[QuadList] Quad News from "Down Under", Part 1 of 2

[Ted Langdell]

Good morning and hope everyone is having a good weekend.

I'm about to head to Denver with the flashscan Tour later this  
morning... stopping for breakfast in Reno with Tim Stoffel and try to  
sell him a VR-2000 using the Ampex VR-2000 salesman's flip book I  
snagged on ebay this week.

Will advise if I run across any Quad machines or archives with Quad  
in my travels, and try to post some pictures if possible.

Earlier this month...

I ran across the Broadcast Transfers website while looking for  
something on the web... and since there was a VR-2000 on the front  
page, I invited John to join our growing group.

Here's his reply:

On Feb 21, 2009, at 11:34 PM, John Flanagan wrote:
> Hi Ted,
>
> Sorry to take a while to answer your email. As a mostly one person  
> operation here in Australia, I don't get a lot of time to go "on  
> line". Adding to this were some recent computer problems, and with  
> extreme temperatures and wildfires also affecting my region lately,  
> it has been a difficult month. My website page you found recently  
> is just a token web presence, the transfer work to digital I  
> receive is "word of mouth" in this part of the (PAL) world.
>
> Congratulations to you and your US colleagues for the informative  
> material on your website, and to the discussions in your forums  
> about keeping your quads alive. I particularly sympathise with the  
> guys trying to get the AVR 1 working. We now have three AVR-1's,  
> one of which had been working until recently doing archiving at an  
> Australian TV channel. Time is the only reason it has not been  
> switched on lately to see if it is still ok. (Having two others  
> alongside is encouraging if we need parts)
>
> I started my working life operating quads and other analogue TV  
> gear in Australian broadcast TV in the late 1970's, doing several  
> trips to the USA looking at facilities there, mainly in LA. I left  
> the industry in the late 1980's and have only returned in the last  
> five years putting together a potential TV museum collection of  
> quads, one inch, and other formats, together with associated  
> superseded TV infrastructure (cameras, mixers etc). After being  
> approached to provide facilities for dubbing old tape formats to  
> digital, the museum collection has now become a transfer service  
> operating in both the Australian capital cities of Sydney and  
> Melbourne.
>
> We have specialised in Ampex machines, and have a complete example  
> of every quad model except the VR1000 and ACR 25. The number of  
> working machines depends on how much time we have to do  
> restoration, and the parts available from other donor machines of  
> the same model. Our main "workhorse" is the AVR 2 for 625 line PAL  
> high band colour, and the VR2000B for low band 625 line black and  
> white. We have nine AVR 2's (four working), and five VR 2000's  
> (only one working at present, a second one shortly we hope) spread  
> over the two locations.
>
> I'll try to contribute to your discussion group at a future time,  
> but for now I am most interested in who your Australian contributor  
> (that you mentioned) is. Do you know their name and location, as  
> that person could be a former colleague of mine from many years  
> ago. (Perhaps they are unaware of the work we are currently doing  
> here in Australia with quads.)
>
> Ted, carry on your great work in the land of the stars and stripes  
> (AKA the land of NTSC).
>
> Kindest Regards,
>
> John Flanagan
>
> Broadcast Transfers, Australia
>

So, there's your morning dose of Quad News. I'll have Part 2 up for  
your reading Sunday.

If you have a working facility and would like to post information  
about it, please feel free to do so.

Allan Dent... jump in from Adelaide!

Aside from being informative to the list, it will be accessible to  
those wonderful robots that scour the web for new pages to index, and  
make it possible for people searching for services to more likely  
find you.

I'd like to create a "Services" section on the website... but am  
finding that I need a clone to do so.  But that comes with a whole  
comedy routine of issues... not the least of which is whom my wife  
would be sleeping with on any given night.

So, in lieu of that for the time being... tell us about your  
facilities, your consulting services, or whatever else might be  
interesting. Include contact information so people can get ahold of you.

Whatever you're doing today, I hope it goes well and is fun.  If  
you're around High Voltage, please keep one hand in your back pocket.

Ted

Ted Langdell
Secretary for the  QuadVideotapeGroup.com:





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