A 1934 magazine that made me smile. :-)

[top204]

I was reading a 1934 magazine named: "Radio Pictorial", and I came across a strip cartoon that made me smile. Even after all of these years, some humour never stops being humerous to those of us who dislike the swearing and shouting and over-the-top sexual nature of the, so called, humour of now.



What do you think of it? And do you understand why all of the noises are made by the man in the restaurant?

[rick.curl]

Well- that's the way it sounded on the wireless!

Thanks for sharing, Les.  Enjoyed it.

-Rick

[charliecoutas]

Yes indeed, the whizzes pops and bangs were part of the enjoyment. Here in the UK we have Bob Harris, a radio DJ who spoke very softly. He was sometimes referred to as "Whispering Bob Harris, the man who you can't hear on medium wave".

Charlie

[shantanu@india]

Over perfection/digitalization is killing music.
I want records and cassettes back.

[top204]

The "Old Grey Whistle Test" from the 1970s and 1980s, with whispering Bob Harris. :-)

I could never get away with that TV program because I liked to hear the songs played from a studio recording, not a live sound with all the errors and out of tune stuff in it. I have never been a hero worshipper, so I was not bothered to see them. Just listen to some of the songs they brought out. :-)

Ahhh records Shantanu. I still have a record deck and about 20 LPs, and a few cassette tapes somewhere. I could never get away with Dolby sound, because it was always too dull, and really, all it used was compression with a bit of filtering. I used to make my own noise reduction circuits for noisy cassettes and the early digital audio effects I used to make, from an NE572 device. i.e. A dual compander chip. :-) If you used too large a capacitance on them, it would make it a lot quieter, but they would make the sound of breathing when the sound first started. LOL

[shantanu@india]

Yes Les.. the sweet, scratchy and hissy analog days are gone forever!!
We were a group of audio freaks who used to design our own sound boxes using self-designed crossover networks.
My friend designed a graphic equalizer using op-amps way back in 1984 and that still works perfectly.
Our music is now limited to an ad-filled Spotify App.

[top204]

The good old Gyrator circuit using an Op-Amp for filtering. :-)

I never made a graphic equaliser because I could not, really, afford all the slide pots, but I did make a couple of parametric equalisers with Gyrators.

The good old days of "real" electronics.

[John Lawton]

I still have my Revox A77 and a load of 10.5" tapes. Mind you I can't remember when I last used it... one day.

The problem with Dolby B was that if (100% likely) your recording medium had a replay response that tailed off at HF, then Dolby made that worse as it had a level dependant response.

I have just designed and manufactured a small batch of totally analogue interface units featuring a peak hold circuit for a customer. Their end customer was very nervous about having a custom electronics design but nothing that would do the job was available off-the-shelf. They were worried about what could happen in years to come if they needed to repair or source more units and I had fallen under a bus (!), so they were happy with my zero firmware design, i.e. no PIC.

On the upside, at least I could get all the parts

[charliecoutas]

When I was an apprentice in the 1960's I lived in a flat with four other electronics students in Loughborough (UK). We used to compete over who could produce the "best sound". Toby Dinsdale had just issued his ground-breaking design for a transistor power amp. I stuck with EF86, ECC83 and 2xEL84 (valves) for my amp, stereo was just too expensive. One night in the car my girlfriend and I spotted a huge sewer pipe made of clay (ceramic...) on a building site. We managed to wedge it into the boot of my Ford Anglia 105E and got it back to the flat. A wooden base was made and it was then stuffed with old clothes. A 12" driver was installed and boy, did it have a good bass response. I can't remember if I won the contest but it didn't matter, such great fun. (Yes, I stole the pipe and now feel slightly guilty about that.)

Charlie
 

[John Lawton]

Sounds like the concrete column design by Gilbert Briggs of Wharfedale fame. Using a couple of Super 8 speakers (or in my case I used Super 10's). Not sure my parents were so impressed at their appearance but the bass was <solid>.
http://ukhhsoc.torrens.org/makers/Wharfedale/Concrete_LS_Construction_Plans/Page1.gif

[top204]

I bet your neighbours loved you Charlie, and you John. :-)

When I was about 12, mum and dad saved up and bought me an electric guitar for christmas, and dad re-built a valve amplifer and built a large speaker unit for it. Then all of that year, all I heard in my bedroom from downstairs was; "Turn that bloody amplifier down!" LOL. I remember saying to dad, "then why did you make it so it could go so loud?", and he couldn't give a valid answer. :-)

Wonderful times with wonderful people. :-)

What did you use for the LED bar generator John? An LM3914 or LM3915 by any chance?, or a series of comparators?

[shantanu@india]

Hah LM3914 Les!!!
You reminded me of bygone era's when I used to design OpAmp based furnace temperature controllers for steel melting shops(sorry deviating off the topic). LM3914 based bar graphs used to indicate the Process variable and the %output.

[Yves]

Yes the good old days.

My first laptop was a Sinclair ZX81. You could program in Basic language and save the code on a magnetic cassette (which was so unreliable). One of my program was to automatically dial a rotary dial phone using a series of pulses. The zero was 10 pulses if I remember well. I can't remember which output I was using, but after a transistor amplification I could activate a relay to activate the main phone relay. I had few numbers saved in the 1K RAM and I use to call friends, boasting that I wasn't even using the phone dial to call and they thought that I was crazy. It was real good fun.

Yves 

[John Lawton]

I bet your neighbours loved you Charlie, and you John. :-)

It was a detached house

What did you use for the LED bar generator John? An LM3914 or LM3915 by any chance?, or a series of comparators?

Actually not audio at all, it is a 100mV instrumented power supply to test fuel cell membranes. The customer wanted a measurement of (peak) charge current (the fuel cell has a high capacitance) and measurement of voltage, especially during self-discharge of the cell, to check for abnormally low or high resistances due to membrane faults. I am pleased with the analogue design, but it took more time than usual as I couldn't count on making any firmware tweaks or adjustments, it had to be just right.