Reel Life
At the staff meeting in Glasgow this morning I introduced an old friend. The "portable" UHER tape-recorder was the piece of kit that so many of us used when we began our careers in radio. A show of hands and confirmed that fact and there were even a teary eye or two as I talked about the good ol' days of radio. Then I pulled myself together and stopped sobbing.
The reason for this nostalgic interlude was linked to the ±«Óãtv's imminent move to the new H.Q. at Pacific Quay in Glasgow and a discussion about the kind of technology we'll be using there.
The reel-to-reel tape recorders were phased out some time ago and replaced by various digital recorders such as DATMANS or MiniDisc machines. Now they, too, have had their day as we replace them with solid state digital machines, where the audio is recorded on to memory cards, similar to the ones you find in digital cameras.
Not that the old UHERs were so good. They weighed more than a bag of tatties and you still find reporters who lean to one side because of they had to carry those machines on a shoulder strap for so many years. They also had a tendency to lose their battery charge in cold weather and you could only record fifteen minutes of audio on to each reel of tape. That tape always ran out just as the person you were intervieviewing was giving you a scoop.
Well, that used to be my excuse anyway.
