Wire recording
|
|
Wire recording is a type of analogue audio storage. The recording is made onto thin wire. This can have a duration of many hours. It has a high head speed and a small tape speed. It can hold either one audio track or many data tracks. Its most widespread use was in the 1930s and 1940s, after which it was replaced in many uses by magnetic tape. Audio fidelity is generally low. Common usage for this type of recording is used in certain types of dictaphones, but mostly in the Black Box Flight Deck Recorders in aircraft.
The wire reels were recorded or listened at 24 inches per second (610 mm/s). There is 1,200 feet (366 m) of wire on a 1 hour reel. The wire only had one track since it was just a thin wire and not a flat tape that could get 2 to 4 tracks on it. The reel was small and only lasted 1 hour per reel. The reels also came in different times like 15 minutes and 30 minutes . After the reel was finished it had to be rewound, because there was no way to take off the take-up reel. It was a very inconvenient way to record and if you were lucky enough you might get a wire recorder with a removeable take-up reel, but you needed a replacement take-up reel to take up the new wire reel. The wire was easily tangled especially when being rewound. The wire would run through a very small recording head slit on a bobbing head that went up and down to put the wire on the take-up reel evenly.Template:Tech-stub