New "Toy"...

[Electronic M]

Lol!

It's quite impressive that with non-electronic survey equipment they could dig those trenches to meet up that accurately.

Back on topic those SS transoceanics were some real impressive sets. I've been watching for one for some time now, usually they are too expensive for my taste.
One that I would buy out of pity is being used for background music all day every day in an Anit-q shop in Superior Wi. I've asked them what they'd take for it and gotten the NFS reply...

I forget which model, but IIRC one of the later SS transoceanics had an FM stereo decoder built in that would only work if you listened through stereo headphones...Now that HAD to be luxurious in the late 60's. I wonder if the models that had it proclaimed it somewhere on the front of the cabinet?

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

I forget which model, but IIRC one of the later SS transoceanics had an FM stereo decoder built in that would only work if you listened through stereo headphones...Now that HAD to be luxurious in the late 60's. I wonder if the models that had it proclaimed it somewhere on the front of the cabinet?

I believe the T/Os with the FM multiplex decoder were the Royal 7000 series of the late 1970s, before Zenith discontinued the Transoceanic sets altogether. There was a prototype model, the Royal 8000, that never went into production. It supposedly had a digital frequency readout and may have been equipped for stereo FM as well.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

Which station was listed as the "beautiful music" station? We used to have a station in Chicago that played what most people would call elevator music. They were also the only station in Chicago that implemented Dolby FM noise reduction, and broadcast a calibration tone briefly every evening. They also had auxiliary programming on a (monaural) subcarrier with topics for doctors, sponsored by pharmaceutical companies.

The station in Chicago with beautiful music may have been, and this is just a guess, WMAQ-FM (now WRQX-FM) 101.1. The station was operated by NBC at the time ('60s-1986), before the original NBC radio network was disbanded; it was, like most FMs of the '60s-'70s, entirely automated with elevator music.

Many FM stations carried elevator music when they first went on the air (to justify having a license, they had to put something on the air, even if it meant playing tapes over the transmitter), later switching to some other format. Here in northeastern Ohio, most FM stations in Cleveland carried automated elevator music for years before going to live rock formats. The last FM in this area to change from elevator music to rock was WREO-FM in Ashtabula, Ohio, near Lake Erie; it did so in 1990 or '91.


I don't know if any Cleveland FMs broadcast in Dolby at any time during the '70s. I think the classical station at the time (WCLV-FM, 95.5) was the only station that even experimented with Dolby; if it did, the experiments only lasted a short time.

[Sandy G]

Down here, it was ALL OVER the map. Elevator music, Kuntry Lovin', Top 40, batshit crazy preachers, you name it. Seemed like we had quite a few College stations, WOUT in Knoxville, the ETSU station, & there even was a Chattanooga station that could be picked up now & then. My Granny had a blonde wood Zenith AM/FM that was PERENNIALLY tuned to Black Mountain, NC, they played classical, & Billy Graham. It was hooked up to a genuine FM antenna, IT was the one I hooked that JVC CX-500 AM/FM/TV/Cassette that one day in April that I got such INCREDIBLE DX from all over the Southeast on... Charlotte, High Point, Asheville, Atlanta, Warner-Robins, Decatur... I can only imagine WHAT it could have done if I'd had my ICOM R-7000 back then...(Sigh...)

[rca2000]

In this area...the BEST "beautiful music" station...bar NONE-was WLQA-fm. 98.5. This station played things I STILL have not been able to identify to this day. I have found a LOT of the tunes I loved over 34 years ago, but not nearly all of them. The station has been "warm 98" since late 1980....when it changed with NO warning...to shit rock format...

The LAST ez music station in this area...was WWEZ 92.5 FM. it also changed to rock, in 1990...also with no warning...

Now...I have "music choice" on my cable and several internet instrumental sources. But NOTHING comes close to FM 98...WLQA.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

The Hoover is a VERY impressive dam... Several TVA dams we have 'round here are somewhat impressive, too. NOTHIN' like THAT, though. Dated a gal back in '89 who lived in Turtletown, Tennessee, down in the FAR southeast corner of the state. LOTS of dams there, they were all built in the Thirties w/shovels. pickaxes, sweat & Dead Reckoming..

At one time, the electrical service rates, were the lowest in the US, as it didn't depend of fossil fuels, to generate the power.
Canada must have a lot of dams, as they refer to their power bills as "Hydro" bills!

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

They put their phone # on there-312-677-5900, & their motto-"The ULTIMATE Blend-In Beautiful Music !", along w/a sampling of what they'd play-"April in Portugal"-by Enoch Light,"Close To You"- Ronnie Aldrich, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head-Hugo Winterhalter.. "Beautiful Music" stations NEVER apparently played the originals, just "Emasculated" cover versions.

You missed 101 Strings.
WISN, in Milwaukee, had that format for like 15 years.
Now it's all talk and maybe college football on weekends.
These stations are constantly changing formats, according to Arbitron ratings.
We have three stations on FM, that play the head-banger rock.

[Sandy G]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

At one time, the electrical service rates, were the lowest in the US, as it didn't depend of fossil fuels, to generate the power.
Canada must have a lot of dams, as they refer to their power bills as "Hydro" bills!

Yep. TVA went head over heels into Nukie power, spent 3 truckloads of money, & has really little to show for it. I maintain if they'd spent that on developing better, more efficient hydro generators, instead of shoveling it into the Nookie rathole, we'd been a LOT better off.. Maybe they could have developed mini-generators that coulda been stuck w/little cost & disruption on the myriad of streams & creeks around the Appalachians, maybe NONE of 'em could run an Atlanta, Charlotte, Richmond, but they COULD have run several SMALLER cities & towns. TVA bumps up against the top of their generating capacity constantly on hot days, & increasingly, on the Zero days like we had this past winter. No new, LARGE generating plants have been built in nearly 40 years, but DEMAND has skyrocketed.. NOT a good situation.

[mpatoray]

Ah "Beautiful Music" stations, here in Youngstown that was WKBN-FM "Stereo 99" 98.9 on your FM dial.

Now it is a crappy clear channel mix station....

I am glad I bought a "Talking House" transmitter, i run my Power Mac G5 into it through a DBX 224 type II encoder. I can play whatever i want through the house on 1100 kHz even those new fangled internet radio stations.,

[dtvmcdonald]

I don't have a dam, but when I was a kid in Texas my uncle DID ... this one.

Its hollow inside and my uncle let us go inside it. I still have a key to
let me in ... after all these decades, they never changed the key!

[Sandy G]

Back in the early Seventies, TVA jumped in w/BOTH feet on the Nukie "Breeder" reactor business. They decided that they were gonna build one across the river from my family's farm. It was initially a $3 BILLION project. Well, they excavated, they built this, that, & the other over there, it was a truly BIG-TIME project. Then came the late Seventies/early Eighties, the economy slowed down, & they took a long, hard look at the Phipps Bend reactor. Lotsa DARK stories-Some said it was a fundamentally FLAWED design, others said they did some more site preparation, & found that it was gonna sit atop/adjacent to a HUGE natural gas dome.. Others pointed out that they were barely a third of the way done, yet had spent way more than HALF of their budget. Anyhow, the project was cancelled. The workers literally put down their tools & went home. But not everything was so neat & tidy-Both reactor cores were still being built. One, I think, was delivered at great fanfare-And expense. Actually, I think BOTH were eventually delivered-to a dead project.