The story was in Tape Magazine (or similar title) by Robert Angus. It's on
the net at http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/sayville.html
NBC broadcast an interview with the cylinder operator, Charlie Apgar. It
was available on a 16" transcription. Somewhere, I have a tape copy.
This was uncovered before we enetered WW I. It may be the earliest extant
recording of a radio broadcast.
Steve Smolian
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 9:37 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Earliest recorded sound update on NPR
> Yes, that's what I said. The recordist in NJ used a cylinder machine, but
> the spies were using a Poulsen wire recorder.
>
> That's actually what Poulsen envisioned for his recorder, if I remember
> the history correctly -- as a way to record morse code content and
> speed-send large batches of it, to be recorded by wire at the other end
> and then played back at speeds a man could decode. The transmission could
> be via telegraph wires or later via radio waves.
>
> Richard Hess, correct me if I'm wrong here!
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 9:00 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Earliest recorded sound update on NPR
>
>
>> This is the basic story as I remember it also, except that it was not a
>> wire recorder that was used, it was a cylinder.
>>
>> The fellow who had recorded the strange sounds realized what it was when
>> a battery died and the PB slowed way down.
>>
>> joe salerno
>>
>>
>> Tom Fine wrote:
>>> The Poulsen wire recorder was used for this by German spies in WWI. If I
>>> remember the story correctly -- it was told in a two-part article about
>>> the history of magnetic recording in Audio Magazine back in the
>>> 1980's -- the spies would record reports in morse code at normal speed
>>> and then broadcast them from Long Island at high speed. Early radio
>>> experimenters in the US couldn't figure out what that was they'd pick up
>>> sometimes. A guy in, I think, New Jersey, recorded onto an Edison
>>> cylinder or disk one of the broadcasts, then slowed down the playback
>>> and figured out what it was. Authorities were notified and the spy ring
>>> was shut down.
>>>
>>> Sorry if my memory of the article is mangled, but I think this is the
>>> basic story.
>>>
>>> -- Tom Fine
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "[log in to unmask]"
>>> <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2009 11:47 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Earliest recorded sound update on NPR
>>>
>>>
>>>> data compression ca. 1880
>>>>
>>>> a technique that was not lost on WW1 spies...I wonder if they thought
>>>> of it themselves or if they knew of this device?
>>>>
>>>> joe salerno
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> David Breneman wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> As I recall, it was a similar disk-based device.
>>>>> The telegraph message would be recorded on it at
>>>>> "human" speed and send down the wire greatly sped up.
>>>>> It was recorded at the receiving end and played
>>>>> back again at the "natural" speed for a telegrapher
>>>>> to transcribe.
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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