Monday, November 14, 2016

Everything must go!


A current item on e-bay opens up a number of questions, including: 
  • Who at Pacifica authorized this sale?
  • How much money changed hands?
  • How many tapes are involved?
  • What's on those tapes?
  • Was this discussed by the PNB?

And while we're at it... how does music for unaccompanied, big, heavey real to real radio tapes sound after 47 years? Will the buyer make enough money to purchase a spelling dictionary?  

Inquiring minds want to know.

ADDENDUM - Nov. 15, 2016:

Hey, I actually gotta response from the seller. His name is Ron in South San Francisco. He has over 3,000 tapes. And it sounds like he would be amenable to making a deal on the lot. Sounds like opportunity.

And he said thanks for the tip about the fragility of the tapes, but doubt he would take any action -- if he were to digitize before sale it would diminish their value.

And today is the big PRA national broadcast. Still more opportunity.

Any suggestions? All we need is a few dollars to buy him out and somebody to pick 'em up and find a place to store 'em. There's gotta be a way...

Jim 

19 comments:

  1. The seller's handle is antiquesf, and it ain't just KPFK. It's KPFA and WBAI too.

    http://www.ebay.com/sch/antiquesf/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

    Jim

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Jim, I wonder if these tapes have been digitalized before being offered for sale.

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  2. Well, I sent him a message noting that these archives cannot be replaced. And that they should be digitized immediately, on next play. And asked where he got'em and how many he has, and if he would part with them as a lot. Not that I'm in the market for such ...

    Jim

    No response yet. Probly never.

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  3. I think anyone who buys these tapes knows what they are. Whether they have the means to digitize them is another question.

    SDL

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    Replies
    1. Perhaps not. We could rarely afford to use virgin tape, so there is likely to have been much re-use.

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    2. That begs the question did people wipe over the tapes before further use or did they simply record the new show over an old one. Also, could there possibly be bits of previous shows remaining after the new show was recorded.

      SDL

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    3. My practice and common practice at the church was to use the degausser in Edit A.

      ~ 'indigo'

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    4. OK, thanks for the info.

      SDL

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    5. If you're interested in tech, here's a side-note: It's extremely important that warships be degaussed – now *that's* degaussing.

      ~ 'indigo'

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    6. I was amazed to find that WBAI didn't have a degausser, si I brought mine in from home and ordered a new one. We tried to use virgin tape for special recordings like musical performances, for example, and I had them wound inside out to avoid feedthrough.

      We were fortunate that one of the Pacifica board member, Rudy Hurwitz, was a big 3M client (he invented and owned Dynalabel) so he occasionally sent us a shipment of Scotch magnetic tape.

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    7. I'd long forgotten that one – tails out you mean, to minimize print through, right?

      ~ 'indigo'

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  4. Hey, I actually gotta response from the seller. His name is Ron in South San Francisco. He has over 3,000 tapes. And it sounds like he would be amenable to making a deal on the lot. Sounds like opportunity.

    And he said thanks for the tip about the fragility of the tapes, but doubt he would take any action -- if he were to digitize before sale it would diminish their value.

    And today is the big PRA national broadcast. Still more opportunity.

    Any suggestions? All we need is a few dollars to buy him out and somebody to pick 'em up and find a place to store 'em. There's gotta be a way...

    Jim

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Many of the tapes have "BB" or "BC" numbers assigned, which means that they are or were already part of the PRA collection and are likely still available for order, barring dubbing problems. I have many such tapes myself, which I obtained from KPFK after broadcast (with the Program Director's consent) by replacing the used tape and boxes with equal quantities of new tape and boxes, which I purchased in bulk. The ebay seller seems to list tapes that he knows are not unique as "sub masters". My guess is that most the non-KPFA tapes being offered are not unique and were direct-shipped to KPFA by a sister station nearly simultaneous with shipment of the duplication master to the Pacifica Program Service. This was sometimes done with newsworthy material where interest was expected to soon expire. "Offer Sheets" describing each program submitted to the Archives were prepared on multipart NCR forms in the early 1070s, with a different color copy sent to each station (apparently matching the tape labels in use at that station), sometimes prior to broadcast. If a sister station responded to the offer sheet before the program was shipped to the Archives, then the local Traffic Manager would typically duplicate and ship to the sister station immediately. I was KPFK's Traffic Manager in the early 1970's, and was loaned for a week or two to PPS, duplicating and labelling tapes for what was to be a month at K dedicated to broadcasting historical Pacifica programming. There was at that time a working high speed reel-to-reel duplicator in my office at KPFK.

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    2. Thanks Terry, I was beginning to suspect as much and if that is the case and these have already been through the archive process, I think this is all a moot question .

      Delete
  5. They want money for the archives and look how they handle their material. Yeah...

    SDL

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  6. Spent some time today researching this new tape owner in SF. I have no idea how much he paid for all of these. I also found out from an anonymous source that at the moment, he's stopped all negotiations with Pacifica.

    Assuming that's true, put yourself in his position. You could try and appeal to his "greater good". Do it for Pacifica, everyone who cares about what that stands for, future generations, and so on. But if I were him, I'd want nothing to do with any part of Pacifica. Since it continues to be so incompetent, why would you waste your time listening to or believing ANYTHING you heard from them? Why would you trust them with this resource? What legal grounds would Pacifica have for suing this guy to regain ownership? For whatever reasons, Pacifica CHOSE not to continue paying the rent. Therefore legally you lost ownership when these were auctioned off. If you're stupid enough to do that, you don't deserve to get these tapes back(IMO).

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  7. I'm sure you all know more and better, but for fun I searched eBay anyhow, and no word of "pacifica" found, tho this lists audio reel to reel tapes -sold or completed..and who knows if not identified parts might be sold off anyhow...w/o that identification ?
    so...who cares ? ....and why buy what Pacifica doesn't care enough to store and protect ?
    If value is nostalgia or keeping antique old stuff, that may be sweet dream dedication, collecting. If value is cost, price, resale value, that is a different dimension. Which is predominant one that is being written and investigated ? Or is it "who dun it?" the issue?

    Some of us who dont buy tapes or old relics, may not understand more than the violation of selling off what was not personally owned, but owned by all who have paid into Pacifica & Archives ?

    some of us plain ordinary interested folk just dont understand it all. And still dare to ask and write and question, here. let me know. inform us ignorant KPFK donors too. wanna ?

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    1. forgot to include link:

      http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=used%20reel%20to%20reel%20audio%20tapes%20Pacifica&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2045573.m1684

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  8. and you all found this already, but for fun and games here is more from seller 'bellajulie1999" or "seller: antiquesf Oct 24 in So SF " on Ebay:
    http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=used+reel+to+reel+audio+tapes+bellajulie1999&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.X+bellajulie1999.TRS0&_nkw=+bellajulie1999&_sacat=0

    why do I care ? just curious, I guess.

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