Music on Vinyl

       We simply used to call them records or LPs.  Now they are referred to as vinyl.  Let’s have a little backgrounder.  It was Thomas Edison who actually invented the phonograph when he recorded his voice saying, “Mary had a little lamb”.  His microphone was simply a funnel on which a needle was attached to a diaphragm at the small end.  The needle was laid on a heated wax cylinder (resembling a rolling pin) which was then turned by hand as he spoke. The funnel concentrated his voice, vibrating the diaphragm and made the needle indent corresponding valleys on the soft wax.  Those valleys were an analog recording of his actual voice.  Later, the wax cylinder was allowed to cool and harden.   When the cylinder was then turned, the needle now rode on the valleys and this vibrated the diaphragm back, reproducing his voice.  This is basically how analog recording and playback works.

       In time, the crude wax cylinder was replaced by flat discs.  The recording and playback process remained the same. However, the needle now recorded sound as side to side wiggles as it made spiral tracks from the outer rim of the disc going in towards the spindle.  The rotational speed of the first records was 78 revolutions per minute, meaning the turntable made 78 rotations every minute.  Typically, only one song could be recorded on one side of the disc at this speed.  Later as finer needles were made, the rotational speed was reduced to 45 rpm, and later to 33 1/3 rpm.

       The discs were then called phonograph records because they were sound recordings. (Obviously, LOL!)  The first discs were made of shellac. These were sturdy and hard but also very brittle, so they literally broke into little pieces when subjected to stress.  It was not uncommon in those days to accidentally drop records on the floor and that was the end of them.  There was virtually no way to glue them back together, and the next move was to sweep the debris off the floor and say goodbye.  Worse was when someone sat on your records lying on the bed.  The inevitable cracking sounds would send chills up your spine as you lose more records again…

My wind-up RCA gramophone playing a 78 rpm record

       It’s good that a more flexible material was later found and this was a type of plastic called vinyl. (Now you know why they’re called vinyl—LOL!) Records made from this material could be made thinner and be reasonably flexed without breaking.  Now they could be dropped on the floor without shattering (they were actually labeled as unbreakable, as a matter of fact) and, unless you were really heavy, and/or the mattress was extra soft, they usually didn’t break even if you sat on them.

       Vinyl also had less surface noise during playback as the needle traced its way in the grooves compared to shellac, so the blank groove was practically quiet when there was no music.  Being the material of choice, vinyl now refers to any analogue record, either 33 1/3 or 45. Let’s go to the 45 rpm records first.

       One distinguishing feature of the 45 rpm records is the big hole in the center.  The records themselves were smaller than the 78s but still held only one song per side.  I believe these were developed primarily for the juke box industry, though the discs were also very popular with the teen generation, as detailed further below.  For now, let’s share some historical tidbits regarding those ubiquitous juke boxes, the likes of which we may never see again.

        Juke boxes were automated mechanical record players capable of playing hundreds of songs and were standard equipment installed in bars and diners all over the world, either they be soda, snack, or drinking bars—just about anywhere where people went for meals or refreshment.  The units were coin operated and had pushbuttons which were internally set for selection of particular songs from a list.  These automated machines, about as tall as refrigerators, were really novel.

       I can still remember the ritual involved in operating a juke box.  It usually had attractive blinking colored lights, standing in a conspicuous corner like a robot waiting for anyone to come up to it, with its illuminated list of songs behind its glass cover.  After seeing a song one wants to listen to, a coin is inserted into the coin slot.  After hearing the familiar clunks as the coin rolls inside, the machine confirms by turning on some lights, and waits until the buttons corresponding to the song number are pushed. This done, a whirr would be heard as a mechanical arm fetches the record and places it on the spindle. The tone arm appears and places the needle on the rotating record and the music then starts playing.  When the song was done, the machine would revert to standby mode, waiting for the next coin to be dropped in. Several songs could be played automatically by selecting them sequentially and dropping in more coins

       By the way, the records were typically played standing up, rotating in a vertical position, not flat on a platter as is customary on record players. Using some ingenious designs, some of these units actually flipped the record over when a desired song was on the other side.  In others, the tone arm had two needles on both sides so it was merely moved to the selected side of the record to play.  It was fun watching the mechanical part of the contraptions operate.  The overall sound was quite good, too, with adequate bass and treble and relatively loud volume.  They occasionally even served as music sources for  dance parties.

       One social aspect I observed about those juke boxes, however, was that everyone in the bar would hear what song/s you selected, and this in some way revealed your musical taste; branding you to your particular choice of songs. On the business side, I think juke boxes made good money as their popularity continued up until the late 1960s.

       With advancement in technology in the recording industry, in the 1960s with finer needles and thinner grooves on the disc, the recording speed was reduced to 33 1/3 rpm and it was now possible to store at least six songs on one side of the disc.  These new discs were called long-playing records, later abbreviated as LPs. They were wider, even bigger than the 78s, but they held 12 songs overall, on both sides.

       The audio quality was also much improved to the extent that when played on state-of-the-art equipment, the reproduction was almost indistinguishable from the actual live performance.  Thus came the label hi-fi, which stands for High Fidelity   Further improvements were to come.  The original records were recorded in mono, and were reproduced only from a single channel, or speaker system.  However, for a realistic listening experience in which one can perceive depth and more minute detail, each ear should be hearing a slightly different sound, much like our eyes are able to perceive distance because each sees a slightly different view.  Aurally, this was accomplished by using two microphones, one for the left and the other for the right ear.  Eventually it was discovered that two channels could be recorded on a single groove without interfering with each other, and thus full stereophonic (or binaural) sound reproduction was achieved. Stereophonic was eventually shorted to stereo.  Two-channel reproduction had became a standard, that in time stereo came to mean any music system in the house.

       Later there were attempts to increase the number of channels to four, called quadraphonic, but technical issues prevented its adoption or further development. Four-channel recording was still done on a single groove, but the mathematical interpolations on the musical waveforms plus an ultrasonic signal proved too complex for decoders and less expensive cartridges—and this approach was eventually discontinued.

       I’d like to expound a bit on those 45 rpm records, or 45s as they were fondly known.  Aside from being used in juke boxes, I mentioned above that these small discs were also very popular with the teen generation of that period.  They were very inexpensive, had great portability and the issues involved in sharing records with others was no big concern even if a record was damaged or not returned.  For about the price of a sandwich, you just bought a new one.

       Another big plus was the convenience to be able to store only selected songs individually in one’s collection, because typically if you only liked a song or two in an LP, you still had to buy the whole album and LPs were more expensive.  The audio quality of the 45s was on par with the 33s, but the latter was viewed as superior and it was unthinkable to be playing 45 rpm records on a high-end system.  It was perhaps also for this reason that very few songs were released in stereo in this format.

       LPs continued to be manufactured even as the CD was invented and had become the more popular choice of music lovers.  Eventually, however, the digital format dominated, especially with the invention of the mp3 format which allowed compression of file size without significant loss in quality. Aside from computer hard drives, recordings are now also stored in memory cards, obviating the need for mechanical motors, transducers and their associated costs and limited life spans.

       No heresy here or guilt feelings involved, but I now listen regularly to my music collection using flashdrives and memory cards.  But on some lazy afternoons and late nights, I occasionally fire up my turntables and pop on an LP or two, playing these on tube amplifiers.  There is a discernible difference in aural quality between the analog and digital formats, and between solid-state and tube equipments, but those discussions are for another time.  Meanwhile, let’s enjoy the music.  As they say, “If music be the food of love, play on…”

My First Transistor Portable

        It was in 1964 that my interest in shortwave radio listening began after receiving station DZH8 on the 25-meter band on my then shiny brand-new National T-350 transistor portable. Dad gave me the radio as a gift for getting good grades in school.  I had actually asked him for a pocket portable as this was the craze in school, in like manner that today’s kids sport iPods and mp3 players.

Dad was already quite familiar with electronics as this was his hobby then and he reasoned that the pocket radios would not last because of the way they were constructed – with so many parts crammed into very little space.  And their performance, with only a few transistors inside and small speakers was markedly inferior to the big sets.  But it was up to me really – he would buy me whatever type I decided on.

            I was already beginning to become interested in ham radio, and none of the pocket sets sold then had shortwave coverage where hams communicated with each other.  It was 1964, I was only 12, and of course I couldn’t bring a big set to school.  I would become the laughing stock then.  That summer we were to vacation in Manila and Dad planned to buy the radio there. In the days that followed, I began to draw up some criteria or specs for the radio and in the end, they called for a big set.   I did the selection when we shopped in Manila at a store named Oxford at the Escolta, at Raon St.

            As my eyes scanned the many radios on display, the National T-350 kind of stood out from the rest because of its twin speakers and it was labeled “Hi-Fi”, or high fidelity.  It also had an attractive nice looking slide rule dial covering three-bands, fine tuning (bandspread), a tuning and battery life meter, external antenna and ground inputs, tone control switch, and external speaker outputs.  Just what I wanted!

            Here’s a proud 12-year old me posing for a self-portrait with the National T-350 and the QSL (reception verification) card from DZH8:

 

 I'm a bit blurred as the focus was set on the radio and the card!

 This station is now defunct, so this card has become a collector's item.

            

 

 

The reception verification at the back of the card,  11.85 Mc/s. (25-meter band). 

July 23, 1964 at 5:13 PM - 5:25 PM (Phil. Time)

Additional materials sent by the FEBC station served to spike my interest in the hobby

 

 The illustration on the cover page depicts the radio signals reflecting off the ionosphere and returning back to earth beyond the horizon which is what makes long-distance reception possible on shortwave.

                  The Overseas Programming Guide, aside from having a comprehensive listing of broadcast schedules in different languages and times, also had a page explaining how shortwaves work and how to get good reception.  These instructions really helped as I began setting up my long-wire rooftop antenna.  A time calculator was also included.  I learned that time was different in other countries, depending on where on the globe they were located.

            With regard to the National T-350 which is now 48 years old, I still have the radio to this day and which I use regularly even though I also have other receivers.   Here are some photos of it:

 

Complete with its instruction book.  At the left of the radio, partially hidden is the leather carrying case. The set also came with a shoulder strap on which was a small pouch containing an earphone and a length of orange wire.  Even the external antenna wire was included!. 

 Here the radio is all dressed up.

 The nameplate at the rear.  The phono jack below it is a later addition and is a tuner output port for connection to an external amplifier.  I also used it to record broadcasts on tape.

 

           The radio had been a companion at home and on out-of-town trips.  Dad had since passed away, but time has proven that he was right.  None of my classmates’ pocket radios have survived, yet my T-350 is still here and continues to reliably receive stations from all over the world for almost half a century now. 

            By the way, comments are welcome on this blog. Or, if you have questions, kindly drop me an email and I will respond as soon as I can.  To contact me, click on the "View My Complete Profile" link at the right of this page and when you are on the profile page, click the email link below my profile picture.  I do have extensive knowledge on the topics I write about and I'll be very happy to help..  Do give a short introduction about yourself so we can get to know each other better.

The All American Five

         No, they’re not a bunch of super-heroes, but was a contraption that was sold by the millions around the world and served as the source of news and music for homes, restaurants, students in the universities or wherever a radio was to be had.  It was the radio that was also known as the AC/DC set, and it came in all sorts of shapes, colors, and sizes.  The cabinet designs were as diverse as the imagination of those who made them.  No doubt anyone who had used this radio has fond memories of it.

Why was it called the “All American Five?”  First, the original brands were from America.  Second, the "Five" refers to the number of tubes it had.  In time, manufacturers in countries from all over the world began making their versions of them, and some variants featured minor refinements either to optimize performance or just to be different, while retaining the same basic circuitry. Now affectionately known as the AA5, the AC/DC set was gradually eased out by the new transistor sets in the 1960s.

            It was my grandpa’s beside radio.  I remember it was a white Zenith, and I loved watching the pilot light change from a dim pink to a bright fiery red when the set had warmed up and started playing.  My parents had a GE in the living room.  I can still remember hearing the songs of Doris Day, Pat Boone, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Steve Lawrence, Mel Torme, Sue Thompson, Connie Francis, Timi Yuro, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and a host of others emanating from its loudspeaker which had a sound of its own.

When I later took up a correspondence course in electronics with the National Technical Schools in California, one of the training kits they sent me was a good performing AC/DC radio that had both AM and shortwave coverage. The parts came in every two or three weeks, as it had to be slowly assembled by lessons in order to demonstrate and learn the functions of its different stages.  When it was fully assembled and finally became a full-fledged set, it regularly received the Voice of America, the BBC, NHK from Tokyo, Radio Netherlands, Deutse Welle from Germany, Radio Australia, All India Radio, etc. on my bedside each night as I surfed the bands.

Because they were very simple to construct and would almost always work the first time they were turned on, I was able to assemble a great number of these units through the years for friends and family that I lost count how many.  As such, I later became an expert on these sets. In addition to being just a radio, I was thus also able to reconfigure some for multiple functions to act as house intercoms or as phono amplifiers so that one could listen to their favorite records without having to buy a separate amplifier and speaker.

Among my collections are AA5s from different eras and I use them quite regularly, especially for shortwave listening.  Because of their age, they do act up once in a while, but they’re relatively easy to fix and keep working. Now, this may just be a subjective view, but stations seem to sound different when received on tube radios, the AA5 included.  The experience is further enhanced when receiving weak signals from remote places and the reception is interspersed with atmosphere static from distant lightning storms, with a lot of signal fading as those voices traveled a great distance, like halfway across the globe.  How you’re even able to hear them at all sometimes seems like a miracle in itself.

Experiences such as these make life richer. Our sense of wonderment should never cease.  Because indeed, modern communication has not really made the world smaller - it's only our perception of it that has.

The Starting Point

I just stumbled upon a photo of my humble setup way back in the mid-1960s.  I had just graduated from the elementary years and this was my corner of the world where I studied and did my homework.  It also served as my entertainment center and listening post for several years.  I did much electronics experimentation here – essentially, the starting point of my hobby.  

            On top of the table on the left is the National T-350 three-band portable radio Dad gave me in 1964 on which I had my first shortwave reception one sunny afternoon after coming home from school, from a station that had the call letters DZH8, broadcasting on the 25-meter band.  Fed by an aerial antenna on top of the roof, in time I was also able to receive stations from all over the world on this set.

            In the center was my first serious radio project – a five-tube receiver I assembled from a diagram in an RCA Tube Manual.  A six-inch speaker housed in the box at the right was used for better fidelity.   This set was for listening all day to local stations around town and also from neighboring islands.  At night, stations from faraway Manila could also be heard.  My favorite then was station DZMT. Although the transistor set also had an AM band, I used it mainly for shortwave listening.

            The ambitious looking project at the left of the desk was an experimental radio Dad assembled when he was learning about electronics.  He later found that the hobby was not for him and gave this to me.  This was a great sounding radio and this was where I listened to music on AM with a quality that almost rivals FM of today.  The speaker box on which it sits used a Philips AD9750M eight-inch full range driver in a ducted bass-reflex enclosure  I did not use this set often as it consumed a lot of electricity due to its many tubes and it also generated a lot of heat.   

            Sigh.  I sure miss those good old days.

Connecting with the Past

I can’t help but be in awe at how far technology has gone, especially for us members of the so-called Baby Boomer generation (those born after the Second World War in the years 1946 – 1964 when economic prosperity rose and birth rates increased).   It was a very different world that we grew up in – much simpler and very much slower – but everything worked nonetheless, and we got things going, so nobody really complained.

Let’s travel back in time to about half a century ago.  It would really be fun connecting with the past.  You’ll be amused at what you’ll learn.  I’ve been there, or more accurately, that’s where I came from, and I still have many of the things from that era. It would really be a pleasure sharing these with you.

  Most everyone loves listening to music, so let’s start with this one.

We listened to music mostly on the radio.  It was then the primary source of entertainment in the home.  Radio programming was generally geared towards music broadcasting all day, stations starting their broadcasts at 5:00 a.m., the genre of songs to fit the time of day, until they signed off at 11:00 p.m.  24/7 broadcasting was unheard of then.  People had to sleep, so there was always a quiet period each night till sign on again the next day.  Cool.  I miss those days.

The early broadcasts were on AM – on the same 550 -1600 medium-wave (MW) band spectrum that’s in use today, except that the frequencies were referred to then as kilocycles per second (kc) instead of kilohertz (khz).  You will see this on the dial markings of radios of that era.  FM came later in the 1960s.   One thing I must say, though – AM stations in those days sounded so much better than they do now.  I believe it was standard practice at that time that all broadcast material should be of the highest quality.  And that extended even to the person behind the microphone.  I could have been a radio announcer myself but was told that my type of voice was considered not fit for broadcast.  Not cool! LOL!

Because electronics experimentation was my hobby, I constructed many receivers throughout the years on which I listened to both AM and shortwave broadcasts.  Shortwave is a spectrum above the MW band that extends from 3 to 30 Mhz on which you can receive broadcasts (news and music) from all over the world direct from the countries from where they originated from.  Radio listening here (called DX for distance) is limitless adventure and lots of fun, often tuning late into the night and sometimes until the wee hours of the morning when band propagation is most active.  I will discuss at length on this in future posts.

Aside from radio, there were the phonograph records – these are the flat discs now referred to as vinyl or LPs on which the actual sounds are recorded in spiral grooves and which play from the outer rim towards the spindle at the center.  (Today’s CDs, on the other hand, play from the inside towards the outer rim.)  We had 78s, 45s, and 33 1/3s – the numbers referring to the rotational speed measured in revolutions per second (rpm) of the platter on which the records were played.  There’s also so much to tell about phonograph records that I’ll reserve that for future postings when I dedicate our discussions to specific subjects.

And of course the tape recorders on which we did our copying of selected songs either from records, from the radio, or even live performances.  The quality of the recordings was proportionately dependent on how expensive your equipment was, though.  The original open-reel tapes in time evolved to other smaller formats until its performance was rivaled by the compact audio cassette, which I believe most of you are familiar with, since the ‘cassette’ as it was popularly known, was only fairly recently taken over by the CD.

Fast forward to today - you’ll find me using a Nokia C1-01 cellphone and earbuds for my music during my early morning walks.  In addition, I also take both still photos and video using its built-in camera, and its voice recorder for memos.  The songs are organized in different playlists so that I don’t have to listen to the same batch each time.

 

While we keep abreast with modern technology, it will become even more interesting when we start exploring and building old-time projects and find that most of these have actually led to the development of the high-tech gizmos that we enjoy today.  It will prove to be a very fascinating and rewarding experience to be connecting with the past.

It is 2012

            It’s like waking up from a dream. Suddenly it hit me – bam! It’s already mid-2012, and I turned 60 a few months ago.  It kind of seems that way when one’s gotten off the rat race and had begun settling to a semi-retired life.  As I now just stay at home getting my bearings, things that were a blur begin to come into focus and start to reveal themselves in a new perspective. 

            I am basically a tech guy and loved the technology that I grew up with.  Flashback to my teen years, we listened to music on the AM band on tube radios, played 33 and 45 rpm records, had open-reel tape recorders, our rooms sported big speaker boxes with 15-inch woofers that pumped out thundering bass and horn tweeters for sparkling highs, brought along pocket radios when on the move, drove six- or eight-cylinder cars that we used to race around town, used CB and SSB radio for local and long-range communication, recorded our memories on Diana cameras, Brownies, and later the 35mm SLRs, our vacations filmed on 8mm telecine cameras and watched them later on wide screens (basically just white blankets tacked on the wall) – just to name a few.

            Those of you who were born in the 1950s and 60s could readily identify with these.  For those who came later, just keep on following.  I’ll eventually tell all about those and more   Those were great times, really.  Like seeing Apollo 11 (the first moon landing) on black and white TV, as we lived in the city; while those who lived in the countryside just heard the event broadcast live on radio. I especially remember the first time I listened wide-eyed to shortwave broadcasts in 1964 on my first portable transistor radio, a National T-350 which was a gift from my Dad for getting good grades in school.  I still have that radio to this day and it still works.

            And those science fair projects?  I earned the nickname of ‘mad scientist’ in our grade section for always having the most ‘advanced’ projects in Science Class.  You see, electronics, photography and general science had been my hobbies ever since and assembling projects was my pastime.  I’ll relate about that later in my future postings.

            Priorities began to change after I got married and started raising a family.  Most of my hobby activities began to take the back seat, almost forgotten through almost three decades as family responsibilities were attended to.  Technology meanwhile had also began to advance in many directions and I tried to keep up by acquiring and using the new devices but only because I had to.  We have to adapt as technology moves forward.  You can’t keep on using analog when everything else is going digital. However, I missed the fun aspect of my hobbies as I didn’t have much time to devote to them like I had previously, as in experimenting in electronics at length and the like.

            Now that I am semi-retired, recently my siblings suggested that I write a blog to share what I know (before I forget them due to old age, among other things – lol!).  So here I am with my first blog post.  What still fascinates me most is assembling functional and useful projects using simple circuits.  My first radio project when I was about eight years of age was a crystal set – a radio that needs no battery to work but continues to play as long as there are radio stations on the air.  I will delve into the details of the crystal set and many other interesting projects in due time.  You may even want to assemble some of these for yourself, or just perhaps gain the knowledge to fix some of the old gear lying around the house.  Or even start a new and fascinating hobby.

Meanwhile, off I go into my workshop to look for those radios, amplifiers, and whatnots that I had collected through the years which I had somehow left to gather dust.  These may be considered antiques by now. These masterpieces of yesteryears should be made to operate again before it becomes too late.  To give you a perspective on how much the electronics hobby landscape had changed, just last week I was in the process of putting up an outdoor antenna and went to the radio shop where I used to get my parts to buy porcelain insulators and lightning arresters, and the puzzled salesman could only ask, “What are those?”  Unmistakably, it is 2012, as the calendar on the wall continues to remind me.