TWO! TWO! TWO RATS IN ONE!: A Random Access Christsmas! And! Amateur Radio Repeater IDs! Part 3: The 2nd Sequel

This week's edition of the Random Access Thought was composed and produced this week here at the N2FNH Bunker and features Mother Radio and Packetman for yet another kitchenside coffee clatch where the subject of note is amateur radio repeater IDs. A recent scan of the Googleverse revealed some new and quite creative entries. In addition, our technical director, George W2XBS offered a CD with additional ID material from the Broadcast Employees Amateur Radio Repeater - The Bear!...some really great stuff!

The effects used this week's feature are truly vintage, going back to the late 1950's and early 1960's. Packetman's freakout sequence was assembled from select effects from the Hanna Barbera, Jay Ward and UPA sound effects libraries. There is also a new RAT Intro and Outro, which features Cigman and Marilyn Krasnov playing around with MY audio equipment. On a personal note, I was a little distressed to discover that Cigman was smoking his cheesy unfiltered Viceroys around MY sensitive audio mastering equipment.

I cheated on the RAT promotional message, recalling the original repeater ID recording where MNOAOS Zach, then at the age of nine, was hanging with the enigmatic Tick Tock discussing the curious things people collect. I edited in an updated slug line ("...coming up in just a few minutes...) with fresh audio! Remember! This be a labor of love here.

What follows is the script that Beverly Krasnov (Mother Radio) and Packetman (real name held due to AFTRA contract restrictions) read before the Microphonium!
---
INTRO
(FX: doorbell)

MR: Who is it?

PM: It's me, Packetman! (voice muffled)

MR: Come on in! So, what brings you to the Krasnov homestead this bright and sunny Saturday afternoon?

PM: I have more exciting amateur radio repeater IDs to play for you on my trusty mp3 audio player.

MR: Ok Puppy Boy! What have you got?

PM: The first two clips are standard fare, one a computer voice from WA1ZYX and the other, a noisy analog recording from W1BIM. Both of these repeaters are located in New Hampshire.
(VX: repeater clips: set 1)

MR: I hear that type all the time.

PM: Sometimes, you may hear a professional announcer, like this one from W1DC at Uncanoonuc, New Hampshire.
(VX: repeater clips: set 2)

MR: Very professional!

PM: Here a few more of Bill Hamilton's World Famous Repeaterisms.
(VX: repeater clips: set 3)

MR: I like those the best!

PM: The guys out west at the N6ICW repeater in Sacramento, California have taken this ID thing to higher levels. check out these famous celebrity impersonations.
(VX: repeater clips: set 4)

MR: They sound like Saturday morning cartoons.

PM: Yeah, but N6ICW also got a real broadcaster to do the voice over work too!

(VX: repeater clips: set 5)

MR: That man drives me crazy every weekday afternoon on the local radio station.

PM: And just like N2FNH, the N6ICW hams are big into sound effects too.
(VX: repeater clips: set 6)

MR: Far out!

PM: Finally, speaking of celebrities, the Broadcast Employees Amateur Repeater W9LOV at Schaumberg, Illinois, offers up it's own fleet of famous folk. I got these recordings from George W2XBS.
(VX: repeater clips: set 7)

PM: And that's it!

MR: You know, I was just thinking. There was a local repeater here that used to have very creative IDs and messages, but they took them off the air. Too bad. Now, they sound so stale. Well, anyway, now that you're here, I've got the latest Monitoring Times, Popular Communications and some garlic bagels right over there on the kitchen table.
(FX: twang, key at "monitoring times")
(FX: rumble, key at "popular communications")

PM: oh oh oh

(FX: madcap 1, key at third "oh")
(FX: oyoyoyoy, key at madcap tail)

MR: Cool your jets there puppy boy, we've got all afternoon!
(FX: madcap2, key at "afternoon")

MR: This boy really needs to get himself a girlfriend! (whispered)
OUTRO

---

BUT THERE'S MORE! A special Random Access Christmas is in the offing as well. In our second week of ham radio Christmas specials, Shannon Ratigan N0JAM offers his own unique version of The Night Before Christmas, nicely post produced with my usual one-of-a-kind big pile of sound effects and other audio detritus. Detritus, by the way, is a five dollar word, used by crossword puzzle authors and science fiction writers everywhere!

.

Mister Ratigan was apparently way before my time with This Week in Amateur Radio, but he has a nice vocal presence and delivery for the purposes of this Random Access Christmas which was fun to add additional sound to. According to QRZ, Scott currently resides in Dunedin, Florida. There is a photo image offered on his QRZ listing, but I suspect it may be a misrepresentation since the face showing is quite noticeably Vulcan, or possibly Romulan.

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 RAT080902_RID3_BCQ.cab and RAT080902_RID3_HAM.cab, right click and "Save Target As" to your hardddrive. Use your WinZIP or IZArc to extract the RAT audio WAV file inside!

TIME! That's the Subject...and so forth!

Time is the subject of this week's installment of the Random Access Thought. MNOAOS Zach's pal Bix Nix visits with Marilyn Krasnov. Bix wants to know what what it means to be obsessive. Ms. Krasnov responds by playing a tape I recorded several years back at a late summertime Troy Amateur Radio Association picnic at the nearby Riverspark Pavillion. During that event, I whipped out my C49DRSACTR and interviewed Jeff WA2AIB who launched into an intense diatribe on his his self-admitted compulsive issues concerning time.

Bix gets a lot of airtime this week, appearing in both our TWIAR/TWIARi blog promos and also our latest QSL Card Offer promo. Here is Bix's script where he stops by Canarsie Wireless to show Mother Radio his shiny QSL card collection.

(FX1 - canarsie wireless background, rainy afternoon.)
(FX2 - big warehouse doorbell.)

MR: WHO IS IT?

BX: IT'S ME, BIX.

(muffled.)

MR: COME ON IN.
(FX4 - big warehouse door open and close.)

MR: SO, WHAT BRINGS YOU TO CANARSIE WIRELESS ON THIS DOOM AND GLOOM SUNDAY AFTERNOON?

BX: HI MOTHER RADIO, I THOUGHT I'D STOP BY AND SHOW YOU MY AMAZING COLLECTION OF QSL CARDS.

MR: SAY, DO YOU HAVE ONE OF THOSE OFFICIAL THIS WEEK IN AMATEUR RADIO QSL CARDS WITH THE ASTEROIDS?

BX: WHY YES, I DO. HERE, NOTICE THE HIGH GLOSS FINISH TO THE CARD. SEE HOW
CLEAR THE RENDERING OF THE ASTEROIDS HAS BEEN DESIGNED AND DEPICTED.
(FX5 - qsl card flexing.)

MR: THAT'S AMAZING.

BX: AND ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS E-MAIL BILL. N2FNH AT CAPITAL.NET TO RECEIVE ONE OF THESE QUALITY QSL CARDS.

MX: WHAT WAS THAT ADDRESS AGAIN?

BX: THAT'S N2FNH AT CAPITAL DOT NET, N2FNH AT CAPITAL DOT NET.

MR: THAT'S GREAT! NOW, THAT YOU'RE HERE...
(FX6 - rumble.)

I'VE GOT THE LATEST MONITORING TIMES...
(FX7 - madcap1.)

OK HANG ON! GO OUTSIDE IF YOU'RE GOING TO FREAK OUT.

(FX8 - madcap2.)

MR: WHAT IS IT WITH YOU GUYS. I MENTION RADIO MAGAZINES AND BAGELS AND YOU ALL FLIP OUT. YOU'D THINK IT WAS PLAYBOY.

BX: WHAT'S PLAYBOY?
(FX9 - bounce out.)
(FX0 - babba booey.)

Amateur Radio Repeater IDs! Part 3: The 2nd Sequel

This week's edition of the Random Access Thought was composed and produced this week here at the N2FNH Bunker and features Mother Radio and Packetman for yet another kitchenside coffee clatch where the subject of note is amateur radio repeater IDs. A recent scan of the Googleverse revealed some new and quite creative entries. In addition, our technical director, George W2XBS offered a CD with additional ID material from the Broadcast Employees Amateur Radio Repeater - The Bear!...some really great stuff!

The effects used this week's feature are truly vintage, going back to the late 1950's and early 1960's. Packetman's freakout sequence was assembled from select effects from the Hanna Barbera, Jay Ward and UPA sound effects libraries. There is also a new RAT Intro and Outro, which features Cigman and Marilyn Krasnov playing around with MY audio equipment. On a personal note, I was a little distressed to discover that Cigman was smoking his cheesy unfiltered Viceroys around MY sensitive audio mastering equipment.

I cheated on the RAT promotional message, recalling the original repeater ID recording where MNOAOS Zach, then at the age of nine, was hanging with the enigmatic Tick Tock discussing the curious things people collect. I edited in an updated slug line ("...coming up in just a few minutes...) with fresh audio! Remember! This be a labor of love here.

What follows is the script that Beverly Krasnov (Mother Radio) and Packetman (real name held due to AFTRA contract restrictions) read before the Microphonium!
---
INTRO
(FX: doorbell)

MR: Who is it?

PM: It's me, Packetman! (voice muffled)

MR: Come on in! So, what brings you to the Krasnov homestead this bright and sunny Saturday afternoon?

PM: I have more exciting amateur radio repeater IDs to play for you on my trusty mp3 audio player.

MR: Ok Puppy Boy! What have you got?

PM: The first two clips are standard fare, one a computer voice from WA1ZYX and the other, a noisy analog recording from W1BIM. Both of these repeaters are located in New Hampshire.
(VX: repeater clips: set 1)

MR: I hear that type all the time.

PM: Sometimes, you may hear a professional announcer, like this one from W1DC at Uncanoonuc, New Hampshire.
(VX: repeater clips: set 2)

MR: Very professional!

PM: Here a few more of Bill Hamilton's World Famous Repeaterisms.
(VX: repeater clips: set 3)

MR: I like those the best!

PM: The guys out west at the N6ICW repeater in Sacramento, California have taken this ID thing to higher levels. check out these famous celebrity impersonations.
(VX: repeater clips: set 4)

MR: They sound like Saturday morning cartoons.

PM: Yeah, but N6ICW also got a real broadcaster to do the voice over work too!

(VX: repeater clips: set 5)

MR: That man drives me crazy every weekday afternoon on the local radio station.

PM: And just like N2FNH, the N6ICW hams are big into sound effects too.
(VX: repeater clips: set 6)

MR: Far out!

PM: Finally, speaking of celebrities, the Broadcast Employees Amateur Repeater W9LOV at Schaumberg, Illinois, offers up it's own fleet of famous folk. I got these recordings from George W2XBS.
(VX: repeater clips: set 7)

PM: And that's it!

MR: You know, I was just thinking. There was a local repeater here that used to have very creative IDs and messages, but they took them off the air. Too bad. Now, they sound so stale. Well, anyway, now that you're here, I've got the latest Monitoring Times, Popular Communications and some garlic bagels right over there on the kitchen table.
(FX: twang, key at "monitoring times")
(FX: rumble, key at "popular communications")

PM: oh oh oh

(FX: madcap 1, key at third "oh")
(FX: oyoyoyoy, key at madcap tail)

MR: Cool your jets there puppy boy, we've got all afternoon!
(FX: madcap2, key at "afternoon")

MR: This boy really needs to get himself a girlfriend! (whispered)
OUTRO

---
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 RAT080902_RID3_BCQ.cab and RAT080902_RID3_HAM.cab, right click and "Save Target As" to your hardddrive. Use your WinZIP or IZArc to extract the RAT audio WAV file inside!

Amateur Radio Repeater IDs: And an almost completely forgotten Random Access Character!

This week's episode of the Random Access Thought was designed and assembled in January 2006. The topic is Amateur Radio Repeater IDs. While the vast majority of stateside VHF and UHF repeaters rely solely on controller-generated CW IDs, there are those machines whose station identifications have taken a far more creative turn, usually in the form of clever professionally announced custom voice recordings or select audio clips from popular television programs or big time motion pictures edited to fit the needs of the repeater ID. Some excellent examples sourced from the Internet play this week on This Week.

In this edition, actually the first of two Random Access Thought programs on Repeater IDs, an early and virtually forgotten voice character known as PacketMan visits with Mother Radio with his audio collection of IDs, Much like some of the other voices within the program ensemble, PacketMan speaks with a digitally peculiar and somewhat truncated AX25 burst before each sentence. PacketMan appeared in both Repeater ID RATs and at least one Christmas Special Since then, PacketMan has been MIA. It has been suggested that PacketMan may have morphed into another voice character: TANK. Unfortunately, I am not always privy to these guys' personal lives.

Back then, Mother Radio spoke with a much slower cadence and her tone was a bit screechier. These days MR (Beverly Krasnov) belts it out at a brisker clip and enunciates with more of a Gravel Gertie tone. Plus she's a bit older and certainly a bit bitchier.

In the promos that precede, a much younger sounding Zachary takes a look at a much slower speaking Tick-Tock's collection of obscure television broadcast public service announcements. Folks living in downstate New York who are downloading This Week in Amateur Radio International Podcast Edition #183 may recognize the music used in the RAT promo from "Don't Cross the Street in the Middle of the Block" and "Like Father Like Son", two public service announcements that aired on TV stations back in the 1960's.

In the QSL promo, a then much younger Zach speaks over the two meter radio to a now much older Bryannah about This Week in Amateur Radio reception reports and in this week's BLOG promo, a now much older Zach hangs with the fail-to-launch Cigman talking about fast cars and hot chicks. "Fast cars and hot chicks? What else is there?" Cigman Krasnov c. 2008.

Who ARE those people? Part 2 - Mother Radio and the Krasnovs!

Mother Radio first appeared on This Week in Amateur Radio in Random Access promos in 2005. She was one of the very first voice characters to interact with Zachary, aside from myself.

Mother Radio is every body's Brooklyn-born Jewish mother, even if you're not Jewish. In the course of the past few seasons, Mother Radio's voice has dropped considerably in pitch. She has become tougher. More crusty. In fact, Mother Radio is downright cranky.

The Mother Radio character is loosely based on my own maternal Grandmother, who was born and bred in the Bronx in the late 1800's. She had that curious prim and proper Depression Era social quality about her but she had her quirks. When I was a little kid making all kinds of little kid noises and little kid distractions, she would always advise that I should not "wake the baby
downstairs". This terse statement Mother Radio subsequently inherited and has belted out many times. Another stinging imperative: "Now do as you're told!" was a line lifted the cheesy B-flick "The Crawling Eye", fully in keeping with her character!

Despite her crabby nature, Mother Radio is still prim and proper enough not to utter any sort of street language. Thus, if she believes that you are full of baloney, she may decry that it's all "a boatload of floobus". To the best of my knowledge, there is no such word in the English language as floobus. But it sounded good so she owns it.

In January of 2008, personal details about Mother Radio became public knowledge over This Week in Amateur Radio. Mother Radio's actual name is Beverly Krasnov. It appears that she lives in Brooklyn (variously known as Big City) with her husband Boleslav Krasnov. Mr. Krasnov is employed at Canarsie Wireless as a technician of forty-five years seniority.
Both Beverly and Mr. Krasnov have hosted a number of recent Random Access Thoughts and Files. Beverly has covered the story of Marconi and the mystery television station KLEE while Boleslav has discussed StratoVision and Technology Curiosities and Complaints.

I selected the name Beverly for Mother Radio because to me, she was always a Beverly. Mr. Krasnov's first name Boleslav was my Father's first name, although everyone called him Bill. The last name Krasnov, I appropriated from a fellow ham radio friend, Bob Krasnoff KF4UVA, who currently lives with his wife Leah in Boynton Beach. It is my personal idiosyncrasy to oft times label various friends' wives by an alias other than their real names. So for Leah, I would on occasion refer to her as Beverly or Marilyn whenever we got together.

Speaking of Marilyn, Marilyn, the loopy British chick, is the Krasnovs' lovely daughter. Why she possesses a British dialect is not clear since she is Brooklyn-born. In contrast, Mother Radio has that crunchy three-pack-a-day growl while Boleslav speaks with a distinctively animated Brooklynese overtone. Marilyn is happily married to Mr. Munroe, a true Brit. But she hangs around the home nest with her parents a good deal of the time. Marilyn's favorite pastime is watching paint dry. She paints a room and then watches the paint dry. The Krasnovs have experienced continuous interior decoration since Marilyn was a teen. She expanded this obsessive compulsive behavior to her own pad busily painting walls while Mr. Munroe listens to non-directional aircraft radio beacons in his private study.

Meanwhile, Cigman Krasnov is Marilyn's fail-to-launch forty-five year old sibling. In addition, Cigman is indeed a chronic three-pack-a-day smoker and not necessarily the brightest bulb in the pack. He digs hot cars, fabulous babes and sleeps till noon. Given the present day cost of cigarettes and their attendant health issues, it is a puzzlement that Cigman goes so far against the social grain.

Zach hangs out the Krasnovs quite often, which is curious since he lives here in upstate New York. How he gets around is not clear.

Rumor has it that Commander Jainpain, yet another of my obtuse characters, may be in some way related to the Krasnovs. But...that's another story.

More later.