There is a guy in the DC area, last name Ellis, sells better-sounding OTR. He may be only selling
MP3 nowadays but at one time he'd sell WAV too. I'm sorry to be vague, I forgot his first name and
contact details. He was the only source I ever found to get all of the Edward R. Murrow "Hear It
Now" programs from 1950-51. That is my favorite non-fiction OTR show, groundbreaking in many ways, a
touchstone for electronic journalism.
When I was a kid, I used to seek out OTR "nostalgia" shows on the radio, and sent plenty of
paper-route money to David Goldin's Radio Yesteryear. But as an adult, I have limited interest in
the old drama and other fiction shows. "Dragnet" and "Suspense" are OK for background noise when
repairing something in the workshop or the like, but usually I choose music instead.
Of great interest still are "news and actuality" broadcasts. Goldin used to have some really neat
various snippets of live events coverage that haven't been offered since. I should have bought more
of his custom-made half-track reels, but those were $$$$$.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Randy Watts" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] old thread -- War of the Worlds
> Trying to find old radio broadcasts like these in decent condition is a pretty good trick these
> days. I'm convinced most old radio shows on the web originate from twenty-five year old cassettes
> that were high-speed duplicated on cheap tape and were generally a dozen generations removed from
> the original. These cassettes are transferred into a computer using an old Radio Shack dubbing
> deck and "restored" by guys who figure that if a little hiss reduction is good, then lots and lots
> of it is even better. The final result is then compressed to the lowest bit rate MP3 possible and
> posted online. And if the results are nearly unlistenable, well, one website once made the claim
> that it was old radio. It wasn't supposed to sound good.
>
> Randy
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 10:06 AM CDT Tom Fine wrote:
>
>>I think I captured those web pages. Did that website also contain a listing of the Campbell's Soup
>>Hour broadcasts with many of the same people?
>>
>>Mercury Theatre On The Air is my favorite fiction OTR series. I've managed to collect up most of
>>the episodes in decent audio quality.
>
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