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For Columbus Day we return to 1950s Columbus, Georgia, for this uncaptioned News Archive snap of a lady and a baby with a bent for broadcasting. It's 10:33. Do you know where your children are? 4x5 acetate negative. View full size.
The clock is Model No. 37-SS, Naval Observatory Time/Western Union: "Made Expressly for Broadcasting Stations..."; Western Union sent a signal (no longer available) each minute to synchronize the movement; the cost of the service was $1.75/month.
Regarding the Ampex tape deck: It is playing the tape as evidenced by the VU meter level and the roller engaging the capstan and moving the tape with the level in the play position.
I worked at a radio station in the Cleveland, Ohio area in the 1970's--it was a lot of fun, but didn't pay well.
Western Union rented these clocks, made by the Self Winding Clock Company, and provided a transmission over its telegraph lines that would sync the correct time to the clocks.
I believe the lady is Rozell Fair Fabiani, hostess of a weekday-morning show called "At Home With Rozell," which ran on WRBL in Columbus from 1954 to 1988. There's a sort of obituary here.
The Ampex 601 tape machine in the photo is "recording", the VU Meter is registering, the tape movement switch is past the "play" position into the "record" position and the light behind the record interlock button is lit.
Agree with saintrussell - the wide track separators are a giveaway, too. Easier to place the pickup ahead of a track. Those were the days when radio was fun.
On the turntable, that's an NBC Thesaurus transcription disc. It has numerous short tracks, so I'm thinking it might be music beds for commercials.
Or it could be a 77-DX, which had a slightly better tone. Both were used extensively by radio stations and recording studios from the mid-50s, the DX appearing in the RCA catalog as late as 1967.
The canister looks like it might contain Junior's toys.
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