Definitely a long shot but was wondering if anyone had a recording of when KUHA shut down in 2016. I have a tape lying around somewhere of the looping messages from July 14, 2016, but I missed the actual shutdown the next morning and didn't get to record it.
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Does anyone have an aircheck of KUHA's shut down?
- Thread starter gimmetheoldies
- Start date
I don’t recall anything special being done for the final KUHA signoff. They just ran the loop all day July 15, 2016 announcing that “Classical music will no longer be heard on 91.7” and redirected listeners to 88.7 HD-2 as well as the streaming app…and at the end of the day, pulled the plug. The station was off the air for two weeks while a new transmitter was installed and the STL to the KSBJ/NGEN studios put in place (I think KUHA was still using the original transmitter from the big KTRU upgrade in 1990.)
I also have a tape of the KUHA redirect loop as well as the initial “K-Dance” stunt on the new KXNG, but no current way to digitize…my cassette decks wore out with age and use, and the small number of players still on the market are either cheap junk or stupidly expensive. One day I’ll get around to seriously looking for one, but I don’t see cassettes having a vinyl-like renaissance.
I also have a tape of the KUHA redirect loop as well as the initial “K-Dance” stunt on the new KXNG, but no current way to digitize…my cassette decks wore out with age and use, and the small number of players still on the market are either cheap junk or stupidly expensive. One day I’ll get around to seriously looking for one, but I don’t see cassettes having a vinyl-like renaissance.
Just do it before it's too late to pull anything off the cassette tapes you've got, especially if there's anything sentimental or of value to you personally on them. According to a few websites, cassettes degrade after 30 years in storage. While that may seem like a long time ago, 30 years ago is 1993 so really not too long ago considering newer recording media like MiniDisk, CW-R and CD-RW were already emerging by that time and recording and editing on HDD was already being done.
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Not necessarily, and I think that is largely an urban myth. I have a number of cassettes that are over 40 years old that still play just fine. The oldest tape is a recording of a high school band concert my father-in-law (RIP) made…in 1969!
Agreed. I have numerous cassettes here at the Ranch from the 1980s and 1990s that still play just fine on the cassette deck. Ironically, on Sunday I was listening to a tape I had recorded from Houston's 93Q, I believe, in 1988. It was Boomer's Top 8 @ 8, with White Lion's "When the Children Cry" sitting at #1 on the countdown. Boomer later moved to Mix 96.5, where he became John Paul West, and I have a couple of airchecks of that too.
I guess it comes down to the quality of cassettes. If you bought some cheap ones, they probably will degrade much quicker than the high quality ones. I busted out a few old cassettes from the 90s a few years ago and some of them disintegrated. I had already digitalized them with a laptop mic port (not ideal, but the quality of the original audio wasn't great to begin with) so no bid deal.
Regardless, I wouldn't put too much faith on old cassettes. They all eventually expire so you should look into digitalizing your recordings sooner rather than later.
I have a tape my father made in the late 70s that, last I checked, still plays, but I remember the pitch sounding off. I’ll have to play it again sometime soon
I have a Sony boombox (but haven’t used it in a while) that was really good for playing and recording cassette tapes. It was the CFD-S05, and from glancing at the manual, it looks like it supports audio out. I’m actually searching for a more portable cassette recorder myself (both for recording stuff off regular and shortwave radio, and also for saving Apple II programs). Both the recordings you mention sound like they’d be great fits for Airchexx.com
I've seen that video and I do appreciate that it's the only recording on the internet of the redirect loop, but it doesn't seem to include the actual shutdown since this video just fades out of the loop and fades into static. Also, the poster's description isn't accurate, because I actually was listening to KUHA at midnight on July 15 and it was still on. IIRC, RadioInsight said it didn't shut off til about 9am. I missed that because I was doing something that morning.
Not totally related, but I Shazam'd the video to get the instrumental track playing in the background. It's real nice:
Usually it does, sometimes combined with the brand. I have tapes from the late 1970s that I've been able to play back, and thus digitize, successfully. I've been able to get most of my mid-1980s Houston tapes digitized, even the ones on the "white label" tapes that KTRH used. (But, hey, the KTRH tapes came with custom labels!)
On the other hand, I made a bunch of airchecks around 1991-1996 on Radio Shack "Supertape", which was supposedly their top-of-the-line blank tape. Some are still OK, but others have a problem with sticking, thus triggering the auto shut-off mechanism in the deck that I use. A few Maxell tapes from that time have a similar problem, especially with azimuth adjustment. To salvage those tapes, I think I would need something like a Nakamichi "Dragon" deck that automatically adjusts for correct azimuth. But I'm not sure of that.
I've never had a problem with a TDK tape.
To summarize, it feels like there are no hard-and-fast rules with respect to tape life.
I can do that for you. I have a Sharp Cassette Deck hooked up via the line input of my HP Tower PC. I can PM you my address to send me the tape or tapes and I can save them via Audacity software. I already uploaded KISS 98.5 / 103.3 to one of my YouTube channels recorded off a 1995 Fuji DRI cassette tape.
Sorry it took me so long to reply. Thank you for the offer, but I don't even know exactly where the tapes are. I do plan to buy a new cassette recorder/player and digitize them at some point so I can submit the recording to the Format Change Archive. I'm just bummed that I didn't get to record the actual moment the transmitter got turned off and was wondering if anyone had a recording of that, and it doesn't sound like anyone here did.