Onban Kikou - Vol. 2 Ch. 8 - In Lana's Town
- Thread starter MangaDex
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This one didn't take that long, just that I was away during the holidays. So yeah, third volume next month. That means another six or so chapters in addition to the six left in this volume. It'll probably take some time to get there, but since the series comes out every two months, getting used to waiting is not necessarily such a bad thing.
As for the raws online, chapter 7 was just published this Monday. Meaning they'll be ahead of me in two weeks. So you don't have to wait that long if you know Japanese (or if you want to look at the pictures), just beware that after they're posted, they're only freely available for two weeks.
As for the raws online, chapter 7 was just published this Monday. Meaning they'll be ahead of me in two weeks. So you don't have to wait that long if you know Japanese (or if you want to look at the pictures), just beware that after they're posted, they're only freely available for two weeks.
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Yay! Bones make an appearance!
A couple notes on the technology. First, the record player on page 4 looks similar to a lot of all-in-one units that could be found in the US in the early 70's on - I'm guessing they were reasonably common elsewhere as well; I have no idea if they would have existed in some form behind the Iron Curtain (though it seems like this setting is a bit more open to western imports than the USSR proper would have been). Normally there was an 8-track (or, later, a cassette) player and a tuner in the unit, and some external speakers. Not great, but many folks my age and somewhat older would have had one of these as a starter stereo. (Bonus points if you know the easy fix for keeping the tone arm from skipping on warped records.
)
There are a number of different antenna designs that are similar to the one pictured on page 7; one of the more prominent ones is commonly called the Yagi antenna, and was developed in the 1920's in Japan, but this example seems to be a more generic version of a variety more suited to a wider range of frequencies. These were also common sights on rooftops in US cities into the 80's, until cable became more common; I have sneaking suspicion that being seen with one of these in some countries would have caused a good bit of questioning from the authorities, hence the wait to put this one up until just before the broadcast began. While this design works well for TV and FM signals, those don't tend to propagate very far compared to AM and some shortwave bands, which require different styles of antenna. (Practically, unless they were pulling in a signal from within about 50 miles, I'm not convinced they'd get usable TV reception, but never let the facts get in the way of a good story....)
There are a couple of pictures of radios in places (Lana's room, and to the upper right on page 5) - no idea which models those are, though the larger one in the back on page 5 looks to be some kind of 'cathedral' style cabinet, popular in the early days of radio. Up until after WWII, almost all consumer units would have been AM only, since FM was essentially experimental until after the war, and even into the 70's AM was more dominant than FM in most markets. For what it's worth, here's a picture of the Bendix radio I use for listening to baseball games in the summer, built in about 1946:
(...which allows me to point out that the first public trans-Atlantic [rather than 'around-the-world'] TV broadcast, carried via the Telstar satellite in July of 1962, started a bit ahead of schedule, and so the network controllers pulled in a feed available to them to fill the time and allow for any last-minute fine-tuning, which just so happened to be a Phillies-Cubs game at Wrigley Field... did I mention I like baseball?)
There is still a small group of folks who modify turntables into lathes similar to the one in the notes - the quality of those home cuts tends to be poor compared to a commercial product, but it does let them make small batches of custom records for friends and family. The big problem is that anything soft enough to be cut by a fairly low-power cutterhead is also soft enough to wear out quickly on repeated plays, hence the comment about only being able to play the disc a few times.
Thanks very much for the chapter, and as always, great job on the notes!
A couple notes on the technology. First, the record player on page 4 looks similar to a lot of all-in-one units that could be found in the US in the early 70's on - I'm guessing they were reasonably common elsewhere as well; I have no idea if they would have existed in some form behind the Iron Curtain (though it seems like this setting is a bit more open to western imports than the USSR proper would have been). Normally there was an 8-track (or, later, a cassette) player and a tuner in the unit, and some external speakers. Not great, but many folks my age and somewhat older would have had one of these as a starter stereo. (Bonus points if you know the easy fix for keeping the tone arm from skipping on warped records.
)There are a number of different antenna designs that are similar to the one pictured on page 7; one of the more prominent ones is commonly called the Yagi antenna, and was developed in the 1920's in Japan, but this example seems to be a more generic version of a variety more suited to a wider range of frequencies. These were also common sights on rooftops in US cities into the 80's, until cable became more common; I have sneaking suspicion that being seen with one of these in some countries would have caused a good bit of questioning from the authorities, hence the wait to put this one up until just before the broadcast began. While this design works well for TV and FM signals, those don't tend to propagate very far compared to AM and some shortwave bands, which require different styles of antenna. (Practically, unless they were pulling in a signal from within about 50 miles, I'm not convinced they'd get usable TV reception, but never let the facts get in the way of a good story....)
There are a couple of pictures of radios in places (Lana's room, and to the upper right on page 5) - no idea which models those are, though the larger one in the back on page 5 looks to be some kind of 'cathedral' style cabinet, popular in the early days of radio. Up until after WWII, almost all consumer units would have been AM only, since FM was essentially experimental until after the war, and even into the 70's AM was more dominant than FM in most markets. For what it's worth, here's a picture of the Bendix radio I use for listening to baseball games in the summer, built in about 1946:
(...which allows me to point out that the first public trans-Atlantic [rather than 'around-the-world'] TV broadcast, carried via the Telstar satellite in July of 1962, started a bit ahead of schedule, and so the network controllers pulled in a feed available to them to fill the time and allow for any last-minute fine-tuning, which just so happened to be a Phillies-Cubs game at Wrigley Field... did I mention I like baseball?)
There is still a small group of folks who modify turntables into lathes similar to the one in the notes - the quality of those home cuts tends to be poor compared to a commercial product, but it does let them make small batches of custom records for friends and family. The big problem is that anything soft enough to be cut by a fairly low-power cutterhead is also soft enough to wear out quickly on repeated plays, hence the comment about only being able to play the disc a few times.
Thanks very much for the chapter, and as always, great job on the notes!
Very interesting to read about the antennas, and nice radio! Amazing that it still holds up. There's also going to be a tiny bit of baseball in the plot of one of the stories on volume 3, though more in passing than anything. And this volume, well it only has a little bit of football going on instead.
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Thanks! One good thing about older gear (particularly tube gear, like this radio, but also some of the earlier transistor stuff) - it's made to be repaired rather than disposable. This particular unit was free to me - a guy came into the local record/stereo repair shop I hang out at, and said it had been his late buddy's garage radio for a bunch of years, and he wanted to find it a good home. I spent a few bucks to get new tubes and pay for a couple of new capacitors, and my friend (who co-owns the shop and does the repairs) went through it and got it back into proper working order. It's gotten me through the last couple of seasons quite nicely. A bunch of my stereo equipment is older than I am, and still works very well with a little occasional attention.
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