[78-L] Record your voice!

[Michael Biel]

Donna Halper wrote:
> At 01:12 PM 1/1/2009, David wrote:
>   
>> Sometime in the 1920s..I see from the illustration (the instructions are too
>> blurred to read clearly) that you actually point the megaphone at 
>> wherever the
>> sound comes out, not at the disc or soundbox.
>>     
>
> I have newspaper reports from the early 20s of listeners using 
> dictaphones to record short segments of radio programs.  Would this 
> have been done the same way? 
You can make a quality recording on a dictaphone.  These discs can't 
make a recording that can really be heard (see my other post.)  I'd like 
to see those newspaper stories since this is the subject of my Ph.D 
dissertation.  In it I mentioned the possibility and did describe the 
cylinder box I have of a South African recording of a WGY aircheck that 
had been sent to the station in the early 20s.  I've been told that this 
was all the rage in South Africa but I don't know if any others have 
ever been found.  As it is, all I have is the box and the detailed label 
of what the contents had been.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com