by Eric Flint
To edit the videotapes made by analog camcorders in Grantville, one would need an editing rig consisting of two tape decks, a monitor, and a keyboard for editing functions. Though much of the video industry has switched to non-linear editing systems, linear editing is still commonly used in editing news. Given the realities of school budgets, it is almost certain that Grantville's high school television studio has at least one analog video editing machine. It is probable, however, that if there are only one—or maybe two—linear editing machines at WVOA that they will be in much demand for station and student use, and a long line for anyone else wanting to use them.
An independent producer with access to the right manuals or a knowledgeable individual willing to experiment will be able to assemble a crude but workable linear video editing system by using two VCRs, two televisions, and a stopwatch to make sure everything is synchronized. An expensive proposition in down-time Grantville, given the finite quantities of all of these components.
Non-linear editing, for both audio and video, is the style of editing used in digital systems. As the term "non-linear" implies, it is possible to edit in any order, not necessarily the order you recorded something. If you've ever used a desktop video editing program like iMovie, FinalCut, or Adobe Premiere, you've taken advantage of non-linear editing. Again, there is at least one non-linear editing system in Grantville, owned by Jabe McDougal. IMovie and FinalCut, two of the more common non-linear programs available to the general public, were only introduced in 1999, just prior to the Ring of Fire; Adobe Premiere was introduced in 1992 but probably wouldn't have been widely used, given that it retails for over $800. FinalCut Express costs about have that, but it and iMovie, which came bundled on Apple iMac computers starting in 1999, would probably also not be terribly common in Grantville given Apple Computers approximately 5% share of the home computer market at the time of the Ring of Fire.
Once again, radio will have an advantage. Non-linear editing programs for sound have been around and available to consumers years longer than video editing programs. By the time of the Ring of Fire, sound editing programs will be available for both Windows and Macintosh operating systems at low cost—under $100. Certainly there will be less of a "bottleneck" when it comes to audio production at the high school than with video. And it's far more likely that other up-time citizens could have a sound-editing program on their computer, especially if they have an interest in music composition and/or production. Pre-recording radio series will be much easier than a video production.
A Question of Models
The next question will be, what shape will the business of radio and television broadcasting take down-time? Who will own the broadcast spectrum in the United States of Europe? Will new radio and television stations be government-owned or will they be private businesses? And who will pay for programming?
According to established canon in the 1632 story universe, there are two broadcast radio stations in the USE: The Voice of America, which was brought online soon after the Ring of Fire, and the Voice of Luther. A radio station run by the Jesuits, Loyola of the North, is on the horizon. More stations will certainly follow as vacuum tubes begin to be manufactured in the late 1630s, allowing for an electronics industry.
The first essential matter, as building radio stations becomes more commercially viable, will be allocation of the analog broadcast spectrum. The first question which must be settled is: who owns the airwaves?
As Grantville came from the up-time United States, it's useful to know what up-timer expectations might be. In the U.S., the broadcast spectrum, analog and digital, is owned by the people of the United States. The Federal Communications Commission exercises authority over who and what is broadcast over the American airwaves and divides up the broadcast spectrum so that devices such as cell phones don't interfere with radio and television broadcasts and broadcasters don't step on each others' signals. The United States government is not permitted prior censorship over material broadcast on the public's airwaves, but may impose fines for "indecent" material after the fact, something that has led to continuous controversy OTL, since standards are arbitrary, and the line between what constitutes self-imposed standards by broadcasters and what constitutes government coercion is a fine line indeed.
Knowledgeable up-timers will also be aware of alternative models for government regulation of television and radio broadcasting, particularly the British model. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was established in 1922 as a quasi-government corporation, with strict boundaries over how the government could regulate content. The first private television channel didn't appear in Great Britain until ITV went on the air in 1955, and was joined by Channel Four in 1982 and the station known as Five in 1997, the latter two stations coming after deregulation of broadcasting in Britain in the 1980s. The BBC currently runs nine radio stations, in addition to its three television stations.
I expect a lively debate in the USE over laws regulating the licensing of new broadcasters. But how will nobility view the broadcast spectrum? Will they see it as something like mineral rights, which they control and dole out? Will Emperor Gustavus assert that he owns the spectrum? Given the headaches that printing presses were causing the powers-that-be in Europe even before Grantville's arrival, it's a cinch that nobles will like radio and televisions even less and try even harder to control it. John George of Saxony is already trying to jam VOA and VOL broadcasts in his territory (see "Little Jammer Boy," Grantville Gazette, Volume 9). It seems likely that the nobility will want noble or royal control of the spectrum as a way of controlling what is broadcast. If they own the spectrum, they can make sure only the "right" people get broadcasting licenses. It also seems likely that the USE House of Lords will be much less concerned with maintaining strict boundaries against prior censorship than the governments of the up-time United States or United Kingdom.
It's highly unlikely that this will be acceptable to many up-timers and newly empowered elements like the Committees of Correspondence. Since up-timers and the CoC will be a minority, albeit a vocal one, they will have to try to convince sympathetic nobles and commoners that it is in their best interest to have ownership of the USE's airwaves in the hands of the public with minimal censorship. Anything could happen, though Britain's mix of government-owned and independent broadcasters would seem a logical compromise.
As far as who pays for programming on WVOA-TV, and the VOA and VOL radio stations, there is no reason to think we won't see an extension of the good old-fashioned arts patronage that is the accepted system in the seventeenth century. Broadcast media, especially radio, will offer excellent opportunities to people that may not have been able to afford to found or fund a theater company otherwise, and with the potential for far greater exposure. Up to 500,000 people live within the Voice of America's broadcast area, and even if only 1% of that population had access to a radio, the audience would still be far larger than a theater of the time could hold (According to Wikipedia, Shakespeare's Globe Theater had a maximum capacity of about 3500 spectators).
As a vehicle for a business, broadcast radio and television are even better. In the United States, there is a long history of single-sponsor programming. Think of the famous anthology series, The U.S. Steel Hour, or Edward R. Murrow's interview show, Person to Person, sponsored by Alcoa. Radio listeners and television viewers will have to get used to intermissions in plays or musical performances being interrupted by the glories of Dr. Phil's latest miracle products, the latest editorial from the Committees of Correspondence, or the ten reasons why Rheinlander Silk is better than any other silk for industrial uses. As we've already seen, the VOA runs a mix of instructional and entertainment programming, which I imagine will continue to be the case until more stations come online.
Conclusions
For the medium term, radio will be the king of broadcast media in the USE. As for the rest, only time will tell, but there's no reason to think there won't be some very public fights over who controls the airwaves a
nd what gets broadcast on them. Down-timers are already recognize that knowledge is power, and radio especially has the potential to reach people even broadsides cannot, and the ruling authorities will not be eager to allow it to spread unchecked.
Sources
Most of the information in this essay was gleaned from Wikipedia and from the United States Federal Communication Commission's website, www.fcc.gov.
For more about debates over content in U.S. television, See No Evil: The Backstage Battle over Sex and Violence on Television; Simon and Schuster, New York, 1979.
The movie Goodnight. . .and Good Luck offers, among other things, a glimpse at how television worked in the 1950s, and Harlan Ellison's short story "Jeffty Is Five" is an excellent salute to the Golden Age of Radio.
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Metallic Fusion: Putting it Together in 1632
Written by Kevin H. Evans
The construction of machines and devices requires that sections of material be attached to each other. This can be accomplished by friction, adhesives, mechanical connections, and welding.
Down-time fastening methods were mostly mechanical. That is the methods depended on adhesion (stuff sticking together) created by means of a device compressing the parts together. Screws, rivets, nuts and bolts, trunnels (tree nails), pegs, lashings, glues, and gravity were all used to hold stuff together. All of the fastening methods described are composed of layers, and so have some inherent weaknesses. While suitable for most construction, the methods described do not provide the strength needed for many things our up-timers want to make.
Of all of the fastening methods described, rivets and glues come closest to being able to provide the strength to weight connections needed.
Rivets involve making a hole through the two (or more) parts to be joined and putting a pin through the holes. Then the ends of the pin are hammered down to form a mushroom shaped head on each side of the parts. This compresses the parts together and holds them firmly in place. Well done riveting can make seams that will hold pressure (as in a boiler), or stand up to great stress. Rivets have problems where the demands of the connection do not allow room for the mechanical process of riveting or space for the rivet heads in the finished application. Countersunk rivets (cone shaped depressions in the plates to be riveted) allow rivets that are flush to the surface, but reduce the strength of the join, thus increasing the number of rivets in the seam or requiring the increase in thickness of the parts.
Glues can form very strong joints, but require that the material glued be porous. Often this limits the utility of the method. Soldering and brazing are a form of gluing, and were known before the ROF, but due to limitations in heating methods were used mostly in smaller applications. Brazing and soldering also need pores in the material connected and can shear under stress or heat.
Welding is the connection of two parts by actually mixing the metal of the two parts so that they form one continuous piece. Welding is also normally done to ferric (iron based) metals. Non ferrous welding is possible but requires care due to the tendency of the metals to oxidize before the parts can be joined in to one piece. Welding also allows the rapid fabrication of devices in a fraction of the time needed to make the devices by other methods.
Welding can be accomplished in a number of ways. Down-time welding was most often forge or percussion welding. This weld is made by heating the two pieces until they are soft and plastic, placing flux on them, putting them one on the other and applying force, hammer blows or pressure, causing the metal to fuse in to one piece. This is also called hammer welding and can be done manually or by a forging machine like a drop hammer. The flux is usually sand or borax and serves to exclude oxygen and oxides from the join. Hammer welding is most effective with low carbon steels and iron. High carbon steel requires much higher temperatures and this makes the exclusion of oxides harder. Hammer welding is a skill well known by the smithing community of the 1600s and even high carbon steels are with in the ability of a master smith. The greatest limitation of hammer welding is the amount of heat that needs to be applied. Normally the heating time possible with a forge fire means that larger pieces have to be heated over larger areas than are required for just the weld. This slow heating increases the fuel consumed and also increases the difficulty in handling the work.
New to the down-time world are gas, electrical, and chemical welding. Gas welding is accomplished with a torch burning a fuel and an oxidizer, normally acetylene and oxygen. The torch is used to apply heat directly to the point to be welded and cause the material to liquefy and flow together. Often a rod of the same metal is used to control the heat and provide additional material for joining the gap between the two pieces to be fused. Gas welding markedly decreases the amount of time needed to heat a join to welding temperature. Also a weld created with the gas method does not need percussion applied to fuse the metals. However welds heated by a gas torch can run in to the same problem, heat traveling, and requiring the heat of large areas before welding heat is available to the join in large pieces.
While at first glance a new gas welding set would seem to outside of the industrial base available down-time, careful consideration brings to light workarounds that will allow the technology to spread. Hoses can be made from leather tubes wrapped in latex-impregnated cloth with an outside leather case protecting the cloth. The latex is locally available as milkweed sap or dandelion sap and while it is not as pure as rubber tree sap, it was used during WWII as a substitute until the synthetic rubber industry came on line. Gas regulating valves also looked very difficult, but I "bit the bullet" and tore one of my old regulator sets down to see how they were made. To my surprise they are not complicated, and the hardest parts to make will be a large spring that holds the diaphragm against the valve that controls the pressure released from the storage device, the valve bodies are made of brass and the spring and diaphragm can both be made by any smith that can make a knife that will hold an edge. Storage is a little harder as down-time produced tanks are likely to be more cumbersome, probably riveted and seal welded on the seams. All in all, a down-time set will be larger, not as long lasting, but will be possible. That leaves the gas. Welding gasses, normally acetylene and oxygen, need to be produced in quantity. Both will need electric current, oxygen produced by electrolysis, and the acetylene produced by adding water to calcium carbide. The calcium carbide is also produced by applying an electric arc to coke (refined coal not the drink) and limestone. While not deliberately canon, production of calcium carbide is implied in the operation of the mines in Grantville as "carbide lamps" were the industry standard prior to long duration batteries, and I am sure that as the high tech bulbs burn out, that old lamp of dad or grandpa's will come out of storage.
Electric welding uses a high current electric spark to create the heat needed to fuse the metal and form the joint. Of note, is that the electrode is normally sacrificial and is used to add metal to the joint created. This current may be AC or DC and can be provided by batteries or by a generator set. Variations on "stick" welding include wire-fed inert gas shielded welding where the electrode is a wire fed through the welding handle and is shielded from oxidization by an inert gas fed to the weld site from a tank connected to the "stinger". Also of note, is that electric welding is an immediate heat in a small area and can be used to weld large sections of material with minimal heat.
The major problems with electrical welding are the need for insulating the cables used and providing flux on the electrodes (welding rods). Lastly because electrical welding heats such a limited area, crystallization of the metal can occur. This can be avoided by experience on the part of the person welding and by annealing the joins made.
Other forms of electrical welding include Spot welding and Roller Seam welding. Spot welders are normally stationary machines with two electrodes mounted on parallel arms the material to be welded is placed between the electrodes and high current is passed through the material via the electrodes causing the metal to melt into each other
. As a welding method it is really fast, and lends it's self to sheet metal fabrication especially well. Roller Seam welders are a variation of the spot welder where the material to be welded is placed between roller tipped electrodes and moved so as to continuously weld a seam. A variation of the roller seam welder has the rollers on each side of a seam in a pipe or tube as it comes out of the rolling mill to make sealed seam pipe.
Of all the methods, electrical is probably the easiest to make from scratch. Large batteries can provide the Amperage needed to strike an arc and weld. The electrodes can be made from drawn wire. Flux can be applied at the work site by dipping the rod in a bucket of borax and allowing it to dry. The biggest problem will be insulating the cables and clamp that holds the electrode. After that will be charging the batteries. Insulation is probably possible using dry linen and latex or wax, wrapped in dry leather. The clamps can be fabricated with ceramic handles containing the cable and clamp. Good welds can be made with as little as fifty amperes, or about the capacity of an automotive battery. Heavier joins on large metal will need more amperage. Lead acid batteries can be made with 1600s technology. Glass cases and bronze supports for the plates with sulfuric acid are sufficient to the work. Note that thick glass is harder to break and makes a safer battery. Chargers can be operated by a water wheel or small engine. The system will be bulky, and awkward to use, but will weld like a charm.
