How to get Old Time Radio (OTR) shows for free/cheap

OTR trading and collection is a popular pastime because of the great number of available series, the wide range of genres, and the non-copyright status of many of the recordings (although a few series are claimed to be to be under copyright). The dominant format is MP3.

Why MP3

MP3s are highly compressed, meaning you can get about 50 hours of OTR on one standard CD. More importantly, MP3 is a digital medium, so there is no generational loss after the file is encoded. In other words, no matter many copies of copies of copies you make, the MP3 is exactly as it was. And there are are portable mp3/cd players that will let you carry your OTR with you. Yippee!

MP3s do not play on normal CD players.

Getting OTR

There are many ways to acquire more OTR:

Downloading OTR from the net
You can download OTR files off the net, although it's much slower than trading CDs and may be better suited to sampling shows or requesting fills (individual shows missing from your collection). Downloading mass OTR off the 'net just about requires a broadband connection (DSL, Cable). Note also that you'll be doing a good bit of quality control and organization. There are many ways to download:
- binary newsgroups will require a decent newsreader like xnews (free) or Agent. Microsoft Outlook Express is NOT decent; you have been warned.
  - alt.binaries.sound.radio.oldtime OTR and "floods"
  - alt.binaries.sounds.radio.bbc BBC OTR and modern
  - alt.binaries.sounds.radio.cbsrmt CBS Radio Mystery Theater
  - alt.binaries.sounds.radio.highspeed OTR "floods" for broadband users
  - alt.binaries.sounds.radio.misc Non-OTR and CBC radio shows
  - alt.binaries.sounds.radio.oldtime OTR
  - alt.radio.oldtime discussions; no binaries allowed
- peer to peer
  - gnutella
  - Kazaa (based on gnutella)
  - post-Napster OpenNap networks
  - Streamload
- You can do a google search to see where OTR may be downloadable by web/ftp.
Trade CDs: many collectors post their list of CDs to trade, and will trade one-for-one. The beginner may have a hard time getting started because s/he has nothing to trade. Once you get enough of a "critical mass" of OTR CDs built up, this will be the best way to get more. There's no faster way to add 650MB of MP3s to your collection.
Buy CDs: this can be a good way to get started, or you may have to buy a CD if the series you want is rare enough that no one else has it up for trade. Or you may prefer discs that have been run through a preparatory process rather than glommed together as "shovelware" (indiscriminate cramming of shows onto discs).
Postal round-robins: also called "trees", these are groups that pass CDs around in the mail, duplicate them and pass them along. This can be good if the stuff being passed around is what you need. It can be unpleasant if you don't want the material but have to pay to keep mailing it around. Round-robined OTR is usually in decent shape and well organized, although this is not always the case.

$Id: downloading.orb,v 1.3 2004/06/27 01:20:55 mouse Exp $

This page best viewed with a monitor.

You can if you are not a spammer.

Amazon.com 100 Hottest Books, CDs, Videos, and DVDs.