Welcome to the February 2004 edition of BeechLog.
Hello everyone, I've managed to get another issue out as you can see! Once agai
n
its mostly text and just one picture, but there are plenty of links to pictures
if that's what you want. There's even something about radio here!
Roger GØHZK,
Editor
Contents
Bandplanning in the USA
Music downloads and speed cameras
Rogers PC hell
Holidays 2004
Movies 1936
The Mellotron
Useful Links
Bandplanning in the USA
Last week I came across a web site featuring details of a
new American proposal on bandplans. This had a number of intentions, including better
alignment with countries outside the USA, and accommodating new modes more
easily.
The problem in the US is that bandplans are legally binding, so any changes
need to be authorised by the FCC, which is a government department. Some folk
on the net (Walt etc.) have advocated compulsory bandplans over here, so it
is interesting to see the problems that US amateurs are experiencing.
The extension of forty metres will eventually make it easier for US amateurs
to have international SSB contacts. What is more interesting is the proposal
to change mode related sub-bands. The general idea is to split them up
according to bandwidth rather than actual mode. So CW will share a segment
with narrowband digital modes, and SSTV will share with SSB, go get the drift.
As you might expect, some US amateurs are not at all happy with this
proposal! There are some eloquent replies in opposition to this idea,
although I can't help thinking that these are just protests against any
change. Many people have only ever used one mode, often CW, and cannot
understand why they might have to move frequency a little to make room for
other modes. I have seen messages decrying the use of modes such as PSK, and
we are all well used to amateurs who maintain that CW is the only mode used
by "real amateurs".
Allocating sub-bands according to transmitted bandwidth will give the US an
opportunity to re-think how amateur bands should be divided up. What was
right a few decades ago may well be different today. Average receivers are
more stable, more selective, and have less unwanted outputs than thirty years
ago. Today there is no sensible reason why CW should have wide exclusive
sub-bans, when keyboard modes should be limited to a narrow range of
frequencies.
I don't know whether there will be any serious discussion on this, or whether
the proposal will be quietly forgotten. I know some people think that any
change is a bad thing, and that new modes are just toys for new amateurs, but
it's about time that there was some fresh thinking, rather than just
squeezing in a few new sub-bands now and then. Just look at the VHF bands
over here, the bandplan has become so complex that it's almost unmanageable.
If you think about it, only things like repeaters and beacons really need
their own bandspace. The 150kHz for CW is really ridiculous, even during
contests and lift conditions. It might be a far better bet to simplify the
band and let similar bandwidth modes coexist. Popular frequencies might still
be appropriate for modes like meteorscatter, but we ought to be able to
respect such operations during the few days during the year when they are
possible.
Music downloads and speed cameras
OK I know this isn't about radio, but to be honest my aerials are down and
there's little chance of them ever going up again. I may end up as GØHZK/P
from now on. But I've written disparagingly about music recordings before,
and see no reason to stop.
It seems that at long last, some music is being made available for legal
download. But although they don't realise it, people are being conned. It
works like this - a CD pop single costs £3.99 in the high street, but can be
downloaded for 99p. Sounds good (pun unintentional), until you find that the
track may only work on the PC you dowloaded it to. The digital rights
management will probably give you much less freedom than the more expensive
CD.
Now, who in the BBRC buys pop singles anyway? Not me! I buy all sorts of odd stuff.
Recently I bought Larks Tongues in Aspic (King Crimson, 1970). You can't
download that legally. I have also bought Bachs Goldberg Variations. Now the
download people consider all music as 'songs', and the Goldbergs consist of
28 variation, i.e. 28 tracks on the CD. At 99p per song?? The iTunes site
didn't have the Goldbergs, but there were some classical concertos.
A concerto usually has three movements, or 'songs' as they now seem to be
called. So with each song costing 99p, that's £2.97 per concerto. You can get
about four concertos on a CD, that's £11.91 to fill a CD.
It doesn't seem much to be a saving to me. I've been putting off buying the
Murray Perahia recoding of the Goldbergs for months, since the CD is £16 in
Slough, £14 on the net. Maybe I should wait 'till iTunes has them, hmm 28
tracks at 99p per song...
What gets me is that no-one seems to have noticed this. They compare 99p with
£3.99 only, I suppose media people are unable to count tracks or work out
multiples of 99p. But to be fair, there are some new dowload services that
intend to offer album content at about half the CD price.
I'm particularly annoyed at the word 'songs'. While the likes of Schubert
wrote material which would be correctly referred to as songs, most other
non-pop music is called by different names. And much of the pop (well, 1970
underground) music I listen to is instrumental, and this music was certainly
not called 'songs' 30 years ago.
But it seems that the digital world has dumbed down everything into 'songs'.
I presume that a 'song' from a spiky haired pop idol winner, or a slightly
clad buxom American waif lasts the traditional three minutes, so the music
capacity of a portable player can easily be rated. It's like the
'instantaneous peak power' of flashy audio equipment, where a 10 watt
amplifier works out at several times greater (I came across a PC speaker
system the other day, which claimed an output of 188 watts).
I must be a miserable old man to think along these lines! Portable music has
improved over the years. The original Philips cassette had a capacity of 60
minutes, later expanded to two hours. Quality varied - tapes stretched, tape
hiss could be obtrusive, wow sometimes made the sound wobbly, but they were
very popular nonetheless.
Modern digital players have sorted out most perceived quality issues. Noise
is low, wow is a thing of the past, as are chewed tapes. The tiny 128 meg
solid state players will hold 2 hours of music, which can be quite good
quality if you find the right player. The hard disk players with 40 gig
capacity will hold thousands of tracks, although it may not be so easy to
find the ones you want to play, and the batteries last only a few hours
before a recharge is necessary.
I note that there will be some new Minidisk machines appearing in the
shops at Easter. A new disc will have a capacity of 1 gig, against the
current 177 megs. It has also been announced that current discs will
have nearly double the old capacity after a reformat. New software will allow self
recorded audio to be dumped onto a PC via USB, and also the machines will let
you copy any computer files to and from the machines.
Along with up to 30 hours playing time on a single AA alkaline battery, these
machines look attractive to me at least. Obviousy they have one fortieth of
the music capacity of a 40 gig hard disk, but still will record up to 45 hours
of music on a single 1 gig disc. You can always pop in another AA cell when the battery
gets low, and pop in another disc to extend the music capacity.
Click
here for more info.
Anyway, the digital rights mechanisms adopted by download services may restrict the
hardware you will be able to use for replay. And you bet your life that there
will be mechanisms to prevent you shopping for your music in other countries.
As I write, the CD-Wow Hong Kong website has been forced by the music companies
to apply surcharges to buyers from Europe (although under pressure from guess
who, they now deny this).
The more restrictions are placed on where we can buy and how we can play our music, the
more likely piracy will continue. People will only buy if the product fits
their need, or if the monopoly is solid. And prosecutions by the copyright
owners will only upset fans and maybe even cause a backlash.
On that last point I am reminded of speed cameras. Last year I was caught
twice. The first time I was clocked at 41mph on a dual carriageway near the
Chalfonts. A fair cop, I owned up. The second time the Hertfordshire Police
shortcut the system and sent me a letter saying something like "We have
evidence that you were the driver...". This time it wasn't me, I had disposed
of the car for scrap a few days earlier. The letter from the Police also
stated that they were not prepared to disclose their evidence. To be fair to
the police, I explained the situation, and heard nothing more from them.
This past year has apparently seen over two million fines resulting from
speed cameras, with a 50% increase predicted for 2004. And the backlash has
begun. There is a web site
showing photos of dozens of damaged installations.
One such camera I pass daily in Maidenhead has been facing the hedge for
several weeks!
I don't condone speeding, even though I have been caught. On that occasion it
was unintentional, I was on an unfamiliar road, and the limit applied by
default, not through the display of signs. These often seem to be located in
order to catch out motorists - one not far from FCVH is on a dowhill stretch
just round a bend.
Contrary to public belief these cameras do not make money. The bureaurocracy
required to run them soaks up all the income. In my mind they would be better
served by decent signposting and a change in the law to require councils to
signpost 30mph restricted roads properly. At present 30mph restrictions may
apply just because there is no other signed restriction, and it may be
illegal to display 30 signs in these instances.
In my drive home from Reading, the speed limit changes several times before I
reach Maidenhead. I defy anyone to say what it is along some stretches of the
A4, as the signs either point the wrong way, are hidden in the hedge, are are
just missing. The limits are often illogical. One dual carriageway has a
40mph limit, but there are no obvious signs, and the road is fenced from
pedestrians. Another stretch has 50mph, even through villages with shops and
houses. Another part is either 60 or 30, the jury is out on that stretch.
When I worked in Woking, on my way home I passed one of those signs that lit
up if you exceeded the limit. It was painted black and merged into the other
road clutter, but most people were aware of the limit and it did not usually
light up. I am sure that these are quite effective, and have no expensive
bureaucracy behind them.They reinforce a sensible limit in a way that doesn't
mess up normally law-abiding motorists.
To my, the fact that 2 million were fined for speeding last year just shows
that the system is not working - it is not stopping people speeding. Just as
making the most easy and natural way of obtaining music illegal will not
preserve the incomes of record company managers.
Rogers PC hell.
In the past I have written much about the fun I've had building and improving
my computer using cast off bits from here and there. Eventually all good things
come to an end, the supply eventually dried up, so now I have to buy the
stuff I need.
Generally I don't get the latest fastest components, these are too expensive.
The last major upgrade featured a new cabinet, cpu, memory, and motherboard I
bought at a Montem computer fair. I stuffed all these bits together, and it
worked! Well, for a few months anyway. Then I started to have problems with
the dratted thing not starting. After much messing about, I isolated it down
to the graphics card. So I bought another one, and guess what, that didn't
work either.
A spot of Googling found many others with the same problem - it is a feature
of my motherboard! So I went to the next fair and bought another one, this
time from a more reputable manufacturer.
I installed this along with the new graphics card, and wow, it all worked at
last. My Windows 2000 partition booted with a message like "all your hardware
has changed and Windows can't cope", and the Windows XP partition
blue-screened (the first time I've seen this). The Linux partition booted
with a message like "would you like to remove the old hardware drivers and
install your new ones?", which it then did faultlessly.
Linux is very nice, but most of the stuff I use runs only on Windows, so I
rebooted from the XP CD and chose the 'repair an existing installation'
option, which it then did. Windows XP was in action again, although the USB
ports play up a bit, and sometimes it boots OK but turns off the monitor.
Choosing the 'last known good' option from the boot menu has cured this so
far, fingers crossed.
Since then I decided to improve my backup procedure by installing a DVD writer.
This has actually worked quite well, I can write all my precious stuff to two
discs instead of the dozen or so CDs I needed before. However this created a
further complication, as I found that the new drive did not always write
audio CDs that my car player could handle (everything else plays them OK),
and it also was rather slow at reading audio CDs too.
So I needed some way of keeping the old DVD drive as well as the CD writer
and DVD writer. With my two hard drives, that's five ATA devices, and PC's
handle only four. So I bought a PCI ATA card, which means I can now install
up to eight drives.
This card requires its own bios to be loaded at bootup, and does this by
modifying the master boot record of the main hard drive. This works well, but
had the side effect of removing the Linux boot menu which also used the mbr!
I can boot into Linux with a floppy though, but found that Linux now cannot
play with my CD drives.
Anyway, Windows has its three optical drives working well now. I discovered
that the old Toshiba DVD-ROM cannot read DVD+R/RW discs, not surprising as
this format was not available until recently. But I found some hacked
firmware on the web, bit my lip and flashed it into the drive, so now it
reads all types of DVDs and has also forgotten about the silly DVD video
regional coding system, so in theory I can now play any DVD.
I decided to vape the Windows 2000 partition, as I had another experiment to
try. I had read on the web that it was possible to integrate the XP service
packs and many other patches, and burn a new bootable CD which would install
all this stuff together. This involved installing some strange application
that would lift the boot software off the original install CD. Goodness know
what it did, but it all worked, and I was able to install a second XP SP1 and
patched partition in one go! This worked very well, even the USB works
properly.
Well, my PC was sorted, now onto the next. My middle son had saved up some
money with which he bought some parts to upgrade his PC. The only parts he
wished to retain were his graphics card, CD writer and DVD drive. The parts
were duly ordered on the net, and a few days later they arrived.
Building a PC is easy, all you do is plug all the bits together and that's
it. But not in this case - when I turned it on, nothing happened. Well the
hard drive started, fans whirred, but that's about all. No beep from the
speaker and the monitor remained in standby. I spent ages checking
connections but to no avail. I tried the RAM in my PC, and the hard drive,
they were OK. I put an old Pentium 1 motherboard in Ben's new case, and that
worked. So it was either the motherboard or the CPU. I didn't have any parts
to substitute, so I was stuck for a while.
However I had a friend at work who was always updating his PC, so later in
the week I came home with another Athlon CPU and motherboard. Trying to be
logical, I fitted them into Ben's case, and everything worked. Next step was
to try the known good CPU in Ben's motherboard. Of course that did not work
any better than than with the new CPU. So this suggested than Ben's
motherboard was no good.
I could not test Ben's CPU in the old motherboard, since it was far too fast
for the earlier board. So risking £50, I bought another motherboard in
Slough. This was carefully assembled with the known good CPU, and switched
on. The fans whirred, the floppy and hard drive initialised, and the monitor
- stayed firmly in standby.
What on earth could be wrong? Was the cabinet somehow incompatible with the
board? I checked all the voltages on the connectors, and they were all fine.
I felt pretty low, but found a troubleshooting page in the back of the menu.
This showed how to boot up the board in some sort of safe mode, and suggested
that I did this and then cleared the bios cmos memory. Well this didn't work,
but what's this, the clear cmos jumper seems to be in the 'clear' position? I
hadn't touched the jumpers, not that there were many anyway, and the
manual had firmly suggested that nothing was touched until everthing was
working.
So I popped the jumper into the normal position, turned on, the speaked
beeped and the monitor sprung to life. I replaced the CPU with the new one,
set the bus speed to suit it, and voila! everything worked.
Then I wondered if the other board may have had the same 'fault', but no. It
was obviously faulty.
Anyway I had regained a little of the confidence I had lost in my computer
hardware tinkering ability. The rest of the evening was spent installing
software, and I finally carried it up to Ben's room late that evening.
That hasn't been the end of it though. I also had to replace a hard drive in
a PC belonging to my elder sons girlfriend, and she was so pleased that she's
bringing me another broken PC to fix. And now the kitchen telly has packed up.
Holidays 2004
Last year was the first one for a long time in which I didn't get to visit
any foreign soil. I dare say it will be the same this year, but you never
know. My employer recently asked for volunteers to survey opinion on a new
breed of in-flight entertainment, so I duly signed up. The deal is, that if
chosen, I have to make two long haul flights in a week, and discuss the stuff
with passengers and crew. The flights all originate in Germany, and I don't
speak German, but what the heck. I might see Tokyo for a couple of days, or
maybe Sydney, or possibly Santiago. All paid for, of course.
If this doesn't come off, I've been looking into something more modest. It
all started when a workmate happened to be passing Victoria Coach Station and
saw a bus come out with "Bucharest" showing on the destination display. Now
that sounded different. One of the things about land travel is that you get
to see the scenery on the way, not just clouds. Delving around on the net I
found a price of under £120 for a return trip, perhaps similar to a scheduled
air fare.
I'm not that keen on Bucharest. It might be very nice there, I don't know,
but warnings in the press that its inhabitants were coming to the UK just as
soon as they join the EU doesn't bode well. However the same fare applies to
many other places in distant parts of Europe, so maybe I could go to
somewhere like Rome or Madrid or even Istanbul.
Travelling over a thousand miles by bus does raise a few questions. I've
never been able to sleep in these vehicles, and what about natural bodily
functions? Add to that the chance of thrombosis. However the last long bus
ride I took was between Milan and Florence, and EU law requires frequent
stops so there will be chances to stretch the legs before rigor mortis sets
in.
Alternately there's the train. I found a website today packed with useful
information. For example a luxury high speed train will take you from Paris
to Rome overnight in about 15 hours. This costs from £72 return. For £130 you
get a couchette, so at least you can lie down and get some proper sleep
during the trip. The only drawback is that it will be dark when the train
goes through the Alps, and I'd miss all the impressive views. Perhaps there
are day trains?
You can also get a EuRail pass for between £199 and just over £400 for aged
folk like me. This gives unlimited travel over various zones and periods.
Europe is divided into a number of zones each containing three to six
countries. The £199 pass is for one zone and twelve days, the £400 pass
allows all zones and one month of unlimited travel.
I like trains. You get a good view of the countryside and can stretch your
legs at will. And you can use them as hotels. Proper sleepers can cost £50
extra per journey, but couchettes are much less. The Eurail pass does not
apply to some journeys on prestige trains, but hefty discounts are usually
available, like trips between capital cities for the cost of a Slough to
Paddington ticket.
If you are really keen on rail travel, then
The Ghan is the train to ride. In
mid January this year a new line was opened in Australia, and the first train
ever ran from Adelaide via Alice Springs to Darwin, that is from the south to
the north of the country. This was a freight train, but on the first of
February the first of a weekly passenger service left Adelaide and reached
Darwin 47 hours later, covering nearly 3000Km.
Prices are a bit high, for adults the cheapest one way ticket is A$400,
rising to A$1740 if you want to sleep lying down in comfort. And you've got
to get to Adelaide first.
There are some good bargains on buses in far off places too, if you can
manage to track them down. New Zealand has a bus pass that allows 12 days
travelling, including cheap hostel accomodation if you wish. There are some
interesting bus holidays in the USA, such as a 14 day coast to coast route
served by buses equipped with bunk beds. These are intended as holidays in
themselves, with stop offs in tourist locations, northerly and southerly
routes, meals cooked on the bus. Of course these routes are not suited to
those who really like to pay £100 per night for hotel rooms, but they must be
a pretty good experience for those who want to see a lot of the USA for less
than £400. Other buses cover other tourist locations over the pond, some even
venture into the central American countries.
If you need to arrange your own acomodation, it can start getting a bit
complicated, especially if you don't want to stick to a fixed itinery.
Wherever you go, hotels can cost a lot of money so it is worth looking for
alternatives. Many large cities have hotels which offer minimal facilities,
for example there are many in the centre of Rome which charge about £30 for a
room. These one star hotels have their own marketing networks, and can easily
be booked on the web.
There are many hostels too, which offer a mixture of private and dormitory
accomodation. In Rome, there are loads with the latter asking just 20 Euro a
night. It probably helps if you travel in a small group, so that you are not
alone in this sort of establishment (Some places like this have an age limit
- people my age are excluded as they are assumed to be sufficiently wealthy
to afford decent hotels).
In the less popular cities, especially in the less developed parts of Europe,
private rooms can be just as cheap. In Prague, for example, I found rooms at
around £10 per night. In warmer countries you can do without, according to my
workmates, who told me tales of sleeping in parks, on beaches, etc. They also
have stories of brushes with the local constabulary, which in some supposed
civilised countries can cost you more than the hotel price you saved. Not for
me. Airports can be useful places to sleep too, although they are not usually
located in city centres. And there's always the risk of getting your baggage
nicked.
You can also save money by sleeping on the train. As I noted earlier,
couchettes often are inexpensive, so an overnight trip between city centres
may save you both time and money.
However all this supposes that I will actually have some money - I might have
to be content with a day trip to York or an afternoon in the tropical house
at Kew Gardens. But it's interesting finding out the non-package options, and
there's always next year.
Movies 1936
Recently I bought a DVD containing the film
Night Mail. My wife probably
thinks that I am crazy, for this was a short film made by the GPO in 1936.
Probably I am crazy, for today everyone wants to buy the specially extended
'directors cut' of the latest Hollywood movie, which comes on five DVDs with
spoken commentries by everyone who worked on the film.
Night Mail has none of this. Because it is so short, the BBC film
West
Highland is also included, which ups the playing time to nearly an hour. The
BBC film is very worthy, indeed I remember seeing it when it was broadcast in
1960.
While we hardly think of the GPO as a film maker of repute, when they came to
make Night Mail (for internal use, I believe), they took more trouble that
you might expect. The film was made by John Grierson, a prominent documentary
maker of the time. The 'script' was written as verse by W. H. Auden, and the
music by Benjamin Britten. Seldom have the pictures, words and music
dovetailed together as in Night Mail.
West Highland is a film made by John Gray of the BBC. A documentary
about the railway line to Mallaig, it doesn't sound very exciting, does it?
But it was one of the last of an era when such films, like Night Mail, were
made with artistic quality of equal importance with the message (sorry I
cannot write anything with even the slightest artistic use of words).
1936 heralded the start of a short era of classic films featuring great
music. While I cannot deny the effort put into Hollywood film music during
this period, the music of many British films was applied with more
sensitivity, preserved the musical value, and was used more sparingly that
the wall to wall sound of Hollywood.
In the UK and in Europe many classical composers were persuaded to write for
the cinema. William Walton produced music for films such as Henry V, Hamlet
and Richard III. Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote for wartime films such as
Coastal Command, and Scott of the Antarctic in 1948, the latter being worked
into his Seventh Symphony later on.
Sir Arthur Bliss wrote the music for
Things To Come (from H G Wells), after
Sergei Prokofiev turned down the job. Alan Rawsthorne scored
The Cruel Sea.
Malcolm Arnold did The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Inn of The Sixth
Happiness, Whistle Down the Wind, and of all things
The Belles of St. Trinians.
George Auric, who scored
La Belle et La bête (Beauty and The Beast, a French
vomit-free non-Disney version, and far superior in all respects), later
scored numerous British films such as The Lavender Hill Mob,
Passport to Pimlico, Titfield Thunderbolt, and Dead of Night.
I suppose the fact that I enjoy such films shows my age! I can't easily
describe what it is about them, its something about the use of language,
gentleness and lack of graphic violence - even
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949
- music by Mozart), a comedy abour a serial killer, preserves this
Britishness without stooping the the gaudy nastiness of similar films made
today. This film took a lot from
My Learned Friend, the best film featuring
Will Hay. Such films do appear on DVD now and then, I saw a set of the Ealing
Comedies in HMV a month or so ago, but when I went back to the shop with cash
in my hand, they had all gone.
I do watch the odd American film now and then. I saw that one about the child
drowned in the well (can't think of the name - it was based on a Japanese
film). I've also seen all the Lord of the Rings films. But the best film of
the last few years must be
Amelie de Montemartre, French but the pictures tell
the story. Hollywood could never make anything as good as this.
There are still good British films, although there's little hope when the
biggest audiences are drawn by dross such as Eastenders and Coronation
Street, and of course anything with the word 'celebrity' in it. You know, I
would make a fine miserable old git.
The Mellotron
Those of you who are as old as I am may remember the Mellotron. I say this
because I have been boring my colleagues at work about this magical device,
and none of them had any inkling of what I was talking about. Well, most of them
were younger than I, so I suppose that explains it.
The Mellotron is a musical instrument, a sort of forerunner of the digital
synthesiser, and its hey day was probably around 1965 to 1980. Back in the sixties
digital electronics were in their infancy, but some people had the foresight to
see the need of a keyboard instrument that could play sampled sounds. Since the likes
of hard disks and memory were too esoteric, the samples were recorded on magnetic tape.
The Mellotron keyboard has 35 keys which cover nearly three octaves. But it's what
goes on inside that is a great interest. Each key controlled its own tape, yes, that's
35 tapes inside. What's more, there were no reels. Each tape is six foot long, and
in the rest position it is held in a sort of W shape. When a key is pressed, the
pinch roller associated with that key 'catches' the tape and runs it over the replay head.
The 'played' tape just drops into a sort of bin. Being only six foot, and playing at
7.5 inches per second, you can hold the key down for up to eight seconds before you
run out of tape. When the key is released, a mechanism pulls the tape out of the bin
and back into its W shape. You can see a diagram and photos here.
Mellotrons had an unfortunate reputation for reliability, as you might expect!
However they make a unique sound, which was very popular with progressive rock
bands in the sixties/seventies. They supplemented the popular Hammond organ, another
large heavy electro-mechanical instrument which was popular at the time, and many
band managed to tour with them, which didn't help in the reliabilty stakes.
Unlike modern instruments, switching from one sampled sound to another is not an easy
task. Each tape has three tracks, so you can switch between these three sounds
instantly. If you want any more, however, you have to take the thing apart and swap
the tapes. This is 'easier' than it looks, it is a matter of releasing the frame
that holds the tapes, removing it, and substituting another.
What does it sound like? I suppose the most well known recording is The Beatles
'Strawberry Fields Forever' which feature the Mellotron 'flute' sample. This was
recorded in 1967, and most other bands 'found' the Mellotron later on. It was very
popular with The Moody Blues, Roxy Music, Strawbs, Tangerine Dream, Bee Gees, Black
Sabbath, Rick Wakeman (who co-invented the Mirotron, a similar machine that used
8-track tape cartridges), and many others. More recently band such as Oasis (who
I have heard of) and numerous other (who I have never heard of) have revived the
instrument and you can see a more comlete list of
albums
if you have an hour or so to spare.
The Mellotron still lives, and the recent revival means that there is now a cottage
industry of restorers. And the Mellotron is back in production, no longer in the UK
but in Canada. See
Sound on Sound's Review for a history and review of the modern Mellotron.
Useful Links
Rogers Locator
calculators, I'm slowly getting the bugs out, and one day should be able
to refine the code a bit.
Here is the very firstRAE from 1946. See if you would pass it!
Here's a historic net document, Tim Berners-Lees original usenet post about the World Wide Web.
Copyright and Technical Stuff.
BeechLog is Copyright Burnham Beeches Radio Club 2004.
Copyright of individual articles and pictures remains with the
authors.
Any opinions inside this issue of BeechLog are those of the
authors, and must not be assumed to be also of the BBRC.
Roger GØHZK, Editor
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