[BC] Time announcing

[Barry Victor]

Henry Royse wrote:

>Engineering purgatory for me was when that time announce cart machine
>like the one in the pic would skip cues.  I learned to hate Bob
>Kinsley's voice by repairing the cue detector, then having to "set the
>time" (cue past) on both the odd and even sides of the deck...I'm
>spoiled now, comparatively...

If you think purgatory was trying to sync up the carts, how about
recording them!

I worked at Drake Chenault for 3 years.  At the time, mid 70's, Drake
Chenault was the largest provider of 24 hour music programming.  This
was way before satellite delivered programming.  Each affiliate had a
automation system that at a minimum had 4 reel to reel playback tape
decks.  The station would receive a basic library of music for its
format and we would send out a new current reel each week with new music
and a re-current reel that had older singles but still on the charts.
The basic music library was divided into separate categories for
different day parts and for the age of the music.

One of our dreaded duties, both for me as the engineer and for the
talent (Bob Kingsley was the country announcer) was to record custom
time announces for client stations.  We had to record a custom time
announce for every minute of 12 hours.  ie "Its 12:01 on Hot Country
97!"  We would record the even minutes to go on one large C size cart
and then the odd minutes to go on another.  Hank Landsberg had rigged up
a reel to reel recorder with cart machine heads and ITC cart recording
electronics to record the time announces.  We then would wind the tape
onto the cartridge and splice the endless tape loop.  At the station
side, they had two cart players for the time announce, one for odd and
the other for even minutes.  That way no matter when a time check was
programmed, it would be within 30 seconds of actual time.  Every minute,
the automation would automatically alternately cycle the odd and the
even minute machine to cue up to the next minute.

After one of these marathon recording sessions, no one wanted to ever
hear another time cue!!