Posts: 123 From: Next to LEM, Descartes Highlands, Moon Registered: Jan 2017
posted 09-13-2019 04:07 PM
Some of you may be aware that I am digitizing Bill's (known here as Headshot) collection of slides that he took during the Apollo missions. I still need to do Apollo 15, 16 and 17.
In the meantime, Bill has send me his reel to reel audio tape recordings he took of news broadcasts in the 60's. I am very happy he trusts me with preserving them into the digital domain.
These are 15 tapes that contain radio and TV recordings, recorded at 1 7/8 IPS and 4-rack monophonic. This means a single reel can hold 16 hours, though most tracks contain 1 to 3 hours of audio. Reel sizes vary from 2 to 7 inch. I am glad to say the tapes are in fair to good condition, no mold or exceptional degradation.
Amongst the labelled tapes are Surveyor, Mercury, Gemini and "SIB" (the Saturn V stage?) broadcasts and one labelled "Cooper."
There are also two compact cassettes with Skylab recordings, 30 and 45 minute length.
I am currently processing the 7-inch Gemini tapes, which show Bill's dedication with an extensive index:
The MP3 files vary widely from 6 to 200mb due to some tracks holding only 6 minutes, while others hold 3 hours of uninterrupted audio. I understand these large files are unwieldy, maybe after all tapes have been published some indexing and separation work can be done.
I have attempted to reduced tape noise/hiss as it was quite loud. Broadcast/transmission noise remains untouched.
The Google Drive folder will be updated over the following months. Eventually it will be uploaded to a permanent archive. But I couldn't wait to share this exceptional collection.
Would like your opinions on my and Bill's work.
Blackarrow Member
Posts: 3118 From: Belfast, United Kingdom Registered: Feb 2002
posted 09-13-2019 08:40 PM
I would love to hear a recording of Surveyor 1's successful landing! I remember watching live coverage on TV, around breakfast time. As that would have been 2.17am in the eastern USA, I suspect there weren't too many live viewers.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 09-14-2019 07:52 AM
I'm sure you'll find a wonderful recording of US TV coverage of the Surveyor 1 landing on YouTube.
If you can't find it, I can get it to you.
apollo16uvc Member
Posts: 123 From: Next to LEM, Descartes Highlands, Moon Registered: Jan 2017
posted 09-14-2019 01:28 PM
quote:Originally posted by Blackarrow: I would love to hear a recording of Surveyor 1's successful landing!
Sure, I've just added Surveyor 1, also got a tape with 2, 3, 4 and 5 that will be added later.
Headshot Member
Posts: 864 From: Vancouver, WA, USA Registered: Feb 2012
posted 09-16-2019 05:17 PM
I listened to the Surveyor I R3, Trck 2 tape and after all these years I am glad to have my recollection confirmed. I remember watching this event in real time and hearing the JPL spokesman interject "It looks good" in a somewhat tremulous voice and sure enough, at around the 12:00 minute mark there it was! Even the resulting laughter of the JPL audience could be heard.
Nice job Niels!!
I wish I had recorded the Ranger 9 mission. Afterwards one of the U.S. networks broadcast a meeting of scientists, who were analyzing the images on the spot. Gerald Kuiper and Harold Urey went at each other with barely concealed contempt for each other's positions. At one point I thought Kuiper was going to crawl across the table and sock Urey. It was an amazing occurrence. I wish it had been preserved somewhere.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 09-17-2019 03:58 AM
Niels, I have no idea how experienced you are at this, so I hope you realise I mean absolutely no offence when I make the following point.
Are these tapes originals or copies?
The reason I ask is that the Gemini 11 tapes are subject to interference from an adjacent track on the tapes. If they are originals, these should be able to be corrected by moving the machine replay head up or down — resetting the azimuth angle as well of course.
Gemini 8 and Gemini 12 seem to be clear of this interference, judging by the recordings I've listened to so far.
Thank you so much for posting these, particularly the Gemini 12 stuff. I've collected for over fifty years, and Gemini 12 has always been the most difficult mission to get good material from. Your work is much appreciated.
apollo16uvc Member
Posts: 123 From: Next to LEM, Descartes Highlands, Moon Registered: Jan 2017
posted 09-17-2019 10:20 AM
Colin, for about 3 years I buy these kind of recordings and digitize them to put online for everyone to listen to. Sometimes I borrow stuff to archive them, such as Bill's tapes, and the tapes I borrowed from an observatory some time ago. They contained rare dutch broadcast recordings.
Bill's recordings should be originals, he recorded them himself.
I got a Revox A77 MKIII and an Akai 201D. Unfortunately the Akai is broken and needs to be repaired, just the Revox works at the moment.
I looked at my raw recordings, and it does look like TRK1 and 2 are crossplaying with each other, as does TRK3 and 4. When track 1 is silent and somebody is talking on track 2, it can be heard faintly on track 1. There is no delay at all in the crossplay. Could this be vertical printthrough?
As you said it can't be heard on my other digitizations, which are hundreds of hours by now. Nor on other tapes recorded by Bill.
I am afraid to change any of the head geometry, got no experience with head alignment and don't have the test tapes required for proper alignment. Doing it without any industry-standard alignment tape would just be winging it!
And then the heads won't be alinged with my and Bill's other tapes. I can just plop on any random tape and very rarely get crosstalk.
I think something else is going on here... maybe Bill used an other recorder for just this tape?
Headshot Member
Posts: 864 From: Vancouver, WA, USA Registered: Feb 2012
posted 09-17-2019 11:16 AM
As info, the Gemini 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and the Surveyor tapes were recorded on an old Webcor Viscount (III?) monaural reel-to-reel tape recorder/player. The Cooper (MA-9) tape was made on a very small, portable, reel-to-reel player that accepted only 3 inch reels. I do not remember on what I recorded the Gemini 7/6 tape.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 09-17-2019 11:26 AM
Niels, I know what you mean about not messing with the tape heads without an alignment tape. Maybe just put them aside for now until they can be fixed. I feel that the probable cause is the head being offline when the original recording was made. Basically the head just needs lifting or dropping lower. But yes, best not do it right now.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 09-18-2019 12:45 PM
Following on from the above, is there a way that we could post our best audio and/or video recordings onto YouTube or something similar? Then we could sort out the good recordings from the bad, and everyone's a winner!
I — having collected for over 50 years — have an enormous collection, and most of it is very good quality.
There is one member of this group who supplied me with some wonderful videos a few years ago, and I promised I would never copy them to anyone else, but apart from those I would be only too happy to share what is a huge archive.
All are saved as 16bit 44.1kHz but I could make mp3 files for those that want them.
apollo16uvc Member
Posts: 123 From: Next to LEM, Descartes Highlands, Moon Registered: Jan 2017
posted 09-18-2019 12:54 PM
Added R4 which contains news broadcasts on Surveyor 2 to 7, and on the Apollo 4 launch. It contains the famous words spoken by Walter Cronkite.
Don't you wish news presentators were so excited and knowledgeable about space missions today?
Currently working on a 3 inch tape labeled 'Cooper' and on an other tape with likely a Mercury Atlas recording. Audio quality is pretty bad, and worse the recording speed gradually slows down as it progresses.
apollo16uvc Member
Posts: 123 From: Next to LEM, Descartes Highlands, Moon Registered: Jan 2017
posted 09-18-2019 01:05 PM
quote:Originally posted by Colin Anderton: ...is there a way that we could post our best audio and/or video recordings onto YouTube or something similar?
I have been publishing my digitizations on the Internet Archive.
But I am horrible behind schedule, got many hours of audio I still need to add. And several 8mm/super8mm recordings I need to get digitized so I can add those as wel. Such as a private recording of MA-8 recovery by someone on the carrier!
I will gladly work with you to add your collection to my Internet Archive archive and YouTube channels.
Videos are better for YouTube and Internet Archive, just audio is better for Internet Archive. I prefer both to be on the Internet Archive because then anybody can download the source, not a lame video file with YouTube compression!
If you upload something to the Internet Archive, the site will provide the source file and convert them to mp3, with video files I think it will convert them to mp4s.
And you may have to fight copyright stuff when you publish long recordings on yotube, as songs may use parts of NASA audio. I had to fight like 4 copyright strikes on the Apollo audio stream (Granted, it was 10 hours)
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 09-19-2019 02:14 PM
I'm really referring to gathering the best-quality recordings we can muster between us all. While the Gemini tapes you've posted contain good frequencies that can be worked with to produce pretty good quality files, some of them - for example, the Apollo 4 files - are never going to sound very good, as the higher frequencies just aren't there.
Is there any way a group of collectors could join a sort of "private" group, where we can exchange files? I have been going through my collection over the last few days, and just for starters I could post, in very good quality:
Radio Moscow (Sputnik 1) - no, not just that familiar first 20 seconds!
President Eisenhower's complete 32-minute press conference five days after the Sputnik launch (there were only two questions that weren't about Sputnik!)
News reports from Senate hearings after the Vanguard explosion
Live commentary of the Explorer 1 launch
News report the morning after the Explorer 1 launch
And this is just in the first few months of the Space Age. The collection is huge.
Any other members with collections they'd like to share?
We need to get these old recordings preserved in the public domain, so they don't just end up in archives, gathering dust.
And has anyone ever put a similar idea to the U.S. TV networks; the early space programme needs preserving, while some at least of the original video tapes are still playable. (I'm thinking CBS, in particular.)
apollo16uvc Member
Posts: 123 From: Next to LEM, Descartes Highlands, Moon Registered: Jan 2017
posted 09-19-2019 03:45 PM
Colin, that is a great idea. How do you suggest we compare similar recordings for audio quality? I still think bulk-uploading everything to my archive.org is a good option, it has been around for more than a decade so should be reliable.
I am especially interested in film and video recordings.
I have talked with another collectSPACE member and he has shared tons of recordings with me. Including some recordings of Ranger 9 broadcasts. I still need to upload those.
I still need to figure out the best way to share recordings from multiple people. I still think the first name is the best identifier, or maybe the collectSPACE username if the person prefers to stay anonymous.
Feel free to use my DE (German) and NL (Dutch) digitizations on archive.org, I have not seen a lot of those, should be a nice addition to any collection. As long as you provide the source.
If you want I can upload the raw flac files for Bill's tapes, mp3 files aren't good for editing. Would like to hear what you can get out of them.
Ebay-5-RT5 on archive.org ought to sound very good, the collection appears to be the entire Apollo 11 CBS broadcast recorded at 7-1/2 IPS. Almost every reel starts with the CBS Apollo 11 jingle. And the box the reels came with stated some things about a school.
I have actually been meaning to ask, is it possible these tapes were provided by CBS through some request? I highly doubt even a dedicated person would be able to record a collection like this.
I made a video of the collection here.
kking Member
Posts: 106 From: Topmost, KY Registered: Nov 2002
posted 09-19-2019 06:57 PM
I'm good for looking for new files. I got some things from around the time of Sputnik but not a lot.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 09-20-2019 05:36 AM
Niels, you might like to upload some Gemini 12 stuff, and I'll give them my best shot. It sounds to me as if the quality is there to produce some really good-sounding files.
If you can post a link to them, and I'll get working on them immediately.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 09-20-2019 05:50 AM
Maybe I'm dim, but I'm not that familiar with Archive.org - apart from NASA's raw tapes. Can you explain what you mean by "Ebay-5-RT5 on archive.org ought to sound very good"?
apollo16uvc Member
Posts: 123 From: Next to LEM, Descartes Highlands, Moon Registered: Jan 2017
posted 09-20-2019 06:39 AM
On the "third party audio" link provided several posts above this, it contains the bulk of my audio collection, and those I digitized for others. Each collection has its own designation, which refers to the type of collection, origin, mission, tape number etcetera.
Scroll down here a bit to find Ebay-5-RT5. The recordings can be downloaded from the website as original, MP3 or played directly from the website.
kking Member
Posts: 106 From: Topmost, KY Registered: Nov 2002
posted 09-20-2019 11:39 AM
I agree that those of us in this discussion would like to find ways to share our tapes. I have tons of tapes from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and so on. I got some unmanned stuff like Ranger too. I got a lot of them saved on mp3 and on a hard drive.
I'm all the time looking for coverage I don't have. I would like to find more that centers around the Vanguard explosion.
apollo16uvc Member
Posts: 123 From: Next to LEM, Descartes Highlands, Moon Registered: Jan 2017
posted 09-21-2019 03:51 AM
quote:Originally posted by Colin Anderton: Niels, you might like to upload some Gemini 12 stuff...
I have uploaded the raw recordings Gemini 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 to archive.org.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 09-21-2019 04:14 AM
Thanks Niels, I'm having a go at them today.
apollo16uvc Member
Posts: 123 From: Next to LEM, Descartes Highlands, Moon Registered: Jan 2017
posted 09-21-2019 04:39 AM
Oh, and I forgot to add, I believe this is the track layout, chronologically.
S1, Right = Track 2, Left = Track 1 S2, Right = Track 3, Left = Track 4
Should cover most recordings.
R1 and R2 are mercury recordings, could you give those a try as well? they slow down as the recording progresses. And their audio is quite terrible. Would be great if I could publish a corrected and cleaned up version for Bill.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 09-22-2019 05:00 AM
Niels, some of the recordings on the "Mercury" tapes are actually of Gemini 6 (which you may be aware of).
I see that one of these recordings is the ABC coverage of MA9 in May 1963. The quality is not very good, as you say, but you may like to know I do have the coverage of this launch from two other sources in much better quality.
What are the costs involved in setting up on Archive.org? What I'm really trying to do is create a site where only good-quality recordings will be posted. Over the years, I've been able to replace many poor tapes with good ones, and hopefully, with a site such as I describe, each collector could do the same.
apollo16uvc Member
Posts: 123 From: Next to LEM, Descartes Highlands, Moon Registered: Jan 2017
posted 09-22-2019 07:16 AM
I figured one contained Gemini, just said both had mercury to be quick.
Setting up an Internet Archive archive is completely free. Here is a basic tutorial.
I can also give you access to the third party space audio archive and other archives so you can upload there.
If you want to create your own, I advise you to use a single archive with a broad name like mine. First upload some audio files. After that is done it will automatically become an audio archive so you can play audio files directly from the page. Later you can upload other items such as text and photos as metadata.
You can link directly to the files from your webpage. May also be a good idea for amateur photos and video of space missions? Be sure to make an archive just for video and just for photos so those can be viewed from the archive also.
(I would advise Flickr for photos however, much easier to view large collections, make multiple albums. But over a 1000 photos you need to have a subscription. I got one and can upload your stuff if you want.)
A sound archive will automatically make mp3 files from lossless audio you provide. A video archive will automatically make mp4 and ogv files from sources like avi and mov.
The derived files are much smaller than their sources, better for quick sharing. Unlike with YouTube, sources will be provided also.
Archives can be edited and items can be removed, added or changed later. It shows them by alphabetical order. I advise you to device a good nomenclature in naming your files so its easy for people to find what they want.
Hope this helps. It may take some time and a few tries to get used to Internet Archive.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 09-22-2019 12:34 PM
Thanks for all that info, Niels. I'll look at the tutorial you've linked to, and take it from there.
Incidentally, collectors may like to know that I've recently been working on Mercury files with a difference; I've got the tapes running at precisely the right speed, and have a video with a running clock. Also, as I originally made them for my own amusement, I added the time (GMT or BST) that it was here in Britain.
As well as the MR3 and MR4 flights which are available on YouTube, I've also made similar recordings (using onboard tapes) for Mecurty-Atlas 7 and Mercury-Atlas 8. I've also done Gemini 3, and the first day of Gemini 4. The files are a bit too big to upload until I have a few hours to spare, but I'm surprised my original files (AVI) are as large as they are. I always make my video masters in AVI, so I'm aware they are fairly big files anyway — but these are really huge!
When I'm creating them, I have to take the cover off the computer, and have a large fan blowing into it to keep it cool! The YouTube files, of course, are smaller.
Take a look, folks, and see what you think. There are two versions of Mercury-Redstone 3 and one Mercury-Redstone 4 file.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 09-29-2019 03:38 PM
I've made my first attempt at putting some of my audio files on Internet Archive; I'm still feeling my way, so give me some leeway. But I think it's working out well so far.
I'm restricting it to good quality files; we need somewhere to preserve this stuff before it's lost.
If anyone wants to contribute, please email me.
kking Member
Posts: 106 From: Topmost, KY Registered: Nov 2002
posted 09-29-2019 07:18 PM
Looks good. Be glad to do my part.
kking Member
Posts: 106 From: Topmost, KY Registered: Nov 2002
posted 09-30-2019 01:00 AM
I wonder if there is anybody out there in their collection has any audio launch control and news reports of the Vanguard explosion in December 1957 and the launch in March 1958. I remember about 25-30 years ago someone had these. I hope somebody has them and would share them.
apollo16uvc Member
Posts: 123 From: Next to LEM, Descartes Highlands, Moon Registered: Jan 2017
posted 09-30-2019 09:43 AM
quote:Originally posted by Colin Anderton: I've made my first attempt at putting some of my audio files on Internet Archive
Looks good Colin. Feel free to use audio from my online collection. As long as you credit me for those and link to the source. Ask Bill about his collection just to be sure.
I can digitize tons of video, still film, documents and audio mediums. Also ancient computer formats such as floppy disks, backup tapes and mainframe reels. If you got somebody in Europe don't be afraid to ask if I am interested in digitizing their collection.
I'm working on some more tapes from Bill this week, should be up soon. Just today I've added 14 hours of Apollo 10 audio, see Bill-R5-AS10
Just a thought, maybe it will also be a good idea to link to some documents and website that detail how to best preserve the physical originals long-term.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 10-02-2019 07:32 AM
OK, Niels, thank you. I'd intended to post a lot more in the past few days, but that was delayed by health issues with my wife. We thought she had some very serious problems, but she was misdiagnosed, so I'm walking on air today, and we're looking forward to many many years together in the future.
As many of you will be aware, the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo tapes posted by the wonderful John Stoll of NASA consist mainly of tapes he had to digitise without hearing them first (they were too brittle to mess around with any more than necessary). The great majority of these are two-track, although in the main each track is identical. However, in most cases one of the tracks has a rather muffled sound, lacking high frequencies. (In the case of Apollo 10, the bad track is not muffled, but distorted by high recording level.) I have reduced all of my copies to single-track, dropping the lower-quality one.
The result is, of course, that the tracks are the best quality, but only half the size. I've also "reduced" them down to CD quality, 16bit 44.1kHz — although I'm positive that in real terms there is no loss of quality, as the original recordings would certainly not have exceeded modern CD equipment.
I shall post these shortly, along with more from the 1950s.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 10-03-2019 11:47 AM
Just part of the learning process on my part; the Internet Archive site is down for a day or so, but will be up and running properly shortly.
apollo16uvc Member
Posts: 123 From: Next to LEM, Descartes Highlands, Moon Registered: Jan 2017
posted 10-03-2019 12:38 PM
What is the reason for the downtime?
I have had an archive glitch out a few times over the years, it became inaccessible or I could no longer edit the archive. If this happens contact support via email and they'll look into it.
For a free fair-use storage space its very stable with fast support.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 10-04-2019 01:41 AM
No, the reason for my downtime is that I set it up wrong; it ended up with a stupid url. It'll be running shortly, and I'll post the new url here.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 10-04-2019 06:46 AM
Sorry, I didn't explain very clearly. I meant to say that I'd taken down my page on the Internet Archive while I sorted things out before adding more files.
There are 29 files there now, and you'll find the archive at a new (and now sensible) url here.
Hope you all enjoy collecting them, and hopefully this will turn into a giant archive of all the best-quality material out there. Please email me if you have any recordings you wish to share.
Colin Anderton Member
Posts: 151 From: Great Britain Registered: Jan 2005
posted 11-05-2019 11:22 AM
Just to update everyone, the Internet Archive page is running beautifully now, and there are 175 recordings posted so far, covering all the major events of the early Space Age. Plenty more to come.
I hope there are more people out there with some good-quality recordings to contribute.