Quad FM Radio... proof at last!

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ClarkNovak

1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
Since 2002/2003
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I never had the chance to hear a station that broadcast quad, but I just found proof that some, in fact, did!

A buddy of mine had an old Top 40 sheet from WSPK, Poukeepsie, New York, from January of 1976. In the logo on the letterhead, they ID themselves as "stereo/Quadraphonic".

I've never seen this before... thought I'd pass it along. Anyone know of any other stations that broadcast quad?

Clark

BTW, I'd love to have heard the segue from the Sweet into Andy Williams! :mad:@:
 

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WOW!!!!!!!!!!!

50,000 watts!!!!!!!!!!

And I was bragging about my systems 240 watts!!!!!

Oh well, I still can say our sonar system had a rough equvelent of 260,000 watts rms.

PING!!!!!!! PING!!!!!!!! PING!!!!!!!!!
 
Larry Clifton will probably remember FM99 QUAD, from Virginia Beach, VA. They had these cool blue bumper stickers with a seagull on them.

Wish I still had one.....
 
In the NY area in 1975 there was a station called WQIV that broadcast all in quad. On New Years Day in 1975 the played whole albums one after the other. I still remember them playing Electric Moo by Pink Floyd, wish I had a recording of it. They were probably using a Variomatrix to create many of the quad songs they were broadcasting, although it's tempting to think that there could be a quad version of Electric Moo somewhere. :banana:
 
sspsandy said:
In the NY area in 1975 there was a station called WQIV that broadcast all in quad. On New Years Day in 1975 the played whole albums one after the other. I still remember them playing Electric Moo by Pink Floyd, wish I had a recording of it. They were probably using a Variomatrix to create many of the quad songs they were broadcasting, although it's tempting to think that there could be a quad version of Electric Moo somewhere. :banana:

In the Scranton Pennsylvania area , mid 1970's , WYZZ broadcasted in Quad at certain times slots each day. This is the only station I know of in my part of the state. (thanks kevin, for refreshing my memory on this)
 
There was a # of stations broadcasting in quad, some even used 2 stations, one broadcasting rear channels! I have a recording of a station in the bay area doing such a broadcast. Perhaps it would be a fun candidate for a CD, just for the fun of hearing the show! i also have some info in the files about those days and the difficulty of getting all on the same page. Brad Miller was part of those groups doing the deed of getting some standards set, and we chatted several times about the fact that no one could agree on anything, just another fact that led to the quad demolition at the time. :rolleyes:
 
quadtrade said:
There was a # of stations broadcasting in quad, some even used 2 stations, one broadcasting rear channels! I have a recording of a station in the bay area doing such a broadcast. Perhaps it would be a fun candidate for a CD, just for the fun of hearing the show! i also have some info in the files about those days and the difficulty of getting all on the same page. Brad Miller was part of those groups doing the deed of getting some standards set, and we chatted several times about the fact that no one could agree on anything, just another fact that led to the quad demolition at the time. :rolleyes:

Right. When James Gabbert owned K-101 in San Francisco he teamed up with stations in San Francisco and Sacramento to do 2-station Discrete Quad Broadcasts.

And he had some pretty unique material - not only from Brad Miller - but also specially mixed material including a Discrete Quad edition of the Paint Your Wagon Soundtrack album. Those were fun times!
 
quadtrade said:
we chatted several times about the fact that no one could agree on anything, just another fact that led to the quad demolition at the time. :rolleyes:

The same situation happened with AM Stereo (which sounded pretty darn fine) and even now with AM HD Radio. The broadcast industry has a history of assassinating technology through infighting.

Clark Novak
 
Anyone else remember an "FM Quad" station in their local area back in the '70s?
 
Funny you should mention - I found this great page about KQIV, Lake Oswego, Oregon:

http://www.rockininquad.com/

Pretty great stuff! Not too much about the Quad aspect of the station, but some great old stories and photos of radio back in the fun days.
 
We must reproduce the T Shirt! I don't recall it destinctly but I'm pretty sure that South Florida's hep FM station back in those days would have been so equiped...WSHE out of Ft. Lauderdale. What about all the FM stations listed for KBFH broadcasts that were listed as being in quad? I guess many went out just in stereo? JOhnS.
 
Surprised 106.5 FM in Sacramento wasn't mentioned- until 2009 their call letters were KWOD, which was pronounced "quad" and supposedly they were one of the first quadraphonic FM stations, though I never heard how it worked. Even after quad sound was discontinued, they kept the name until 2009. In the 80s their yellow-pages listing still said "KWOD Quad Stereo 106 FM".
 
Just found this old thread and I was wondering how they played quad? Was it everything just run through a QS decoder - that's what it looks like on the Q-IV page? I see that Q-IV played albums all the way through at night but almost none of them are actual quad. Anybody remember?
 
Our local attemtpt lasted a week or so. But they did broadcast a Dolby calibration
tone every day at noon and midnite. I guess that was the way to compensate
for not being ablt to continue in quad. That went on for a few years.
Although I never did see a radio capable of decoding either signal.
 
I also remember that the BBC did some Quad broadcasts on FM (VHF in the UK) Radio 2 - I think the Alan Freeman Show and John Peel Show, both of whom were rock orientated. Some 'in-house' live productions were also done. BBC Radio 3 - The (only at that time) Classical station also did several progs in Quad.....probably from the EMI Angel catalogue, plus 'in-house' productions.

Isn't there a station in Sweden broadcasting in DTS?
 
I also remember that the BBC did some Quad broadcasts on FM (VHF in the UK) Radio 2 - I think the Alan Freeman Show and John Peel Show, both of whom were rock orientated. Some 'in-house' live productions were also done. BBC Radio 3 - The (only at that time) Classical station also did several progs in Quad.....probably from the EMI Angel catalogue, plus 'in-house' productions.

Isn't there a station in Sweden broadcasting in DTS?

Firstly, the BBC never used any of the EMI/Angel recordings for their 'test' transmitions, all classical broadcasts were BBC recordings, mostly from the Proms.

I've been doing quite a bit of research behing the BBC's H/HJ broadcasts in 1977/78,and although there's no official listing of what was broadcast (yet!!!), a document that came into my poccesion a couple of days ago shows the types that were broadcasts:

Radio 1
'Pop' music: 11

Radio 2
Light music, Brass & Dance Bands & Jazz: 8
Special ceremonial events: 1

Radio 3
Orchestral Music (wide variety): 51
Drama: 5
Opera, Operettas: 3
Choirs: 2
Poem (in an electronic music setting): 1

Radio 4
Christmas Carols: 1
Drama: 2
Dramatic Daily Serial (i guess this means 'The Archers' - lol): 12
Natural History features: 2
Special Ceremonial events: 1

Additional Information
a) Approx 60% of these were undertaken as outside broadcasts
b) Some 20% of the programmes on the air during the year *
c) About 10 more were broadcast without prior printed publicity

* It is my assumption that these 'rebroadcasts' were of material that were originally broadcast in the early days in Matrix 'H', but for testing purposes were done in 'HJ', as 'H' had been dropped by the end of the summer of '77.


As to the Swedish Radio Station that experimented with DTS, this may be of interest:

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/default.aspx?programid=2446


OD
 
WBIR-FM in Knoxville, TN used to broadcast a syndicated Quad program in the evening, called "Double Exposure", in the early 70s.
 
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