[BC] WEAM?

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

At WCHA in Chambersburg, the owner, John Booth (just like the man who shot Lincoln) had an intercom that used the ceiling speakers as microphones as did many store-bought ones of the day. The difference was that the receiving amplifier had a tailored frequency response to remove low-frequency "room" noises and improve voice frequency responses. There was no place within the building that was free from snooping, including the toilet facilities. This bothered all the employees. I "fixed" the system by putting a pair of back-to-back diodes in series with each speaker. The audio level to the speakers was sufficient to overcome the 1/2 volt band-gap of the diodes. However, the milivolts from the speakers did not. John would periodically have his secretary go into a room and talk to see if he could hear her. She had been instructed to talk loudly near the speakers so John's "test" seemed to shod that everything worked. However, eventually he was so bothered that he was unable to evesdrop on private conversations that he hired a "security" firm to plant bugs everywhere. They ran FM on unlicensed 49 MHz, so when someone wanted to say something that they did not want John to hear, they would operate an otherwise unused "mike" switch in the control room. This would flood the place with a nice cool quiet 50 watts of CW at 49 Mhz.

John Booth was strange in other ways, too. He had a marble-topped desk on a raised platform in his office. If you wanted to talk to him, you would have to stand tall and look up into the lights behind his desk. His office was mahogany top-to-bottom, with artifacts from around the world. He would sit at his desk and pretend that he was in charge of the world. In spite of thie weirdness, he paid well and customers liked him.

Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Sawyer" <tzsawyer at tzsawyer.com>

S the building intercom was built so that
Harry could listen-in to any room in the building from his office behind the
locked doors (you had to be buzzed into his office). Crazy times.