THOUGHTS OF AN OLD TIME RADIO COLLECTOR By Henry R. Hinkel

WINTER 1997, Vol. XXV, No. 1
ON LINE WITH THE INTERNET

In a previous column, I had mentioned that where I live I do not have much contact with other OTR collectors. The main reason being this area is OTR poor. Local radio stations do not broadcast OTR, local radio stations do not carry OTR and if there are any who show an interest in collecting they just don't have any way to find others in this area who also have an interest in OTR. This makes it difficult to get together with others and gossip, trade, or just have a general bull session involving the hobby.

This past summer this all changed. "How?" you may ask. It's very simple -- the Internet. This past summer I went "on-line" with the Internet and discovered OTR is available if you know where to look. The Internet is a super dupper warehouse of information for you, depending where your interest lie. OTR is no exception. It is there, all you have to do is find it. There are a couple dozen or more OTR related web sites which carry all sorts of information, some even have audio where you can hear actual OTR shows. The most popular of all web sites is probably Lou Genco's web page at http://www.old-time.com. On it are several different items you can go to, from vendors listings to radio logs. The main item that everyone "tunes" in to is William Pfeiffeer's OTR digest. This is where the "club" meets. Here you can ask your questions, get answers most of the time, or just pass along information of general interest concerning OTR. You can "subscribe" at no cost to you and receive the digest every day through your e-mail.

First of all, let me say that I am not a computer person. If I were choking and had to send a message in order to get help.... my insurance company would not be too happy with me. My wife and my son are the ones who actually "run" the computer. Last year my wife "talked" me into listing my OTR shows on the computer. This I did, but only after she made me a step by step list of what to do. You know.... push this button.... next control F.... enter.... pause.... scratch head....enter.... whoops....scratch head again. Needless to say, it took time but I finally managed to enter most of what I had. No one in their right mind could afford to pay me by the hour to do what I did. Now that is simple computer data entry work....can you imagine me trying to "surf" the Internet.... "YIKES!!!!" The easiest solution of course was for my wife or son to give me a print out of the OTR digests. That way I get to read the digest and they get to use the computer.

When I read my first few digests, I said to myself "This.... is.... nice". After a coupe of weeks I said "This is great!". The topics and subject matter cover just about everything you could imagine -- from a topic that everyone seems to jump on for over a week and nearly hammer it to death, to casual little items of information that is appreciated by everyone. You may read about a radio tower that fell down in Boston, to fake radio towers in California that were used to aggravate the competition. From an in-depth history on a certain radio show to radio logs to help keep your collection straight. From abandoned radio studios with their "on the air" signs still on the wall, to empty lots where stations and studios once stood. And of course the main topics that made OTR what it was, from the big name shows to the lesser known and forgotten ones.

After reading the digest for a couple of weeks, I found another pleasant surprise. Some of the contributors were people I know, Bob Burnham, Jay Hickerson, Ed Carr, Dave Siegel, Max Schmid, Kathy O'Connell, and Anthony Tollin. Then every once in a while another name would pop up that I am also familiar with. This isn't to say that these people write in every day. When a topic comes up, they may jump in, put in their two-cents worth, and jump back out again. It's almost like sitting in on an OTR club meeting with questions and answers flowing in and out, topics shifting from one thing to another. I enjoy reading postings by "new" collectors. They often ask questions about things I forgot about, but an "old" collector will send in an answer and someone else may add to it, all which adds to everyone's benefit.

However, I must say the OTR digest is not for everyone. Some may find it boring with too wide a range of subject matter. I don't. I feel that any information I read that is "new" to me is to my benefit. Even the "old" that I forgot about helps to jog the old memories and stories. Of course like everyone else I may find certain topics not of any great interest to me, but generally, I enjoy everything everyone writes.

It's amazing the knowledge that's out there among collectors. Some have been very thorough in their quest for information because when you read their topics, the information is almost overwhelming in accuracy. I say to myself, "No one can remember this much detail about a show just from memory", so they must have done a lot of research to gather that much information, which is great for the rest of us readers. Then there is the collector who, like myself, just relies on their memory. As I read their article, I pick it apart with "that's not right", that's the wrong name", "he was not on that show". I can't always remember the correct answers myself, but someone else will write in o set the record straight. That's the nice thing about the OTR digest. Ninety-nine percent of all contributions are in the proper spirit and attitude which makes for enjoyable reading. It's a very friendly and "homey" place to spend some time in. It not only helps us learn more about the hobby, but helps new collectors feel like part of a big friendly family.

Now to change the subject for a moment. One of the guests at this past Newark OTR Convention was Eddie Bracken. I had an opportunity to talk with him for a few moments and said to him, "Tell me if this story is true. During World War II you got credit for capturing a Japanese solider and you weren't even there". He replied, "I not only got credit but I also got a medal for doing it too". How did this happen you may ask. I didn't ask him for the details but as I remember hearing the story, on one of the Pacific Islands they were showing one of his movies. As the GI's were gathered around watching the movie, unknown to them, a Japanese solider was hiding up in one of the trees. Whether he understood some English or not, as the movie progressed he got caught up in the humor of the movie and started laughing so hard, he fell out of the tree and was captured. The GI's felt they would never have discovered the solider in the tree and that it was Eddie Bracken's humor that was responsible for the capture -- thus the credit and later the medal.

Just some thoughts of a collector.

SPRING 1997, Vol. XXV, No. 2
SQUEALING TAPE PROBLEMS

This past summer as I sat down to listen to some OTR tapes in my collection, I pulled out a reel of tape that I had picked up nearly 20 years ago when I first started collecting OTR. As I sat there listening with headphones on, I thought, "Boy after all these years the sound is still beautiful on these tapes". There isn't any reason why they shouldn't be good. They have been stored on the shelves after being properly rewound and not abused in any way. I had just listened to two Eddie Cantor shows and was about 10 minutes into the third, when I became distracted by this odd whistling sound that was slowly getting louder. "What is she doing now?", I asked myself as I looked around to see what my wife was doing to make this very annoying sound. I couldn't see her in the next room, so I took off my headphones to call out to her when I noticed this annoying noise had a different sound to it. I thought for a second, put the headphones back on, then took them off again. I then realized that the annoying noise was not only in the room, but also in my headphones. I reached over and shut off my tape player and that annoying noise stopped. "Oh, no"..... I thought, as I sat there in disbelief. "I have just been hit by The Black Plague of OTR collecting..... squeaky tape".

But this can't be. This is not the black backed tape. This is a gray tape with beautiful sound. But a squeak is still a squeak no matter what color the tape. Next came the ritual. First we stare at the tape on the player. I don't know what this does, it's like raising the hood on your car and staring at the motor when your car won't start. If the problem is inside the engine you can look all you want, you still won't see anything. This problem is inside the tape. Next we turn on the tape deck and watch the tape as it plays. Everything seems normal. Maybe if we hand turn the reel just a little further so this tape will have a little slack in it. Aha..... with a half turn of the reel this tape goes up the other side of the reel instead of "hanging loose" from it. The tape is sticking. Maybe if I put a pencil against the tape and pull it away from the reel slowly, I can help it to "unstick". No..... that's not working..... that only makes the tape peel the backing off the next layer. Now I not only have squeaky tape, I also have drop outs in the sound that is there.

The third thing to try is a little lubricant. Apply a little silicone to a Q-tip, place it on the running tape..... whoops..... this only makes the tape stop dead in its tracks when the lubricant hits the heads. Next..... clean the whole machine again. We now have to try a whole new approach..... let me see..... someone once told me they soaked their reels in a pail of water overnight, then played them the next day. They claimed it worked but for some reason I just can't picture a reel dripping water all over my desk and tape deck being the solution to this problem. I think I'll pass on this method. What about baking? I remember reading and hearing that baking tapes does work. Let me see..... what was the instructions..... bake at 350 degrees for a 1/2 hour, or was it 3 hours? I heard and read about this many times, now that I wanted to try it, I can't remember the instructions. Preheat..... I do remember that you should preheat the oven a few minutes before putting the tape in. Well, lets see what happens. I put the oven on, got my reel of tape, put it in an old metal pie dish, waited a few minutes for the oven to warm up, then put it in to bake. I'll leave it in for 2 hours and then try it and see if this method works. With that, I went to the sink, got a drink of water..... yes, I said water..... and when I was leaving the kitchen I stopped dead in my tracks. Do I smell plastic???? I ran to the oven.... opened the door, and there in the metal pie dish was a big gray mushroom. Yow..... must be the oven was too hot. I retrieved the dish..... ouch..... ouch..... ouch..... and pondered my next move. Hmmm..... the tape looked good but the plastic reel was a mess. If I can salvage this tape, I can try again.

It took about an hour to cut away the overhanging plastic and slowly rewind the tape, but I did finally manage to salvage the tape. Now we have to re-think this process. This time I used a metal reel, set the temperature for as low as it would go, put a thermometer in the oven to try and keep track of the temperature so I know how hot it may get if there is another problem. If this doesn't work, then I don't know what to do next. Then a scary thought struck me sending chills up and down my spine. How many other reels are there in the collection with this problem? If we can't correct the squeaky tape, what happens to all of these reels? Brrr..... do we throw them away or do we save them in the hope that someone will come up with a solution to this problem? Its bad enough to have to lose these reels, but what is even worse, is that many of the shows are low generation in very good and excellent sound. They were obtained nearly 20 years ago from the original or close to the original source. If I have to replace these reels, where do I go to get them? Many of those collectors from 20 years ago are no longer available to the hobby and neither are their collections with tapes of good sound. It looks like this could be a real big problem in the future.

I have noticed in some tapes that I have picked up in the last couple of years there are sound problems. More so than when I first started collecting. Some of these tapes were obviously just poorly recorded but many others just had the sound flattened down. I don't know if this is because of poor recording techniques or because more people are using Dolby. There is nothing wrong in listening with Dolby, but I don't believe it should be used to record with, especially among collectors who trade. I had to use my equalizer to restore some of the highs to the sound. I was able to restore the sound to some of the shows but the sound on some of the others was too flat to bring back. If the hobby is active 20 years from now, collectors may have to start finding original disks again and start a new run of first generation material.

Now as for my original problem of squeaky tape, I let the tape bake for about 6 hours. I would check it about every half hour to make sure no other mushrooms or other objects developed in the pie dish and then took it out and let it cool. Everything looked okay. Now the big test, will it work? I placed this tape on the deck, put on the headphones, and pushed the play button. The sound was beautiful, just like it was 20 years ago. Baking it had worked. The next step of course is to make a duplicate just in case, and make sure it doesn't squeak before it is completed. That night I put another tape in the oven before I went to bed and retrieved it the next morning. Success again. This method does work. I guess the instructions simply are: use a metal reel, set the temperature for about 120 degrees, and bake for about six hours. I understand that this is not a permanent solution and the tapes will revert back to squeaking. But at least it will give you time to salvage some of your favorite shows. I must also tell you that in the course of all this squeaky tape business I did manage to damage two reels that I wound up throwing in the outdoor fireplace. The only satisfaction I got out of that was knowing that those reels went up in smoke in the outdoor fireplace and not in the kitchen oven.

Just some thoughts of a collector.

FALL 1997, Vol. XXV, No. 3
THINKING BACK

I recently dug into my OTR library and pulled out some of the teenager shows I enjoyed as a kid, Archie Andrews, Henry Aldrich, A Date With Judy and Corliss Archer. I loved these shows as a kid, and I loved them when I heard them again for the first time in many years. Now as I listen to them once again, I must have listened with a more critical ear. Oh, I enjoyed them, but not as much as before.

Archie I realized was a nit wit. He made his own problems simply because he did stupid things. Week after week he did something dumb until he got himself into some sort of trouble. Henry Aldrich on the other hand didn't always do something dumb, he just didn't pay attention to things that were happening around him until he finally blundered into his big problem. Judy and Corliss were supposed to be typical teenage girls. Usually their big problem was getting a new dress for a dance or some other social thing they were involved in. Things would slowly build until Dexter would finally exclaim "Holl-lee Cow". No matter what the problem was for these four teenagers, everything would straighten out in the end, usually with some help from Mom and Dad. The fathers of these kids were all "professional" men and the mother's were always home to guide them. Not really the typical family of the "average" listener whether you grew up in the city in the East or the plains of Nebraska out West.

I grew up in a mill town. Both my parents and most relatives worked in the mills. Growing up I knew where I probably would be going after high school. Most families struggled through the depression. When World War II started, the mills went into war production and most people now had steady jobs. Wages were "frozen" so even though people worked, no one made what was called "big money". Everyone survived, but money was tight. Hard times were over for most people, but not completely gone. I don't recall a single kid on my street every owning a brand new bicycle.

Archie Andrews got a job in a drug store as a soda jerk and proceeded to make a jerk of himself. Henry Aldrich got involved raising pigeons and as usual got in over his head. When the boys in my neighborhood turned 11 or 12 years old, they got jobs at night in the local bowling alley as pin boys setting bowling pins for the bowling leagues. Hard work for an 11 or 12 year old. By law you were supposed to be 12 to be able to work there, but if you were a big 11, sometimes you could sneak by. Neighborhood girls usually never worked, not even as baby sitters. At that time no one ever used baby sitters, that came several years later. By today's standards, most parents would have been arrested for child abandonment, endangering and child abuse. My parents sometimes had to work second shift until 10:00 p.m. For me that meant I was home alone until they got home from work. There was always something already cooked for supper, and of course the radio was always on.

As a 10 year old, I along with a few of the neighborhood boys discovered there was money to be made shining shoes. So we made ourselves shoe shine boxes, filled them with pastes, polishes and brushes, and at about 8:00 p.m. every Friday and Saturday night during the summer, we would divide up and hit the local bars shining shoes. On an average night we would make about 3 or 4 dollars for two or three hours of work. On a "good night" we could make 6 or 7 dollars. On an exceptional night it was possible to make 10 dollars. Our parents didn't make 10 dollars for a day's work in the mills. Can you imagine today, a 10 year old going out shining shoes at night? Today most 10 year olds spend most of their time watching TV.

Sports were a big event in young kids lives. I don't recall Archie or Henry every being involved in sports. We were fortunate in our city as the recreation department organized many leagues for the boys from 10 years old right past high school age. Basketball and baseball teams competed from all over the city. Girls were mainly excluded from sports programs. That was unfortunate because I knew some girls who could really hit a baseball and really run.

Tragedies were never presented on the comedy shows, simply because they were comedy shows and not social forums as today's TV sometimes portrays them. Growing up through the years, there were many kids we knew who died in drownings, fires, accidents and childhood illnesses. Death on radio was reserved mostly for the mystery and detective shows, and children rarely were victims. Unlike today's reality TV, where you actually see people falling out of windows, airplanes crashing, cars crashing and exploding, death and tragedy was usually held to a simple murder on those mystery shows.

There was a discussion on the internet recently concerning the reality and impact of Dragnet when it first came on the air. I remember when it first came on and word spread fast that this was a "must" show to listen to, and it was. The music got your attention. Jack Webb's rat-tat-tat delivery held your ear to the radio and realism of the show with it's sound effects would not let you turn it off. These were real cops. The local small town police could not compare to these guys. The local beat cop would come around, holler at the neighborhood boys, sometimes give them a boot in the pants and scare them all away, then stand on the corner and hold a friendly conversation with the neighborhood bookie. Even a 10 year old knew that something was not right here. Joe Friday would never act like that.

There was a difference between real life and radio life. For the most part, the comedies solved the problem of the day and had a happy ending. You could turn away from the radio with a simile on your face. The mystery and crime shows usually proved that crime does not pay. The bad guys either got caught or got his just deserts in the end. Sometimes he got away, but he still lost in his battle with the good guys.

Today as we listen to these programs from 40 and 50 years ago, maybe we sometimes listen with too critical an ear. Back then we looked upon our heroes through innocent eyes and listened to them with innocent ears. We were aware of, and knew of, the bad things that were happening in the world and we looked to our heroes to get us through the bad times and make things "right " again. We too often forget the talent that went into writing, producing, and acting to bring us the shows that we learned to love to listen to. We sometimes forget that what they brought us was entertainment. We enjoyed the excitement of the detective shows and thrilled to the suspense of the mystery shows. We laughed at the comedies no matter how silly they sometimes were. If Archie wasn't such a nit wit and Henry didn't bumble his way into problems as he did, they wouldn't be the same people we loved to listen to. If they were any different, maybe we wouldn't have enjoyed them so much.

Just some thoughts of a collector.

Send questions and comments about the NARA NEWS Magazine to:    Hank Hinkel, Old Timer

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