GALLERY OF DESIGNS — click a thumbnail for a larger version    Broadcast Stuff
	All-news radio stations proliferated around 1975.  Specific times were assigned for various categories of news, using a repeating schedule called a "news wheel."  Here's a rather literal interpretation. This hypothetical station has a simple format:  a single newsreader sits in a chair, reading copy and playing "carts" (prerecorded tape cartridges).  The main stories repeat every 15 minutes, with weather twice as often.  Although it was soon discovered that listeners would in fact stay tuned for 30-minute or 60-minute wheels, this station uses 15 minutes:  headlines & weather, a lead story, four minutes of other stories, a two-minute feature, headlines & weather again, other stories, sports, and miscellaneous.  If it were a commercial station, some of the 15 minutes would be advertisements. (TEXT CONTINUED BELOW) The materials that the newsreader needs — typed copy to be read and carts to be played — are arranged on a round table, 6'8'' in diameter, revolving counterclockwise four times an hour.  They slowly move into position near his left elbow.  After they've moved away from the newsreader, an editor or an assistant may replace them with new or alternate versions for the next revolution.  If they aren't replaced, the newsreader gets them again every 15 minutes. Nowadays, these functions would be better handled digitally. I took the all-news concept in another direction as well, imagining an automation system that would play all the stories from tape.  For a detailed description of such a system operated by a volunteer staff, click here.