[NJARC] Re: NJARC makes the big time

[Alex Magoun]

    Phil is unfortunately right about the NJ section not being on the online
edition, so, if your local library doesn't stock it, read on below.
    John, to be fair to the NYT, it's not a charity or public service.  They
want some information so they can sell online advertising to the online
edition.  Once you fill this form out (the only important info from your
perspective is your email address) and leave cookies enabled (you can always
empty their folder if you want), you can bring up the NYT anytime you like.
    Alex

"Radio Days or High Tech, It�s All the Same"
By Neil Genzlinger, NYT, New Jersey Section, February 1, 2004

Those of you who are still hoping that computers, cellphones, digital cameras
and other modern gadgetry are passing fads and that we will soon return to the
simpler days of a half-century ago might have been dismayed with what Phil
Vourtsis had on display at the David Sarnoff Library the other day. The event
was a combination exhibition and radio-repair clinic, with members of the New
Jersey Antique Radio Club doing the honors. Mr. Vourtsis, the club's president
and the author of "The Fabulous Victrola 45," had a display related to the dear
departed 45-r.p.m. record that was fascinating and hilarious, but also
depressing.

The hilarity came from a 1949 promotional film in which an impossibly earnest
fellow was extolling the virtues of this new way to listen to music.
�Distortion-free records!" he exclaimed. And indestructible. 'Bend'em,
bounce'em; nothing happens!"

The depressing part was Mr. Vourtsis's sampling of newspaper articles from the
period It turns out the innocent little 45 wasn't so innocent after all; it was
part of a war between RCA-Victor (which made many of its breakthroughs at labs
in New Jersey) and Columbia for the ears of America. The new 45 from RCA was
competing with a seven-inch disc Columbia had just introduced as well as
Columbia's LP's, and all were different from older-style records--different
speeds, different needles, different players.

"The record-playing public," read one account. "which buys from 200,000,000 to
300,000,000 new disks a year. is faced with three mutually exclusive methods of
reproducing music from records. Neither of the two new records can be played on
conventional phonographs or radio-phonographs, nor can either be used on
competing record-playing machines."

It sounded, in other words, dismayingly like the technological warfare that
bedevils us today: VCR's vs. assorted types of DVD's, CD's vs. MP3's, Windows
vs. Macs, attachments that won't open, digital cameras that won't download.
Evidently there never really was a simpler time; products have always tried to
push one another out of the marketplace, and frustrated consumers, have always
been left to play catch-up.

"Only today the turnaround on a product is much faster," Mr. Vourtsis said.

His club (www.njarc.org) has about 200 members, and watching them have fun with
antique radios and other ancient technology makes you wonder what people will be
doing a few decades hence with old cellphones. (Notice how primitive the ones
from the 90's already look?) Lately for instance, they've been having a contest
to see who can pick up the most distant radio signal on a vintage receiver. When
conditions are right, noise from Chicago or Canada or Mexico might squawk
through the classic sets.

At the Sarnoff event, in Princeton, the club's experts ran a repair clinic where
people could bring old radios for free doctoring. Some who brought in sick sets
were fellow hobbyists, but others were hoping to revive a personal keepsake.

A lot of old radios are being unearthed these days in New Jersey and everywhere
else as the radio-crazy generation dies off and its offspring inherit attics
full of stuff. Mr. Vourtsis said that at first the repair clinics were just for
club members, but the it seemed there might be laymen out there in need of
vacuum-tube and soldering-gun assistance.

"It's pretty rewarding when we're able to help them out because they feel like
they've reconnected with something from their childhood," he said.

Certain radios can be worth thousands of dollars, he said, though many more
models were just as mass-produced as anything today and are worth less than a
first-generation digital camera. Also, some antique sets might prefer to remain
idle. For instance, someone once brought in an Emerson Catalin that gave Mr.
Vourtsis pause.

"It was the kind of thing where I really didn't want to get the radio working
again because heat from the radio could damage the cabinet," he said. "and with
the Catalin that's where the value is."

One other booth from the Sarnoff event is worth mentioning, what with
Valentine's Day not far off. It was a display of valentines, sheet music and
such with radio themes, from the days when radio was new. "There's a Wireless
Station Down in My Heart," was one song title. A card read. "Over the radio you
can bear me pine, I want you for my Valentine."

Apparently, linking romantic sentiments to the high-tech device of the moment
gives them extra credibility. So here's an assignment for the season: Use the
words iPod, memory stick, mini-DVD and MP3 in a love poem. Give it to your
sweetie. Then duck.