This tutorial is for beginners on how to
 get Old Time Radio programs from Usenet.

Note that this is only a beginning. It is presently complete enough that if you follow the steps, you will be able to download and listen to these wonderful old radio shows. But it has a long way to go. I have gone over only the basics of the three programs used here- there is alot more to them. And, more applications will be reviewed as time permits. So with some feedback from those who know binaries far better than do I, it will become more comprehensive and make the process even simpler.
Stay tuned...

Sources of OTR programs come and go. Downloading them from the Web is slow, FTP sites are better, but those still around are often difficult to connect to ("too many users, try again later") and slow when you do get on. Enter Usenet, the method of communications on the Internet before the WWW.

Usenet is a collection of some 30,000 "Newsgroups" which are discussion areas on any subject you can imagine. And probably quite a few you can not. Often called the "Loony-Bin" of the Internet, there is some very weird stuff to be found there, but there are also sources of thousands of OTR shows. Usenet is easy to connect to (never 'too busy') so get the three programs reviewed here, and help yourself to the constantly changing variety of the Golden Age of Radio.

First Step: Get a 'News' program.
There are many to choose from. One of the easiest to use and most popular is Free Agent. You can get it at Forte Inc. or any Tucows site.

Download and install the same as any other application in a directory of your choice. Once done, you will be asked for the name of your news server. This is usually news.myisp.com. You will also be asked for  user name and email address, to use if you want to send and receive messages but this is not required; use whatever name you like.
   Next, Agent will advise that you need to connect to your news server to download their list of Newsgroups. This may take a while if you have a dialup connection, so go get a cup of coffee or whatever. When complete, you will see the list of All Groups. Then, you can search through them looking for anything of interest. Hilight the top listing in the left window, click the flashlight and enter a search string. Use the second light to continue the search. The main Newsgroup for OTR is alt.radio.oldtime. When you get to it, click the newspaper icon to subscribe. When done, click Group, Show, Subscribed Groups

Next go to Online and Sample Headers in Selected Groups. Hilight alt radio oldtime and try the last 500 or so. Read through the headers of messages that appear to be of interest to newbies and you will learn a great deal about OTR. Note that in the above screenshot, several other groups are listed. These do not include the Newsgroups from which you can download radio shows. That will be covered in the next part.

Be aware that when the programs start downloading, they (each individual episode) are in several parts. What NewsBin does is 'spool' each of the parts until they all have been received, then puts them back together. Then it copies the completed program to a different directory (the one you select for storing the complete files) and deletes the spooled parts.

Download and install the same as any other application. Once done, you will see this screen

Start with OPTIONS and select the directory where you want to store the downloaded programs. Now, click SERVER on the top toolbar and enter the same newsfeed (news.myisp.com) as you did in Free Agent. Next, click on GROUPS then ADD GROUPS. A list of Newsgroups will start scrolling down the screen. Now it is time to select the Newsgroups that contain OTR shows, much like you did with Free Agent. They are:

alt.binaries.sound.radio.oldtime
alt.binaries.sounds.radio.oldtime
alt.binaries.sound.radio.repost
alt.binaries.sounds.radio.oldtime.highspeed (for Cable or DSL)

Go to ADD GROUPS, Check BINARIES and then Check Display Groups Containing:

Enter part of the above group(s) name as a search term and when you see the ones you want, hilight them and click ADD/DELETE SELECTED GROUPS. They will appear in the window to the left.

Note: If you click the AUTOMATIC DOWNLOAD box, the program will start downloading every show on the list. If you have a modem dialup connection, this will take more than the ten day program evaluation period. Seriously, this will slow down the downloading of other material such as web sites. One good idea is to select what you want and let it run overnight or when the computer is not needed for any other online tasks. Also, some ISPs will disconnect you during downloads, but for some reason, setting your Email program to check for new messages every ten minutes sometimes keeps this from happening.

Click the checkbox on the left or hilight the listing and double-click. The click box will turn green with a black arrow pointing down. The center window will then fill with the names of the actual programs available at the time - remember that this changes frequently.

Select a program by clicking the checkbox, hilight the program name, double click it, and it should start to download. Watch the status bar and progress bar at the bottom where the program name appears. When transmissin is complete, go to the directory that you selected for storage and verify that it is there. Note the size of the file to make sure you got all of it. Or go to the next step and see if it plays!

LISTENING TO THE AGES

One of the most popular applications for listening is WinAmp. This is a good program with the exception that it is in several different parts - as it appears on the monitor screen- that break apart and seem to disappear. I haven't had time to figure out how to put it back together again. Actually, there is much more to WinAmp than just listening to OTR shows. Visit their site and see.
 Windows Media plays MP3 files but because of the recent problems with it gathering information about its users, it is not recommended.
Download and install as any other application (yeah, I know, I already said that…)
Here are two parts of the WinAmp screen.
In the left graphic is an arrow that points upward. Click it and go to the directory where you have stored your downloaded files. The right screenshot is, of course, the equalizer. It is more versatile than it looks, with different presets and other features. Experiment with it till you have it just the way you want it.

Old-time Radio is addicting, so over a period of time you may accumulate hundreds if not thousands of episodes. Keeping track of them can be tricky, and while I have not decided which system to use yet (I have about five thousand shows) I have some ideas to consider.
Whatever you decide to do, please start as soon as you begin downloading programs.

On Renaming Files l learned something the Hard Way. Some files have the title, episode and date embedded within, so that you can use a file manager such as Ztree to view them, should you need to extract this data. But some files do not. Many of the programs from the very early days of OTR do not. Short-wave broadcasts from World War II, Amos and Andy, Lum and Abner... So, if you rename them, it is a good idea to make a database of some kind so that you will know what they are.

It is always a good idea to burn your programs to CD, in case of a hard disk crash. And to make copies of the CDs to store offsite, just in case. Fire, Flood, Famine, Feds. However, as your collection gets larger, you start to build up piles and boxes of disks.

What I have decided to do is copy the sixty or so CDs I have to a new 80 Gb Western Digital HD, and then back them up on a second HD. That way, they are all in one place so making a catalog should be easier, and it is possible to burn CDs with only those shows you want on them.

Get 'em while you can. A couple years ago, a company called Radio Spirits, in cahoots with another; MediaBay, started sending threatening letters to sites that had OTR available for download. A number of them closed down under these threats. Others refused to and have survived. Now, there are new laws, passed or proposed, that may or may not restrict the availability of these wonderful old programs. This is not the place to get into details; you can read more on this at alt.radio.oldtime or some of the independent Media sites like www.indymedia.com

As to 'off-site' storage, I replace my hard drives every 18 months or so - even though they- are good for far longer than that. I have been using Western Digital for many years and have never had a crash. So, I leave all my episodes on the old drives and store them in a safe place.
Seems like a plan.

As to cataloging your programs, I am looking for a way to place all of them in a database that can be sorted by Series, Episode Title, Date Broadcast, and a field for notes.

September 2004. This screen is no longer being be updated.