Schafer automation system
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The first Schafer Automation System, installed at KGEE(AM) in Bakersfield, California in 1956, was dubbed the "blue-wire job" because all of the wiring in it was blue, its inventor, Paul Schafer said. "The owner wanted to program his station all night long without a person being there. I used a couple of Seeburg record player changers to play 45s and several Ampex reel decks for commercials and we were in business," Schafer said.
Originally, commercials had to be dubbed sequentially to play back in the right order. Before long, Schafer, with the help of Chief Engineer Jim Harford, designed a better system. The "spotter" used Ampex reel-to-reel tape decks that could fast forward and rewind to count windows cut from the tape in order to locate specific commercials. "We removed about an inch of the oxide from the tape every minute. The 'windows' were then counted by the automation system as they passed between a lamp and a photocell to find the right commercial to play," Schafer said.
The Schafer Automation System used a series of relays and stepping switches and a clock that allowed programmers to back-time music to join network newscasts without having to fade the music. Schafer said the automation system consisted of two racks: one held the "brain," another contained three tape reel-to-reel decks. The Seeburg record player changers held 100 records each.
Programming the system was limited at the beginning. The front control panel consisted of a series of pins to allow programmers to change a sequence or repeat it, Schafer said. "They could set up a pattern by screwing pins into any of the many holes in the clock. Typically this would be each 15 or 30 minutes to play station breaks," Schafer said.
Silence trigger
In the original Schafer Automation System, the switching from one event to the next was triggered by silence. "Whenever silence was sensed the system would step to the next event. There would be the occasional record with a pause that would give us fits, of course," Schafer said. To remedy that problem, Schafer introduced a system using a 25 Hz tone at or near the end of an event on reel-to-reel tape. The tones, which were inaudible to listeners, allowed for overlapping of events and made the system sound better, he said. "The system used stepping switches, like the ones telephone companies used at the time. After the tone or silence, the next element was triggered, which was determined by the setting of switches on the front panel," Schafer said.
Eventually, Schafer's automation system used Viking cartridge decks and then Sono Mag Corp. carousels for commercial playback. Ultimately, broadcasters dubbed music onto reels, which improved the reliability of the automation system and meant the 45s no longer wore out, Schafer said. "For about the first five years after we introduced automation to the radio industry, we were the only ones producing anything of the kind. We sold direct and through Gates, Collins, RCA and IGM," Schafer said.
To help spread the word of his innovation, Schafer had three motor homes traveling the country demonstrating Schafer Automation Systems to radio broadcasters. "The idea was so new, it was the only way to get the idea of automation across," he said. In early 1959, Schafer purchased a radio station of his own to help demonstrate how efficiently a station could be run with automation. The station, KDOT(AM) in Reno, Nev., operated with a staff of three. "The manager did the selling, the engineer was also the announcer and one office manager ran things in fine fashion," he said. His company sold more than 1,000 versions of its automation design, including the Schafer Model 800, probably the most reliable of them all, Schafer said. In fact, some are still in operation at radio stations in Mexico, he said.
Schafer sold Schafer Electronics in 1968, about the time the company was beginning to work on a computer-driven automation system. Applied Magnetics owned the company for a few years before selling to Cetec.
Not one for retirement, Schafer started his current company, Schafer International, in 1969. In 1986 he founded Schafer Digital, where he worked on a new design for a PC-based automation and traffic system. He sold a few systems and then sold the company, he said.
Schafer's background is steeped in broadcast engineering and goes back to his hometown of Hammond, Ind., where he learned to fix radios as a teen at a repair shop. "I was building crystal sets and generally fascinated with making radios work and listening to them. Radio was very, very young at the time," Schafer said. Schafer received his first FCC operator's license in 1942 and went to work for his hometown radio station WJOB(AM). He was delighted to bring home $35 a week playing 78 rpm records and 16-inch transcription discs. The following year, Schafer went to work for WOWO(AM) in Fort Wayne, Ind. The 10 KW station served as a good training ground for a young engineer.
Station engineer
"I learned how to change the big water-cooled tubes in the transmitter that took up two complete floors of a very large building. Very fun," he said. After a stint in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II, Schafer returned to WANE(AM) in Fort Wayne where he worked on the air, sold commercial time and fixed the equipment. "I became a combo operator of sorts. Times were tight and stations couldn't afford an engineer and announcer. I was an engineer sitting between two turntables and with a microphone in front of me," he said.
After WANE was sold, Schafer moved south to Norfolk, Va., to be chief engineer and assistant manager of WNOR(AM). Schafer set out for California in 1951 and landed a job with NBC Hollywood, then home to some of the biggest radio shows off the day, as a summer vacation relief engineer. "Bob Hope, Dinah Shore, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. I think those were the last of the golden years of radio. It was fantastic," Schafer said. It was while at NBC that Schafer became aware of a new FCC ruling allowing for radio stations that were nondirectional and 10 KW or less to operate transmitters unattended by remote control. With the help of fellow NBC engineer Bill Amidon, Schafer ordered two phone lines installed between his garage and Amidon's basement.