I hope you all had a great summer even though the weather was peculiar. I will be on my way back to New York in a few weeks. With this move, and my going back and forth from New York to Vermont, sometimes I lose email, forget notes that I wrote, or screw up in some other way. So…please remind me if I forget to answer a request or send out something I promised. If I don't answer an e-mail, please send me another! ak

Greetings, Mr. Henn; I thought I'd give you an update as to our progress in coming back up to speed, and tell you of a development which may be of interest to Schober owners: A great deal remains to be done, but progress is being made. Additions and changes are being made to the catalog design daily, and we're hoping for a November/December introduction and website launch. Here's a piece of news that is especially for the Schober folks. Your last message asked us to keep the Schober enthusiasts and kit builders in mind, and we were listening: we are re-introducing the 243-3 (sawtooth) and 243-4 (square-wave) generator kits. We've located a reliable supplier for the MO86 TOS IC, and have ample quantities of the TDA1008 ICs on hand. We currently have a limited supply of the 243 boards in stock, but are re-drafting and re-ordering them, but be aware that the lead cycle is quite long (45-60 days) The 251 voice motherboards and voices are also now available again. We're also pleased to say that we've been able to keep the Devtronix pricing in place. Obviously, there will be much more info on the website and in the catalog, but I thought you'd enjoy the "advanced word." Best always, Mark Voorhees

It's a mark of the impact it made on me that two of the pieces I made a point of studying in later years were Bach's "In Dir Ist Freude" and the Pachelbel "Gigue" fugue, two pieces I first heard on that record. And I remember Richard Dorf's friendly voice on the album, extolling the Theatre organ's really "nasty" reeds, and talking about Jim having "a bit of fun" with the Reverbatape unit, turning it right up to full at the end of one of the pieces. But I was just a child, and I had neither the money, time nor skill actually to buy and build the Recital organ. Now, aged 34, I'm a journalist in London, writing mainly for the Sunday Times newspaper. I'm currently in the middle of a piece about the very special pipe organ in London's Royal Festival Hall, which has just been restored, and last week I had the privilege of playing it. Anyway, for some reason, I suddenly just remembered my childhood love affair with the idea of owning a Schober organ, and did a search on the web. I thought: damn it all, perhaps now I can make a start on that organ-building project of 22 years ago. And here you are: the Schober Organ Orphans! I guess I'm one, too - an Orphan, that is - even though I never actually built a Schober organ. Schober, rest in peace. I send my very best regards, wishes and fellow-feeling to you and all your members. You have done something which, as a child, I always dreamed of doing myself. Congratulations, and I wish you great joy of your Schober organs for many years to come. Michael Wright

Hi As one of the newest members of the Schober Organ Orphans I thought I should introduce my self and give you a little history of how I became an orphan. I am a retired engineer who spent most of his life working on missile systems for the US Navy. I always liked theater organs but as a kid growing up in Brooklyn had little hope of ever having one As a young man with a wife who was very understanding I undertook the building of a Schober Consolette II in 1965. My hope was that I could make it sound like a theater organ. Unfortunately the Schober theater organ was not out yet. At the same time a friend of mine (also a theater organ nut) started building an Artisan Organ kit. After a lot of fooling around with voicing I concluded his organ sounded more realistic than mine (no key clicks, realistic attack, and chorus effect). So in 1968 I sold my Schober and started building an Artisan. For those who are unfamiliar with Artisan organs, they are like Allen's in that they use individual oscillators and have keyboards wired like a pipe organ. I completed the console (not from Artisan parts but using the suppliers in Dorf's book), and was about to start the purchase of the electronics when another friend said why not buy a pipe organ. So I did! I bought a 1923 E M Skinner eight rank organ for $500. The kid from Brooklyn had a pipe organ. The sound was most realistic. I moved to Florida in 1970 taking the organ with me. While in Florida I had the good fortune to have Reginald Foort play a concert for ATOS in my home on my organ. In 1972 I moved back to Long Island NY. Both moves were company paid, pipe organ and all. As one personnel director said, " of course we will move it - we have moved pianos before". For those who don't know the size of an eight rank organ it takes up the space of a one-car garage. Well I had that organ for over twenty years. As retirement loomed on the horizon I began to feel the organ was an anchor should I decide to move (which I haven't). I sold that organ leaving me nothing to play. After a few years I started looking for a small electronic organ to play, and Ebay came to the rescue. I found a Schober Consolette II for free. A Schober theater organ would have been better but how could I resist. So now I too am a Schober Organ Orphan .

"I started repairing radios about 1947 in a back room of our apartment, after taking the NRI radio course. My first job was in a machine shop for about three years. Got tired of getting greasy all the time, but learned a lot of useful skills that I still use. Then I got a job with Sears Roebuck repairing radios and stayed there about a dozen years before starting my own business. After fifteen years of trying to make a living repairing things, I got a franchise from Radio Shack and opened the first franchise store in South Dakota. That did pretty well and I operated that for another fifteen years. Then it was time to retire. I still fiddle with electronic stuff and have acquired several newer test instruments from Ebay. I have lots better equipment now than when I was in the business!" Alan started to build his Consolette II in the early seventies. "I built the cabinet from ¾" particle board with walnut veneer glued on. It weighs about a ton, but it looks pretty good."

Alan had not bought the stop switches when Schober folded, so he had to make his own. "I contrived those draw knobs (see photo #1) after Schober went out of business and I had not finished the organ yet. I was always short of money in those days. It was quite a job to make all those drawknobs, but luckily I had a metal lathe to turn the knobs from acrylic plastic, and the rest of it. I just got tired of seeing those rather antique looking knobs, although they worked well. I like the new switches better, (see photo #2) they give a more modern look to the organ, but they don't sound any better (ha)."

"I actually had Recital plug-in stops, 5 for the swell and 2 for the great keyboard. I got the PC cards from Schober, the sockets are standard edgemount parts available from Allied Radio etc. Back when I did all this, seems like I had lots more time than money and I enjoyed modifying everything. I even made a complex set of seven or eight slide switches to couple various sections of the manuals together. That was a lot of wiring, but not worth the effort. You may remember some Schober owner sent that idea to the company a long time ago."

"I found after a while that there were not an infinite variety of sounds that I could come up with using the plug ins, or I just got tired of tinkering with them. Now I find that just using the original Schober voicing satisfies me. I guess they knew what they were doing when they voiced those stops; or I am not as fussy as I used to be." Alan had heart surgery May 19. He is doing well. "The sad thing is that since a bought a Yamaha keyboard, I rarely sit down to play the organ. Too lazy to push the bass pedals I guess. I have been using the keyboard to play at nursing homes with my small musical group. Banjo and drum plus me. I always played the accordion (Hohner 96 bass), but since my heart operation, the accordion is too heavy, all the strain on the chest muscles. Maybe in a few months I can get back to the belly Baldwin."

Ten years ago Alan bought a 1938 Ford which he just about finished restoring. He sent me a photo; it looks great. "It represents many hours of sweat, skinned knuckles, cursing and many dollars in costly parts. It was literally a wreck when I paid $200 for it 10 years ago. I regretted that purchase a thousand times, but now it's just about finished and yes, it runs fine." Alan is looking for a PRCN-3/PRRN-3 percussion board for his Consolette, does anyone have one? ak

The "mystery" box was marked:

Figure 1 is a schematic of the entire speaker system including the HF-1. Figure 2 is a schematic of the speaker system without the HF-1. The X marks the place where the connection is severed when an HF-1 is installed. Figure 3 is a schematic of the "mystery" box.

I measured the inductor with an inductance meter since it had no markings. (L3, .374 mH). The capacitor (C3) was marked: PAKTRON, 2.80 mf. +/-20% 100V. The variable resistor (R1)was marked 46121 1000 137 742 it measured 100 Ohms.

L1 7.5mh Schober part #033075 L2 2.5mh #033025 L3 .374mh measured value C1 60 mfd Schober part # 02505 C2 60 mfd # 02505 C3 2.80 mfd marked R1 100 Ohms measured value ak

Consolette

Concert

Recital

Partial Recital

Recital

Wanted

For Sale

Please address all Correspondence to: Alexander Kruedener 161 East 89 Street, Apt. 4E New York, NY 10128 (212) 831-0662 Kruedener@juno.com