JeffW-Htos1:

How I Came Up With Htos

Well,I'd have to say that I got my start when I was eight(8) years old.That year I got a KLH table radio and earphone.That was all it took. I loved all gadgets at that point.By the time I was ten(10),I had added a Phillips reel to reel recorder(like on the original Mission Impossible)with a piezo mic,also had gotten my first set of walkie-talkies.In 1972,I got my first cassette recorder,a Panasonic.A Midland base station cb radio,Drake shortwave system,linear amps and 1/4 wave antenna and real walki-talkies.Then,I saw it,hi-fi audio,semi-pro recording gear,Tandberg,AR,Phase Linear,Crown,Superscope,Bose,Klipsch,Altec-Lansing,etc.By this time,I had been turned on to the term,"hi-tech".Well,that's just me! And in my hi fi magazines and Popular Electronics,there were rumblings of something called "digital".They said they were talking about calling these systems "computers".No way!You mean like the computers on Star Trek?Well,fundamentally,they are the same,since Gene Roddenberry went to Univac and others during technical development of the show.

No way I could get an Altair just yet,but I was mr.hitech by that time.That summer(1975) saw a new piece of equipment produced called a "vcr",it was a top loading JVC,with the original 1/2" vhs format,a giant thing with a wood case and 12 channel tuner,to this day it has amazing picture quality for an analog system.

The next year I got my first real job with a company that installed and maintained commercial audio systems.No,not rockin' pa's in trucks,but the kinds in hospitals,airports,and supermarkets.With phones tied in-------great! :)

...and the boss expected about 5/hrs a week on the service bench,we did oem/warranty work for 3M.

Do NOT even think about installing that muzak tuner in my work! :O

However,it REALLY beat working at McBurgers for one tenth of the money!

Then,from California,came the march of hi-powered mobile audio,and by '79,I had a great humper-thumper car stereo,looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong

before you had humper-thumpers in the 'hood.Sorry guys,you weren't first,you were still break dancing to disco by the time I had already grown past this.

At this time,I entered college to get my electrical degree,and lo,and behold,a true,CD-4,quad mixing system in the recording studio at school!!!!With joysticks and everything!All Ampex,BGW,JBL,Nueman,and Belden gear,AAAAANNNNDDDDD,the engineer was also the audio engineer @ WJCT tv/fm where I lived.I learned how to engineer reference audio,build broadcast facilities,produce audio for concerts(I worked several Jacksonville Jazz festivals in the 80's),build custom,commercial pa's(not plastic banana Peaveys)and went to work in the business world doing conference a/v(MY favorites are,to this day,IBM,Medtronics,Comcast,and Microslack,err,Microsoft)

This is when the Htos Hideout studio(1) came into existence.And the rest,as they say,is history.During all this time,we "quietly" nurtured the coming digital era,starting in 1984(when we got the Commodores).It was kinda cool to have stuff even before the rich guys did.

Sooooooooo,welcome to HITECH Operations & Systems

All are welcome here!

...at the beginning.