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Hi Guys:
Most of my projects have been
on hold. But I realized that my Gates
Studioette broadcast board from
about 1962, can be worked on,
even with my bad eyesight.Hi Guys:
Most of my projects have been
on hold. But I realized that my Gates
Studioette broadcast board from
about 1962, can be worked on,
even with my bad eyesight.This board was pulled out of a
dumpster about 10 years ago in
the rain. It was badly rusted and
also had some animal fur in it
(but no animal, fortunately.) The
dumpster was located at WCCC, 106.9,
in Hartford. My friend, WCCC’s chief
engineer, insisted that I take the board.
He said it was a piece of broadcast history.I didn’t want it then, but now I’m glad
I have it. It became lost in my basement
for years until I found it in about 2009.I considered the restoration of this
mixer to be completely
unapproachable, at least from my point
of view. But then I decided to try anyway,
because there was nothing to lose.I gutted the board. Then about a year ago,
the case and front were sanded and painted. The
person who did this was my sister-in-law.
who was visiting. She runs a restaurant and
can fix or paint almost anything. The front
of the board is the original color scheme.
I had her paint the case blue, and it looks
really nice. Then the board went back into
the cellar for about a year. I couldn’t decide
how to approach the project. Finally I made
a decision.It’s a mono board, and my station is mono,
even on FM.
However, in my studio, the program monitors
have always run in stereo. I wanted this board
to be able to drive a stereo studio monitor system.Since I do everything slowly, I decided to put
stereo pots into the board. I did that yesterday.
But first the board will be wired for mono using
only one channel of each stereo pot. If I can
get that far, then I can expand the wiring later for
stereo. Pot number one, the mike pot, is in and
wired. It just needs to be hooked up to a mike
preamp. The VU meter was a real pain. It reads
audio fine, but it wouldn’t light up because the lights
were gone. I put in some white LEDs to get it to
light up. I had no idea how difficult it would be
to get it right. If you don’t position the LEDs just
right, the VU meter needle will cast a shadow on the
back of the meter, which looks terrible. I finally
got it looking pretty good, and I put some semi-clear
plastic in the meter to diffuse the light and stop the
glare from the LEDs. I just mounted an outlet strip
inside the case. It has a 12 volt wall wart in it to
power the lights for the VU meter and a power status light
that I put in a hole in the front of the board. This
is one of two holes that originally had momentary
on/off switches to remote control turntables. I do
have two turntables, and I do use them, but trying
to reconstruct that circuitry would take me too long,
so I’m not going to do it that way, at least not now.I am going to attempt to solder the wiring to get the
lights to light up tonight. If that works, I will start
running test audio through the mic bus, and add mono
audio inputs for all the other pots
on the board. I will then put in an audio amp to
run the VU meter, and put another audio amp in
to amplify signals that come through the board so I
can tell if the added channels are working. Then there
will be a mike amp put in and an RIAA amp for one
turntable (one turntable for now.)I will not be able to duplicate the original cue functions.
The original pots went into cue when they were turned
all the way to the left, but these pots are in horrible
condition. I am going to attempt to use the paddle
switches that were directly above the pots. The plan
is for right to go to air, middle to be off, and left to
be cue, instead of audition – which was the original
function. These paddle switches are also in horrible condition,
too, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.So cross your fingers, I am going to try to get the
lights to light up tonight. (By the way, some time
ago, a lot of you guys sent me info on where to
get parts for this old unit. I still appreciate that
and still have the info.)MICRO1690/1700 is running on 90.9 in my house,
with a commercial DJ mixer, but I am a retro guy,
and love the old stuff with a passion. If I don’t
try to get this thing running now, the chances of
it ever happening will be less, so I’m just going to
try to get it going with parts from the junk box.
After the board,
I’ll try to get the AM running, a least during the day,
on 1690.If you got this far, thanks for reading, and
Best Wishes,
Bruce, MICRO1690/1700
Total posts : 45366You are sparking the memory with your project. The first job I had involved operating a very neat Western Electric console actually built into its own table. It was mono, with Air requiring switching a paddle switch to the right, Off middle, and cue to the left. The cue channel was actually a “B” channel which exactly matched the “A” Air channel, and the “B” side could also be used to record commercials to an Ampex recorder while on the air from the same console. Very often we would flip the paddle the wrong way and give a commercial right over the air program, which should have gone to the “B” recorder side.
Total posts : 45366Haha,
Like these ones?
http://www.bobmayben.com/photo4_1.html
I used to work at an AM radio station in Annapolis that STILL USES one of these!
with the knobs!
that was the first station I interned at
i was like…”where are all the slider thingies?”
and my boss is like “hey, it works”
Total posts : 45366Those are great stories!
I’m starting to tear into this
old console and I’m trying
to get it to run. The audio amps
are from the junk box. Everything
will be solid state now.Actually, the unit is running with
one input, the VU meter, and a
monitor speaker that is mounted in
the board and shoots out some holes
in the front. The VU meter really
looks good now. I made some changes
and the lighting is really good.I had it driving the little house FM
transmitter here and it sounds great
on the air.Now I realize how hard it is just to
get a mono board to sound good. It’s
a lot harder than I thought. I don’t
think this will be a stereo board for
a very very long time.Now to wire up some more inputs and
eventually get the cuing to work. The
switches are a mess. This isn’t going
to be easy.Thanks again for the great comments!
Best Wishes,
Bruce, MICRO1690/1700
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