"dave" wrote in message
...
D Peter Maus wrote:

$149 was 2 weeks pay in 1948.

After deductions, about $37 was a minimum wage weekly net pay in 1960 when
the minimum was something like $1.10.

Or about $149 a month, net.

David Eduardo wrote:

"dxAce" wrote in message
...


David Eduardo wrote:

By 1959, when I started, the only place we saw disk recorders was as a
fading way of sending spots to stations.

That was when you were 13, and had moved to Mexico, right?

No, that was when I started at WJMO and WCUY. I spent most of 1963 in
Mexico, and in 64 moved to Ecuador. Learn to read.

I have read, and it seems to me that in the past you'd said you left home at age
13 and moved in with a family that spoke no English in Mexico.

But I realize that I'd blown that story right out of the water and then you
began to alter it.

Nothing new!

David Eduardo wrote:

"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
Full of ****. Present tense.

Webster-Chicago model 181, $98, 1953.

Webster-Chicago model 80, $149, 1948.

Even Henry Ford wasn't selling cars for that.

Run back the thread... my original answer to the recording issue had to
do with tape, which is a format that endured. Wire had a short life and,
in retrospect, is nearly impossible to reproduce today. Most ETs of the
pre-60's period (and I was talking of the post WW II period) were 78's...
and the life of acetates is also limited.


Read back the thread, yourself. Although wire's commercial life was
short--in fact, it was obsolete before the Armour Foundation licensed it
for release and AEG Telefunken was already experimenting with iron oxide
on paper before wire went into use--wire was one of the more enduring
formats. As I said, I have 60 year old recordings, that if cared for, play
as new.

Nitpicking 101:

One class you passed with flying colours!

I meant the life of the concept. Late 40's to very early
50's. Not life of the recording, although if you can't find machines to play
the wires on, the recording is essentially useless. I have some stuff on 8"
floppies from a System 33 IBM and I can't find anything that will play them.


Wire also was very fine (something like 2000 feet on a 3 inch reel)

And again, you're incorrect, here. There was more than a mile of wire on
a 3 inch spool. I've measured.

You make my point, which is that the wire is very fine and very hard to
handle.


and it
was next to impossible to edit.

Also incorrect. One simply tied a knot in it, and trimmed the ends with
a scissor.

Or, what one person I know did, which was weld with a cigarette. In either
case, not the same as a splice, which is the only good physical edit. Making
bow ties out of wire is not a good edit, which is my point.

and the delay while rewinding (you rembember there was no removable
pickup reel at least on all I have seen)


Actually, late model Websters had a removable pick up spool.

Yeah, you made my point. Most did not, making them bad DX machines. When
DXing, you had to be able to do a very quick reel flip. Generally, thinner
tape and slow record speeds meant a typical Monday Morning AM DX session fit
on both "sides" of a single reel. Very little lost DX due to reel flips and
changes.

makes, like the changing of an
acetate, the devices not quite appropriate for non-stop DXing.

No more cumbersome than tape. One hour and more on a spool meant less
time changing spools, and the rewind/rethread time was about 3 1/2
minutes. With a removable take up spool the down time was less than half a
minute.

3 1/2 minutes for a Monday Morning session was an eternity. Most AM DXers
who used tape to supplement the ear could flip a reel over in less than 20"
and change reels in about 40".

A Realistic 808 took more than 5 minutes to rewind 3600 feet.

DXers, mostly, used two track mono, and we flipped the left and right reels
before the tape ran out, avoiding threading.

And again: bull****. Wire was cheap. Cheaper than tape. And in many
cases far more plentiful. It was still sold at electronics shops as late
as 1972, when I bought my last 4 spools.

FUnny, I never saw it. But I had tape and was not looking.

Olson used to have it by the box. In a variety of lengths.

I visited Olson in Cleveland about once a month at least in the early 60's.
Never saw any wire.


The Meissner of which I spoke not only recorded and played discs, but it
had a receiver, a rather fine receiver built in. It was literally made for
airchecking.

You changed the subject from DXing to airchecking. An aircheck is done on
one local station. In DXing on AM tape was used as often we got cascaded
sign ons or sign offs from 2 or 3 or even 4 stations on a channel in a
matter of 60 to 90 seconds on Mondays. A vebatim transcript of the signoff
announcement often got a verie, where memory or notes would not.

And yada, yada, yada....you ignore VERY important points. You're
assuming that all of the hobby was done at retail. Not even close.

I can't recall anyone in the NRC, IRCA, NNRC that was not buying DX supplies
and receivers and recorders at retail. Of course, many DXers then did not
consider a taped verie to be "real" and insisted on paper veries... and they
did not tape. Changing to a "tape and transcribe from tape" mentality took a
decade, and arrived mostly when the cassette was available and cheap. From
that point to accepting taped "veries" was another decade.

And DXers, along with other radio hobbycraft types were highly
motivated, so the equipment they wanted, they found a way to acquire. And
the business accomodated them.

Not really. Most of the NRCers did not have pro receivers, and that has been
the premiere AM club for 70 years or so. There were the elite, who had
HQ180's almost exclusively, and then the rest. Most had Trans Oceanics and
consumer radios, in fact.

My grandfather couldn't afford mercury rectifiers in his early days. So,
he built liquid state rectifiers using pickle jars filled with solutions
of 20 Mule Team Borax. About 20 of them in series. Not elegant, but they
got the job done. He built a power supply for his receiver like this. The
receiver required batteries. He couldn't afford batteries. So, he found a
way.

AM DXers in the post War era were not builders. They were listeners almost
100%. The few who were engineers and such were the ones who helped the other
1000 members in loop and Beveradge antenna construction, etc.

As with most radio hobbycraft practitioners, even up to today, "finding
a way" is stock-in-trade. The Radio Amateur's Handbook is based on this
thinking. Build your own. Modify what you don't built, but get something
and get it working.

AM DXers for 60 years have not been builders. They are off the shelf folks
as far as equipment, and are so today.

And really budget conscious hobbyists would go through dumpsters at the
end of hamfests, Field Days, and DXpeditions...there were BC-348's in the
dumpsters for the taking. Dumped there just to get rid of them.

Never heard of one being used for MWDX.

Didn't you say you had an R-390 or 392? You buy that at SS Kresges?

I bought it new from Hammarlund; it was an overrun from a government order
and sold to the public.

So, this notion that recording hardware was only for the rich is the
purest poppycock. Recording hardware, and recording supplies, were for the
dedicated. And affordably available. If someone REALLY wanted them, they
could be acquired regardless of budget.

Very few AM DXers were recording before around 1959 to 1960, and even then
it was the young set, not the older guys. It took a long time for recording
to be an accepted part of DXing... some guys really thought it was cheating,
in fact.

What's so surprising, is that you don't know that. Having been an
engineer yourself, and having regaled us with your tales of building
transmitters, and radio studios in Ecuador, on shoestring budgets...are
you saying that you only bought from BSW, or BGS?

No, we bought all our original studio gear from Gates. I bought the first
transmitter from a local manufacturer, and then subsequent ones we built in
our own shop since we always were generating a need for more transmitters,
ATU's and other stuff we could build locally like FM antennas, consoles,
limiters, etc. In other words, I had enough stations to support a
fabrication department.

How is it you can tell us of scrounging for parts to keep your radio
stations on the air, while not being aware of the enormous resources
available in the US to hobbyists from the Military Surplus network?

We used conventional designs, and use the same parts that a Gates or RCA
did. Occasionally we found useful equivalents in surplus, but most stuff was
branded. The bulk could be obtained at Miami parts houses which supplied
radio and telecommunications in Latin America; a flight to Miami and visits
to two or three suppliers would get what we wanted.

"Scrounging" usually meant overnighting to Miami to get some tubes because
the local outlets were out or the ones ordered for shipment were stuck for a
month in customs. Fly to Miami, find the tubes, pack them among soft
cloting, fly back.

Once I had an Audimax and Volumax stuck nearly 3 months in customs because
they did not know what partida arancelaria it fell under and thus could not
determine how much the tax was; I ordered two more to be shipped to Miami,
picked them up, put them in my clothes in a suitcase, and flew through
customs at the airport under the tourist exclusion for returning citizens
and residents.

Hmmmm...once again, underscoring many questions.

None at all.

David Eduardo wrote:

"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
Full of ****. Present tense.

Webster-Chicago model 181, $98, 1953.

Webster-Chicago model 80, $149, 1948.

Even Henry Ford wasn't selling cars for that.

Run back the thread... my original answer to the recording issue had to
do with tape, which is a format that endured. Wire had a short life and,
in retrospect, is nearly impossible to reproduce today. Most ETs of the
pre-60's period (and I was talking of the post WW II period) were 78's...
and the life of acetates is also limited.


Read back the thread, yourself. Although wire's commercial life was
short--in fact, it was obsolete before the Armour Foundation licensed it
for release and AEG Telefunken was already experimenting with iron oxide
on paper before wire went into use--wire was one of the more enduring
formats. As I said, I have 60 year old recordings, that if cared for, play
as new.

Nitpicking 101: I meant the life of the concept. Late 40's to very early
50's. Not life of the recording, although if you can't find machines to play
the wires on, the recording is essentially useless. I have some stuff on 8"
floppies from a System 33 IBM and I can't find anything that will play them.


Wire also was very fine (something like 2000 feet on a 3 inch reel)

And again, you're incorrect, here. There was more than a mile of wire on
a 3 inch spool. I've measured.

You make my point, which is that the wire is very fine and very hard to
handle.


and it
was next to impossible to edit.

Also incorrect. One simply tied a knot in it, and trimmed the ends with
a scissor.

Or, what one person I know did, which was weld with a cigarette. In either
case, not the same as a splice, which is the only good physical edit. Making
bow ties out of wire is not a good edit, which is my point.

and the delay while rewinding (you rembember there was no removable
pickup reel at least on all I have seen)


Actually, late model Websters had a removable pick up spool.

Yeah, you made my point. Most did not, making them bad DX machines. When
DXing, you had to be able to do a very quick reel flip. Generally, thinner
tape and slow record speeds meant a typical Monday Morning AM DX session fit
on both "sides" of a single reel. Very little lost DX due to reel flips and
changes.

makes, like the changing of an
acetate, the devices not quite appropriate for non-stop DXing.

No more cumbersome than tape. One hour and more on a spool meant less
time changing spools, and the rewind/rethread time was about 3 1/2
minutes. With a removable take up spool the down time was less than half a
minute.

3 1/2 minutes for a Monday Morning session was an eternity. Most AM DXers
who used tape to supplement the ear could flip a reel over in less than 20"
and change reels in about 40".

A Realistic 808 took more than 5 minutes to rewind 3600 feet.

DXers, mostly, used two track mono, and we flipped the left and right reels
before the tape ran out, avoiding threading.

And again: bull****. Wire was cheap. Cheaper than tape. And in many
cases far more plentiful. It was still sold at electronics shops as late
as 1972, when I bought my last 4 spools.

FUnny, I never saw it. But I had tape and was not looking.

Olson used to have it by the box. In a variety of lengths.

I visited Olson in Cleveland about once a month at least in the early 60's.
Never saw any wire.


The Meissner of which I spoke not only recorded and played discs, but it
had a receiver, a rather fine receiver built in. It was literally made for
airchecking.

You changed the subject from DXing to airchecking. An aircheck is done on
one local station. In DXing on AM tape was used as often we got cascaded
sign ons or sign offs from 2 or 3 or even 4 stations on a channel in a
matter of 60 to 90 seconds on Mondays. A vebatim transcript of the signoff
announcement often got a verie, where memory or notes would not.

And yada, yada, yada....you ignore VERY important points. You're
assuming that all of the hobby was done at retail. Not even close.

I can't recall anyone in the NRC, IRCA, NNRC that was not buying DX supplies
and receivers and recorders at retail. Of course, many DXers then did not
consider a taped verie to be "real" and insisted on paper veries... and they
did not tape. Changing to a "tape and transcribe from tape" mentality took a
decade, and arrived mostly when the cassette was available and cheap. From
that point to accepting taped "veries" was another decade.

And DXers, along with other radio hobbycraft types were highly
motivated, so the equipment they wanted, they found a way to acquire. And
the business accomodated them.

Not really. Most of the NRCers did not have pro receivers, and that has been
the premiere AM club for 70 years or so. There were the elite, who had
HQ180's almost exclusively, and then the rest. Most had Trans Oceanics and
consumer radios, in fact.

My grandfather couldn't afford mercury rectifiers in his early days. So,
he built liquid state rectifiers using pickle jars filled with solutions
of 20 Mule Team Borax. About 20 of them in series. Not elegant, but they
got the job done. He built a power supply for his receiver like this. The
receiver required batteries. He couldn't afford batteries. So, he found a
way.

AM DXers in the post War era were not builders. They were listeners almost
100%. The few who were engineers and such were the ones who helped the other
1000 members in loop and Beveradge antenna construction, etc.

As with most radio hobbycraft practitioners, even up to today, "finding
a way" is stock-in-trade. The Radio Amateur's Handbook is based on this
thinking. Build your own. Modify what you don't built, but get something
and get it working.

AM DXers for 60 years have not been builders. They are off the shelf folks
as far as equipment, and are so today.

And really budget conscious hobbyists would go through dumpsters at the
end of hamfests, Field Days, and DXpeditions...there were BC-348's in the
dumpsters for the taking. Dumped there just to get rid of them.

Never heard of one being used for MWDX.

Didn't you say you had an R-390 or 392? You buy that at SS Kresges?

I bought it new from Hammarlund; it was an overrun from a government order
and sold to the public.

So, this notion that recording hardware was only for the rich is the
purest poppycock. Recording hardware, and recording supplies, were for the
dedicated. And affordably available. If someone REALLY wanted them, they
could be acquired regardless of budget.

Very few AM DXers were recording before around 1959 to 1960, and even then
it was the young set, not the older guys. It took a long time for recording
to be an accepted part of DXing... some guys really thought it was cheating,
in fact.

What's so surprising, is that you don't know that. Having been an
engineer yourself, and having regaled us with your tales of building
transmitters, and radio studios in Ecuador, on shoestring budgets...are
you saying that you only bought from BSW, or BGS?

No, we bought all our original studio gear from Gates. I bought the first
transmitter from a local manufacturer, and then subsequent ones we built in
our own shop since we always were generating a need for more transmitters,
ATU's and other stuff we could build locally like FM antennas, consoles,
limiters, etc. In other words, I had enough stations to support a
fabrication department.

You had what? You've never had ANY stations, 'Eduardo'.

David "Queen of 'It Can't Be Done'" Eduardo wrote:
"dave" wrote in message
...
D Peter Maus wrote:
$149 was 2 weeks pay in 1948.

After deductions, about $37 was a minimum wage weekly net pay in 1960 when
the minimum was something like $1.10.

Or about $149 a month, net.




Irrelevant. Affordability is not price. Nearly everything in the home
was 2 weeks pay. You simply saved up, and you bought it. Or you put it
on layaway.

If a DXer was buying at retail, purchase was based on commitment more
than price. If he/she wanted it bad enough, price was only a factor in
the speed of the purchase. Not the ultimate acquisition.

And if he/she was not buying at retail, cost wasn't a factor.

The hardware was there. It was available. It was manufactured by the
thousands. It was sold by the thousands. It was purchased by the thousands.

How much it cost in relation to the prevailing wage, was of academic
interest only.

"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:


The pride and joy of Charlie Stanley, and the poster station for FCC
attention. Yes, WEW. The station with more dial positions than a 40's
Zenith FM. The station with more shared frequencies than Heidi Fleiss's
cell phone. WEW. The station that had to monitor it's program line,
because WABC came over the top of the air monitor in late afternoon.
Yes, THAT WEW.

So the WABC stories are true.


I"m sorry...you didn't know that? Hmmmm....well....that IS a revealing
confession.


I did not know WEW was that bad, but it was mentioned many times in DX
publications.

Here is an anecdote from a friend....

"When I was asst CE of 560 KLVI Beaumont, TX (5KW ND day, DA-N), we would
get calls from WQAM at night if we hadn't switched....the hot line would
ring, the jock would answer (we were Top40 back then) and the voice on the
other end asked: "IS this LVI?? Im hearing YOU in my headphones!!!" The jock
would dial up channel 1 on the remote control, press LOWER, and the voice
would say "THANK YOU!!!" and hang up! Not bad for a 66degree tall tower
either! but the tower site for KLVI is WET most of the time....it was always
wet/muddy between towers 2 and 3 even during a drought (must have been an
underground spring popping thru there!"

This is a common problem with low power stations being hit by much higher
power ones. In this case, KLVI was 5 kw on-d and WQAM was 1 kw non d with a
footwet tower.

"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...

How much it cost in relation to the prevailing wage, was of academic
interest only.

The wage indicates how much money you get. Then a person does a mental cost
/ benefit analysis to determine what to do with the money if they have any
to spare at the end of the month.

I go through the same sort of process for anything I buy. Even little items
are lumped together mentally so I know how I am doing at any time in the
expenses vs. income department.

That never changes; some people just are more able to balance things, the
others get overextended on credit cards.

"Dave" wrote in message
m...
On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:58:09 -0700, David Eduardo wrote:

"dave" wrote in message
...
D Peter Maus wrote:

$149 was 2 weeks pay in 1948.

After deductions, about $37 was a minimum wage weekly net pay in 1960
when the minimum was something like $1.10.

Or about $149 a month, net.

So your handy-dandy recorder cost ~$2,000 in 2008 dollars?

The ratio 1946 to 2008 is about 12 to 1. $129 in 1946 is $1500 in today's
dollars.

If you think about a communications receiver, the $150 receiver of '46 is
the $1500 receiver today. (Or was if they still made the R8B)

dxAce wrote:

David Eduardo wrote:

"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
David Eduardo wrote:
"D Peter Maus" wrote in message
...
Full of ****. Present tense.

Webster-Chicago model 181, $98, 1953.

Webster-Chicago model 80, $149, 1948.

Even Henry Ford wasn't selling cars for that.

Run back the thread... my original answer to the recording issue had to
do with tape, which is a format that endured. Wire had a short life and,
in retrospect, is nearly impossible to reproduce today. Most ETs of the
pre-60's period (and I was talking of the post WW II period) were 78's...
and the life of acetates is also limited.


Read back the thread, yourself. Although wire's commercial life was
short--in fact, it was obsolete before the Armour Foundation licensed it
for release and AEG Telefunken was already experimenting with iron oxide
on paper before wire went into use--wire was one of the more enduring
formats. As I said, I have 60 year old recordings, that if cared for, play
as new.

Nitpicking 101: I meant the life of the concept. Late 40's to very early
50's. Not life of the recording, although if you can't find machines to play
the wires on, the recording is essentially useless. I have some stuff on 8"
floppies from a System 33 IBM and I can't find anything that will play them.


Wire also was very fine (something like 2000 feet on a 3 inch reel)

And again, you're incorrect, here. There was more than a mile of wire on
a 3 inch spool. I've measured.

You make my point, which is that the wire is very fine and very hard to
handle.


and it
was next to impossible to edit.

Also incorrect. One simply tied a knot in it, and trimmed the ends with
a scissor.

Or, what one person I know did, which was weld with a cigarette. In either
case, not the same as a splice, which is the only good physical edit. Making
bow ties out of wire is not a good edit, which is my point.

and the delay while rewinding (you rembember there was no removable
pickup reel at least on all I have seen)


Actually, late model Websters had a removable pick up spool.

Yeah, you made my point. Most did not, making them bad DX machines. When
DXing, you had to be able to do a very quick reel flip. Generally, thinner
tape and slow record speeds meant a typical Monday Morning AM DX session fit
on both "sides" of a single reel. Very little lost DX due to reel flips and
changes.

makes, like the changing of an
acetate, the devices not quite appropriate for non-stop DXing.

No more cumbersome than tape. One hour and more on a spool meant less
time changing spools, and the rewind/rethread time was about 3 1/2
minutes. With a removable take up spool the down time was less than half a
minute.

3 1/2 minutes for a Monday Morning session was an eternity. Most AM DXers
who used tape to supplement the ear could flip a reel over in less than 20"
and change reels in about 40".

A Realistic 808 took more than 5 minutes to rewind 3600 feet.

DXers, mostly, used two track mono, and we flipped the left and right reels
before the tape ran out, avoiding threading.

And again: bull****. Wire was cheap. Cheaper than tape. And in many
cases far more plentiful. It was still sold at electronics shops as late
as 1972, when I bought my last 4 spools.

FUnny, I never saw it. But I had tape and was not looking.

Olson used to have it by the box. In a variety of lengths.

I visited Olson in Cleveland about once a month at least in the early 60's.
Never saw any wire.


The Meissner of which I spoke not only recorded and played discs, but it
had a receiver, a rather fine receiver built in. It was literally made for
airchecking.

You changed the subject from DXing to airchecking. An aircheck is done on
one local station. In DXing on AM tape was used as often we got cascaded
sign ons or sign offs from 2 or 3 or even 4 stations on a channel in a
matter of 60 to 90 seconds on Mondays. A vebatim transcript of the signoff
announcement often got a verie, where memory or notes would not.

And yada, yada, yada....you ignore VERY important points. You're
assuming that all of the hobby was done at retail. Not even close.

I can't recall anyone in the NRC, IRCA, NNRC that was not buying DX supplies
and receivers and recorders at retail. Of course, many DXers then did not
consider a taped verie to be "real" and insisted on paper veries... and they
did not tape. Changing to a "tape and transcribe from tape" mentality took a
decade, and arrived mostly when the cassette was available and cheap. From
that point to accepting taped "veries" was another decade.

And DXers, along with other radio hobbycraft types were highly
motivated, so the equipment they wanted, they found a way to acquire. And
the business accomodated them.

Not really. Most of the NRCers did not have pro receivers, and that has been
the premiere AM club for 70 years or so. There were the elite, who had
HQ180's almost exclusively, and then the rest. Most had Trans Oceanics and
consumer radios, in fact.

My grandfather couldn't afford mercury rectifiers in his early days. So,
he built liquid state rectifiers using pickle jars filled with solutions
of 20 Mule Team Borax. About 20 of them in series. Not elegant, but they
got the job done. He built a power supply for his receiver like this. The
receiver required batteries. He couldn't afford batteries. So, he found a
way.

AM DXers in the post War era were not builders. They were listeners almost
100%. The few who were engineers and such were the ones who helped the other
1000 members in loop and Beveradge antenna construction, etc.

As with most radio hobbycraft practitioners, even up to today, "finding
a way" is stock-in-trade. The Radio Amateur's Handbook is based on this
thinking. Build your own. Modify what you don't built, but get something
and get it working.

AM DXers for 60 years have not been builders. They are off the shelf folks
as far as equipment, and are so today.

And really budget conscious hobbyists would go through dumpsters at the
end of hamfests, Field Days, and DXpeditions...there were BC-348's in the
dumpsters for the taking. Dumped there just to get rid of them.

Never heard of one being used for MWDX.

Didn't you say you had an R-390 or 392? You buy that at SS Kresges?

I bought it new from Hammarlund; it was an overrun from a government order
and sold to the public.

So, this notion that recording hardware was only for the rich is the
purest poppycock. Recording hardware, and recording supplies, were for the
dedicated. And affordably available. If someone REALLY wanted them, they
could be acquired regardless of budget.

Very few AM DXers were recording before around 1959 to 1960, and even then
it was the young set, not the older guys. It took a long time for recording
to be an accepted part of DXing... some guys really thought it was cheating,
in fact.

What's so surprising, is that you don't know that. Having been an
engineer yourself, and having regaled us with your tales of building
transmitters, and radio studios in Ecuador, on shoestring budgets...are
you saying that you only bought from BSW, or BGS?

No, we bought all our original studio gear from Gates. I bought the first
transmitter from a local manufacturer, and then subsequent ones we built in
our own shop since we always were generating a need for more transmitters,
ATU's and other stuff we could build locally like FM antennas, consoles,
limiters, etc. In other words, I had enough stations to support a
fabrication department.

You had what? You've never had ANY stations, 'Eduardo'.

Upon reflection, I realize that 'Eduardo' is a 'fabrication department' all on his
own.

In article ,
"David Eduardo" wrote:

"Telamon" wrote in message
news:telamon_spamshield-
My point is that the average DXer in the era could not afford a wire
recorder. Or a disk recorder. Keyword: average.

SNIP

Nothing special about me. I'm average and I could afford one.


You have a $4000 receiver and you think you are average?

Get real.

Yes, just not in your special world.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California