Command Performance On Your Boat's Radio

[Von Manteuffel]

COMMAND PERFORMANCE

IF YOU DO NOT EDIT YOUR RADIO.INI, THIS MOD WILL NOT WORK.

Command Performance contains 90 shows, approximately 30 minutes in length ( Christmas and other Specials are longer)

Shows are broadcast at 20.00 on the 5th and 19th of each month from January 5th 1942 to July 19th 1945. The Christmas specials - the 19th December show in 1942, 1943 &1944 - range between 1 hour (1942 ) and 2 hours (1944).

The 5th & 19th broadcast pattern is changed after July 19th, 1945 to enable inclusion of the “Victory in Europe “ Special on the day it was actually transmitted – 14.08.45. The next programme is on 24.08.45, followed by the VJ Special, again on the actual broadcast date – 02.09.45. All are at 20.00.

Command Performance was produced by the American Forces Radio Service out of Los Angeles. The show’s original Producer went to the Head of the Station with the idea for a show whose contents were based on requests from U.S. servicemen abroad. Soldiers, sailors and airmen would write-in saying who they would like to hear – singers, bands, Hollywood stars etc – and the artists would be invited to perform. “Invited, Hell!” said the Station Head, “We’ll command them to perform!” and so the show was born. It ran from early 1942 to 1949 and featured most of the household names in music, comedy and Hollywood of the time.

Command Performance was designed as an unashamed morale-booster and the biggest names in entertainment, when requested, made every effort to appear, rather than disappoint “the boys over there.”

The shows follow the same generic format, but the emphasis ( music / comedy ) depends on the guest stars. Since all the acts were requests from servicemen overseas there are lots of references to individuals in the different branches of the service in all parts of the world. This IMHO really adds to the immersion.

If you want to increase the number of plays for each show, you’ll need to edit the events.ini file to include repeats ( say on the 12th for the shows from the 5th and the 26th for the shows from the 19th ) It’s a fairly straightforward process.

I’m afraid the whole thing’s a bit hefty, coming in at around 500 MB uncompressed. (but you are getting nearly 50 hours of genuine, wartime radio, designed specifically for servicemen.)

The mod is JSGME format. Non-JSGME users, please see the READ ME file with the download. Whether using JSGME, or not you will have to edit your own radio.ini file so you don’t clash with any other radio mods you might have. You will need to add the following to your radio.ini found in \data\sound\radio

;COMMAND PERFORMANCE
;==========================

[CHANNEL]
Name=Command Performance
Folder=AFRS
Freq=XXX
Antenna=01.01.1930-01.01.2000:13.35,142.20:100000

;==========================

You’ll have to enter your own frequency, replacing “XXX.” If you have other radio stations already in your radio.ini file, remember that the frequencies of the different stations must be within the file in numerical order and it’s best to have a gap of at least 10 between adjacent frequencies.

The easiest solution is to paste this new channel at the bottom of the list. For the frequency number, look at the frequency of the previous station and add 10 to it to get the freq number for this station. Frequencies go from 1 to 1000, but if, like me, you have a large number of radio stations in SHIV, it can be a bit of a bind tuning your way up station by station.

If you want a different frequency, you can paste this entry in between other stations and select an appropriate frequency in between those stations. Make sure to have the stations ordered by frequency in the radio.ini. For example if you make this station's frequency=23, do not paste it before stations lower than 23 nor after stations higher than 23. Remember to space them roughly 10 frequencies apart.

If you don't use JSGME, just drop the AFRS folder in \data\sound\radio and make sure to edit the radio.ini as instructed.

You can put music files in \data\sound\radio\AFRS if you want (these files will play randomly on the station), but currently that music will overlap with the Command Performance shows when they’re transmitted making them hard to hear. The next patch should allow for a fix for this issue.

Finally a huge thank you to tedhealy for his invaluable and patient help and guidance and for the ground-breaking work he’s done and continues to do for the benefit of the Subsim community.

Here’s the download link:



http://hosted.filefront.com/ddudley/



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