Well this is an obscure-looking FM tuner

[bmw]

This is a Raymer 824 FM tuner. I've never seen anything like this before. Per the company literature, it is a music-on-hold device - that is, used to play an FM station while a phone caller is on hold. I'm not even sure about the legality of that.



https://products.electrovoice.com/binary/824%20EDS.pdf

[TC Talks]

Legality? I used to sell these boxes when I was in my twenties. Stations use these for monitoring purposes as well

[bmw]

I meant the legality of piping in a commercial FM station into your phone system.

[TC Talks]

I meant the legality of piping in a commercial FM station into your phone system.

Why would that be illegal? As a former GM, I would welcome that.

[djb]

I still find Tuners (sometimes just small radios) connected to older phone systems in MDFs (communication rooms) at client sites. Quite a common practice, especially in the Bay City/Saginaw market - where 'Beautiful Music - 102.5 WGER' was piped into phone systems for your (enjoyment?) while on-hold.

I believe somewhere in the early/mid-2000's this practice was causing twisted panties syndrome by either the FCC or advertising networks. The same type of deal where Internet Streaming won't (shouldn't?) contain advertisements.

[Turkeytop]

Years ago I worked for a Company that manufactured fire alarm and security monitoring systems. They also built paging systems for office or institutional buildings.

Many of the systems also included a rack mounted radio tuner made by a Company called Rauland Borg. They were a pretty decent tuner.

[SolarMax]

I meant the legality of piping in a commercial FM station into your phone system.

Why would that be illegal? As a former GM, I would welcome that.

I remember ASCAP, BMI, SESAC at one time going after places, as their license to broadcasters didn't include public address (restaurants, waiting rooms, etc,). Don't have any idea if "music on hold" could have fallen into that legal category, but if there were a few pennies more to be made, they'd go for it,

[TC Talks]

I meant the legality of piping in a commercial FM station into your phone system.

Why would that be illegal? As a former GM, I would welcome that.

I remember ASCAP, BMI, SESAC at one time going after places, as their license to broadcasters didn't include public address (restaurants, waiting rooms, etc,). Don't have any idea if "music on hold" could have fallen into that legal category, but if there were a few pennies more to be made, they'd go for it,

They no longer go after places like this.

[Ben Zonia]

What kind of receivers did they use for Cable Systems in the 1960s and 1970s? Not just the cable FM offerings, but when they used to put a station on the old public service channels when many just had 12 channels in the system, often the one displaying weather information, some just panning a few weather instruments. I remember in 1970, they put WNOX 990 Knoxville, TN on the cable system in Gatlinburg. WNOX had no associated FM station at the time, and I can't imagine the signal was very good there, especially at Night. I suppose it could have been on another station's SCA Subcarrier. But I noticed that that tuner had AM available.

[SolarMax]

I meant the legality of piping in a commercial FM station into your phone system.

Why would that be illegal? As a former GM, I would welcome that.

I remember ASCAP, BMI, SESAC at one time going after places, as their license to broadcasters didn't include public address (restaurants, waiting rooms, etc,). Don't have any idea if "music on hold" could have fallen into that legal category, but if there were a few pennies more to be made, they'd go for it,

They no longer go after places like this.

Have to point you to this strip that ran today (8/3):
http://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2023/08/03
The first comment there is quite interesting.

[TC Talks]

I meant the legality of piping in a commercial FM station into your phone system.

Why would that be illegal? As a former GM, I would welcome that.

I remember ASCAP, BMI, SESAC at one time going after places, as their license to broadcasters didn't include public address (restaurants, waiting rooms, etc,). Don't have any idea if "music on hold" could have fallen into that legal category, but if there were a few pennies more to be made, they'd go for it,

They no longer go after places like this.

Have to point you to this strip that ran today (8/3):
http://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2023/08/03
The first comment there is quite interesting.

A friend of mine was a ASCAP rep. They were freelance and got a commission. You had to be a pretty large business for ASCAP to go after you, usually bowling alleys, casinos and malls. Thus we had, MUZAK and other services start popping up. He represented them too.