Folks, I recently heard from Earl Bullock, who was a developer for the classic Schafer 903 radio automation system.
He has a 903 in storage down in Texas that, in his own words, he needs "to dispose of".
For the young or the uninitiated, the 903 was a tape-based system which saw its greatest success in the 1970s and '80s; reel machines and "carousel"-style cart decks were driven by a solid-state computer/controller system tied to a clock. See a prime example at http://www.easylisteninghq.com/html/schafer903sys.htm
Whether or not Mr Bullock wants any money for this system, or if indeed he just wants to "dispose" of it, I don't know. Nor do I know its general condition. But if you're driven by nostalgia, have the space, love to tinker with machinery now 40 years beyond its prime and have a truck, you might want to make room in your station for this puppy.
Repost to this forum if you are interested and I'll provide contact info.
There was a room of racks with an automation system like that back in the 1970s at KMOX-FM, and I knew the guy that recorded spots on cartridges for the station.
Now the station has other call letters, I think its at 103.1.
They were a mechanical marvel when they worked well. As they aged,they became a nightmare to maintain or operate. A tinkerers delight you might say...good income for the engineer.
Those "FRED" apparatuses were indeed almost a miracle thing to see functioning like they should.
Just like those auto-loading 2 inch video cart systems. They earned the same nick name in the industry....FRED.
Yep...changing out the light bulbs and photo sensors and removing jammed up video tape and replacing the quad heads after a "slam" sure kept us engineers busy!
These days....reboot the computer.
RFB