Jocks needed to rapidly play many audio segments during their shows. The cart machine was invented to enable quick change of audio carts which contained commercials, songs and jingles as well as sound effects and IDs. I liked the ITC cart machines the best.
The Gates “Spotter” was an interesting attempt to provide a machine with would hold a lot of material and permitted quick changes. But it had some problems. I actually worked at a station that bought one and the noise that thing made in rewind would wake the dead!
The audio cartridge machine as we know it was developed by two stations working in the late 1950s toward the common goal of devising a better method of playing back commercial announcements. The stations were WJBC-AM, Bloomington, IL, and WWDC-AM, Washington, D.C. The WJBC project began as an idea cooked up by Vern Nolte, general manager of the station, Ted Bailey, chief engineer, and Bailey's assistant, Jack Jenkins. The three had come up with the idea of using short-length cartridges for commercial announcements and having them recue automatically. Design of the electronics to accomplish the scheme belonged to Bailey and Jenkins.
On January 13, 1959, Nolte wrote to Parker Gates, president of the Gates division of Harris Intertype, proposing that the company manufacture and market their cartridge machine. Three days later, Gates wrote back to Nolte to thank him for the offer, but Gates explained that his company was already working on a spot playback device of its own. Gates was, therefore, not interested in developing a product that would duplicate something they already had.
Tape Playback
The product to which Parker Gates was referring was the ST-101, better known as the 101 Spotter. Unlike cartridge designs that used an endless loop of 1/4-inch tape, the 101 Spotter employed a 13-inch wide band of tape on which spots were recorded side-by-side. An indexed, sliding head arrangement allowed the user to select any one of 101 spots. Rights to the machine had been purchased earlier by Gates from Nelson Rupard, manager of KIND-AM, Independence, KS.
After tape cartridge equipment was shown at NAB in 1959, it became obvious to Gates/Harris Intertype that the ST-101 was not going to make any significant marketing inroads. There were several limitations to the system: Announcements could not exceed 90 seconds in length and, before the next spot could be selected and played, the tape had to be rewound, similar to a player piano roll.
The machine was set to automatically recue when the 90 second limit of tape travel had been reached. Alternately, the user could initiate a rewind by pressing a front panel switch. Full rewind of the tape could be accomplished in 22 seconds. A spot tape index scale was placed on the front panel to allow selection of the desired announcement. A tape speed of 5 1/2ips was used. Tape cylinders could be replaced in about 15 minutes, if needed. Routine exchange of tapes was not recommended, however.
Randolph, Gene, "The History of the Cart Machine," Broadcast Engineering, Intertec Publishing, Overland Park, KS, August 1984.
