When I was flying Vulcans in the RAF, whenever I flew to somewhere new in the USA, I used to make a tape recording of a local FM station on a portable cassette player / FM radio. I later assembled a cassette of chunks from various stations back in about 1980.
But that cassette player died. Then later in 1982 I acquired a very neat little Panasonic cassette recorder/FM radio which was only slighter bigger than a Sony Walkman. Fortunately I was then posted back to fly the VC10K; we did a reasonable number of trips to the US, so I started recording again.
I rediscovered the tapes late last year, so bought a cheap Sony tape player which I connected to my Philips MCi500H hi-fi system's 'AUX' input and copied the tapes at 1:1 speed to the hard drive. I've since ripped one or two of them onto CD, so it can be quite fun listening to adverts for "$1000 off brand new '79 model Chevvys" and the like. Audio quality is surprisingly good.
I once had some reel-to-reel tapes of the 'real' Radio London (266), but sadly they didn't survive a few house moves. My tapes of early Capital Radio (including Kenny Everett's 'World's Worst Wireless Show') and pre-1983 US radio (apart from the assembled tape) were stolen from my garage where I was storing some stuff whilst moving house, but at least I've still got the later USA tapes!
Yes I recorded stuff for a couple of decades or more mainly from the likes of Radio Caroline, Veronica, Laser 558, Radio Seagull, Radio Atlantis, RNI, Radio Delmare ie offshore radio stations. I amassed what can only be described as a ridiculous number of cassettes that on one occasion when I totalled them up I just would never be able to listen to again in full unless science found a way of making me immortal. I had them stashed in box files etc which where a rather convenient size for cassettes once the spring was taken out of the box. I had them all nicely catalogued etc. Under the bed in the loft taking up row upon row in the spare bedroom. I even had some on Reel to reel tape much less convenient to store. What was I doing with them all in the end basically nothing just collecting them. Then within the last decade I decided enough was enough after converting a few to mp3 the rest went to landfill, oh heaven. Do I regret dumping them - In short No. Do I miss them very rarely now initially yes I missed seeing them in their serried ranks of box files on their shelves in the spare bedroom. Am I glad I got rid of them yes absolutely, it took a long time to actually get round to dumping them even after I stopped adding to the collection but it was almost like regaining part of my life to get rid of them.
Did you not try to give away the tapes that you ended up dumping? Someone reading this forum might have been very happy to take them from you?
I have Capital FM's
Half-Way House Party 1992 mixed by Les Adams & James Hamilton
Hot August House Party 1992 mixed by Les Adams & James Hamilton
& the New Years Eve House Party's from 92-96 & 2001
plus a couple of later ones on mini-disc i believe
keep meaning to put them on the hard -drive
Hi,
I recorded the Capital Radio New Years Eve party mixes by Les and James for 1987 till 1991 inclusive. These were uploaded to mixcloud if you are interested in listening under my id sl1210mk2_xge. Over 20 hours of mixes in total.
My mate has a lot of Radio clyde cassettes in his attic from about 1978 bits of shows , Steve Jones, Richard park. dougie donelly Bill Smith , tiger tim and thru the night shows and billy sloan brian ford ( some good jingles he used( also john peel on radio1 Tom ferrie when he was on Radio Scotland going to get a loan of them and stick them on cds for myself good memories of ILR for Glasgow not like it is today!
Still got 80's pirates JBC, LWR, Radio Duck et al tapes from the 80s somewhere. Plus US stuff from the same period (in quarter inch!) and who can forget the Heart/WPLJ test TXs? Got hours of that on a range of formats (cassette, DAT, MD and even Sony PCM F1.
I have Capital FM's
Half-Way House Party 1992 mixed by Les Adams & James Hamilton
Hot August House Party 1992 mixed by Les Adams & James Hamilton
& the New Years Eve House Party's from 92-96 & 2001
plus a couple of later ones on mini-disc i believe
keep meaning to put them on the hard -drive
I have Simon Bates, Bruno Brookes and Nicky Campbell last shows on Radio 1. Simon was broadcasting his last show from a café in the states. Many Top 40 shows
I keep shows presented by Greg Scott. I'm currently recording The Afternoon Show with Greg Scott on Coast & County Radio but a couple are missing and a few were partially recorded. Coast & County Radio has a Mixcloud account but they have a backlog of over 200 shows and it doesn't look like they'll get to uploading the shows I'm looking for. Can anyone help with any of the following shows?
Week 1 (20/02, 22/02, 24/02), 14/04, 19/04 and 21/04.
I've dug out a load of old 90s stuff, including The Storm (which had a really good selection of music didn't it?), Galaxy NE from the early days, loads from TFM (including Steve Harris playing Shakira and Gareth Gates), few local RSLs... and I'd love to store them digitally. What does one need?!
The only way inevitably is going to be very time consuming. A C60 is going to take at least 60 mins plus unless you run it double speed then slow it with software and that sounds like a quality losing process. Basically you are going to have to a) feed the output of your 'cassette' player to your soundcard and record it using some audio recording software that will allow you to save it as a computer audio file .wav or .mp3 or other file format of your choice. Personally I use 'cool edit' as my software others free and non-free are available. A popular free one is 'audacity'. Option b) is to purchase one of the 'hi-fi' units that permit you to convert cassette/vinyl/CD to mp3 directly without the use of a PC and save the resultant files to memory card or memory stick.
In relation to another thread on this Forum, I have a tape, I don't think he is talking on it but it has a bit of The Capital Countdown with Peter Young as it has his jingle as well as Diana Ross, Upside Down.
On the same tape I have I am sure it is Paul Jorden sitting in for Gary Davies around December 1985.
I have loads of stuff on tapes from The Radio 1 Roadshow, to The Top 40, Nescafe Network Chart, Pepsi Chart, Tony Blackburn, Pick of the Pops with Alan Fluff Freeman and Dale Winton etc. But it takes me so long to get round to things.
Anyway can someone suggest a site I can upload them to in order to share with other collectors such as yourselfs without getting into trouble over copyright?.
In relation to another thread on this Forum, I have a tape, I don't think he is talking on it but it has a bit of The Capital Countdown with Peter Young as it has his jingle as well as Diana Ross, Upside Down.
On the same tape I have I am sure it is Paul Jorden sitting in for Gary Davies around December 1985.
I have loads of stuff on tapes from The Radio 1 Roadshow, to The Top 40, Nescafe Network Chart, Pepsi Chart, Tony Blackburn, Pick of the Pops with Alan Fluff Freeman and Dale Winton etc. But it takes me so long to get round to things.
Anyway can someone suggest a site I can upload them to in order to share with other collectors such as yourselfs without getting into trouble over copyright?.
Many of us upload to mixcloud.com who pay the music royalties. You search by DJ name to see what shows have been uploaded. Also check out the retro radio group on Facebook which is where the latest uploads are notified. https://www.facebook.com/groups/retroradiogroup/
I think I may have posted earlier in this thread that I still have dozens of recordings of records from the Top 40. Most are just the actual records though some are the full top 40 programme. I have a few from 1977 and 1978 and then have recordings of all top 40 songs from about March 1979 to late 1985. I then have a number of recordings up to about 2000 though they get less frequent as the 90s progressed.
I also have a number of recordings taken from Paul Gambaccini's US chart show on Radio 1 from about 1978 to 1985, a few of Casey Kasem's American Top 40 recorded from AFN and a handful of recordings from Radio Luxembourg from about 1979 to 1982.
To be honest I'm not sure why I've kept them. I moved to where IIive in July 2003 and all the tapes are still boxed up and have been in the loft for nearly the past 14 years! But somehow I just can't bring myself to part with them...
I've got a quite good selection of taped shows, such as Dave Pearce Dance anthems, Vibe nation on the GWR stations various Hit 40 uk/ Big top 40 shows/Chris Moyle's , Capital fm shows, etc.
I have a few in-concerts recorded from Radio 1 from the 80s but as 6 music often plays some at weekends I've managed to re-record quite a few again.
I have managed to keep the last ten Sound of the Seventies that Steve Harley introduced but they're only from nine years ago.
But 5 hours of Steve is worth a year of JW.
Hundreds of hours of mostly offshore from 74 onwards. Caroline, Atlantis, Mi-amigoand RNI. Then Caroline and Laser in 80s. Plus lots of stuff from Noel Edmonds Breakfast and older stuff from 60s that I bought
Most of it is airchecked
Need to digitise really before the tapes are completely knackered but it just takes so long and I have a life!
We are having a sort out at the minute and I found a load of cassettes from the mid 80s that I used to put in my Walkman when going to school, that I'd taped off the Top 40 on Sundays. I found the Walkman itself as well
not to tape but to minidisc - many of the Radio4 extra comedies and dramas . I know they go on a repeating cycle but who wants to wait until they come around again?
Comments
Saturday afternoons 1-2, just before The Great Gambo, back in 1978 anyway.
Do you still have these, I'd love to hear them!
Did you not try to give away the tapes that you ended up dumping? Someone reading this forum might have been very happy to take them from you?
Such as perhaps the owners of this site http://www.dxarchive.com/
Hi,
I recorded the Capital Radio New Years Eve party mixes by Les and James for 1987 till 1991 inclusive. These were uploaded to mixcloud if you are interested in listening under my id sl1210mk2_xge. Over 20 hours of mixes in total.
http://www.mixcloud.com/SL1210MK2_XGE/
If you want I can transfer audio cassette recordings(or video tapes) to a digital format.
I've started uploading these to my mixcloud account http://www.mixcloud.com/Eydecy_Productions/
Week 1 (20/02, 22/02, 24/02), 14/04, 19/04 and 21/04.
The only way inevitably is going to be very time consuming. A C60 is going to take at least 60 mins plus unless you run it double speed then slow it with software and that sounds like a quality losing process. Basically you are going to have to a) feed the output of your 'cassette' player to your soundcard and record it using some audio recording software that will allow you to save it as a computer audio file .wav or .mp3 or other file format of your choice. Personally I use 'cool edit' as my software others free and non-free are available. A popular free one is 'audacity'. Option b) is to purchase one of the 'hi-fi' units that permit you to convert cassette/vinyl/CD to mp3 directly without the use of a PC and save the resultant files to memory card or memory stick.
On the same tape I have I am sure it is Paul Jorden sitting in for Gary Davies around December 1985.
I have loads of stuff on tapes from The Radio 1 Roadshow, to The Top 40, Nescafe Network Chart, Pepsi Chart, Tony Blackburn, Pick of the Pops with Alan Fluff Freeman and Dale Winton etc. But it takes me so long to get round to things.
Anyway can someone suggest a site I can upload them to in order to share with other collectors such as yourselfs without getting into trouble over copyright?.
Many of us upload to mixcloud.com who pay the music royalties. You search by DJ name to see what shows have been uploaded. Also check out the retro radio group on Facebook which is where the latest uploads are notified. https://www.facebook.com/groups/retroradiogroup/
I also have a number of recordings taken from Paul Gambaccini's US chart show on Radio 1 from about 1978 to 1985, a few of Casey Kasem's American Top 40 recorded from AFN and a handful of recordings from Radio Luxembourg from about 1979 to 1982.
To be honest I'm not sure why I've kept them. I moved to where IIive in July 2003 and all the tapes are still boxed up and have been in the loft for nearly the past 14 years! But somehow I just can't bring myself to part with them...
I have managed to keep the last ten Sound of the Seventies that Steve Harley introduced but they're only from nine years ago.
But 5 hours of Steve is worth a year of JW.
Lots more to come.
Most of it is airchecked
Need to digitise really before the tapes are completely knackered but it just takes so long and I have a life!
I know the feeling! It has taken me the last 10 winters to get my stuff transferred digitally. And I still have maybe a hundred cassettes to go!