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My grandfather was an engineer at Detroit's WJR from 1943 until sometime in the 1970s. Beginning in 1943, he kept any of the on-air transcription discs that interested him, and also made his own copies and compilations of music and programs. I've inherited his collection of over 250 glass- and aluminum- based transcription discs and am finally in the process of transferring them to digital. I have complete shows of programs like American Melody Hour, Meet the Missus (a local Detroit program), Squibbs To Your Good Health, A Bouquet for You, and many others. I mostly have music shows (since that was my grandfather's interest), but the "B-sides" are proving to be very interesting! He cataloged everything he had, or at least everything he liked. He didn't write down what was on the sides that he never listened to, so I'm discovering those as I record them. Those are turning out to be much more interesting than the music. Anyway, I'm looking for a place to share this treasure trove of old audio. So far I've only got about 13 records digitized, all from the 1940s, but I'm plugging away at it and plan to try to get a couple done every day. I'd be happy to upload anything here (if anyone is interested), and if anyone knows of another site that would appreciate this kind of material please let me know.

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  • Good to know that his collection is in such good hands !
  • I've set up a new blog just for these records: grandpasipod.tumblr.com. I'm uploading audio files, images of disc labels, and other info there. My plan is to put up a new audio file and picture (if applicable) each day. I will also upload files to archive.org once I get that figured out. (I played with it a little today but I'm still kind of overwhelmed by the site!)

    Feel free to stop by my blog and see what I'm doing!
    • Hi Lisa:

      Your new website "Grandpa's OTR" looks wonderful.

      Looking forward to seeing more of your uploads. In the meantime you could do a "blog" posting here at Timespast to get the word out.

      All the best to you and your new website,

      katy
  • Welcome Lisa to Timespast.

    You definitely have a wonderful treasure trove of old shows. At this point you'll need to identify them including dates, etc. It sounds as if your Grandfather was very organized and had everything well labelled and recorded. We won't know if the shows are ones that may have been lost, missing, rare or even a better copy than the existing original floating around until you upload.

    My suggestion would be is place them under the old-time radio group (before 1962) by show/programme. Several of the members here belong to other old-time radio groups and share material on their own websites, e.g. Multiply, Ning, etc. Therefore, the material will be shared. It also means less work for you. If you are in doubt of a shows name or origin just post it and ask for help. There are many members here that have had lots of experience with OTR.

    Here are some excellent OTR reference website in order to check for your shows: The Radio Gold Index; Old-Time Radio Guide; Jerry's Vintage Radio Log; Old-time Radio Researchers Group (OTRR); JJ's Radio Logs (newspapers).

    I hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions, etc. Looking forward to your postings.

    katy
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