In 1969 the FM band was, how shall I put this, a 20 Megacycle white noise source, with very few interruptions. WGFM was transmitting in stereo, but when you're simucasting your AM sister station's signal, well....... Chances of finding a Stereophonic F.M. receiver in a household were rather slim. WRPI's stereo sign-on started to put an end to that, as we all (should) know.
So there I was, when at ~2:50 the phone rings and Dennis Connors tells me WRPI is about to go on the air big-time. I make a mad dash for my 8 transistor portable, single transistor mixer, and Airline portable recorder. It's 1/2 track mono and for this occasion I chose 1 7/8 ips to go along with the 1/2 mil Scotch tape. Monitoring as I record, I find there is motor noise that was never there before, and moving things around didn't make it go away. History is in progress though, so I optimize the best I could and cross my fingers. Hours later I listen to the tape and decide though not as nice as it should be, it's still a "keeper". Decades later, the only thing that I wish I had done differently was not let the tape machine go to Clarkson with my sister; the head took a beating along with the belts. I still have it, just to play that tape.
Besides the wanted audio, you will also hear an assortment of drop-outs and machine induced Ø shift. The re-recording to DAT at LP speed and the 8 bit ULAW digitizing did reduce the noise somewhat, but not all.....
To the best of several people's knowledge, there isn't another copy of Hour #2 (and you had two Ampei :), but if that isn't the case, I would like a copy, if you please. With all that nonsense out of the way, it time to take you back....
We pick-up right after Joni Mitchell's Song to a Seagull. Chuck Phelan speaks of the hockey team, right after Jeff Douglass extros the Bob and Ray's Music Factory promo. 1.47M au Chuck Phelan runs through more acknowledgments. 882k au Pretty amazing what can be done at RPI with the backing of the President, a few Vice Presidents and the Student Union.
Another "first". Steve Scheiber slamming 562k the studio door with the mic open. Hey, somebody had to do it, right?
Now Mr.Phelan is out the door, to be replaced by Pat Callahan. 197k au A lot of music later, Pat leaves. 344k au
Comments? john@hibp.ecse.rpi.edu
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