Its technology is encased in a briefcase-sized hunk of metal studded with vintage black switches, a couple of tape reels and one bulbous green read-out light. It resembles something Dick Tracy might have used during a darkened-room interrogation.
The “SoundScriber” is to a modern MP3 audio recorder what your grandparents’ rotary telephone is to the iPhone.
For decades, this audio recording gizmo was hidden in an equipment cabinet of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh student radio station, WRST. In the summer of 2011, staff there doing some work on the station’s transmitter found the antiquated 1958-era tape recorder, formally called a “SoundScriber S124.” Now, the device, which still operates, is headed to a prestigious final resting spot: The Library of Congress.
UW Oshkosh Director of Radio Services Randall Davidson contacted officials at the Library of Congress who will happily accept the University donation of the unit – a piece of rare mid-20th Century recording technology that historians want to make sure isn’t lost.
“These machines are vital for historical purposes as they are the only technology which will play a SoundScriber tape,” Davidson said.
Davidson said staff affiliated with WOWO-AM in Fort Wayne, Indiana have become the hub for an initiative called the “SoundScriber Project.” They feature information about the archaic technology and have advertised the Library of Congress’s interest in donations.
Davidson said, through the SoundScriber Project, it was learned that it is extremely rare for one of the surviving units to actually function. Luckily, without any rehabilitation, UW Oshkosh’s unit fired up as soon as the switch was flipped last summer, he said. The spooled tape on it even contained some audio recordings of amateur radio and shortwave transmissions in voice and code.
It’s unclear what the WRST unit’s specific purpose was on campus during its heyday. It is believed it was likely donated to the station long ago, Davidson said.
SoundScriber machines were used by the military, amateur radio enthusiasts, police dispatchers, court reporters and businesses looking to record meetings. The machines captured low-fidelity audio recordings, logging long-lasting recording subjects for eventual transcription. Their two-inch-wide tape on a three-inch reel runs at a speed of only 2.5 inches per minute, allowing one reel to contain over 24 hours of audio, Davidson said.
In radio broadcasting, SoundScribers were used to record entire broadcast days. They were helpful in verifying what commercials aired on a particular date and at a specific time.
Wisconsin Public Radio chronicled the UW Oshkosh SoundScriber discovery on Jan. 9. A UW Oshkosh student news reporter at WRST also produced a story that aired locally during WRST’s “Week In Review” newsmagazine program.
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