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Vintage Tape (Audio), Cassette, Wire and Magnetic Disc Recorders and Players Open-reel tape recorders, cassette recorders, 8-track players etc.

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Old 28th Mar 2023, 4:10 pm   #1
Chrispy57
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Default Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

Not really my field of interest, but this formidable beast appeared on my Facebook feed today - I wonder if any Forum members have one in their collection?

"Blattnerphone steel tape recorder, an early magnetic recording technology, developed by Dr. Kurt Stille and Louis Blattner in 1924, at BBC studios, used to record programs for rebroadcast in Empire countries. The recording tape was
3mm wide and 0.08 mm thick, and traveled at 1.5 meters / second. It was limited to voice programs as it did not have the fidelity to record music."
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Old 28th Mar 2023, 4:22 pm   #2
Ted Kendall
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

Highly unlikely. The BBC have an earlier Blattnerphone, which uses 6mm tape. The machine illustrated is the later Marconi-Stille, an example of which is in the Science Museum collection. There were only about half a dozen Marconi-Stilles made, and the last was taken out of service around 1950, by which time the Magnetophon had rendered the type obsolete.
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Old 28th Mar 2023, 7:09 pm   #3
Vintage Engr
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

I know this picture well. I don't think I'd want to be in the room when that machine was in rewind, the steel tape was very nasty!

In the mid-1970's as part of my work in A/V & broadcast engineering, I was called upon to give a lecture to some government technicians, on the theory & evolution of the video recorder. I had to start somewhere, & thus included a little introduction of magnetic audio recording, starting with Poulsen's "Telegraphone", moving through wire recorders, & then a picture of the Blattnerphone & Marconi-Stille machine. Then of course I moved on to the Magnetophon, & the early video recorders, including the linear 'Telcan'.. I'll bet there's not many of those about either.

The video tape machines in use in industry at that time were the EIAJ 1 & EIAJ 2 reel-to reel, and the very first Sony low & High-band U-matic.


I got my archive photographic images direct from the BBC's archive. In those days, no digital images, so I went to Broadcasting House, armed with a very humble Zenith E 35mm camera, & the beeb let me copy their info that was relevant to my illustrated talk (on 35mm ) slides. These were direct from their photo albums.

I can't imagine doing that now! Their archive officer was really helpful I remember.

David.

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Old 28th Mar 2023, 7:39 pm   #4
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vintage Engr View Post
I know this picture well. I don't think I'd want to be in the room when that machine was in rewind, the steel tape was very nasty!

David.
I don't know if a Marconi-Stille machine was ever at BBC Evesham, but it was mentioned in TA course lectures there. We were told that its use was discontinued after an accident when a wire broke and decapitated the machine's operator. This could be an urban legend made plausible by the apparent hazard of flailing steel wire, but if the story is true there is likely to be a record.

There's more information here: http://www.orbem.co.uk/tapes/ms.htm, but the fatal accident story is not repeated. The steel used is said to be the same grade as used for razor blades!

PMM
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Old 28th Mar 2023, 8:14 pm   #5
Ted Kendall
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

The first BBC video recorder, yclept VERA (Vision Electronic Recording Apparatus) bore a passing resemblance to the Marconi-Stille and inherited some of the folklore. Being a linear design, using three tracks on half inch tape, it ran at around sixteen feet per second, had reels of about 30" diameter, to judge from surviving photographs, and was both a fractious and a frightening beast to operate. It did, however, work well enough to persuade Ampex to supply Quadruplex machines to the BBC, something they were initially reluctant to do. VERA can be seen in action in a clip from Panorama, where Richard Dimbleby's opening remarks are reproduced after a short interval for the tape to be rewound! She was clumsy, but she did work.

However, I've yet to see any evidence that the Telcan/Wesgrove actually worked in the field. One sample turned up on a Noel Edmonds programme in the eighties, I think - it wasn't loaded with tape, but running light it made a hell of a rattling racket.
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Old 28th Mar 2023, 8:31 pm   #6
Ted Kendall
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

Quote:
Originally Posted by pmmunro View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vintage Engr View Post
I know this picture well. I don't think I'd want to be in the room when that machine was in rewind, the steel tape was very nasty!

David.
I don't know if a Marconi-Stille machine was ever at BBC Evesham, but it was mentioned in TA course lectures there. We were told that its use was discontinued after an accident when a wire broke and decapitated the machine's operator. This could be an urban legend made plausible by the apparent hazard of flailing steel wire, but if the story is true there is likely to be a record.

There's more information here: http://www.orbem.co.uk/tapes/ms.htm, but the fatal accident story is not repeated. The steel used is said to be the same grade as used for razor blades!

PMM
To be fair, I think there was a healthy respect for the dangers involved - note that the machine is operated remotely, and operators were instructed to keep clear when the thing was running. The decapitation story is horse feathers as far as I know, but the dangers were real enough - a luckless operator could lose an ear or be severely cut, although the thyratron-controlled spooling bins of the Marconi-Stille machine made life safer than being around the original Blattnerphone. This machine was indeed at Evesham in 1939, and was used to record Chamberlain's declaration of war.

Marconi-Stille, Philips-Miller (mechanical recording, optical playback) and disc recording channels were all used extensively throughout the war. Tape was first used operationally in 1951, and the first two systems were rapidly retired. Disc recording, however, survived until 1962, particularly for news programme and overseas services.
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Old 28th Mar 2023, 8:46 pm   #7
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

I recall a BBC engineer BVWS member demonstrating a similar large wire recorder at Harpenden around the late 70s early 80s. It was quite a thing!
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Old 28th Mar 2023, 8:49 pm   #8
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

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Originally Posted by pmmunro View Post

... I don't know if a Marconi-Stille machine was ever at BBC Evesham, but it was mentioned in TA course lectures there. M
I don't think they had an actual machine, but in 1978, when I did my A Course, one of our lecturers brought out a Marconi-Stille reel as a show-&-tell.

He passed it round the room: the flanges were thick castings and the whole thing was pretty heavy.
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Old 28th Mar 2023, 9:31 pm   #9
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

I seem to remember reading some years ago that the BBC had refurbished a Marconi-Stille machine but I don`t know where it would have been situated.
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Old 28th Mar 2023, 10:09 pm   #10
Ted Kendall
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

The Blattnerphone appeared in the BH exhibition some time in the 1980s, I think.
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Old 30th Mar 2023, 11:23 pm   #11
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

The London Science Museum has a Blattnerphone. Predictably, it's not on display and was in the basement last time I heard. Sean Davies took an AES expedition there around 15 years ago. Annoyingly, I didn't get tickets in time... Were there enough interest amongst AES members, I guess another trip could be arranged, although I'm not sure if Mr Davies would take it. My understanding is that the machines are extremely rare.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Blattner
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Old 31st Mar 2023, 7:56 am   #12
Ted Kendall
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

The machine which used to be in the Science Museum sound gallery in the 1970s is a Marconi-Stille. My first boss at the BBC had the job of tidying it up for donation as one of his first jobs in the old Recording Department. It and the deck from a captured Magnetophon HTS disappeared from view when the gallery was reorganised. They may have a Blattnerphone as well - there were four altogether, according to Pawley, one of which was in the BH exhibition a few decades back.
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Old 31st Mar 2023, 10:35 am   #13
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

This 1992 Australian news clip shows a Blattnerphone playing some recordings from Canada:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31VRgGV-AfM

The operator shows no fear, wiping the tape with a paper tissue as it passes through the machine...

Cheers
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Old 31st Mar 2023, 10:44 am   #14
Ted Kendall
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

The main hazard was splices - there were two in a new reel to make up the length, plus any programme splices, which were spot welded. If one of these welds parted, it was time to duck! They could also damage the replay poles, which is why the M-S had more than one.
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Old 31st Mar 2023, 11:59 am   #15
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

The Blattnerphone makes an appearance on the recent BBC drama 'Murder at Broadcasting House' as the detective and interested parties retire to a listening room. The plot revolves around the Blattnerphone recording of the programme turning out to be a record of an actual murder happening during the murder scene.

One for the technical experts: a ticking watch is heard on the recording as the victim is strangled during a soliloquy. Assuming the microphone is set up for an individual voice in a booth, would it actually pick up such a tiny noise from the murderer's wrist? The script is from the period, so either the authors knew it would or they were hand-waving technology like James Bond!

Oh, Ted - "yclept". Marvellous.
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Old 31st Mar 2023, 2:31 pm   #16
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

Well, I've only seen the word used twice in n years, so I thought I'd give it a run out, given that VERA was such a magnificent creature.

Death At Broadcasting House was co-written by Val Gielgud, at that time Head of Drama at the BBC, so he had first hand experience to draw on, but in the matter of the watch there may have been some artistic licence - the mic would have picked it up, but s/n ratio wasn't much better than 30-40dB, largely on account of the DC bias, so sharp ears would have been needed.
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Old 3rd Apr 2023, 12:36 pm   #17
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

In the film, IIRC, the sets are very much larger than I suspect the real studios were, but the public probably thought they were getting a glimpse behind the curtain of the glamorous world of radio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_...dcasting_House
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Old 3rd Apr 2023, 1:08 pm   #18
Ted Kendall
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

The reels are about 30" across, from what I remember of the M-S in the Science Museum. They held 1000 feet of steel tape.
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Old 4th Apr 2023, 4:01 pm   #19
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ted Kendall View Post
The machine which used to be in the Science Museum sound gallery in the 1970s is a Marconi-Stille. My first boss at the BBC had the job of tidying it up for donation as one of his first jobs in the old Recording Department. It and the deck from a captured Magnetophon HTS disappeared from view when the gallery was reorganised. They may have a Blattnerphone as well - there were four altogether, according to Pawley, one of which was in the BH exhibition a few decades back.
There was a Magnetophone captured after the war, that is in the Royal Museum.
It was featured on the program "Secret life of Machines" With Tim Hunkin. It sounded rather good! Tim mentioned that you had to stand well away to prevent injury when the thing is operating!
Dave, USradcoll1, always interested.
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Old 5th Apr 2023, 11:33 am   #20
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Default Re: Blattnerphone steel tape recorder

Quote:
Originally Posted by Trigon. View Post
This 1992 Australian news clip shows a Blattnerphone playing some recordings from Canada:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31VRgGV-AfM
Wow thanks!

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Originally Posted by Uncle Bulgaria View Post
Oh, Ted - "yclept". Marvellous.
I saw it - assumed a typo - I've now gained a word!

UKVRR expands one's vocabulary.
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