The Fidelipac, commonly known as an NAB cartridge or simply cart, is a magnetic tape sound recording format, used for radio broadcasting for playback of material over the air such as commercials, jingles, station IDs, and music. Fidelipac is the official name of this industry standard audio tape cartridge, it was developed in 1959 by inventor George Eash[1] (although the invention of the Fidelipac cartridge has also been credited to Vern Nolte of the Automatic Tape Company[2]), and commercially introduced in that same year by Collins Radio at the 1959 NAB Convention. The cartridge was widely used up until the late 1990s, when such formats as MiniDisc and computerized broadcast automation made the Fidelipac cartridge obsolete.
History
The Fidelipac cartridge was the first audio tape cartridge available commercially, based on the endless-loop tape cartridge design developed by Bernard Cousino in 1952 (with whom Eash shared space with in Cousino's electronics shop in the early 1950s). It was originally a 1/4 inch-wide audio recording tape, 2-track format. One of the tracks being used for monaural program audio, and the other being used for a cue track to control the player, where either a primary cue tone was recorded to automatically stop the cart, a secondary tone was recorded to automatically re-cue the cart to the beginning of the cart's program material (in some models, two secondary tones, one after the program material, and one before it, were recorded to have the cart machine automatically fast-forward through any leftover blank tape at the end of a cart's program), or a tertiary tone, which was used by some players to trigger another cart player or another form of external equipment. Later versions used 3 tracks, 2 for stereo audio, and the third for the cue track.
The standard tape speed for Fidelipac carts used in the radio broadcasting industry was 7.5 ips, although some cart players & recorders could be adjusted to record at other speeds, such as 3.75 or 15 ips.[3]
Unlike the later consumer-marketed 8-track cartridge developed later in 1964 by Bill Lear which had the pinch roller integrated in the cartridge, the Fidelipac cartridge had a hole in the right-hand bottom front corner of the cartridge, where the pinch roller, built-in to the player instead, would swing up into place to support the tape up against the capstan. While Collins and Gates/Harris machines had the pinch roller automatically swing up into place when the playback button was pressed, with Fidelipac and ATC (Automatic Tape Cartridge) machines, the operator had to physically push or pull a lever to get the pinch roller in place before playback could begin.
There were three sizes of Fidelipac carts available: the A size (Fidelipac Model 600), which was a larger cartridge designed for holding longer programs, and the smaller and more common AA size (Fidelipac Model 300), which was roughly the same size as an 8-track cartridge. The third cartridge type (Fidelipac Model 1200) was a cartridge that was even larger than the A size.
The AA size of Fidelipac cart was later adapted by Earl "Madman" Muntz in 1962 for his Stereo-Pak cartridge system, which differed in two ways: the number of tracks used (4 in this case, with 2 played back at a time to provide a total of 2 programs of stereo audio), and the tape speed (3.75 ips as opposed to Fidelipac's standard 7.5 ips). Unlike the Fidelipac players which used a stationary head, the Stereo-Pak system used a moving head to go between the 2 programs (much like the 8-track format, which also used a moving head to access its 4 stereo programs).
As of 2009 the American company CartGuys is the only remaining manufacturer of Fidelipac tapes and recorders.[4][5]
See also
References
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