Re: [ARSCLIST] Earliest recorded sound update on NPR

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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: "joe@xxxxxxxxxxx" <jsalerno@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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: "joe@xxxxxxxxxxx" <jsalerno@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > 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.