At 02:13 PM 2009-01-02, Anthony Baldwin wrote:
>Thanks for putting me right on the composition of Magnetophonband Typ
>C and L. This neatly explains why a retired German friend of mine has
>always insisted that, as a Wehrmacht radio engineer attached to a
>Soldatensender German forces station in late-1944, he used "plastic"
>tape with his Lorenz-AEG machines to record broadcasts off-air from
>Berlin.

Just to clarify a little more...as I understand it, Lorenz and AEG 
were two separate companies -- at least at one point. The Audio 
Engineering Society has published a memoir of Semi Begun who worked 
for Lorenz as a youth and then came to the U.S.A. ahead of the Nazi 
terror. He was head of engineering for Brush and was behind the Brush 
Soundmirror and other recording devices that were more or less early 
"consumer grade" products.
http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/recording/begun1.html


>Incidentally, being a 20-year-old swing fan he also used the
>Wehrmacht's machines and elaborate antenna array to record Glenn
>Miller's ABSIE broadcasts from England on 583kHz AM, at considerable
>personal risk. Reception was apparently rock solid, and (ironically,
>in view of the noiselessness of German recorded broadcasts) his off- 
>air tapes also captured the surface noise of the original  transcription discs.

Antenna science is somewhat of a lost art. My cyberfriend Bill Ruck 
is involved in restoring some marine radio sites in the San Francisco 
area. Apparently rhombic and beverage antennas are superb in digging 
out signals, as are some other topologies.

Look at www.radiomarine.org
http://www.hard-core-dx.com/nordicdx/antenna/wire/beverage/interview1.html

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Richard

Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.