Trying to trace an April Fool spoof article

[SiriusHardware]

There was also the Elektor 'DJ Killer' which was real, although not quite as drastic as it sounded. It aimed to mute the audio while the DJ was chattering on between tracks, for people who were only interested in the music. Somehow it got to the general press and I seem to remember some hurt comments from well known DJs at the time.

It was an interesting idea but I don't think it would have solved the real problem of them talking over the end of tracks, much like the equally annoying habit TV companies now have of imposing spurious links and information over end titles.

[Jon_G4MDC]

Thank you John KC0G! I must have that issue of CQ magazine somewhere then.
It's not seen the light of day for a very very long time.

[Electronpusher0]

Originally Posted by SiriusHardware

There was also the Elektor 'DJ Killer' which was real, although not quite as drastic as it sounded. It aimed to mute the audio while the DJ was chattering on between tracks, for people who were only interested in the music. Somehow it got to the general press and I seem to remember some hurt comments from well known DJs at the time.

It was an interesting idea but I don't think it would have solved the real problem of them talking over the end of tracks, much like the equally annoying habit TV companies now have of imposing spurious links and information over end titles.

I remember one magazine started a project to detect adverts on the TV and pause the VCR, I think it detected the change of studio identifier in the text portion of the video stream. It would definately have worked, but by the next issue they claimed it was just an April fool joke. We were convinced at the time that ITV or the advertisers had leaned on them to withdraw the project.

Peter

[Radio Wrangler]

The jump in audio level ought to be a good trigger for an advert mute. Goes for yoochoob too.

David

[stuarth]

I think it was Signetics who produced the Write Only Memory data sheet. Applications included guided missile flight data recorders. Apparently they made samples!

There was a Wireless World article by a chap called G. I. O'Veering entitled "Dynamic Range vs Ambient Noise". It started off sounding reasonable, discussing how much amplifier power you would need to cope with the full acoustic dynamic range of a large orchestra if the gain was set so that a single flute could be heard over the average household background noise, and you had to go from there to something like the 1812 overture. Then it went on to discuss amplifier design (1000V supply, lots of parallel transistors), overheating voice coils in the loudspeaker and disintegrating speaker cabinets, and acoustic feedback to the record deck. In a subsequent issue of WW the author gave his first names as George Izzard.....

Stuart

[Herald1360]

April 1970. Author's full name was up top in the article...

[Herald1360]

Originally Posted by stuarth

I think it was Signetics who produced the Write Only Memory data sheet. Applications included guided missile flight data recorders. Apparently they made samples!



Stuart

https://www.baldengineer.com/links/s...5120-datasheet

[Robert Gribnau]

In the Dutch magazine "Radio Electronica" of April 1964 there was an article about a "supersonic stereo system" which used an oscillator (60 kHz) common to both channels and "grounded dipoles" as speakers. The audio frequencies would be audible as a result of the beat frequency effects of the modulated 60 kHz.

But the article and schematic were full of giveaways, like the use of the non-existing ECL87 and the instruction to file off part of a 100 kHz crystal to get a 60 kHz crystal.

[Electronpusher0]

Perhaps the ultimate spoof was a sci-fi short story called "Inanimate Objection" by H. Chandler Elliott, I do not want to spoil the story but its a twist on murphy's law and completely believable, in fact I think its fact not fiction.

Peter

[AC/HL]

Can anyone help Phil?

[Terry_VK5TM]

I'm still scanning through Radcoms looking.

Nothing in the 80's or beginning of the 90's in fact hardly any April Spoofs at all that I could see apart from very early 80's.

[Phil G4SPZ]

Thanks, Bill! Although it has been enjoyable reading about some of the other April Fool spoofs. And Terry, thanks for looking - but please, don’t devote too much time or effort on my behalf though, because I am not even sure it was in RadCom. I was also reading Short Wave Magazine and Sprat at the time.

Update: I have just started trawling through the archives of Short Wave Magazine on the American Radio History website, and I think I may be on to something. Not found the article I remember yet, but the April 1985 issue contained no less than two hilarious spoof articles. I’ll carry on looking...

[Welsh Anorak]

Re post #23. I actually think this was developed as there was a definite identifier for transmitters to distinguish adverts from content. It was either Philips or Hitachi that proposed it, but, as you say, was soon dismissed as a joke. But was it?
Televison magazine wasn't immune. They introduced the Universal Transistor which you could easily adjust to be a line output or an IF amplifier . Available in NPN or PNP, these were all you'd need to stock! Some convincing technical data, ISTR.
My favourites were the newspaper ads by BMW. The self inflating tyres that monitored the pressure fifity times a second and inflated or deflated them via a patented seal was very believable. Another was the spoof BMWs being sold which were so good the only way to tell was the colours on the badge being reversed. Wonder how may worried owners ran outside to check theirs was genuine?

[Radio1950]

Electronics Australia magazine published a project in the late 1970s I think, that was about some almost believable DIY electronic gizmo, but whose PCB bottom layer, when viewed in a mirror, revealed "April Fool".

I just wish I could find it.