I discovered a while ago they can’t use green screen (or even blue screen) because of the colour. If I’d thought of this when I bought them - I’d have gone for the red nose option.
@@Techmoan Oh right, it seemed so well executed I didn't think about what I said. LOL What did you go with? After having a second closer look I'm leaning towards a practical effect like a backdrop and split screen (or you have more arms than you are letting on to). Perhaps a homemade Yellow screen would work?
In 1963, when I was 15 years old, I left school and worked in the building industry. I helped to build a number of Laundromat self-service laundries in London which used blue Westinghouse washing machines. One of the shops was in Roman Road in Bow, an area of the East end of London. This shop used one of these Rediffusion machines for background music and I remember being amazed by how the tape actually moved. The machine in your great video was EXACTLY as I remember it, especially the colour. Thanks for bringing back some great memories.
John Długosz Nope, not uniquely British. Didn’t you understand any of it or just one particular part? (Not picking a fight just don’t like the idea of Mat’s humour going to waste 👍)
A few things: *Sharing the audio* Someone somewhere owns the rights to these recordings. I don’t know who that is - but I can guarantee that it isn’t me. *The date on the tag on the machine* i) We don’t know if it’s from manufacture or a subsequent inspection ii) We can’t read the last scribbled digit - it _might_ be a 1 a 5 or a 6 iii) It is no help in determining whether the TP1 first came out in 1957 - which was the date we were looking to corroborate. _The tag is irrelevant_ *Connectors* Thanks to Paolo the connectors on the back have been identified as "Geloso" 3-pin connectors. *Oh just one more thing - whenever I pin a comment they'll always be a load of people who post unrelated comments under it in an attempt to get these comments to the top - don't do this, it's a weak move and it creates a stupidly long comment thread that everyone finds annoying to expand. If you have a comment - post it as a comment, not a reply. Everyone will appreciate it.*
Honestly I'd propose uploading the recordings to archive.org under fair use, since you are preserving history. See the copyright timeline on arl dot org, there is a VERY strong case for this being fair use, especially if uploaded on archive.org
How can someone invent something like a traffic light and get 20 years of patent rights to benefit, but someone can write a shitty song/book or beat randomly on a instrument and get basically indefinite rights to do stuff like sue people for playing them back outdoors including them in online videos and duplication?
TH-cam's comments system is utterly broken. And if it's bad for us users I can't imagine what it must be like for content creators to administrate. It's simply sad that it's up to us to try and make sense of it all. Because you know, getting everyone to do something on the Internet is like herding cats. It's really easy to do. heheheh ;) Love your videos, Techmoan! :D
I swear, every time I think Mat's found the last of the dozens of obscure audio formats, he finds another one. Not that I'm complaining - I'd love to see dozens more!
@@trublgrl haha no way! He should totally review these! Maybe as part of a Halloween display gadget video. There's some crazy projectors and things he could review. But the rocks are awesome.
In Russia we still have line-radio (one radio station by wire). In fct it already end of service few years ago, but it still work for free. It placed in kitchen, so in anytime you do your meals or eat and listen radio station. It didn't need a power, or something else, just every kitchen in old residents have special socket. Just put it to socket and listen - very usefull. But only one station/channel, so can't choose what to listen. But I very like that kind of radio, because all my childhood went with that silent talking radio. It like nostalgia :) Thank you for this video. I am very like to watch your wondeful youtube channel!
That reminds my of the Stromberg-Carlson intercom panels they had in each room of my high school; each had one button for classical music, one for elevator music and one for the local rock station. The kids would always set it to the rock station before the teachers arrived. It used standard "70 volt" intercom lines so there was a 3 position volume switch that selected between 3 transformer taps. Not bad for a 1963 building.
Presumably this was introduced in the Soviet era so you couldn't listen to anything other than state approved transmissions; similar to radios in the North Korea which are locked to a specific frequency.
@@gwishart I don't see in that something bad, because people in every country isn't free. If not government control people, then something else control (like fake news, opposition, government of other country). Also this radio in crysis situation can fast tell people about situation and what to do. It very help people to work together in ww2 period, and reconstruct country after war. So it do great job for XX century. But now time is changed, it didn't anymore, come time of consumerism, democracy, lgbt, capitalism, credits, and dominance of banks. Look like in this century we didn't need unity of people in country. So all changed... and look like it nevermind this do better life or not...
My first job in 1973, maintaining & installing music/PA systems for Rediffusion/Reditune out of Southampton. After a year of that they moved me over to mending TVs (yes, you could do that in the old days children) but that wasn't half so much fun. These cart machines & their successors were still whirring away in factories and the like, driving their listeners mad with repetition. Thanks for the reminder Matt!
I absolutely love that 60's British catalog session music. Many great composers like Laurie Johnson wrote and conducted those sessions for quick cash, and many gems can be found. I certainly hope you can preserve and catalog these at some point.
When I was about 11 years of age my uncle, who worked as an engineer for Redifusion in Birkenhead, used to invited me to his workshop on Saturday mornings while he was there on overtime. I was always interested in electronics and, as it happens, my uncle introduced me to the electronic organ which I started to learn to play. It's great to remenis on those times ( around 1967 ) when I used to have the use of one of these machines and I had quite a few of the "Hammond Organ" tapes which we used to spool onto normal tape spools and play them on a standard tape recorder. Mine was a Grundig TK5. I liked the Hammond organ tapes but I must acknowledge that they were a product of their time. Thanks for the interesting video Matt.
I remember when I was really young, we had a TV with sliding doors across the front to cover the screen when not in use. This was a Rediffusion rental TV, and the channel changer was a small box on the window sill with a rotating knob with Letters to denote the channels. I think it went from A to M or something, but back then, there were only four tv channels to choose from, BBC 1&2, Tyne Tees, and Yorkshire. And the channels used to close down around midnight with a picture of the queen set to the National Anthem. But the TV used to also play Radio, when there was nothing on worth watching, you could play the radio through it, which I used to think was really clever at the time. I always associated sound with a tv picture. So it was a bit of a novelty hearing sound from the tv, but with no picture. Getting back to the channel selector, that is probably where the term "turn it over" came from. As you had to turn the knob to change channels. Ours was on the window sill, and I remember my older brother annoying the life out of me by changing the channel when I was watching my favourite cartoons. But yes, Rediffusion made for a happy childhood. I think the rental was just over £1 a week, if my memory serves me correctly. But I also remember these sets used to malfunction quite often, and the repair man would have to be called. And sometimes, we would get a new tv set altogether, if the repair man couldn't fix it in the home. As a side note, you could tell which of your neighbours were posh and who owned their own tv, as they had antennas on the roof. Rediffusion was a cable service, so no antenna needed. And it was extremely popular, as a lot of people couldn't afford to buy a tv back then. A COLOUR tv used to cost the equivalent of 1 or 2 months salary for most people in those days. So Rediffusion was the only option for a lot of people. Ah, happy days......
Herman Munster my grandfather once gave my family a TV with an AM/FM radio built in. The dial was backlit and held the numbers to designate either UHF, VHF, FM, and AM all on the same piece. It was a bit of a novelty for me as well, so much so that as a kid, I would listen to WZLX, the classic rock station in Boston, through the big wooden Television on the floor despite my father's giant 15 inch Mach Two speakers sitting right next to it. And yes, I frequently watched The Munsters on VHS through it as a kid. Great profile pic, btw.
@@officialclownbusiness7788 Things were so different, and much simpler back then. And what I miss most, is the respect that people had for each other, and unity. The divisions between people these days is solely down to insidious politicians, placing people in boxes. Society is now rotten. So sad!
I still have the wires to one of those boxes in one of my wall's . .the selection box itself has gone...and the hole where it was is now covered up by a piece of wood... the estate where I live was built in the late 60's and early 70's ..and every abode on the estate had these redifusion boxes on the wall in the living room. . Of course we had the TV on the wooden stand with castor's .. when we would get up for school we'd listen to DLT on radio one through the TV. .it was a good system apart from every so often when the colour tube would fail in the TV and we'd have to wait for someone to come replace it... it was a sad day when they turned off the system and we had to buy a new TV. .cause the rediffusion set had its own one off connection for the selection box and we couldn't plug in a standard aerial. .. it was the original cable TV. . And it was free ...ace
Wow, it's weird to think about nowadays, where OTA is the cheaper option and cable/satellite is an expensive subscription service that doesn't even come with a TV. Get a free cable service with a TV rental! Probably a stronger picture signal than your neighbours with aerials too, and it wouldn't get struck by lightning and fry your set in a thunderstorm.
@@radiojulez7225 Wow, you had a colour tv? Your parents must've been posh, lol. But yeah, our house was built in 1960, and I thought it was great being able to slide the doors closed on the front of the tv. I was only three or four. I remember mum telling me that I once pushed the tv over, and it smashed. Luckily they weren't charged for it, as they said it must've been the dog trying to get up to the window behind the tv when it was home alone. So they replaced it with no penalty.
In Soviet Russia there also was radio 📻 by wire in every apartment, it was even mandatory because of Cold war and civil defense, this radio sockets was working till the 2005, maybe even work still in some old houses.
It was something available in The Netherlands as well, the Dutch term is 'radio distributie', some guy started it as a service as early as 1921, becoming a real company in 1924 During the occupation in WW2 listening to radio was prohibited and the radio distribution network was put onder control of the PTT (postal, telegraphy and telephony service) so people would only be able to listen to the sanctioned German stations (and their propaganda) The situation remained like this after the war (well, not the German propaganda broadcasts, the control by the PTT) The last network shut down in 1975
@@remko2 when BRT1 + ARD1 first supplemented NED1+2 in Holland, it thanks to a HUGE mast next to leiden: the "PTT bunker" underneath was actually a vital NATO comms hub and the TV we got really was propaganda! It was the excuse given for having the tower ;)
They are working and they are used as intended - for warnings and alerts in case of emergencies. Tests are run regularly. In the downtime these speakers repeat local news radio station.
Seriously, the Techmoan trove is something that will need to be curated indefinitely and I hope he's able to get in touch with folks who are capable when the time comes
Thumb up for the puppets mid-way through and an obscure media that nobody else is interested in yet somehow you make interesting despite speaking in the way you do. An excellent winning formula that you must never, I repeat never, try to analyse or improve upon. Just be thankful that somehow you have hit upon a winning formula. It appears to be quite natural and yet it is also obviously part of something which requires a huge effort and not inconsiderable expense. I suppose that's quite a common theme for people who have fluke overnight success... Anyway, this is one of the best ones yet, I suppose, although I haven't watched it to the end yet. However you are doing it, I appreciate that you keep doing it. Just more of the same please, just a modest evolution of style that avoids self-parody and keep being guided by what YOU are interested in. That is what will make for a video worth watching.
Well said! Techmoan is just a 'natural'.... fascinating to watch, talented, and a wicked sense of humour - love the Muppet sketches! And it doesn't matter what he talks about! I do love though, these obscure and forgotten audio formats that he finds and researches so thoroughly...... :-)
A decade ago I was walking through a Safeway grocery store in the USA and a delightful version of John Lennon's 'Imagine' came across their Muzak system and I could swear everyone in the massive store stopped for a few minutes and just listened to that song. It was incredible to watch. I wish I could find that version again it was so soft and lovely. Everyone in that store stopped their frantic shopping and just listened. It put the entire store to peace.
The Hammond Organ tapes are for Rimmer's 20th Century Telegraph Pole slideshow nights those are on Tuesdays. Wednesday is Morris Dancing night, get those feet up in the air and hear the clonk of wood on wood.
In my teens, we had a rediffusion tv which had no tuner, but instead tv stations (and a few radio stations too) were selected on a separate box on the wall. The system was installed in council houses in Basildon ( and probably elsewhere also). Happy days!
Always a good day when I'm early to a new Techmoan "retro and rare" upload! Well researched and highly informative as always mate. Thanks for doing what you do, helping to preserve the knowledge of these forgotten formats. Pretty amazing that this unit even had the paper test tag still attached! A rare beast indeed. I actually lived in Orpington as a young lad, I attended the local preschool and kindergarten before we migrated to Australia in 1984.
Exactly what I was thinking. Im sure the mall in Newcastle NSW Australia had a similar system running well into the 80's. I remember walking through the mall with tge family on a Sunday hearing the Hammond Organ and they used to put up a sign in the window saying Hammond Pops now playing. I think it was good for frightening away pigeons and vandals.
Thanks Mat. I learned a lot today. I love to see how things work and you explain it very well. The lift sketch was absolutely brilliant. The history of the company was very informative. A relative remembers having Rediffusion cable TV.
Reddifussion were at one time part of BET-Initial ? BET (British Electric Traction a tramways and bus operating company) diversified into wired television relay services, laundries ( annual report- we have taken in a little washing). and then with Associated Newspapers the London and other area ITV/IBA Franchises.
A local antenna-based redistribution system? Interesting! Possibly also used as part of a national emergency alert system? I read another comment from a Dutch gentleman who mentioned that they used such a system at one stage.
In Leeds we had British Relay, another Rediffusion competitor from the era of first gen cable TV. If you look along the eaves of a lot of the old terraced housing in Leeds (areas such as Armley, Beeston, Harehills, Chapeltown and Holbeck) you can still see the original thick black cables and the round junction boxes where a cable would split off and carry the signal down to a rotary selector switch on the wall. Later houses had the cables integrated into the walls, with a green Street cabinet at the end of the row. It amazes me that none of this considerable infrastructure was ever re-used, but instead just abandoned when the company went out of business in the 1980s. (I know that in a couple of towns, Hull being one, local operators took over the old distribution systems and even adapted / made up their own boxes and receivers - I believe that one problem was that there wasn't really any way of scrambling the signal so anyone could tap in by running a line to the connection point on their house). Fascinating stuff and a part of broadcasting history I'd have never been aware of we're it not for the internet and YT.
@@rich_edwards79 Green roadside cabinet you say? Makes me think of the BT cabinets nowadays. Some of the phone cabinets I see around definitely look older and are uniquely shaped and sometimes much smaller than the more common variant I see - I wonder if they ever served that kind of cable TV in the past. I usually spot those older cabinets on streets with the classic terraced 3-storey brick tenements/townhouses lining them, and never in the vicinity of recent newbuild/reconstruction.
Love this video especially the bit when you say "Weird smelling seaside hotels" I live in Scarborough and I know a few of those hotels...One hotel I worked at had one of these, not like the one you have here, however, none of us knew what it was, it was painted blue and sat upon a shelf with the words...'Do not touch, only to be used by Hugh M' he was the hotel owners son and he died in 1980 which tells you just how long it had been up there. We all thought it was an old air conditioning unit.
I remember that music playing in People's Department Store in Kentville, Nova Scotia when I was a kid. I also remember there being a pet department with a monkey in a cage. This would have been in the early 1970's. I still find that music annoying today! Ha ha!
Clever video title. When I saw it, it made me think there was going to be some connection to Rediffusion TV in the UK, who was the London ITV license holder up to 1968. They joined with Associated British (later EMI) to form Thames Television, who then held the London ITV licence from 1968 to the end of 1992.
One of the best channels in youtube. I have watched all the videos like 5 times. I really enjoy the way everything is filmed and narrated. I would love to see more hi-fi equipment. Cheers!
11:40 Growing up in America in the 1960s & 1970s Hammond organ players were common at baseball games, malls, and department stores. For hotel bands from the 60s & 70s, I think of an electric jazz guitarist or an acoustic piano player.
1990 The Red Lion hotel in Sacramento, we had one of these background music cart systems. It was integrated with and mixing board and amplifier PA system. Presumably not this system, but Fidelipack
Oh my gods you just plugged it in without recapping it this will result in the formation a black hole and the end of humanity ! Great video i Knew what rediffusion was but not how it started, great use of puppets also.
Back in the 1960's and early 70's we had Rediffusion cable in our house, all BBC radio services plus all TV channels including London ITV (we lived in the Southern TV region but because it was cable you could get extra), we didn't have to pay for this service because we had the local Rediffusion telegraph pole in our garden! You had to have a switch box on the wall to change channels (search "rediffusion cable tv switch box"), being the youngest it was normally my job to change channels lol.
I was a Supermarket manager back in the 90s and we used this system ..the music is pretty bland and played at a certain rate to help customers move along..
Guessing there was a specific selection of cartridges filled with appropriate music for this purpose? Possibly distributed from Head Office out to the various stores, and changed on a scheduled basis?
Is that the reasoning behind, for example, the modern day Asda Radio? To make you want to get out of the shop as quickly as possible? (to be fair, theirs is usually not that bad, but B&M's and B&Q's are both horrific. Tesco these days seems to have thankfully abandoned the idea, except late at night in the 24 hour stores when the shelf stacking rumble teams liberate one of the shitbox Tesco.com hifis from its cardboard prison and use it to blast some terrible local commercial station in 100-decibel crackle-o-rama)
The Coop has Cooperative Radio, presumably sent via broadband or similar from the Head Office. Terry. W It seems very strange wanting to get customers to move on. Don't you want them to loose track of time and fill their trolley. In the 1980s a huge Carrefour was my local shop and every shopping trip took hours as there was so much to look at.
@@markpenrice6253 Revisiting this old thread and saw your comment. In the local Marks and Spencer "Simply Food" shop /petrol station built only about three years ago they have large Bose speakers in the celing. I suspect that someone has also turned the volume to eight and like Matt's machine glued something over the control as it is always annoyingly loud. It is quite a small shop so you typically don't stay there long enough to work out a theme for the music.
I remember working at the Olive Garden many years ago, like 30 yrs ago. I would be in office and see the manager there grab what seemed like a gigantic 8 track and stick in in this big box with a door. Then you could here the Italian music playing in the front. Luckily the back kitchen had a separate setup so we listen to radio. I often wondered how the servers could tolerate listening to the same thing over and over and over. Even if the record length was all day you would get sick of it.
I had one of these in the 80's with only one cart with broken tape. I never knew the tape was twisted to make it longer. So now I know why my tape was only 43 mins after I repaired it! LOL
Well. I've never get bored with your videos. Always exciting to watch! BTW could you revisit an camera that use 75mm film? If you could then great to hear that!
Sounds interesting, but I think that vintage film cameras aren't really in Mat's wheelhouse, he's more of an audio guy as I'm sure you know. I think he's done a couple of videos on old cameras, but I believe they were mainly about "novelty" items (pretty sure I remember one vid on a Japanese Polaroid/Instamatic camera in a cutesy plastic shell). You might have better luck checking out dedicated vintage photography channels (of which there's quite a few).
6:44 when that surf music started playing was I immediately smashed the thumbs-up button. Love the nostalgic aura of these things. It's like vaporwave, 60s UK style.
They actually did a pretty good job. I had an old Webcor (Webster-Chicago) reel-to-reel with a cooling fan setup similar to this, and despite evidence of considerable use, it ran just fine. Of course, most of those old motors were fairly overbuilt.
If you notice the fan blades are not turned at an angle like a propeller or desk fan, this indicates to me that their primary function may have been to add drag to the flywheel, and cooling being its secondary function if at all.
@@fridgemagnet - It's not an axial fan but a centrifugal one (that works the same in both directions). Although the motor seems to be a shaded pole type, that never spins in the "other" direction, unless it's stator is flipped over. Probably the amp draw of the motor is so little, that it never gets hotter than lukewarm. This drive system probably needs no drag - the RPM of the motor is mostly a function of the power grid frequency.
The mobius tape pulling from the center of the spool is so fantastically ingenious. It just goes to show people of the past were not stupid at all, they had to be increasingly creative to overcome greater limitations with simple solutions.
@@kentallard8852 Yeap, its [roof that the whole music subscription model has been around for more than 60 years. But instead of just getting stores to signup to subscriptions, everyday people are now doing it for convenience.
Years ago I was listening to one british internet radio and someone called into the program and the host went: "hello, you're on the wireless". Ever since then I have wondered the history of that word and why some call radio wireless. Finally I have learned the backround to it. Excellent :)
I'm a huge Hammond Organ and also background music fan - any chance of you uploading the music from those tapes to somewhere online like you did with one of the Cantata tapes?
Would appreciate an upload too, as I would really love a complete upload of the cantata library, for one I like to listen to it, for the other it would conserve it for future generations Maybe one can do the recording, I understand this would be a lot of work for Techmoan
I had guessed it would be at least one hour. Time enough for a customer to finish a meal without hearing a repeat of the music. I have run into the more modern form of these as a streaming satellite service, such as XM radio, when installing network equipment in chain restaurants in the 90's and 2000's. Nice video and present very well. Thumbs up!
@Techmoan Mat, Love your channel mate! Been watching you for years. Your video's are always interesting, always quality! Never change! Loved the puppets bit, always do!
That looks so cool! We still have our Seeburg that we used in our old supermarket. Nice cabinet with a glass cover, that you lifted up and loaded 45's in the slots. The record changer went back in forth just like a juke box and played the 45's one by one.
I worked for Muzak since 1980. I have collected a large number of different media machines and media. We kept buying the competition and inheriting their formats. Including Yesco Seaburg and AEI. I also had one the giant reel to reel players with several different music tapes. These were used for the SCA broadcast from radio stations.
I always wondered how that infinite loop of magnetic tape could ever work without destroying the tape by friction. In fact, while the center tape is pulled away, to keep the size of the wheel constant, every layer of the rolled tape should decrease its radius. The same portion of tape will be in the center of the wheel before playing, in a circle with a small radius, and in the edge of the wheel after playing, with a larger radius. Differently from a normal cassette, every layer of the tape should constantly slide a little bit and create a friction between different layers.Why doesn't this happen? How could these tapes remain intact after just a few hours of playing, is there a trick? :-)
they do in fact, slide against each other a little as the tape plays. 8 track tapes were coated to help reduce friction. I'm guessing just the material they were made of helped reduce friction and allow them to slide against each other without catastrophic damage. pretty incredible when you think about it
When you consider that in the 50s and 60s they thought tape just plain didn't wear out (in reel to reel use), I wouldn't be surprised if they just decided it was hardy enough to cope with such friction in an endless loop cartridge. Especially since it was a rental machine and they weren't expected to be playing decades later, the rigours were not likely that strong. I'd be more worried about stretching than actually delaminating, and as such the more well-played tapes probably have really high wow and flutter.
Nothing unusual. Many city's have street's named after other city's. In Munich is for example a street named after Amsterdam (Amsterdamer Straße) or in Nuremberg is the Komotauer Straße named after Chomutov (German: Komotau) in the Czech Republic.
A hospital radio service i worked on in the 1960s was run by a guy who worked in Orpington and was given some Reditune units which we adapted to use like NAB cartridges in the studio. I well rember the messy work of cutting the tapes down to short durations for jingles etc. The back of the tape was coated in graphite so the layers could slip around the hub, and it was very messy stuff!
A short video discussing how and where you store all this technology would be rather interesting I think. I can't imagine you sell it all, but where do you put all your one-off tech?
I have a vague recollection of Mat mentioning that he has a hired storage unit full of old tech, mostly stuff that he purchased for videos and didn't want to keep around in his home system, so it's waiting to be resold. But I might be mistaken there.
The island of Barbados had the oldest Rediffusion installation (1934) after the UK. It was a much loved service providing both BBC and local programs, at a time when there were no other local radio stations and most people could not afford SW radios. The service ended in 1997.
As for radio, in York, a friend of mine in the 60’s informed me that the ‘wireless’ box in the corner of our room in our council house was ‘relayed’ from four valve car radios situated in the basement in the Rediffusion shop in our town centre. Four radios were for (initially) the light program, the home service, radio Luxembourg and the third program.
Where do you have room to store all this stuff you review? Anyway, my first job was at a Taco Bell. They had a modern version of one of these tape players to play background music in the dining room. We only had one tape. I didn't know how long it was, but it was hours and hours of what sounded like classical opera. Not exactly what a then 18 year old, or your average Taco Bell customer wanted to hear, but Taco Bell decided this was the music customers wanted to hear, so me and the rest of the employees were also stuck listening to it. One day the tape broke. The manager either didn't bother, or didn't know how, to order a replacement tape, so that was the day the music died at Taco Bell. I didn't miss it.
I love that hammond organ music, it reminds me of a cinema i used to go, they would play that background music until the movie started, and then in the middle when they stopped for "intermission" when people went downstairs to buy more popcorn. Place doesn't exist anymore...
Built like a tank ... about 60 years later, you pop in a tape, and it plays music. Interesting video .. I had no knowledge of what these background mind-numbing music systems were.
Fascinating video as always. But for me the really interesting part was the extra at the end about the cable radio system. I remember my Nan, who lived in a big old Victorian house in Stourbridge in the West Midlands, used to have a black box on the wall in her house next to the window which had a switch to select the then available BBC radio stations and a volume on off control . I remember being told by my Dad at the time that it was a Rediffusion cable radio and I remember it still working in the late 60s/ early 70s. I often wondered about the history of the cable radio and if I had remembered what my Dad had told me about it correctly. Sadly both my Nan, the house and sadly my dear old Dad are all long gone, so I had no one to ask. But you have just proved that my old memory isn’t failing me and these systems exist! I do remember the audio quality from the black box cable radio on the wall being pretty good too, due to no interference. Thanks for confirming my childhood memories.
British Rail used these carts on their new air conditioned rolling stock in 1968 to announce information over the PA like when they’d arrive in a particular station and remind passengers to take their luggage. They got scrapped as it relied on the guard to start the machine at start of journey which quite often they didn’t or the unit wasn’t calibrated correctly to the tachometer attached to the wheel. Also with continued used they would jam. The unit was made on Jersey if I remember correctly
Very interested to see this video as back in the 60s/70s I lived in Orpington not far from the Reditune factory. You could go to the reception area and ask for any old tapes no longer needed, for a fee of 50p you could get perfectly useable tapes (still with the music on them) for use on a reel to reel machine, a big saving on new tapes.
Another great video. Turns out (pardon the pun) that many types of tape formats were being developed during the time period that this machine came out. It would be cool if there were somewhere in the world, a museum for old technology to be put on display. It would give young people an appreciation for vintage technology and to see how far mankind has come in technological advances.
I've only run across your channel within the last year, and what a piece of gold it is. Thank you for your work, it's greatly appreciated. You entertain and educate, a rare combination, and well done.
Muppets in the main event and a bonus feature at the end. You spoil us! :)
Agreed, it's good to see them take a role in the main event.
With green screen action to boot!
I discovered a while ago they can’t use green screen (or even blue screen) because of the colour. If I’d thought of this when I bought them - I’d have gone for the red nose option.
@@Techmoan Now, that just seems like it would be fun to exploit!
@@Techmoan Oh right, it seemed so well executed I didn't think about what I said. LOL What did you go with? After having a second closer look I'm leaning towards a practical effect like a backdrop and split screen (or you have more arms than you are letting on to). Perhaps a homemade Yellow screen would work?
In 1963, when I was 15 years old, I left school and worked in the building industry. I helped to build a number of Laundromat self-service laundries in London which used blue Westinghouse washing machines. One of the shops was in Roman Road in Bow, an area of the East end of London. This shop used one of these Rediffusion machines for background music and I remember being amazed by how the tape actually moved. The machine in your great video was EXACTLY as I remember it, especially the colour. Thanks for bringing back some great memories.
You're welcome.
Amazing, glad he was able to bring back those memories
BBC should hire you to do some documentaries on this sort of stuff. It could be a geeky and boring topic, but you make it really interesting.
Or why not a Netflix Orginal 🤣😂
@@Rainbow__cookie uhhh no, imho. I don't know why but this on the BBC feels right.
Like a modern day Secret Life of Machines. Anyone know anyone at Channel 4?
the BBC probably has half the stuff he's looking for in some dusty cupboard
@@jonathankleinow2073 I think he's more safer on Channel 4, had he made the jump to TV. Y'know, the 80s era Channel 4?
Honestly, thank you for putting puppets in the middle. I am being serious.
I agree, he's firing on all cylinders these days.
Puppets on lsd
John Długosz Nope, not uniquely British. Didn’t you understand any of it or just one particular part? (Not picking a fight just don’t like the idea of Mat’s humour going to waste 👍)
@@JohnDlugosz Its just quick-witted where they keep misunderstanding each other. Quite clever. Give it another go!
Never Mind the Haters, Here's the Tech Puppets
A few things:
*Sharing the audio*
Someone somewhere owns the rights to these recordings. I don’t know who that is - but I can guarantee that it isn’t me.
*The date on the tag on the machine*
i) We don’t know if it’s from manufacture or a subsequent inspection
ii) We can’t read the last scribbled digit - it _might_ be a 1 a 5 or a 6
iii) It is no help in determining whether the TP1 first came out in 1957 - which was the date we were looking to corroborate. _The tag is irrelevant_
*Connectors*
Thanks to Paolo the connectors on the back have been identified as "Geloso" 3-pin connectors.
*Oh just one more thing - whenever I pin a comment they'll always be a load of people who post unrelated comments under it in an attempt to get these comments to the top - don't do this, it's a weak move and it creates a stupidly long comment thread that everyone finds annoying to expand. If you have a comment - post it as a comment, not a reply. Everyone will appreciate it.*
The Rediffusion name is now owned by Victor Lewis-Smith. I don't know if that means he also owns the rights to the Rediffusion recordings?
Unrelated meme comments are now officially related to this pinned comment because you mentioned it
Honestly I'd propose uploading the recordings to archive.org under fair use, since you are preserving history. See the copyright timeline on arl dot org, there is a VERY strong case for this being fair use, especially if uploaded on archive.org
How can someone invent something like a traffic light and get 20 years of patent rights to benefit, but someone can write a shitty song/book or beat randomly on a instrument and get basically indefinite rights to do stuff like sue people for playing them back outdoors including them in online videos and duplication?
TH-cam's comments system is utterly broken. And if it's bad for us users I can't imagine what it must be like for content creators to administrate. It's simply sad that it's up to us to try and make sense of it all. Because you know, getting everyone to do something on the Internet is like herding cats. It's really easy to do. heheheh ;) Love your videos, Techmoan! :D
I swear, every time I think Mat's found the last of the dozens of obscure audio formats, he finds another one.
Not that I'm complaining - I'd love to see dozens more!
I'm waiting for him to show us a rock from his garden that somehow plays music
@@kevinr.3542 www.amazon.com/Theater-Solutions-2R8G-Outdoor-Granite/dp/B002KEKPC2/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=garden+rock+speaker&link_code=qs&qid=1571261185&sourceid=Mozilla-search&sr=8-2
@@trublgrl haha no way! He should totally review these! Maybe as part of a Halloween display gadget video. There's some crazy projectors and things he could review. But the rocks are awesome.
It always amazes me how he has an adapter for seemingly every device imaginable
If he doesn't, ebay does.
In Russia we still have line-radio (one radio station by wire). In fct it already end of service few years ago, but it still work for free. It placed in kitchen, so in anytime you do your meals or eat and listen radio station. It didn't need a power, or something else, just every kitchen in old residents have special socket. Just put it to socket and listen - very usefull. But only one station/channel, so can't choose what to listen. But I very like that kind of radio, because all my childhood went with that silent talking radio. It like nostalgia :)
Thank you for this video. I am very like to watch your wondeful youtube channel!
It still works though. As I said in another thread, you MUST install the system in every constructed building. At least in SPb.
And you know what it means when they play classical music :)
That reminds my of the Stromberg-Carlson intercom panels they had in each room of my high school; each had one button for classical music, one for elevator music and one for the local rock station. The kids would always set it to the rock station before the teachers arrived. It used standard "70 volt" intercom lines so there was a 3 position volume switch that selected between 3 transformer taps. Not bad for a 1963 building.
Presumably this was introduced in the Soviet era so you couldn't listen to anything other than state approved transmissions; similar to radios in the North Korea which are locked to a specific frequency.
@@gwishart I don't see in that something bad, because people in every country isn't free. If not government control people, then something else control (like fake news, opposition, government of other country). Also this radio in crysis situation can fast tell people about situation and what to do. It very help people to work together in ww2 period, and reconstruct country after war. So it do great job for XX century. But now time is changed, it didn't anymore, come time of consumerism, democracy, lgbt, capitalism, credits, and dominance of banks. Look like in this century we didn't need unity of people in country. So all changed... and look like it nevermind this do better life or not...
My first job in 1973, maintaining & installing music/PA systems for Rediffusion/Reditune out of Southampton. After a year of that they moved me over to mending TVs (yes, you could do that in the old days children) but that wasn't half so much fun. These cart machines & their successors were still whirring away in factories and the like, driving their listeners mad with repetition. Thanks for the reminder Matt!
Did you need a lot of experience to get a job like that back then? Was the salary good, was it a stressful job?
I also worked for Rediffusion Reditune, (See more details in my post above).
I too moved on to repairing tv's, at Rumbellows, in Dartford Kent.
@@Malcarper - Rumbelows in Dartford. lmao - how quintessentially British 80s.
Yes, you can still have TVs repaired today, old condescending man.
@@Xezlec - Ooh, they still have the schematics glued to the inside of the back cover for your convenience?
"It's Wednesday night; it's amateur Hammond organ recital night."
Rimmer would love those Hammon Organ cartridges. :)
"Mat, why aren't you leaving the lift?"
"I'm just enjoying the background music"
I absolutely love that 60's British catalog session music. Many great composers like Laurie Johnson wrote and conducted those sessions for quick cash, and many gems can be found. I certainly hope you can preserve and catalog these at some point.
When I was about 11 years of age my uncle, who worked as an engineer for Redifusion in Birkenhead, used to invited me to his workshop on Saturday mornings while he was there on overtime. I was always interested in electronics and, as it happens, my uncle introduced me to the electronic organ which I started to learn to play. It's great to remenis on those times ( around 1967 ) when I used to have the use of one of these machines and I had quite a few of the "Hammond Organ" tapes which we used to spool onto normal tape spools and play them on a standard tape recorder. Mine was a Grundig TK5. I liked the Hammond organ tapes but I must acknowledge that they were a product of their time. Thanks for the interesting video Matt.
I remember when I was really young, we had a TV with sliding doors across the front to cover the screen when not in use. This was a Rediffusion rental TV, and the channel changer was a small box on the window sill with a rotating knob with Letters to denote the channels. I think it went from A to M or something, but back then, there were only four tv channels to choose from, BBC 1&2, Tyne Tees, and Yorkshire. And the channels used to close down around midnight with a picture of the queen set to the National Anthem.
But the TV used to also play Radio, when there was nothing on worth watching, you could play the radio through it, which I used to think was really clever at the time. I always associated sound with a tv picture. So it was a bit of a novelty hearing sound from the tv, but with no picture.
Getting back to the channel selector, that is probably where the term "turn it over" came from. As you had to turn the knob to change channels. Ours was on the window sill, and I remember my older brother annoying the life out of me by changing the channel when I was watching my favourite cartoons.
But yes, Rediffusion made for a happy childhood.
I think the rental was just over £1 a week, if my memory serves me correctly. But I also remember these sets used to malfunction quite often, and the repair man would have to be called. And sometimes, we would get a new tv set altogether, if the repair man couldn't fix it in the home.
As a side note, you could tell which of your neighbours were posh and who owned their own tv, as they had antennas on the roof. Rediffusion was a cable service, so no antenna needed. And it was extremely popular, as a lot of people couldn't afford to buy a tv back then. A COLOUR tv used to cost the equivalent of 1 or 2 months salary for most people in those days. So Rediffusion was the only option for a lot of people.
Ah, happy days......
Herman Munster my grandfather once gave my family a TV with an AM/FM radio built in. The dial was backlit and held the numbers to designate either UHF, VHF, FM, and AM all on the same piece. It was a bit of a novelty for me as well, so much so that as a kid, I would listen to WZLX, the classic rock station in Boston, through the big wooden Television on the floor despite my father's giant 15 inch Mach Two speakers sitting right next to it. And yes, I frequently watched The Munsters on VHS through it as a kid. Great profile pic, btw.
@@officialclownbusiness7788 Things were so different, and much simpler back then. And what I miss most, is the respect that people had for each other, and unity. The divisions between people these days is solely down to insidious politicians, placing people in boxes. Society is now rotten. So sad!
I still have the wires to one of those boxes in one of my wall's . .the selection box itself has gone...and the hole where it was is now covered up by a piece of wood... the estate where I live was built in the late 60's and early 70's ..and every abode on the estate had these redifusion boxes on the wall in the living room. . Of course we had the TV on the wooden stand with castor's .. when we would get up for school we'd listen to DLT on radio one through the TV. .it was a good system apart from every so often when the colour tube would fail in the TV and we'd have to wait for someone to come replace it... it was a sad day when they turned off the system and we had to buy a new TV. .cause the rediffusion set had its own one off connection for the selection box and we couldn't plug in a standard aerial. .. it was the original cable TV. . And it was free ...ace
Wow, it's weird to think about nowadays, where OTA is the cheaper option and cable/satellite is an expensive subscription service that doesn't even come with a TV. Get a free cable service with a TV rental! Probably a stronger picture signal than your neighbours with aerials too, and it wouldn't get struck by lightning and fry your set in a thunderstorm.
@@radiojulez7225 Wow, you had a colour tv? Your parents must've been posh, lol.
But yeah, our house was built in 1960, and I thought it was great being able to slide the doors closed on the front of the tv. I was only three or four.
I remember mum telling me that I once pushed the tv over, and it smashed. Luckily they weren't charged for it, as they said it must've been the dog trying to get up to the window behind the tv when it was home alone. So they replaced it with no penalty.
In Soviet Russia there also was radio 📻 by wire in every apartment, it was even mandatory because of Cold war and civil defense, this radio sockets was working till the 2005, maybe even work still in some old houses.
fontik They’ve got that system in North Korea.
They also used radio by wire in "The Prisoner" I believe
It was something available in The Netherlands as well, the Dutch term is 'radio distributie', some guy started it as a service as early as 1921, becoming a real company in 1924
During the occupation in WW2 listening to radio was prohibited and the radio distribution network was put onder control of the PTT (postal, telegraphy and telephony service) so people would only be able to listen to the sanctioned German stations (and their propaganda)
The situation remained like this after the war (well, not the German propaganda broadcasts, the control by the PTT)
The last network shut down in 1975
@@remko2 when BRT1 + ARD1 first supplemented NED1+2 in Holland, it thanks to a HUGE mast next to leiden: the "PTT bunker" underneath was actually a vital NATO comms hub and the TV we got really was propaganda! It was the excuse given for having the tower ;)
They are working and they are used as intended - for warnings and alerts in case of emergencies. Tests are run regularly. In the downtime these speakers repeat local news radio station.
I love how you find so many obscure pieces of media technology. You could probably open up a museum in the future with all your acquisitions.
I expect that once he decides to finally hang up his microphone, a lot of stuff will get donated to historical organisations like obsoletemedia.org.
Seriously, the Techmoan trove is something that will need to be curated indefinitely and I hope he's able to get in touch with folks who are capable when the time comes
These videos could play at each exhibit.
Thumb up for the puppets mid-way through and an obscure media that nobody else is interested in yet somehow you make interesting despite speaking in the way you do. An excellent winning formula that you must never, I repeat never, try to analyse or improve upon. Just be thankful that somehow you have hit upon a winning formula. It appears to be quite natural and yet it is also obviously part of something which requires a huge effort and not inconsiderable expense. I suppose that's quite a common theme for people who have fluke overnight success... Anyway, this is one of the best ones yet, I suppose, although I haven't watched it to the end yet. However you are doing it, I appreciate that you keep doing it. Just more of the same please, just a modest evolution of style that avoids self-parody and keep being guided by what YOU are interested in. That is what will make for a video worth watching.
Well said! Techmoan is just a 'natural'.... fascinating to watch, talented, and a wicked sense of humour - love the Muppet sketches! And it doesn't matter what he talks about! I do love though, these obscure and forgotten audio formats that he finds and researches so thoroughly...... :-)
Those are not muppets
A decade ago I was walking through a Safeway grocery store in the USA and a delightful version of John Lennon's 'Imagine' came across their Muzak system and I could swear everyone in the massive store stopped for a few minutes and just listened to that song. It was incredible to watch. I wish I could find that version again it was so soft and lovely. Everyone in that store stopped their frantic shopping and just listened. It put the entire store to peace.
The Hammond Organ tapes are for Rimmer's 20th Century Telegraph Pole slideshow nights those are on Tuesdays. Wednesday is Morris Dancing night, get those feet up in the air and hear the clonk of wood on wood.
In my teens, we had a rediffusion tv which had no tuner, but instead tv stations (and a few radio stations too) were selected on a separate box on the wall.
The system was installed in council houses in Basildon ( and probably elsewhere also).
Happy days!
I guess Depeche Mode didn't like the choice of music from Rediffusion :-)
I like the fact that he has used the background music trough the whole video.
Nice video as always and I learned something. :)
@@James_Bowie TH-cam Copyright mechanism left the Chat :D
That good old DIN speaker connector, long time no see. :)
10:04 It's always a joy to see heavy duty mechanisms - before everything got miniaturized and made out of plastic.
Mobious strip like binding to record on both side of the tape!!!
This is genius, whoever first used the idea...
Always a good day when I'm early to a new Techmoan "retro and rare" upload!
Well researched and highly informative as always mate. Thanks for doing what you do, helping to preserve the knowledge of these forgotten formats.
Pretty amazing that this unit even had the paper test tag still attached! A rare beast indeed.
I actually lived in Orpington as a young lad, I attended the local preschool and kindergarten before we migrated to Australia in 1984.
I love it when you do these old machines. It's just cool to hear music that would otherwise be completely forgotten to history.
Exactly what I was thinking.
Im sure the mall in Newcastle NSW Australia had a similar system running well into the 80's.
I remember walking through the mall with tge family on a Sunday hearing the Hammond Organ and they used to put up a sign in the window saying Hammond Pops now playing.
I think it was good for frightening away pigeons and vandals.
@@1974UTuber Only slightly different to the kind of pests that frequent malls in Newcastle these days eh? :)
Jay Leno: Cars
Linus Sebastian: Computers
Techmoan: Background Music Systems
Thanks Mat. I learned a lot today. I love to see how things work and you explain it very well. The lift sketch was absolutely brilliant. The history of the company was very informative. A relative remembers having Rediffusion cable TV.
Imagine being an early adopter, loading this up for the first time and hearing "CLUNK!" and thinking "THAT'S the sound of cutting edge tech."
In the beginning of the video: "Reddifusion? That television company?"
At the end "Whoa, just the tip of the iceberg"
Reddifussion were at one time part of BET-Initial ? BET (British Electric Traction a tramways and bus operating company) diversified into wired television relay services, laundries ( annual report- we have taken in a little washing). and then with Associated Newspapers the London and other area ITV/IBA Franchises.
I've learnt a lot since I've started watching you I just want to thank you you're the one that taught me 8 track tape didn't mean it only had 8 songs
It would make sense though if they did.
It's so chunky and undefined, not meaning that it a bad way, just the way things were made back then.
A wonderful time capsule of technology
I feel like these complete tapes would make superb "radio stations" in the Fallout series of games.
My house still has widened window sills that were installed to hold Radio Relay boxes which was another radio redistribution system.
That sounds weird, gotta find a video on that.
A local antenna-based redistribution system? Interesting!
Possibly also used as part of a national emergency alert system? I read another comment from a Dutch gentleman who mentioned that they used such a system at one stage.
sixstringedthing I wonder if it was broadcast on FM Stereo subchannels. They’re still operating in some places in the US.
In Leeds we had British Relay, another Rediffusion competitor from the era of first gen cable TV. If you look along the eaves of a lot of the old terraced housing in Leeds (areas such as Armley, Beeston, Harehills, Chapeltown and Holbeck) you can still see the original thick black cables and the round junction boxes where a cable would split off and carry the signal down to a rotary selector switch on the wall. Later houses had the cables integrated into the walls, with a green Street cabinet at the end of the row. It amazes me that none of this considerable infrastructure was ever re-used, but instead just abandoned when the company went out of business in the 1980s. (I know that in a couple of towns, Hull being one, local operators took over the old distribution systems and even adapted / made up their own boxes and receivers - I believe that one problem was that there wasn't really any way of scrambling the signal so anyone could tap in by running a line to the connection point on their house). Fascinating stuff and a part of broadcasting history I'd have never been aware of we're it not for the internet and YT.
@@rich_edwards79 Green roadside cabinet you say? Makes me think of the BT cabinets nowadays. Some of the phone cabinets I see around definitely look older and are uniquely shaped and sometimes much smaller than the more common variant I see - I wonder if they ever served that kind of cable TV in the past. I usually spot those older cabinets on streets with the classic terraced 3-storey brick tenements/townhouses lining them, and never in the vicinity of recent newbuild/reconstruction.
Arnold Rimmer would love the Hammond organ one.
Love this video especially the bit when you say "Weird smelling seaside hotels" I live in Scarborough and I know a few of those hotels...One hotel I worked at had one of these, not like the one you have here, however, none of us knew what it was, it was painted blue and sat upon a shelf with the words...'Do not touch, only to be used by Hugh M' he was the hotel owners son and he died in 1980 which tells you just how long it had been up there. We all thought it was an old air conditioning unit.
I remember that music playing in People's Department Store in Kentville, Nova Scotia when I was a kid. I also remember there being a pet department with a monkey in a cage. This would have been in the early 1970's. I still find that music annoying today! Ha ha!
Clever video title. When I saw it, it made me think there was going to be some connection to Rediffusion TV in the UK, who was the London ITV license holder up to 1968. They joined with Associated British (later EMI) to form Thames Television, who then held the London ITV licence from 1968 to the end of 1992.
06:37 - That *chulunk* sound though...
It is so satisfying. I keep returning to this video just to hear it!
One of the best channels in youtube. I have watched all the videos like 5 times. I really enjoy the way everything is filmed and narrated. I would love to see more hi-fi equipment. Cheers!
I love the Hammond organ, reminds me of a nice holiday as a kid :-)
Only this guy would by media for a machine he doesn't own. Always fun to watch this channel.
11:40 Growing up in America in the 1960s & 1970s Hammond organ players were common at baseball games, malls, and department stores. For hotel bands from the 60s & 70s, I think of an electric jazz guitarist or an acoustic piano player.
1990 The Red Lion hotel in Sacramento, we had one of these background music cart systems. It was integrated with and mixing board and amplifier PA system. Presumably not this system, but Fidelipack
Oh my gods you just plugged it in without recapping it this will result in the formation a black hole and the end of humanity ! Great video i Knew what rediffusion was but not how it started, great use of puppets also.
I would honestly be very interested to see a full episode dedicated to this company's history
And here I thought I'd be able to sleep at a reasonable hour. Thanks for the video!
Back in the 1960's and early 70's we had Rediffusion cable in our house, all BBC radio services plus all TV channels including London ITV (we lived in the Southern TV region but because it was cable you could get extra), we didn't have to pay for this service because we had the local Rediffusion telegraph pole in our garden! You had to have a switch box on the wall to change channels (search "rediffusion cable tv switch box"), being the youngest it was normally my job to change channels lol.
I was a Supermarket manager back in the 90s and we used this system
..the music is pretty bland and played at a certain rate to help customers move along..
Guessing there was a specific selection of cartridges filled with appropriate music for this purpose?
Possibly distributed from Head Office out to the various stores, and changed on a scheduled basis?
Is that the reasoning behind, for example, the modern day Asda Radio? To make you want to get out of the shop as quickly as possible?
(to be fair, theirs is usually not that bad, but B&M's and B&Q's are both horrific. Tesco these days seems to have thankfully abandoned the idea, except late at night in the 24 hour stores when the shelf stacking rumble teams liberate one of the shitbox Tesco.com hifis from its cardboard prison and use it to blast some terrible local commercial station in 100-decibel crackle-o-rama)
The Coop has Cooperative Radio, presumably sent via broadband or similar from the Head Office. Terry. W It seems very strange wanting to get customers to move on. Don't you want them to loose track of time and fill their trolley. In the 1980s a huge Carrefour was my local shop and every shopping trip took hours as there was so much to look at.
@@markpenrice6253 Revisiting this old thread and saw your comment. In the local Marks and Spencer "Simply Food" shop /petrol station built only about three years ago they have large Bose speakers in the celing. I suspect that someone has also turned the volume to eight and like Matt's machine glued something over the control as it is always annoyingly loud. It is quite a small shop so you typically don't stay there long enough to work out a theme for the music.
I remember working at the Olive Garden many years ago, like 30 yrs ago. I would be in office and see the manager there grab what seemed like a gigantic 8 track and stick in in this big box with a door. Then you could here the Italian music playing in the front. Luckily the back kitchen had a separate setup so we listen to radio. I often wondered how the servers could tolerate listening to the same thing over and over and over. Even if the record length was all day you would get sick of it.
I guessed mid 50's, the case and switch gave it away for me, I bet the head and capstan would benefit from a degauss!
I had one of these in the 80's with only one cart with broken tape. I never knew the tape was twisted to make it longer. So now I know why my tape was only 43 mins after I repaired it! LOL
"Have you heard the latest salon album mate?"
Ohhhhh! It almost 4AM on the west coast of the US but I can’t let down techmoan.
Well. I've never get bored with your videos. Always exciting to watch!
BTW could you revisit an camera that use 75mm film? If you could then great to hear that!
Sounds interesting, but I think that vintage film cameras aren't really in Mat's wheelhouse, he's more of an audio guy as I'm sure you know.
I think he's done a couple of videos on old cameras, but I believe they were mainly about "novelty" items (pretty sure I remember one vid on a Japanese Polaroid/Instamatic camera in a cutesy plastic shell). You might have better luck checking out dedicated vintage photography channels (of which there's quite a few).
Those 75mm cameras and projectors were huge and cost as much as a house (or a lot more).
6:44 when that surf music started playing was I immediately smashed the thumbs-up button. Love the nostalgic aura of these things. It's like vaporwave, 60s UK style.
I had a good chuckle seeing that internal fan, it would do a much better job churning butter than cooling that motor.
They actually did a pretty good job. I had an old Webcor (Webster-Chicago) reel-to-reel with a cooling fan setup similar to this, and despite evidence of considerable use, it ran just fine.
Of course, most of those old motors were fairly overbuilt.
IKR
If you notice the fan blades are not turned at an angle like a propeller or desk fan, this indicates to me that their primary function may have been to add drag to the flywheel, and cooling being its secondary function if at all.
@@fridgemagnet - It's not an axial fan but a centrifugal one (that works the same in both directions). Although the motor seems to be a shaded pole type, that never spins in the "other" direction, unless it's stator is flipped over. Probably the amp draw of the motor is so little, that it never gets hotter than lukewarm. This drive system probably needs no drag - the RPM of the motor is mostly a function of the power grid frequency.
@@750kv8 Nice ! that makes sense. That explains why the rotors appeared to me to have a very inefficient cooling function.
The mobius tape pulling from the center of the spool is so fantastically ingenious. It just goes to show people of the past were not stupid at all, they had to be increasingly creative to overcome greater limitations with simple solutions.
Amazing how many of these tape systems there are and how proprietary some are. Guessing it is all about control.
@@kentallard8852 Yeap, its [roof that the whole music subscription model has been around for more than 60 years. But instead of just getting stores to signup to subscriptions, everyday people are now doing it for convenience.
Really no different to all the companies trying to lock you into their proprietary streaming services these days.
Years ago I was listening to one british internet radio and someone called into the program and the host went: "hello, you're on the wireless". Ever since then I have wondered the history of that word and why some call radio wireless. Finally I have learned the backround to it. Excellent :)
I'm a huge Hammond Organ and also background music fan - any chance of you uploading the music from those tapes to somewhere online like you did with one of the Cantata tapes?
Ask Techmoan if you can rent a speaker hooked up to it, like the early red diffusion service 😄
If you like Hammond Organ, then take a listen on Soma FM: Illinois Street Lounge.
Would appreciate an upload too, as I would really love a complete upload of the cantata library, for one I like to listen to it, for the other it would conserve it for future generations
Maybe one can do the recording, I understand this would be a lot of work for Techmoan
You are Arnold Rimmer and I claim my £5 !!
Perhaps Matt Techmoan could beat TH-cam's copyright system by putting the music on the left channel and talking rather loudly on the right channel?
I had guessed it would be at least one hour. Time enough for a customer to finish a meal without hearing a repeat of the music. I have run into the more modern form of these as a streaming satellite service, such as XM radio, when installing network equipment in chain restaurants in the 90's and 2000's. Nice video and present very well. Thumbs up!
@Techmoan
Mat, Love your channel mate! Been watching you for years. Your video's are always interesting, always quality! Never change! Loved the puppets bit, always do!
That looks so cool! We still have our Seeburg that we used in our old supermarket. Nice cabinet with a glass cover, that you lifted up and loaded 45's in the slots. The record changer went back in forth just like a juke box and played the 45's one by one.
I worked for Muzak since 1980. I have collected a large number of different media machines and media. We kept buying the competition and inheriting their formats. Including Yesco Seaburg and AEI. I also had one the giant reel to reel players with several different music tapes. These were used for the SCA broadcast from radio stations.
I always wondered how that infinite loop of magnetic tape could ever work without destroying the tape by friction. In fact, while the center tape is pulled away, to keep the size of the wheel constant, every layer of the rolled tape should decrease its radius. The same portion of tape will be in the center of the wheel before playing, in a circle with a small radius, and in the edge of the wheel after playing, with a larger radius. Differently from a normal cassette, every layer of the tape should constantly slide a little bit and create a friction between different layers.Why doesn't this happen? How could these tapes remain intact after just a few hours of playing, is there a trick? :-)
they do in fact, slide against each other a little as the tape plays. 8 track tapes were coated to help reduce friction.
I'm guessing just the material they were made of helped reduce friction and allow them to slide against each other without catastrophic damage.
pretty incredible when you think about it
This is something I have always wondered and, given the size of this thing, I was going to ask the same question. @Techmoan can you enlighten us here?
Thats probably why the sound quality was usually pretty shit, all the friction caused by the transport design.
It has lube.
When you consider that in the 50s and 60s they thought tape just plain didn't wear out (in reel to reel use), I wouldn't be surprised if they just decided it was hardy enough to cope with such friction in an endless loop cartridge. Especially since it was a rental machine and they weren't expected to be playing decades later, the rigours were not likely that strong. I'd be more worried about stretching than actually delaminating, and as such the more well-played tapes probably have really high wow and flutter.
So happy to hear Clacton being mentioned. Very informative. Thanks!
4:44, wait, there is a Rue di Birmingham.. in Belgium. How did this naming come about?
Nothing unusual. Many city's have street's named after other city's. In Munich is for example a street named after Amsterdam (Amsterdamer Straße) or in Nuremberg is the Komotauer Straße named after Chomutov (German: Komotau) in the Czech Republic.
It's named after that exotic, glamorous foreign town.
A hospital radio service i worked on in the 1960s was run by a guy who worked in Orpington and was given some Reditune units which we adapted to use like NAB cartridges in the studio. I well rember the messy work of cutting the tapes down to short durations for jingles etc. The back of the tape was coated in graphite so the layers could slip around the hub, and it was very messy stuff!
A short video discussing how and where you store all this technology would be rather interesting I think. I can't imagine you sell it all, but where do you put all your one-off tech?
I have a vague recollection of Mat mentioning that he has a hired storage unit full of old tech, mostly stuff that he purchased for videos and didn't want to keep around in his home system, so it's waiting to be resold. But I might be mistaken there.
It doesn’t warrant a video - they’re in a locker, the attic and the studio room.
Haha, I had exactly the same thought...
The island of Barbados had the oldest Rediffusion installation (1934) after the UK. It was a much loved service providing both BBC and local programs, at a time when there were no other local radio stations and most people could not afford SW radios. The service ended in 1997.
I guessed 1957 during the intro, but my runtime guess was out by an order of magnitude.
I guessed 1963 and 3 hour playback time. Way off.
I guessed 1959 and 8 mintues playback time.
I was so close, my guesses were 1958 and 90 mins.
As for radio, in York, a friend of mine in the 60’s informed me that the ‘wireless’ box in the corner of our room in our council house was ‘relayed’ from four valve car radios situated in the basement in the Rediffusion shop in our town centre. Four radios were for (initially) the light program, the home service, radio Luxembourg and the third program.
Where do you have room to store all this stuff you review?
Anyway, my first job was at a Taco Bell. They had a modern version of one of these tape players to play background music in the dining room. We only had one tape. I didn't know how long it was, but it was hours and hours of what sounded like classical opera. Not exactly what a then 18 year old, or your average Taco Bell customer wanted to hear, but Taco Bell decided this was the music customers wanted to hear, so me and the rest of the employees were also stuck listening to it. One day the tape broke. The manager either didn't bother, or didn't know how, to order a replacement tape, so that was the day the music died at Taco Bell. I didn't miss it.
I love that hammond organ music, it reminds me of a cinema i used to go, they would play that background music until the movie started, and then in the middle when they stopped for "intermission" when people went downstairs to buy more popcorn. Place doesn't exist anymore...
The bonus bit at the end was even more interesting than the main episode!
would you mind record the Hammond organ bands and upload somewhere?
Daniel Wiegert : Rimmer?
Huge grin on my face when the tape started playing :)
Wow, 2 minutes after upload cool.
These are some of my favorite videos with the BGM systems. They're so unusual compared to consumer hardware.
"This part of the video was cut to make it flow better"
*Ad plays*
That “clunk” when you inserted the cartridge. So satisfying!
1957? Damn, I was 1 year out. I guessed 1956
Good guess
Built like a tank ... about 60 years later, you pop in a tape, and it plays music. Interesting video .. I had no knowledge of what these background mind-numbing music systems were.
This man somehow has gotten better looking with age. I don't get it.
Practice?
He keeps a picture of Keanu Reeves in his attic.
Maybe your eyesight is getting worse?
That puppet bit was flipping glorious.
I've never heard of the readavision reditune untill today, thanks for this video.
Fascinating video as always. But for me the really interesting part was the extra at the end about the cable radio system. I remember my Nan, who lived in a big old Victorian house in Stourbridge in the West Midlands, used to have a black box on the wall in her house next to the window which had a switch to select the then available BBC radio stations and a volume on off control . I remember being told by my Dad at the time that it was a Rediffusion cable radio and I remember it still working in the late 60s/ early 70s. I often wondered about the history of the cable radio and if I had remembered what my Dad had told me about it correctly. Sadly both my Nan, the house and sadly my dear old Dad are all long gone, so I had no one to ask. But you have just proved that my old memory isn’t failing me and these systems exist! I do remember the audio quality from the black box cable radio on the wall being pretty good too, due to no interference. Thanks for confirming my childhood memories.
In a parallel universe, people go wild over Techmoan having a full dedicated scene during the main section of The Moans.
The picture quality (video quality) of your videos is ASTONISHING.
I only have vague memories of background music still being played in malls when I was young, but it makes me very nostalgic.
Thanks, great video as always. You manage to find the most obscure tech I had no idea about. Also the music for the outro was freaking excellent.
The idea of winding the tape in a mobius loop to get both sides to play consecutively is brilliant.
Fabulous job as always. And puppets to boot. Marvelous to see this antique come to life - with some rather crude looking parts in it I might add.
British Rail used these carts on their new air conditioned rolling stock in 1968 to announce information over the PA like when they’d arrive in a particular station and remind passengers to take their luggage. They got scrapped as it relied on the guard to start the machine at start of journey which quite often they didn’t or the unit wasn’t calibrated correctly to the tachometer attached to the wheel. Also with continued used they would jam. The unit was made on Jersey if I remember correctly
The bit at the end was really interesting. Thanks for adding it.
Good informative video included the puppets too! Also enjoyed the extra bit about distributing his radio to his neighbours, genius!
Genius, and VERY entrepreneurial.
He'd be taken to court these days though, without a license agreement.
Very interested to see this video as back in the 60s/70s I lived in Orpington not far from the Reditune factory. You could go to the reception area and ask for any old tapes no longer needed, for a fee of 50p you could get perfectly useable tapes (still with the music on them) for use on a reel to reel machine, a big saving on new tapes.
I can't get enough of these background music device videos
Another great video. Turns out (pardon the pun) that many types of tape formats were being developed during the time period that this machine came out. It would be cool if there were somewhere in the world, a museum for old technology to be put on display. It would give young people an appreciation for vintage technology and to see how far mankind has come in technological advances.
I've only run across your channel within the last year, and what a piece of gold it is. Thank you for your work, it's greatly appreciated. You entertain and educate, a rare combination, and well done.
@@RWL2012 Will do, thanks!