Detroit - late 1960's early 1970's - Two FM Radio station simulcasted music.

[highjinx2]

In the late 1960's or early 70's in Detroit, two FM radio Stations simulcasted the same stereo music to produce four track sound over sound surround sound broadcast, that required listeners to have two stereo FM receivers, [four speaker set up on in each corner of a square and the listeners sat in the middle] one each on one of the different stations. I recall it took place on a summer Saturday and it was really nice out; we sat up our stuff in the back yard to listen, and it was really cool to hear the broadcast; I work as an intern [go for] at a small recording studio back then and knew what true four and eight track music sounded like when played back in a surround sound type environment
What was those two station who took part and in what year. I really do believe one station was WABX but not sure of the other...please help my failing memory.
Thanks for any input

[shovelhead]

It may have been one of public radio stations as I doubt any either WKNR FM or WXYZ/WRIF FM WWWW or CJOM would have partnered with their competition.

[Dan Wesson]

"In the early 1970s, radio stations WDET-FM [[Wayne State University) and WABX-FM [[then the progressive underground station in Detroit) did a several hour long discrete Quadraphonic simulcast, originating from the old studios at WDET, where decades before The Lone Ranger radio series was produced live. We asked our listeners to get together with somebody who had a similar system to their own, put the components in one room, one tuner on one side of the listening room set on WABX, the other, at the opposite side, on WDET, and hear the wonders of surround sound. Material was scarce -- Stockhausen's Kontakte turned out to be the one work that most creatively used four channels, creating mysterious and exhilarating vortices of sound. Everyone who listened came away enthusiastic and impressed."

http://www.wguc.org/content/display.asp?id=26

[G-DDT]

When I hear "radio simulcast", I think of the old Star Wars/Hitchhikers Guide broadcasts series done?...er...um...yeah....

[shovelhead]

Thanks Dan Wesson. I thought about WDET but wasn't sure enough. Back then stereos amongst my friends was a luxury. I was one of the lucky few that had a factory AM FM radio in their car back then.

[Meddle]

The one I remember was WRIF and WXYZ-TV simulcasting the 'In Concert' series on Friday nights.

[shovelhead]

They were both ABC owned stations so cooperation between the two was no big deal

[Dan Wesson]

Simulcasting occurred a lot between between sister am and fm stations. Am was not stereo.

Quadraphonic was something different. Now you would call it 4.O surround sound.

Thinking along those lines I guess if you put out 3 distinct channels of sound one on a AM station and two on the FM station you could call it 3.0 semi surround sound.

[EastsideAl]

WWWW [[W4!!) also broadcast in quadraphonic for a little while in the mid-70s.

[Dan Wesson]

Yeah there were some stations where you could tune your radios to slightly different FM frequencys and pull it off.

[beachboy]

"In the early 1970s, radio stations WDET-FM [[Wayne State University) and WABX-FM [[then the progressive underground station in Detroit) did a several hour long discrete Quadraphonic simulcast, ... Everyone who listened came away enthusiastic and impressed."

http://www.wguc.org/content/display.asp?id=26

Hey Dan Wesson, that page brings back memories, eh? Quad was a great innovation and a realistic "first step" in surround sound [[SS) ... we heard the simulcasts [["In Concert" on WRIF and WXYZ-TV referred to by Meddle) as far away as the Thumb [[with a 90 ft tall mast-mounted antenna having FM, VHF, and UHF amplifiers, no less!) "Receivers" cobbled together from old amps. Fun!

Some FM stations attempted to encode quad in two channels for stereo broadcast with a decoder at the receiver. Results: predictable reconstruction losses due to nonuniqueness of the matrix products, multipath distortion and transmission noise. It's fun to note that early experiments in "stereo quadraphonic" FM attempted to use the SQ format described here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo_Quadraphonic

until superseded by the Quadraplex technique [[1970s):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_broa...uadraphonic_FM

which did not work so well for long transmission paths. <sigh>

Despite all these good intentions, quad and the simpler surround sound protocols [[e.g., 5.2, 7.1 and 7.2, among others) have inherent "fill" and "directionality" problems, regardless of the delivery medium. Details are discussed in an accessible way in this series of web pages by Wendy Carlos [[a pioneer of electronic music - think: score for Clockwork Orange and Tron, among others):

http://www.wendycarlos.com/gosurround.html .

As noted in the link you cited [[http://www.wguc.org/content/display.asp?id=26), SACD and Audio-DVD are promising advances. Perhaps they will eventually be extended to consumer-recordable BluRay media so we can realize higher values of T and B in the T.B SS reconstruction. Who knows, we might even approach the "infinite baffle", as we used to call it in the 1960s. [[just kidding...)

Currently upgrading my home 13.4 SS system to synthesize non-encoded intermediate channels using programmable DSPs. Eventually we want to build a 30.8 system [[center, left and right front-center, left and right front-corner, left and right [[side and rear), rear center, top and bottom center; incl. subwoofers in listening room corners) for reproducing pipe organ and symphonic performances. Crazy? Yes, but "organ fanatics" are a tad different ...

[thomprod]

Not quadraphonic, but following up on the post by Meddle: I worked at WXYZ-TV in the mid '80s and we produced an hour-long music video show called "Video Cafe" that aired on the weekends. The audio for the show was edited in stereo, and since we couldn't broadcast stereo on TV yet, we sent the audio over to our sister station WRIF across the parking lot so they could simulcast the stereo audio. The only thing viewers needed was a stereo receiver and good speakers in the same room as their TV. The music videos were supplied to us by the record companies. I'm not sure how many people actually took advantage of listening to the show in stereo, or if it lasted after I moved on in 1987.

[Honky Tonk]

Not quadraphonic, but following up on the post by Meddle: I worked at WXYZ-TV in the mid '80s and we produced an hour-long music video show called "Video Cafe" that aired on the weekends. The audio for the show was edited in stereo, and since we couldn't broadcast stereo on TV yet, we sent the audio over to our sister station WRIF across the parking lot so they could simulcast the stereo audio. The only thing viewers needed was a stereo receiver and good speakers in the same room as their TV. The music videos were supplied to us by the record companies. I'm not sure how many people actually took advantage of listening to the show in stereo, or if it lasted after I moved on in 1987.

Wasn't Ann Delisi the hostess? Those were the days of MTV's start, and WXYZ's local contribution to the then new music-video market.

[thomprod]

The hosting duties rotated between several WRIF DJs including Arthur Penhollow, Ken Calvert, Jim Johnson and Steve Kostan. I don't think Ann was at WRIF at the time.

[highjinx2]

Thanks Dan, as soon as I saw that it was the WSU station, it all popped into my mind as if it was yesterday; thanks again for jogging my old gray matter.
But quadraphonic wasn't it at all; was was utilizing the two stereo station to produce the four track sound over sound broadcast.
As I stated, I was a go for at a recording studio and heard actual 8 track sound over sound, and 16 track when it first came out; but it all boiled down to taking all those tracks and bringing them down to the two track stereo.
But it was a great experience for those I knew who never got the chance to hear actual sound over sound four track music.
Oh, the studio I worked at did the duplicating tapes for all of Detroit's and Windsor's radio station of the Beatles White album; now that was something to hear sound over sound in the studio; must have heard that album that night 50 times at least that night the duplicating tapes were being made; had about 10 of my close friend allowed to join me night; we were the first people in the greater Detroit area to hear the album. Wow is all I can say, WOW!

A memory worth remembering.
Thanks again.