Anyone interested in old (PDP-8 driven) Radio Automation hardware?

[Josh Dersch]

Hi all --

I have recently acquired a PDP-8/m system that was used to drive a radio
automation rig (very very similar to this: http://www.bowkera.com/kcbs1.htm
).

My understanding is that this system hooked to banks of what were
essentially 8-track tape drives, each of which held a short loop of tape
(containing a song, an ad, call info, etc.) and the 8/m was programmed with
a playlist of sorts so that even in the early 70s you didn't need to have a
real DJ on premises to run a radio station.  (I had no idea this sort of
thing went back that far!)

This one was used at KRDU (Fresno's Christian Radio).  At any rate, it's
neat hardware.  All I have is the 8/m, a custom front panel (as seen in the
pictures on the site I linked above) and a bank of Omnibus backplanes
holding cards that would drive the tapes and mix audio.

I really have no use for the tape-control / audio mixing hardware since I
don't have the tapes and I'm not *really* planning on running an automated
radio station out of my basement (though it does sound fun).  I'm not about
to scrap the stuff (it's at least useful for parts) but I thought I'd see
if anyone out there could actually make use of it for its intended purpose.

- Josh