost, good quality content. Wave Surfer offers an online site navigation
file directory for free sounds by category. They even offer a free CD ROM of movie clips and effects. The downside is that many such websites provide recordings where the fidelity is abysmal. You may find exactly what you need: only to discover that the playback is has been brutally clipped or there is a noise level or an alien interference pattern that is difficult or impossible to remove.

I once came across a clip of MOTHER computer sounds from the motion picture "Alien" but the recording contained a wide band noise artifact which could not be removed.

3) Commercial Websites - Free audio file downloads:
A business in the business of selling sound effects CDs or sound effects hard drives offers preselected free audio files as an enticement to purchase a much larger package. Companies like The Hollywood Edge and SoundDogs provide free MP3 downloads. In some cases,these may be down sampled to 11 KHz/8 Bit and lower and so will be of lesser quality but with a decent digital audio editor, the file can reverse engineered for improved fidelity. There is at least one truly obnoxious, virtually parasitic website. Try placing a search argument such as WAR OF THE WORLDS+SOUND EFFECTS into Google and invariably you will find reference to Audiosparx. Audiosparx has found a way to take your search entries and back link them to their web page. Click the link and there will be little at Audiosparx that relates to your search. They want you to purchase their custom produced libraries.

4) Pirated Sound Effects Libraries - Free...but risky!
It would appear that there are a number of website locations dedicated to the idea that media should be free. Free of purchase cost, free of copyright royalty, free of copyright restriction. In the world of multi-media, bootleg sound effects records seems laughable, but it is indeed serious business to legitimate purveyors like Sound Ideas who ask customers in their newsletter to report cases of piracy with a promise to prosecute the offender. Beyond the legal risks, such sites may be focal points for unseen digital predators: the viruses, the worms and the programmers who breed them.

5) eBAY- The Island of Misfit Toys!
It is here on eBAY where you can bid or BUY NOW on millions of records that somebody else no longer wants. I was able to secure a copy of Sound Ideas Cartoon Express for less than a fourth of the manufacturers original suggested retail price: likewise the same with Sound Ideas The Sounds of War. Unlike pirated copies, they were not free. They were cheap, but not they were not free. In my next installment: ROLLING YOUR OWN!

What follows is an address list of just a few vendors and sound effects fanboys. Some may offer additional outbound links to even more locations:

http://www.bargus.org/files/sounds/

http://www.coppoletta.net/ctastuff/ctasounds.htm

http://www.findsounds.com/types.html

http://www.freeaudioclips.com/

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/254761

http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/pir/PIRsfx.shtml

http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/sound-effects.html

http://www.sdrm.org/sounds/

http://www.sounddogs.com/htm/soundeffects.htm

http://www.stdimension.org/MediaLib/medialibe.htm

http://www.trainweb.org/reynolds/nyc98snd.html

http://www.wavsurfer.com/

FOUR SOUND EFFECTS THAT MADE TV HISTORY!..in Jolly Olde...

2008-07-20T20:45:00.001-04:00

The British Broadcasting Corporation is no stranger to topics of an esoteric nature. So it should come as no surprise that they discuss the equally esoteric subject of sound effects. I came across this interesting article at the BBC website.

The address is: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7365120.stm

The subject is: FOUR SOUND EFFECTS THAT MADE TV HISTORY

Worth a quick read and not only that, it is possible to purchase the BBC Sound Effects Library at Sound Ideas.

In fact, do a Google search on BBC RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP for additional detail on how sound effects were created previous to the advent of electronic audio synthesis and developments in digital sound design using analog tape machines and audio processors.

N2FNH SFX: 1

2008-07-13T14:25:00.001-04:00

WHENIWASAKID! From about the age of eight and on through my late teens, my one favorite pre-computer age geek thing to do was record sounds off the television with my trusty reel-to-reel tape machine. And there were several of those, each of which I used and used until they could be used no more. Among the recorders: a Wards Airline three inch reel-to-reel portable with a coily cord microphone, a Mercury five inch portable job, a fifteen pound WebCor seven inch vacuum tube machine, my father's equally tube driven Roberts and another Wards Airline Model Number GEN3659A. This last one I know the model number because I won one of those on eBAY, although at the moment that tape recorder is on display in a bedroom closet. My best guess is that I got the idea of making sound recordings from watching a 1955 episode of The Adventures of Superman. It was the story of "The Talking Clue"!

"Ray Henderson (Richard Shakelton), son of police inspector Bill Henderson (Roberty Shayne), has been using his tape recorder to "collect" weird sounds. Unfortunately, Ray is hoodwinked into selling a tape containing the sound of tumblers on a safe to gangster Muscles McGurk (Billy Nelson). When McGurk uses the recorded information to steal evidence against him in an upcoming investigation, Ray is implicated in the crime--and Henderson may be forced to
arrest his own son. If there was ever a job for Superman (George Reeves), this is it!"
Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sitting here right next to me stuffed inside the drawers of a heavy 50's vintage office desk constructed of heavy pine are boxes of audio compact discs and rows of SanDisk and Sony digital memory flash cards. Down the hall in a side closet are additional volumes vertically stacked, all housing ten inch reels of magnetic tape. Each archive is host to a mini-library of sound effects which I have amassed for the past thirty years. This is what I may occasionally refer to as my N2FNH Sound Effects Library.

The aggregate inventory consists of recordings compiled from three principal sources:

1) Commercially available sound effects.

2) WAV and MP3 files downloaded from the Internet.

3) Sounds designed and home brewed in house or recorded in the field.

Sound effects published on both audio and data compact discs can be purchased by anyone and there are many purveyors of this product. The two major players are Sound Ideas and The Hollywood Edge. Both companies offer a bewildering array of effects, detailing just about any conceivable category. It should be noted that these libraries tend to be expensive but I have discovered that there is quite an Internet fraternity of sounds effects aficionados and fanboys along with their affiliated forums.

Here is what I bought with a ten second critique for each. From Sound Ideas,

1) The Hanna Barbera Sound FX Library
Five discs of almost all the best animation effects ever. I say "almost" because there were notable absences.

2) The Sound Effects of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends:
To truly appreciate this three disc set, you have to be closely in tune with what you have heard in the Jay Ward classics. Many of these effects were also present in UPA films. Again, some notable MIAs.

3) The Warner Brothers Sound Effects Library:
The big disappointment! Most are Foley sounds! Not on the list: the Road Runner's rocket jet sound and the Tazmanian Devil's wind up.

4) The Universal Pictures Sound Effects Library: A boatload of classic movie western effects. Every pistol, every rifle and every screaming PTWAAANG! you can imagine!
Missing: the original Frankenstein Thunder, in some circles identified as Castle Thunder, although various versions show on both the Hanna Barbera and 20th Century Fox sets.

From the Hollywood Edge,

1) CartoonTrax:
These are mostly unpublicized vintage recordings from Walt Disney Productions. There are quite a few unexpected gems clearly linked to Disney, along with many other unfamiliar sounds.

I have two additional libraries of note.

1) The Hanna-Barbera Library of Sounds:
An out-of-print two compact disc set version of an equally out-of-print eight vinyl disc set offered thirty years ago exclusively to broadcast radio and television stations. Unfortunately, these recordings are low quality, less common and mostly animal noises. With a digital editor though, these can be nicely cleaned. Some of the effects at large from the newer package
appear in this archive.

2) The O'Connor Crazies:
Still available for purchase! A comparatively low quality compact disc of Hanna-Barbera sound effects lifted from the Hanna Barbera Library of Sound and from a much earlier almost impossible to find vinyl offering from the late 1960's: The Hanna Barbera's Drop-Ins. Much cheaper now than when I bought it. Again, some of the sounds not in the inventory of the Sound
Ideas offering can be found on this recording.

So if you're a fanboy and I can only guess that this might be what I am then, like the Pokemon, you gotta catch them all. What follows is a bit of text on commercially available animation music that I lifted from myself from a forum dedicated to film and television animation.
---
There have been a number of compact discs produced in the last few years which have focused on the music of film and television animation. Here are just a few.

1) Hanna Barbera Classics - Volume 1
Rhino Records
Contains main titles, sub-titles and underscores from many first generation animation efforts such as Ruff and Reddy, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear,Quick Draw McGraw, Magilla Gorilla and more. Many of the earlier recordings were sourced from the Capital Records Production Music Library. There is even one track which was also used as the underscore for My Three Sons. There was supposed to a volume 2 but I never acquired the disc.

2) The Flintstones - Modern Stone Age Melodies
Rhino Records
Here, all the vocals that were heard though out the lifetime of this program. While the vocals are great to hear, even better are the underscores and music cues that are sandwiched in between those selections. Included in the clear is the classic laughing music cue that was used anytime a big joke needed audio support. All the songs and music beds composed by Hoyt Curtain.

3) The Carl Stalling Project - Music from Warner Brothers Cartoons. 1936-1958
Warner Brothers Records
Carl Stalling was perhaps the best known and most creative music composer and director at Warner Brothers during their Golden Age. A combination of select music cues and full length music and sound effects features makes this disc a must have. There is even a clip of the Yada Yada sound in the clear at the end of one of the tracks - an easy lift to add to your own
library!

4) Carl Stalling - Volume 2. 1939-1957
Warner Brothers Records
More fantastic Carl Stalling Music, again a combination of of individual music cues and full length track minus voices.

5) That's All Folks! Cartoon Songs from Merrie Melodies & Looney Tunes.
Rhino/Warner Brothers Records
This is a two disc set including full length features such as What's Opera Doc? and Three Little Bops and a massive 100 page booklet detailing behind the scenes activities at Warner Brothers way back when.

6) Warner Brothers Presents Bugs Bunny on Broadway
Warner Brothers Records
This album features newly recorded renditions of classic cartoon music by the Warner Brothers Symphony Orchestra but there are also some original audio segments on the disc as well.

7) The Best of WB Sound FX - CRASH! BANG! BOOM!
Kid Rhino/Warner Brothers Records
Some music, a lot of sounds from the commercial Warner Brothers Sound Effects Library for use at parties, on videos, computers and answering machines.

8) Toon Tunes
Kid Rhino
A compilation of television animation themes including the best Scholastic Rock song - Conjunction Junction

9) Music for TV Dinners - the 1950's
Scamp Records.
It is here on this disc where you will find a number of recordings directly associated with Ren and Stimpy, including Happy Go Lively - Laurie Johnson, Workaday World - Jack Beaver, Holiday Playtime - King Palmer and Stop Gap -Wilfred Burns (I believe this last one was used for a number of years on Bob Barker's Truth or Consequences). Many of these selections were sourced from KPM and Associated Production Music. Actually, when you think about it, it's amazing just how much old sound escaped the studio vaults and landed in our own record collections!

THOSE PEOPLE: 5

2008-07-13T14:21:00.001-04:00

Many of the characters who appear in my Random Access features and promos seem be somewhat mechanized by virtue of the way they sound. One of my earlier voice actors who still makes occasional appearances is Tick-Tock. Not to be confused with the Tick-Tock of the certainly more famous OZ stories, my Tick-Tock is a relatively mellow fellow who, like Bix Nix, speaks with a slight lisp. Likewise, as he does speak, he also produces a small blipping motor sound. At the conclusion of each significant sentence, there is also a beep. While Tick-Tick's voice is contemporary in a Windows 95 sense, his clicking noise was first heard in the UPA cartoons of the 1950's while the beep is the same tone that Rosie the Robot makes in Hanna Barbera's The Jetsons. The actual source for this pulsed 1400 Hertz sound is the advisory signal required by law here in the States when one is recording a telephone conversation.

Tick-Tock has a cousin whose name is TANK, which is appropriate since TANK is a man(?) of few words and TANK is the only word he says. TANK's voice is several octaves deeper and his motor sound is an equally deep throbbing effect which I created using a self-sourced fart severely dropped in pitch and looped to simulate a machine sound. TANK's beep is also vintage. You can chronicle this effect back to Rocky and Bullwinkle and earlier UPA features.

TINK is TANK's girlfriend who, like TANK, is heavily mechanized. Unlike TANK though, TINK has no problems asserting herself and has been known to chat on incessantly. For her motor sound, I was able to locate a more delicate effect, which sounds remarkably similar to the "I'm sorry, I didn't get that!" Boop-Boop-Boop-Boop-Boop you hear when you call the Fandango Entertainment Line. TINK's beep is the same is TANK's but they are not related. In fact, they have gone out together but TINK plays the field. She has dated the expansive Bob the Extraterrestrial on a number of occasions.

Since what it is I do for This Week in Amateur Radio is an audio-only medium, character design is restricted solely to how they might sound. For that reason, I usually do not visualize what they might actually look like, as one would developing a cartoon character for film or television. However, in the case of TANK and TINK, I immediately saw them both as looking like the bullet-shaped white and silver waste paper cans you might see in a rest room or in a cheesy hotel lobby. In fact, both My Number One And Only Son Zachary and George's daughter Jessica have rendered their own images of what these folks might look like. Maybe I can find a way to post these pictures so stand by!

THOSE PEOPLE: 4

2008-07-13T14:18:00.001-04:00

Over the last few years, while developing the Krasnovs as a core family presence to compliment the Random Access features, a number of ancillary characters have become manifest and have also become intertwined with each other in various ways. In addition to Zach's 40 story 400 ton green scaly dog, my Number One and Only Son also has a digital pal who goes by the name of Bix Nix.

Bix is a borderline nerd who speaks with an ever so slight lisp. In early features, Bix croaked out a mechanized beep at the end of each sentence he uttered. As Bix approached puberty, the beep faded out and, like Zach, his voice has begun to change. While Zach approaches any unknown fearlessly, Bix tends to be more apprehensive. You can hear Bix in our new TWIAR BLOG promo.

Mister Nix, first name unknown, is Bix's father who is also a borderline nerd who also speaks with an ever so slight lisp. While Bix is a good boy, Mister Nix may have gangland connections. Not much more is known. In the meantime, Mister Nix has voiced several promos and has discussed at length supernatural communications via a recent Random Access Thought.

While on the supernatural, there are also the two Bobs. The first Bob is a reasonably friendly extraterrestrial, home planet unknown, who tends to announce very expansively, much like a cheesy two bit stage performer. Bob occasionally dates TINK, a lovely imaginary visage who we shall detail later.

The other Bob has been dead since the Great Depression. His real name is Seymour but his good friends call him Bob. Like Boleslav Krasnov, Seymour has a distinctly Coney Island dialect. He has been known to call "CQ MARS" over the HF ham bands without benefit of any radio. Apparently, the dead can do that. It also appears that Seymour does not sit at the right hand of G*d.

In our next installment: Tick Tock, TANK and TINK!

THOSE PEOPLE: 3

2008-07-13T14:15:00.003-04:00

Here's an N2FNH secret advisory:

The Random Access Thought (or File), the associated RAT (or RAF) promo and the weekly QSL Card Y'all Come-and-Get-It! thing all offer something more than theatrically trained actors, top drawer production value and hideously expensive, extremely difficult-to-locate-and-obtain vintage sound effects.

There are also what some might refer to as the Easter Eggs. That would be those voices at -18 dB and below.

Chances are you've heard them, but you haven't really heard them, at least not yet. In my more youthful whippersnapper days, I was a A-Number One Fan of the sociologist author Wilson Bryan Key and his books which documented some marvelous technique on subliminal persuasion within the advertising media. I read three: Subliminal Seduction, Media Sexploitation and the Clam Plate Orgy. Much was detailed in each volume regarding subliminal sound. Whether or not you opt to buy into his sure-sounds-like-a-conspiracy-theory theories or not, this is something we can haggle over Chinese Lunch some day.

But in the meantime, pay close attention.

During each production run, short voice tracks are slipped in at random places within the body of each N2FNH program. Here's a spoiler: usually...Usually...at the end of the promos and at the end of the Random Access "Disconnecting From..." outro, there may be short voice clips from motion pictures, television shows or animated cartoons. But more than likely, they are itty bitty sound bites from my son Zach or from my virtual character ensemble. Because they are usually...Usually...at the tail end and because George W2XBS executes tight editing between program elements, the casual listener may subconsciously detect the clip but may also be sonically overtaken by the subsequent program material.

However, should you be tuned into a Podcast Recording of This Week in Amateur Radio...on your MP3 player...

In each of my production pieces, audio levels are assigned as floors in a cheesy dingy downtown three-story office building. Thus, voice content and primary sound effects are placed at the top floor from 0 dB down to about -12dB. If there is music, that element is positioned one floor down from -12 dB to -24 dB. Any sort of environmental back track, such as ham shack sounds, street traffic or birds outside, is referenced from -18 dB to -40 dB and this is pretty much
the basement level. It is here in within this amplitudinous realm, that the almost-quasi-semi- obliminal-if-not-really-subliminal voices may be heard.

NOW DON'T PANIC! N2FNH is making NO ATTEMPT to seduce your subconscious into buying popcorn or soda!

popcorn.....buy!
soda.........buy!

But! Like all Easter Eggs patiently waiting to be discovered, this is your one and only clue to locate them, admittedly with a boatload of explanatory floobus attached.

And! Since you alone are reading this, only you and you alone know my secret!

THOSE PEOPLE: 2

2008-07-13T14:10:00.001-04:00

Mother Radio first appeared on This Week in Amateur Radio in Random Access promos in 2005. She was one of the very first voice characters to interact with Zachary, aside from myself.

Mother Radio is every body's Brooklyn-born Jewish mother, even if you're not Jewish. In the course of the past few seasons, Mother Radio's voice has dropped considerably in pitch. She has become tougher. More crusty. In fact, Mother Radio is downright cranky.

The Mother Radio character is loosely based on my own maternal Grandmother, who was born and bred in the Bronx in the late 1800's. She had that curious prim and proper Depression Era social quality about her but she had her quirks. When I was a little kid making all kinds of little kid noises and little kid distractions, she would always advise that I should not "wake the baby
downstairs". This terse statement Mother Radio subsequently inherited and has belted out many times. Another stinging imperative: "Now do as you're told!" was a line lifted the cheesy B-flick "The Crawling Eye", fully in keeping with her character!

Despite her crabby nature, Mother Radio is still prim and proper enough not to utter any sort of street language. Thus, if she believes that you are full of baloney, she may decry that it's all "a boatload of floobus". To the best of my knowledge, there is no such word in the English language as floobus. But it sounded good so she owns it.

In January of 2008, personal details about Mother Radio became public knowledge over This Week in Amateur Radio. Mother Radio's actual name is Beverly Krasnov. It appears that she lives in Brooklyn (variously known as Big City) with her husband Boleslav Krasnov. Mr. Krasnov is employed at Canarsie Wireless as a technician of forty-five years seniority.
Both Beverly and Mr. Krasnov have hosted a number of recent Random Access Thoughts and Files. Beverly has covered the story of Marconi and the mystery television station KLEE while Boleslav has discussed StratoVision and Technology Curiosities and Complaints.

I selected the name Beverly for Mother Radio because to me, she was always a Beverly. Mr. Krasnov's first name Boleslav was my Father's first name, although everyone called him Bill. The last name Krasnov, I appropriated from a fellow ham radio friend, Bob Krasnoff KF4UVA, who currently lives with his wife Leah in Boynton Beach. It is my personal idiosyncrasy to oft times label various friends' wives by an alias other than their real names. So for Leah, I would on occasion refer to her as Beverly or Marilyn whenever we got together.

Speaking of Marilyn, Marilyn, the loopy British chick, is the Krasnovs' lovely daughter. Why she possesses a British dialect is not clear since she is Brooklyn-born. In contrast, Mother Radio has that crunchy three-pack-a-day growl while Boleslav speaks with a distinctively animated Brooklynese overtone. Marilyn is happily married to Mr. Munroe, a true Brit. But she hangs around the home nest with her parents a good deal of the time. Marilyn's favorite pastime is watching paint dry. She paints a room and then watches the paint dry. The Krasnovs have experienced continuous interior decoration since Marilyn was a teen. She expanded this obsessive compulsive behavior to her own pad busily painting walls while Mr. Munroe listens to non-directional aircraft radio beacons in his private study.

Meanwhile, Cigman Krasnov is Marilyn's fail-to-launch forty-five year old sibling. In addition, Cigman is indeed a chronic three-pack-a-day smoker and not necessarily the brightest bulb in the pack. He digs hot cars, fabulous babes and sleeps till noon. Given the present day cost of cigarettes and their attendant health issues, it is a puzzlement that Cigman goes so far against the social grain.

Zach hangs out the Krasnovs quite often, which is curious since he lives here in upstate New York. How he gets around is not clear.

Rumor has it that Commander Jainpain, yet another of my obtuse characters, may be in some way related to the Krasnovs. But...that's another story.

More later.