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Posted By: SvenNYC OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/16/04 04:59 PM
In Russia, a lot of people still depend on wired radio to get their news and music.

This is a typical wired-radio receiver, a Mayak 204:

[Linked Image from radio.gort.dk]

from this website: http://radio.gort.dk/tran_rad.htm

Here is an article on Russian wired radio that appeared in the New York Times in October 2001.
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/5497-9.cfm

Now my question is: Does anyone who has traveled or lived in Russia (or even one of our Russian correspondents) know what type of wall connection points for these radio-speaker boxes are used and what they look like?

Pictures would be great!
Thanks. [Linked Image]

{ Edited for image link -- Paul }

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 12-16-2004).]
Posted By: pauluk Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/16/04 08:16 PM
No idea about the connectors, but you might remember this 1971 ad I posted a few months ago:

[Linked Image]

From This post .
Posted By: C-H Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/17/04 07:37 AM
Comrades,

Look in the middle of the ad! Hutch has a picture of this plug/socket configuration in his travel report from Russia.

[Linked Image from global-electron.com]
Posted By: SvenNYC Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/17/04 01:09 PM
Ooookayyyy....don't mind me. I've lost my mind. I should have seen that first before I went putting my thread up.

I'm amazed they didn't pick something different in order to avoid confusion. It just looks like a regular surface mount mains socket re-labelled "radio".

So will my toaster play music if I plugged it into the "radio socket"? [Linked Image]
Posted By: djk Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/17/04 04:06 PM
Does it carry 220V + the audio signal?
i.e. both powering the radio and providing the programming.

If so, that'd be quite a neat sollution [Linked Image]

If it's purely for signal I wouldn't like to see what would happen if you plugged your "radio" into the schuko outlet for the coffee maker!

BTW, most homes in urban areas in Ireland can receive radio via their cable TV service. Basically BBC Radio (and other UK stations) were always just about available in a lot of parts of Ireland. When things moved to FM it was a little more difficult to pick them up without serious antennas. So, the cable companies started carrying radio channels on FM over the Coax system.

If you have a decent radio with a Coax connector on the back, simply plug into the FM port on any cable socket in the house and you get very high quality interfence free Irish national, local and UK radio services on normal FM.

Does that system exsist elsewhere?



[This message has been edited by djk (edited 12-17-2004).]
Posted By: pauluk Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/18/04 12:26 PM
Quote
Ooookayyyy....don't mind me. I've lost my mind. I should have seen that first before I went putting my thread up.
Don't worry Sven -- Hutch's Russian expedition had slipped my mind as well. [Linked Image]
https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/Forum9/HTML/000689.html
Posted By: Trumpy Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/18/04 06:03 PM
Man this bought back a bit of a memory. [Linked Image]
A few years back, an old school building was being demolished to make way for a new block of classrooms.
Anyhow, I managed to salvage two of the old "radio" system speakers, of the kind that were installed in every classroom, from about 1950 onwards.
The idea behind this system was to be able announce different things to the pupils and teachers, like for Civil Defence purposes.
But the most important function of the system, was so that us young'un's had backing music, to sing the National Anthem to every morning before lessons began.
And what a morale-booster it was!. [Linked Image]
I seem to remember a picture of the Queen in every classroom, at the time too.
My, how things have changed. [Linked Image]
Posted By: Bjarney Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/18/04 07:57 PM
 
Come to think of it, I uses a form of “wired radio” every day. There is a commercial radio station about 100 miles away that has two FM transmitters, but also a link through shoutcast.com [205.188..234.129:8020] at a very decent 128kb/sec audio stream through ADSL on a 15,105-foot telephone pair. It plays as a generic-mp3 stream through my sound card to a pair of “Tinsel Tune” amplified speakers.

I’d die without it.




[This message has been edited by Bjarney (edited 12-18-2004).]
Posted By: pauluk Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/19/04 02:02 PM
I guess you can include me in the wired-radio category as well then [Linked Image].

I discovered this station's feed over the internet a few weeks ago and have been listening in from time to time:

WLNG 92.1 Sag Harbor, NY
Posted By: SvenNYC Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/20/04 10:40 PM
Trumpy said:
Quote
Anyhow, I managed to salvage two of the old "radio" system speakers, of the kind that were installed in every classroom, from about 1950 onwards.

Trumpy how is the wired-radio in the N.Z. schools different from a regular whole-building public address system like used in American schools?

All the public schools in New York have a speaker box on the front wall above the blackboard, that way announcements are broadcast school-wide through it. The equipment rack is usually in the Principal's office.
Posted By: djk Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/20/04 10:55 PM
in our school it was a 2-way intercom thing and I think you could make announcements specific to various zones or "page all".

The 2-way facility was apparently abandoned after lots of students kept pressing it and the principal had no idea where the calls were coming from [Linked Image]
Posted By: Trumpy Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/20/04 11:17 PM
Sven,
As far as I can tell, the system was a one-way 100V system, using a matching transformer and volume control at each speaker.
The volume control wasn't a standard potentiometer, but it was a 6-position switch connected to various resistors.
Now that I come to think of it, in the position with the least resistance, you'd only need a speaker in every second room, because Man was it LOUD!!. [Linked Image]
These days if there was something that loud in a classroom, the kiddies would all have to wear OSH-approved ear protection, National Anthem or not!. [Linked Image]
Posted By: classicsat Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/21/04 05:12 AM
My schools had two way inter coms. I think each classroom speaker had a cable set going to the office, and an annuciator device to show which classroom called. The older section of the school had speakers above the blackboard, anfd the switch below or beside it. Newer sections of the school (built after the mid 1960s) hade a speaker box with a switch on it. The vocational shops had a telephone like hand set and a cradle with a switch, and a horn PA speaker.

* if things are right, your toaster could emit music causd by thaudio signal going through the heating element.

** FM on cable. Done in North America too, at least until the mid 1990s. You could often hook cable up to your regualr stero system receiver. Many had a 75 ohm or 300 ohm input.
Posted By: pauluk Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/21/04 09:14 PM
I remember having a wired system in my old Junior (Elementary) school in the 1970s, which I would say was probably installed when the school was built in the 1950s.

I have no idea what system was employed, but I would guess it was the standard 100V PA line. My memories are somewhat vague now, but I know for certain they piped BBC Radio 4 VHF/FM around the school (as that was used for school broadcasts at the time). As for PA announcements originating from the principal's office, I can't say I ever remember any, but the feature probably existed.


Quote
** FM on cable. Done in North America too, at least until the mid 1990s. You could often hook cable up to your regualr stero system receiver. Many had a 75 ohm or 300 ohm input.

Not directly related to cable radio, but the following link has a good article explaining the development of cable TV systems in the United States:

http://www.sbe24.org/archive/c24sep97.asp

(Scroll down about halfway to the section titled "BROADBAND NETWORKS, PART 14 - Bandwidth Allocation").


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 12-21-2004).]
Posted By: djk Re: OT: Wired radio connectors - 12/22/04 01:16 PM
My school eventually merged the PA system with the PABX. Each classroom had a basic nortel meridian phone on the wall. However, you couldn't make any out going calls, (including internal ones) without a user ID and pin.

and harassing the secretary wasn't advisable!

----

Re cable radio:
As digital cable replaces the old analogue services here, it's begining to be severely watered down (to just a few channels) or disappearing altogether (depends on the cable provider)

Parts of Cork's analogue cable network are very old and occasionally, due to insulation leaks, cable FM ends up on air and interferes with normal FM broadcasts! (in a very limited area near the leak)

From what I can tell, due to Sky Digital (satellite)'s dominance, Chorus, the local cable company, is loosing customers very rapidly. Last year it effectively went bust and was taken over by Liberty Media. The falling customer numbers and subsequent lack of income means that the network is starting to suffer rather badly from lack of investment.

It's quite possible that some of those cable cos will just disappear.

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 12-22-2004).]
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