W2XOY'S Secret Elmer! The Subject? Yes!

This week's edition of the Random Access Thought takes on an air of high tech mystery and political intrigue as Bill Continelli W2XOY relates the story of "W2XOY's Secret Elmer". By today's broadcast standards, this is a truly vintage recording, first produced in December of 2005. It has become fairly standard that if Bill has a topic he desires to cover that falls beyond the realm of his popular Ancient Amateur Archives, he will, in effect, franchise time via the Random Access Thought as a guest host. While Bill's Ancient Amateur Archives are presented "dry", that is without any audio enhancement, hosting a RAT freely allows these stories to be fully developed with sounds and environmental backdrops that expand the theoy of "theater of the mind". This production was fun to do. I kept going back and adding more and more effects to fully document Bill's tale!

Mr. Continelli has performed in a number of other Random Access features, including "CQ MARS! CQ MARS!" and "The Story of Reggie". In addition, Bill has offered a number of custom recorded vocal effects which are now part of the ever-growing N2FNH Sound Effects Library.

This installment, like of many of my early Random Access programs relied on a method of production which might be described as Single Track Overlay. While I currently produce features which are developed though multi-track, in those days, I would use the primary voice track as a template. Primary effects and background ambiances were copied and directly overlaid or matted on to the voice track. Under certain circumstances, this style of post production could actually be faster and more efficient, but I moved to multiple track production when George W2XBS requested stereo versions of RAT, QSL and BLOG promos for TWIARi. Under a multi-track format, elements such as music can be selectly added for This Week in Amateur Radio International but be removed for the HAM Radio Full Service version. I still use Single Track Overlay in the development of certain sound effects combinations where I want two or more effects to be merged but not heard as separate elements. So download this week's This Week in Amateur Radio Ham Service and the TWIARi Broadcast version, or even better connect to: http://www.twiar.org/N2FNH/RATParts Look for file number RAT080930_BOND_BCQ_R1.cab OR RAT080930_BOND_HAM_R1.cab, right click and "Save Target As" to your hardddrive. Use your WinZIP or IZArc to extract the select RAF audio WAV file inside!