[Doug Houston]

TEX: you have a pretty neat little item there. You'll find that there is some interest in vintage broadcast equipment. Even I have an RCA 76B2 broadcast console, and some RCA and Collins remote mixers. They were often called "Networkers" by the broadcasters.

You will find little or no information in the usual sources. Much of the broadcast gear was tailored to the station engineer's specs, though the networkers were pretty standard, and the station bought and used them as they were sold from catalogues. In general, the Mike impedances are 250 ohms, into transformers, and the output of the networker is (I believe) 600 ohms. If you want to play around with mixing mikes, there's no better mixer.

If you've heard the broadcast of Clem McCarthy, doing the color (description) on the Hindenberg landing and fire, he would have been using a networker of some sort, and most likely a portable Presto disc recorder. Not sure of what mike he would have had, but it was probably an RCA dynamic of some sort.

Even the station's consoles (often called broadcast boards) were tailored to the station's unique requirememts. They are to be found in the catalogues issued by RCA, Gates, Collins, Altec, and a few others. My RCA board is right out of the catalogue. There were no custom features on it.