New Article by Dale Myers on Tippit

[Tom Gram]

3 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Yeah, that's the reason I wrote this in my post: "(Though that only works if the tape runs continuously.)"

 

 

Are you sure of that?

I did read and understood what you said about Myer's comment about the communication continually running right after the Tippit shooting. Makes sense.

 

I got it from this article on the dictabelt:

https://thekennedyhalfcentury.com/pdf/Kennedy-Half-Century-Audio-Research.pdf

It says that recording would stop upon cessation of signal plus a short time delay. I’d like to know how long the delay was but I don’t think it changes anything. 

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

See my previous comment. I’m not even sure that one second accuracy is possible for relative measurements. The dictabelt only recorded upon receiving a signal, so the only way to determine if recording was truly continuous within a particular span would be to compare expected time with recorded time between two timestamps.

Let’s say that 1:00 and 1:15 are called out by officers on the tape, and there is exactly 15 minutes of recorded audio between those two timestamps. Each timestamp is only precise to the minute, so the actual time between the stamps could range from about 12:59:30 to 1:15:30, or 1:00:30 to 1:14:30, so 14-16 minutes. Thus even with exactly 15 minutes of recorded audio, you’d  still have a 1-minute error margin for any stopwatch measurement of events between the 1:00 and 1:15 timestamps.

Disclaimer: I might be wrong here, so if I’m interpreting this incorrectly let me know. 

Also, you are correct about what Myers claimed. I don’t know if he updated the article, but his initial wording was that his calculated times actually represented real times broadcast on the tape. I’m pretty sure I quoted it in an earlier comment. 

 

The 1-second-accuracy works only when the Dictabelt is running continuously. But that accuracy isn't for absolute time (i.e. time-of-day), it's only for relative times between two events recorded on tape. For example, suppose the recording includes these events:

Disp:  10-4 good buddy, 1:30     [Disp is the dispatcher]

602:  Code 5.     [602 is an ambulance]

Myers dutifully measures 15 seconds with his stopwatch from the time the dispatcher says "1:30" till the time the ambulance says "Code 5."

So what Meyers does is this: He says that the ambulance said "Code 5" at 1:30:15. Of course this is nonsense because the precision of the 1:30 vocal timestamps is 1 minute, not one second.

However, what Myers could correctly say is that the ambulance said "Code 5" 15 seconds after the dispatcher said "10-4-good buddy." Yes, that has a one second accuracy. But only if the Dictabelt ran continuously during those 15 seconds.

(I apologize if you already understood all this. I think you did but not sure.)

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

15 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

I got it from this article on the dictabelt:

https://thekennedyhalfcentury.com/pdf/Kennedy-Half-Century-Audio-Research.pdf

It says that recording would stop upon cessation of signal plus a short time delay. I’d like to know how long the delay was but I don’t think it changes anything. 

 

Thanks, that's good to know.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Good one Sandy.  

So what you are saying is that Myer's so called Linear progression or whatever it is, is kind of based on a foundation of sand.

[Sandy Larsen]

22 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Good one Sandy.  

So what you are saying is that Myer's so called Linear progression or whatever it is, is kind of based on a foundation of sand.

 

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. I think he's just trying to dazzle people with his talk of linear regression and one-second time resolutions.

But to be fair to Myers -- if somehow he is sure that the Dictabelt ran continuously right after the Tippit shooting -- it could be useful to see his measured (with a stopwatch) timestamps for events that occur between the vocal timestamps. Although for me it would make no difference because I'm convinced the Dictabelts have been altered.

 

[Ian Lloyd]

Would still be good to know what type of clock was being used in the dispatcher's room - analogue or digital. If digital, then the time stamps could always be 59 seconds out either way just on that clock, if analogue, it may be worse as it is likely to be less accurate, the times could me estimations by the reader and, depending on the clock location relative to the person reading it, parallax error could also be introduced.

[Ian Lloyd]

How reliable was the dictabelt? Did it always start/stop reliably based on signals? There's a "Long pause of about 15 seconds" noted in a transcript - what's that?

Some more information:

The Dallas Police Department's Channel 1 Dictabelts: The Chain of Possession (jfk-assassination.net)

[Steve Roe]

8 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Yes, it IS true! Don't ever call me a li@r again!

Sandy, was this comment really necessary? 

[Tom Gram]

7 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

The 1-second-accuracy works only when the Dictabelt is running continuously. But that accuracy isn't for absolute time (i.e. time-of-day), it's only for relative times between two events recorded on tape. For example, suppose the recording includes these events:

Disp:  10-4 good buddy, 1:30     [Disp is the dispatcher]

602:  Code 5.     [602 is an ambulance]

Myers dutifully measures 15 seconds with his stopwatch from the time the dispatcher says "1:30" till the time the ambulance says "Code 5."

So what Meyers does is this: He says that the ambulance said "Code 5" at 1:30:15. Of course this is nonsense because the precision of the 1:30 vocal timestamps is 1 minute, not one second.

However, what Myers could correctly say is that the ambulance said "Code 5" 15 seconds after the dispatcher said "10-4-good buddy." Yes, that has a one second accuracy. But only if the Dictabelt ran continuously during those 15 seconds.

(I apologize if you already understood all this. I think you did but not sure.)

 

Spot on. This is exactly what I’m wondering about too. How would you know that the tape really ran continuously between those two transmissions? As per my previous comment, it seems like the only way to know would be comparing recorded time to expected time between two called-out timestamps - and even with a perfect match you’d still have a 1-minute error in any relative measurement.  

I’d have to listen to the tape to see if there are any other clues to continuity. I think Myers’ claims of accuracy are strictly based on his dubious “anchors” method, and I’m pretty sure he’s way underestimating the error in his calculations. I could be missing something though. 

[Bill Brown]

18 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Yes, it IS true! Don't ever call me a li@r again!

Though I see that Myers has put our exchange back up. Plus he put up my reply to his, the one that appeared to be blocked. (Because his website gave no indication that I submitted it and merely reloaded the page. Unlike with my first submission.)

 

I did not call you a "li@r".  I only said that your statement wasn't true.  Roy Vaughn said Ruby didn't go down the Main Street ramp.  He wasn't lying.  He was just wrong.

[Sandy Larsen]

22 hours ago, Steve Roe said:

On 7/24/2022 at 10:16 PM, Sandy Larsen said:

Yes, it IS true! Don't ever call me a li@r again!

Sandy, was this comment really necessary? 

 

Why do you ask? Did you find it offensive?

Well I am offended when I say something happened to me and someone in response claims that it didn't. (Because he didn't see it.) That is the same as calling me the l. word, which is what Bill assumed.

In contrast, DVP took the appropriate measure and informed me that he could still see the exchange. (It had been reposted.)

 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

12 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

I did not call you a "li@r".  I only said that your statement wasn't true.

 

I was the witness to what happened and it happened to me. I stated so. Your saying that "it simply isn't true" was the same as saying I lied.

 

12 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Roy Vaughn said Ruby didn't go down the Main Street ramp.  He wasn't lying.  He was just wrong.

 

Just to be clear, I was right when I said that Myers had removed our exchange. That Myers later reposted our exchange doesn't change that fact.

 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Sandy Larsen

[Tony Rose]

On 7/20/2022 at 10:41 PM, Tom Gram said:

Honest question(s). Myers in his article states the following:

“But this can't possibly be true either, since the recordings also show the time the ambulance left the parking lot at Dudley Hughes and arrived at the Tippit shooting scene two blocks away – 1:18:38 and 1:18:59 p.m. respectively. These transmissions were made by the attendants themselves in real time, so there is no question as to the accuracy of both.” [Emphasis added]

Myers’ description of the dictabelt analysis in his book seems to contradict this. Here are a few examples from With Malice:

Relating the recordings to exact times was a problem in itself. Although dispatchers were obligated to give periodic time checks, there is no precise way to relate the “broadcast time” with “real” time. 

Myers goes on to describe how he got around this inherent property of the dictabelt:

Former dispatch supervisor Jim Bowles used a stop watch and some mathematics to deduce a “real” time from the police recordings by comparing an arbitrary zero base-time with the recorded time announcements that followed. A similar technique was applied to the entire channel one recordings for this book…

…It should be stressed that the recording contains no exact record of “real time”…By applying a stop watch and some mathematics to the channel one recordings, and comparing the resulting sequence of events with the eyewitness accounts, a reasonably accurate reconstruction of the Tippit murder and it’s aftermath was possible.

So it looks like the transmissions were not actually made in “real time” but the times were calculated by Myers using a similar method to Jim Bowles consisting of a stop-watch and some mathematics. Am I wrong? Was Myers thus being (gasp) deceptive in his article by stating that the transmissions were made in real time, and that there is no question as to their down-to-the-second accuracy? 

Has anyone examined Myers’ “stop watch and some mathematics” method? Have they been able to replicate Myers’ calculations?

Forgive me if I’m missing something, but these seem like pretty reasonable questions to ask. 

Weren't the Dictabelt machines voice activated?  No amount of "stop-watch and some mathematics" will give an accurate synchronization if you don't know how long the machine was paused.

[Tom Gram]

2 hours ago, Tony Rose said:

Weren't the Dictabelt machines voice activated?  No amount of "stop-watch and some mathematics" will give an accurate synchronization if you don't know how long the machine was paused.

Exactly. See my last few comments in this thread. I'm pretty sure that Myers severely underestimated the error in his calculations, but I would need to study Myers' math to be certain.

However, as far as I know, Myers has not published the specific methodology he used to arrive at his down-to-the-second times. He mentions the use of a linear regression in conjunction with so-called "anchors", which are times that are reported elsewhere he used to corroborate his calculations, but he has not published the actual mathematics. Thus it is impossible to review and/or duplicate his work on the dictabelt. Considering what happened with Myers' single bullet animation (see patspeer.com, chapter 12c), this lack of transparency is a bit concerning.

[James DiEugenio]

Tom:

As Don Thomas said, and proved, Myers did the same thing on TV with the acoustics evidence.  He did not reveal his precise formula in his effort to discredit that evidence.. (Hear No Evil, p. 676).

When he did, it turned out that what he said on TV for ABC was, to be mild, a little bit off. (ibid, p. 680)