Posted 2 years ago
pw-collector
(297 items)
About a year ago I posted my Montgomery Wards Airline Wire Recorder and said I was hoping to find someone to repair it.
I recently had it repaired, except for the microphone that he could not find the parts to repair it.
It is a wire recorder / player. It is not a phonograph as I previously thought.
You can put a 78 rpm record on the turn table, place the arm on the record, set the recording knob to REC. PHONO, and on the top right, push the steel button and move the steel lever left to record, and it will transfer the record onto the wire. The sound of the record does not come through the speaker while recording. I was hoping to put a short 30 second video here so you could hear it, but this platform would not accept it.
Although having this repaired was very expensive, it belonged to my parents and I was able to hear them on one of the wire recordings that I believe was recorded around 1948.
The 1 hour wire spools contain over 7200 feet of wire recording at 2 feet per second. The 1/2 hour spools contain over 3600 feet of wire.
I am on the lookout now for a replacement working microphone. The Microphone is marked Airline on the front and the back marked Licensed by Brush Patents See Patent Notice Inside. The inside is marked, Brush Pat. R E 20213.
An interesting machine of time past.
Dave
Very interesting and great story.
I am Quite Amazed ! I love turntables and non-digital recording devices
Not mine, but this is a YouTube recording of a wire recorder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMVs-Dgy74A
Dave
That is so amazing!
Similar to the wire thread playback machine in a sewing basket featured in Hogan's Heroes Season 2, Episode 29 - "The Top Secret Top Coat". :)
Very cool!