Friday Check In

I would have liked to see how the legal team handled that, Oh no someone has prior art. They have the name but with a space so The Ghost Busters and the new Ghostbusters. I wonder was a licensing deal done in the back room.

I can watch them on Youtube so that's good.

Friday again?

Finally, the reel deck arrived, a Pioneer 707. Boy is that heavy! It was among the last of the consumer reel decks, and I knew many collectors who got them, and even one who bought four right away, secreting two of them in a safe place because they knew the reel age was disappearing and that the decks would be hard to find.

Sure enough, there are lots of these still being used by collectors today. I favor the Teac A2300 series... what I used back in those years... but my 3300 that I got three years ago from someone I found locally is showing signs of electronic quirkiness.

The nice news this week at Cobaltia is that Gathol found some Whistler rebroadcasts that had fallen out of circulation!

This week we taught the kids in karate how to kick and punch in combinations and get their knees up to do it while getting in close to their attacker. It's seems all so counterintuitive sometimes in so many aspects. Just like life can be.

Next week, a missing Suspense is being performed at REPS. Looking forward to watching it on Zoom. Hope I can stay up that late! I just got word that another missing episode recreation is planned to be released by Halloween!

greybelt wrote:
Next week, a missing Suspense is being performed at REPS. Looking forward to watching it on Zoom.

Doc, The Wife and I aren't involved in that one ~

~ but between us, I'm at Mic in five, including my first-ever CBSRMT, and she's at SFX in four, icluding the FIBBER where I "Doc Gamble."

Hope to maybe see some of you there?

Happy Halloween,
- Craig
(Who had great fun doing lost DRAGNET and SGT. PRESTON at MANC a few weeks back.)

Well, I got midterm grades submitted, so I'm managing with all the essay/project/homework grading. But, sadly my OTR research has had to take a pause the past couple of weeks.

Lots of Fall color change here in southwestern Ohio. I'll be taking the kids down to Mammoth Cave on Monday, so that should be fun. My wife has been reading some classics to the kids lately (Little Women, Hound of the Baskervilles, Legend of Sleepy Hollow, etc.), so the kids are planning on listening to radio dramatizations of them on the drive.

Hi all. As seems to be the usual nowadays, my real job is keeping me very busy. But, that's boring stuff.

The fun stuff is that I've been working on a plane for the open source flight sim "Flightgear." It's a Cessna 310. Several other team members are doing the animations for landing gear, etc. I had a secret agenda: to create a plane Sky King flew. I was really surprised the members of Flightgear took on this plane because I've tried for years without success to enter a plane that others were willing to include.

...And my "next door" and I are making a couple of guitars. He acquired some 100+ year old wood salvaged from an old building. It's pretty fun, but slow because we both have very little time.

Where did everyone go? It seems activity levels here, on the OTRR FB page, and some other places seem to have taken a step back.

How strange... just we it seems we have stepped into a flood of superb sounding upgrades across the board. It all needs to be arranged and have some work done. It comes from a major purchase that OTRR made last year. Much of it is already in digital formats and does not to be transferred from reels or discs, just cleaned up by assigning file names and logging the files. It's astounding. All stuff from collections that I was never able to have access to back in the 70s and 80s because I wasn't entrenched in the high-level buying groups (I was young, starting my career, starting a life, oh.... and no money...). If you know how to use Audacity in its most basic sense, then that's the skills we need.

Some of this material can help move the general holdings of the hobby take a big leap forward into lossless formats, especially FLAC and upgrade the sound quality of many of the shows we love in the process.

I finally got the "new" tape deck... a Pioneer 707. My Teac has been having issues, so this is a welcome replacement. It's a bit odd-shaped, designed for rack mounting, and not for sitting on a shelf. The Teac fit neatly into a cabinet with doors. But the Pioneer has to sit out. I found a nice dust cover for it -- it has similar dimensions to an office printer, and I was able to find one that fits perfectly on Amazon.

The Theater Five series daily posts at https://theaterfive.blogspot.com/ end on Tuesday. All 256 of the surviving episodes would be available with cast and other information and context by then (Nov 1, 2022). We are still finding upgrades to the series. I am so glad I was nudged into working on T5... I've listened to every episode up to about 175 so far, and have heard some amazing scripts and performances. This has been a neglected gem of radio, dismissed by our hobby pioneers because it wasn't "golden age", mischaracterized as being mainly sci-fi (less than 10% were), and then hampered by bad sound. I'm still listening -- about 5 a week -- and realize the OTR injustice, if there is such a thing. Karl Schadow and our own nickp57 have been incredible to work with. Nick was heroic in re-writing every show plot description. And we've found all kinds of inside jokes and references and cultural references that would otherwise be lost.

In that grand collection that we now have access to, I was hoping that we would find airchecks made by Pat Rispole (RIP, 1979) who recorded all of those Gunsmoke, YTJD, and Suspense. Thankfully, Pat traded aggressively, and about 35 of his complete airchecks have been identified in these files. There are also 5-7 from Dallas station KRLD. I have not been able to identify that person/collector. There are nice upgrades coming to late era YTJD that will be possible for the series. But I still love the idea of hearing the full airchecks with the news and local commercials. We hear it just as the listeners heard it and there's something to be cherished about that.

One of the airchecks had news about a Venus probe that the Russians had launched. All we hear about is Sputnik, but that news and commentary sent me back into the newspaper archives and I was reminded about how "the conquest of space" was deeply ingrained in the news and Cold War policy. I have learned how important OTR can be in the rediscovery of history, beyond just enjoying the shows. After 50+ years in this hobby, how it has retained its fascination for me has been such a surprise.

If you have not heard the podcast that Craig Wichman and I did about September 30, 1962, we're still getting positive comments about it -- details at https://sites.google.com/view/090362/home

A missing Suspense was recreated last week. I posted about it at https://cobaltclubannex.forumotion.com/t456p550-suspense-upgrades#22441

Another one will be released as a podcast in about 10 days. Much progress made in this effort!

Chat soon... hope all of you are well!

Back atcha, Doc - and everyone here.

Salut to you, (St.) Jerry Haendiges, and everyone in our little niche who realizes that getting the shows listened to is how they live. And also, that is the best tribute to those who created them.

Happy Halloween,
- Craig

P.S. - Who, God willing, will re-premiere a lost '40s classic this Yuletide...

AND... I'm back. Sorry for the disappearing act, things have been (temporarily) changing on The Funny Farm. In that the wife and I have moved off it for a while. We'll still spend time there regularly, but we've moved into a very spacious two bedroom apartment in town for the time being. This due to my wife's medical issues and her doctor being unhappy that we live so far out in the sticks. But it's temporary and her condition should be back under control at some time in the near future.

I've been thinking for quite some time, that Jerry Haendeges should be in our Hall of Fame. It's been a while since we've honored anyone and I'd like to toss his name in as a nominee. Other nominations are welcome as well. Please submit them by PM to me, along with a brief discussion as to why you feel they deserve the recognition. There's a Cobaltian I have in mind for honoring as well. I wonder if I should just use my Overlord status to push that through with no discussion? (Insert maniacal laugh here)

Be safe, be well and be happy,
Space

Space -- just sent you a private message...

Yes, the ol' geography and medical challenge... that is an issue. I hope it is as temporary as you expect and that things get back to as normal as can be as soon as possible.

I heartily second the vote for (St.) Jerry Haendiges!

He hits all the marks. Good material, good restoration skills, and most of all ~

Good sharing.

He realizes the crucial facts ~

- 1. These pieces belong more to the folks who created them, than to us.

- 2. Unheard, they are dead things.

Happy Halloween,
- Craig

Hello all. Hope everything has been going well for all of you. Work has been busy. Bidding Aldi stores pretty much everywhere in the US. Alright it is closer to half. Next one up is in Fort Pierce, Fl. It keeps me employed until I can retire.

My granddaughter will be 3 months old next week. It is amazing watching her develop. Can’t wait for what the future holds.

Yes, even little things are big accomplishments when you're three months -- like rolling over, lifting your head, posting stuff on TikTok.

After 10 years of passing an Aldi, we went in and discovered one of last month's seasonal specials -- the frozen pretzels. I guess they were Oktoberfest themed specials -- yum! The aroma filled the kitchen when they emerged from the oven...

Woody, we have Aldi and Lidl stores all over Ireland. Good deals at those when i get into them. I usually shop at the local green grocery store as I get all my veg locally.

Staying busy is important.

GB I cannot believe you are on Tiktok

Space hope everything is okay with you and Mrs. Space. Love and good vibes sending your way.

Days are short now and the nights are long. Its unseasonably warm or should I say its basically the kind of warm its always going to be in Nov from now on.

Stay safe my friends...

So happy to get the surprise yesterday from Larry Groebe that there's an Escape recreation available starting tonight.

Digging through reel transfers and still finding upgrades to Suspense, especially 1962 and 1961. 1958 is an awful year for the series, still, with so many bad airchecks that we really need more AFRTS recordings to be found to replace them.

We have volunteers working on more than 4000 reel tracks that were transferred to digital at double-speed. They need to be put on speed and then parsed into individual shows. The sound quality is often... amazing. This is a big leap forward for our hobby. More volunteers needed.

The crickets are still chirping at my request for help with Suspense... oh well... that happens... maybe I'll add it to my Santa list

HOWDY!!! Sorry, I'm very much out of sync. Things are moving steadily into winter and toward the holidays. We're pretty much ready for those holidays. Still a few gifts to pick up and in some cases ship. But absolutely no standing in line at the post office, at the last minute. The only Thanksgiving decision still to be made, is if I'll be smoking the turkey in my smoker or on the Traeger. The Traeger is pretty awesome. And the turkey and two briskets I've smoked on it were excellent. But it's still pretty new to me and I still love my old smoker. We'll see how things play out.

I've decided that I was an exceptionally good boy this year and deserve a reward. The reward I'm leaning toward is a new tube amp. Actually, it's an old tube amp. A 1965 Fender Twin Reverb. I've found one locally, allegedly all original except for new tubes. At $1000 it sounds like a good deal. But I wanna check the market for other options before sealing the deal. Any suggestions in that price range would be appreciated.

The wife's health seems stable, but there are still some concerns. The biggest concern is her blood sugar levels not wanting to drop below 300. Completely off the chart is not unusual. But we're working with her endocrinologist and hoping for better results.

Be safe, be well and be happy,
Space

Space, hoping things stabilize for your wife.

That price for an actual 1965 Twin Reverb is insanely cheap average price 2500-3500 even if it was the 65 reissue it's still in the 2k plus price range. Grab your guitar run over there don't walk plug in try her out if she sounds clean and raunchy when you kick her up, buy that amp put it your car and drive away as fast as you can like you stole it.

Don't look for anything else that's all the you will ever need.

That's my two cents..

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