[BC] putting phone calls on the air

[Barry Mishkind]

Hi Peter,

Your experience does mirror mine in several aspects.

At 10:55 PM 9/16/2006, Peter Smerdon wrote
>Recording/airing of phone calls was allowed about 1966-68 provided a 
>short "pip" was put to line every 15 secs to alert the other party 
>that the call was being recorded/broadcast. This was done with a 
>telco supplied box called a "recorder-connector" which was initially 
>the only way to _legally_ connect external audio equipment to a 
>phone line. The "recorder-connector" also provided the safety isolation.

         I remember these very well in the same time period.
         They probably came into use in the early 1960s
         (or possibly the late 1950s) as this was in a smaller
         market station - the theory being the tech would
         have started in the large markets.

>Soon enterprising broadcasters were adapting the tried-and-true 
>telco hybrid transformer (2-wire to 4-wire, or simplex to duplex)for this task.

         Or ... tap the speaker on the speakerphone,
         which solved two problems, the caller could
         hear the host, and the host could "talk over"
         the other person (caller) - something it seems
         is encouraged on cable TV shows these days.

         In fact, in Tucson and Phoenix, for example,
         the speakerphone was the most common
         method of getting phone audio into a station -
         even after some of the first hybrids came out.

         Somewhere in the back of my mind, I want
         to say Heathkit or .. some ham source ... for
         the first hybrid I used.

>The Major Network used a simpler system based around an early 
>Swedish speakerphone called the Ouijaphone. They just tapped off the 
>speaker signal and let the phone do all the work. A 
>recorder-connector bridged the line to provide the warning pips.

         I could be wrong, but it seems to me that
         we had a switch to turn the beeps on and off -
         assuming the jock remembered.  The sense
         we had was the telco was much more interested
         in the income from the coupler than any
         operational legalities.

>Of course this was expensive gear and only used in the on-air studios.
>There were still the "unofficial" couplers with PTT buttons on the 
>newsroom phones. This audio was always highly edited, so you could 
>always say that the missing pips (on the aired audio) was lost in 
>the edits, if it ever came up.

         Now, what broadcaster would do that?  <ggggg>

         barry




_______________________________________________________________________
Barry Mishkind     -       Tucson, AZ    -   520-296-3797