In an effort to keep all their relatives working, the federal government engages in a variety of enterprises ranging from building rocketships to running a book company. This latter endeavor is classified as the U.S. Government Printing Office and every week they publish a sixteen page catalog devoted to the books and pamphlets they’re turning out. Their publications include such classics as Cheese In Family Meals (thirty pages, with pictures, for 20 cents); The Contemporary Cambodian (over 600 pages, hardbound, for $4.50); and A Practical Spanish Grammar for Border Patrol Officers (225 pages, no pictures, all for $1.25). You shouldn’t laugh — a number of their works are interesting and even helpful, and cover a wide variety of subjects from ecology to basketball. Prices start at about 15 cent$ and run to eight or nine dollars, depending on the number of pages you get, a lovely way to sell books.

If you’re interested in learning more about electronics, one recent list featured a number of handbooks on the subject at very reasonable prices, the most interesting being Electrical Fundamentals (almost 200 pages, illustrated, for $2; Item 63Z, code number 0820-0046). This bo6k was put together for military use and is, therefore, written to be understood by just about anybody with the ability to read. I’d recommend it as a basic text on the fundamental principles of electricity and electronics. The Printing Office has also done some books on how computers work, again from an introductory point of view, and even has manuals for electronics repairs you can do yourself. All of these works are well written and much cheaper than comparable stuff by normal publishers. If you’d like to get on the mailing list for their catalog, send a request to The Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402; tell them you’re a red blooded tax paying American and that you want them to send you their weekly Selected U.S. Government Publications.

In other news this month from the corporate state, it looks as if the quadrophonic systems battle is getting ready for the big showdown. At the moment both RCA and Columbia Records have their own quad, systems and they are not compatible. The Columbia system is known as SQ quad, while RCA has gotten together with some of the major Japanese companies to develop a quad system that has been more or less standardized by the Electronic Industry of Japan (EIAJ) under the title Regular Matrix or RM. This includes the Sansui system known as QS. (Jeeeeesus, are all these people crazy?)

Anyway, word from the front is that Warners — Elektra — Atlantic are very likely to go with the RCA/EIAJ/RM system. Meaning not so much that they’re siding with RCA in the quad systems battle as that they’re siding against Columbia. So, if you buy a quad amplifier and decoder to play Columbia’s SQ records, you’ll be out of luck if you want to play Atlantic’s RM quad records. Personally, I’m beginning to think that the whole quad thing is a load of shit and a waste of time and money. And I’ve actually gone to the trouble of figuring out what all these code names mean. But quad is something new and that means the possibility of new consumer dollars, so quad is still a reality.

Presuming that a) they all don’t give up and go back to mono; b) nobody invents a better system next week; and c) the Warners group of companies does go with the RM system ... well, allowing for all that, it is now fairly safe to buy a quad amplifier that has decoders for both RM and SQ. One such amp is the Pioneeer QA-800A which lists for $369.95. This is a really beautiful piece of equipment with enough knobs and switches so that you can set the controls for the heart of the sun and still have a few left over to play with on the way.

Among the interesting features of the QA-800A are a master volume control, plus individual level controls for each speaker; two phono inputs so that you can connect two turntables to the system if you want; two tape inputs so both a cassette and reel to reel machine can be hooked up simultaneously and you can make tape copies from one to the other through the amplifier; and four individual amplifiers with the two decoding circuits easily switched through a control on the front panel.

The QA-800A is a well designed piece of equipment that says a lot for Pioneer’s engineering staff. The controls are well laid-out on the front panel and they’ve supplied everything you will possibly need to adjust the sound to your ear.

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For those of you who want to add some new equipment to your hi-fi system but haverrt got more than $15 to do it with, I’d recommend the new Pickering PST-1 Stylus Timer, which'is available from Lafayette and other large electronics houses for a mere $13.95. This little battery operated device keeps track of your record changer’s stylus for you, measuring the amount of playing time the stylus gets and letting you know when the time has come to buy a new stylus. The PST-1 mounts right on your turntable and clocks the “weartime” of your needle. If you play records constantly, it’s a good little gadget to own, since it can save you from digging grooves in your records with a worn-out needle.

Static... Those fake four-channel sound from a stereo record boxes that started selling for $20 last year are now down to $5.95 (Argonne 4 Dimensional Hi-Fi Adaptor from Lafayette) which is much more in keeping with what they’re worth ... Four channel ear phones are being manufactured by a number of companies at from $40 to $50. They work, more or less ... A new TV magazine has been launched, called TVBE. $6 for 12 issues from TVBE, 1826 Spaight Street, Madison, Wisconsin, 53704 ... ABC Records has set-up a deal with Cartridge Television for distribution of video cassettes which means that your local record store may soon start carrying video software as well_