Channel-one dictabelt, Dallas Police Department, 22 November 1963 — first-generation transfer and transfer notes
- Origin
- Dallas municipal records, via a transfer house retained by this newspaper
- Dated
- transfer made 11 February 2026; original medium dated 22 November 1963
- Extent
- 9 pages
- Status
- accepted
- Redactions
- None.
Chain of custody
This newspaper paid $8,400 for a first-generation transfer of the surviving belt, made on calibrated equipment by a transfer house with no involvement in this subject, under the supervision of the municipal archivist, who is named in the story with her permission. The transfer notes record the machine, the stylus, the speed correction applied and the reason for it, and the two points at which the operator stopped and restarted. The audio file, the notes and the operator's log are published in full.
Held by: They Buried, document room; audio mirrored publicly
Excerpt
TRANSFER NOTE 4 — speed correction +0.7% applied throughout, derived from the 60Hz mains component present in the room tone. Uncorrected transfers of this belt circulate widely and run slow. Any timing measurement made against an uncorrected copy will be wrong in the direction that shortens intervals. TRANSFER NOTE 6 — crosstalk from the second channel is audible from 04:12.6. It is on the medium. It is not an artefact of this transfer.
Transcribed by the data desk. Line breaks follow the original. Bracketed matter is ours.
Editor's note
Transfer note 4 is the reason we commissioned this at all. A large part of the forty-seven-year argument has been conducted using copies that run slow, and a timing dispute measured against a slow copy is a dispute about the copy.
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