Pro Audio Design Forum

Ok here's that notebook page I found amusing. Sketch of newsreel camera mounted in an old Ford.

The actual company this work was done at is ERPI one of the sundry interrelated organizations.

FWIW I didn't inherit my dad's neat handwriting or drafting chops, and I even worked as a draftsman long
before computers obsoleted that gig.

JR

That's cool JR!

I noticed that the page had a number on it and the grid of a patent and/or engineering lab notebook. Did your Dad ever apply for any patents? I know that you have a few.

AFAIK he never got a patent. I vaguely recall some of the pages may have been witnessed (signed by a co-worker). Yes, those are classic engineering notebooks. The pages are numbered for integrity of the chronological order. Gaps with pages left empty are likewise a no-no.

I had a classic engineering note book at Peavey but didn't use it regularly enough for it to serve it's intended purpose. When I came up with something I felt might be protect-able I just wrote up a disclosure document and got one of he other other engineers to "read and understand" (and sign).

I think patents are overrated, but they have their place in the game.

JR

Wow, an ERPI man!

raf wrote:Wow, that's truly amazing John....

Obviously, design runs in the family, no? Was this the first "Mobile newsreel"? Or was it for location shoots for movies?

rf

Back in the early days before television short news reels were shown in movie theaters before(?) the features.

JR

emrr wrote:Wow, an ERPI man!

I have to piece this all together from papers I have but apparently he worked at Vitaphone in '20's, ERPI on '30's, MUZAK late 40's, RCA up until his death late '50s.

Vitaphone was a collaboration between Warner Bros, Western Electric and Bell Telephone labs. So I suspect most of the industry of the day was involved.

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I'm not sure if this is of interest but I have a schematic labeled "Amplifier and associated circuit for steel tape recording" dated 4-13-33 (BOC?) There's a note that to the right of a dotted line is is modified D95431 amplifier. The left is record/playback coil, a polarizing and a de-polarizing coil. head, with it looks like a relay to switch between record and playback. Looks like it chopped off a little of left side. There's a mic input (called transmitters in the old days) and heads (coils?)

JR

Wow JR, that schematic is very interesting. Any of the D series info is very hard to find, and this is the first technical info I've ever heard of in reference to early steel tape recording. I recall info about the British doing this, but don't think I've heard about it in the US.

My dad was sent over to England for King George's coronation in '30s and IIRC spent some time at Pinewood (?) which I think was the Brit center of film technology back then. He may have picked it up over there...

At one point he had some old WE amp racked up in the basement for his Hifi I presume.. IIRC a 32C or something like that.. whole sucker was 4-5' tall for a handful of watts. I gutted out the bottom power supply section and built a 4 channel power amp into in back in the early '70s (still works).

Back as far as I can recall we had a decent sounding small RCA mono tube amp (RCA everything... go figure). Dad was no slouch about acoustics, his one mono speaker was mounted in a corner angled up from the floor, making the whole living room a huge horn. He was able to fill the house with muzak from a couple watt amp.

Didn't everybody grow up with a muzak receiver in their living room?

JR