[78-L] November 9, 1921

[Michael Biel]

  On 8/22/2010 10:05 PM, Donna Halper wrote:
> At 09:22 PM 8/22/2010, you wrote:
>> So how did a radio station broadcast 78s? I mike in front of a horn?
> Yes, and that's one reason Edison stated he didn't want to hear
> phonograph records on radio.

But they didn't have to.  Magnavox manufactured a "Transmitter Tone-Arm" 
in 1920 which had a carbon button microphone inside the arm behind the 
acoustic reproducer.  An electric pickup had been developed in 1916 by 
Paul Fortin of GE and would have been used by WGY except that they had a 
license in 1922 that didn't allow the use of records.  So they dug the 
needle into the soundboard of a piano and used it as a contact 
microphone for the piano.  I even think that old faker Lee deForest in 
1916  was using some type of electrical pick-up on a Columbia external 
horn phonograph which is show in the photo of his station without a horn 
but some wires coming from the reproducer.

Edison actually loaned a phonograph and diamond discs to Tommy Cowan of 
WJZ Newark in 1921.  His son Theodore headed a project in the mid to 
late-1920s which developed the Rayediphone broadcast transcription system.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com