Re: Stancil-Hoffman & Nagra

Jimmy,

Thanks so much for all the information. I'm glad you found the website on the history of our company (I the third generation of Stancils to work there). My grandfather was Bill Stancil, one of the founders of Stancil-Hoffman, which eventually became just Stancil Corporation. He started just after WWII. The Germans did develop the technology for small tape recorders. We actually have one at the office that used paper tape. My grandfather got it from the dictator in Portugal(I think his name was Salazar) in exchange for setting up recorders at the Lisbon airport. Hitler used these machines to play his voice in bunkers so the Allies couldn't track down where he really was. It's spooky. It has all these markings of the Third Reich.

My grandfather did a lot of recording for Bing Crosby also, and worked in Hollywood until the war. He had the first U.S. patent for a mechanism to sync film and sound as they were being recorded on two different machines. He also worked for Disney (helped developed the very first, baby version of surround sound for Fantasia), and invented the first commercial portable tape recorder available to the general public. Now we primarily provide equipment for the military and public safety.

I asked my parents about Nagra, and they said it's a great company. As Stancil moved toward multi-channel recording, Nagra focused on perfecting the mechanics of miniature recording for location, which makes sense. It was just a little wish that maybe my grandfather had some involvement in I Spy. Thanks again for the info!

Cate