[QuadList] Story - New member Background

[Doug Bingley]

Doug Bingley – Introduction

Hello to all – Here is a bit of my background:

High school – Ham radio. Took many radios and TV’s apart. Put a few back
together. Developed a healthy respect for high voltage...

1971 – Enrolled in Electrical Engineering, I snagged the summer job to end
all summer jobs - I heard that TVOntario, the provincial Education
television network wanted someone with experience on VTR’s, so I dropped
into my old high school and talked the AV tech into showing me how to lace
up a 1” Ampex. Armed with that extensive experience I got a job maintaining
and setting up small format VTR’s and studio equipment. We had some of the
earliest skip-field Sony’s, 1” Sony’s, Panasonic, Shibaden, IVC etc. When
they broke, I took them apart, put most of them back together. (Mechanical
problems seemed to dominate) This was all leading edge technology. Imagine a
Porta-pak weighing only 20 pounds!

1972- Back for a second summer. Now EIAJ and colour ½” were king. The techs
found out that Sony was holding a hospitality event where there would be
free beer. When we showed up Sony unveiled the first videocassette. It was a
monster; about twice the size of a ½ inch reel to reel machine. They had the
lid off of the demo unit and when we saw the mechanical gyrations involved
in threading up the tape all of us concluded that it would surely jam up and
videocassettes would go nowhere: An open reel tape was so easy to thread,
why would you need the complications? We went back to drinking Sony’s beer.
( First Forrest Gump moment)

1973 Too much beer. Dropped out of engineering and got a job in master
control atTVO. Rotated between switcher, telecine and tape. We used VR
1200’s with an RCA TR3 thrown in for comic relief. The TR3 would lock up
somewhere between 7 and 9 ½ seconds, making things very exciting when
switching since we used a 10 second roll. Learned many great things
including how to clear an on-air head clog with your fingernail
before you
maintenance types start to twitch it was better than one poor guy who
thought he’d clean the head on-air with a Kim-Wipe. When he called in
maintenance his comment was “I dunno, it just stopped spinning.”

Moved to editing, working with VR2000’s with manual PP editors (push and
pray) and then Editec, then RCA TR70’s with EECO editors. We also used RCA
TR4’s for dubbing. My main fear was that one day I would forget to switch to
edit mode on the Editec and would go into hard record when I hit record/play
for the actual edit. One day it happened – the day that I was taking a
studio feed and the whole crew was waiting to see how my insert went..After
that I previewed the edit, triple checked I was in insert mode, hit play and
only hit record/play at the last possible second. Never happened again.

1976 – CBC television – VR2000’s date coded 1967 with Editec, AVR1’s with
Ampex editors, and most amazing the ACR 25’s for on-air playback of news
items. It was always exciting when a feed came in late and I had to record
on one deck while the other deck was on-air. I still remember the gulping
Thoonk sound they made when loading a tape. 

I remember one night I was working with Mike Newell, a young freelance
English producer, on a two hour drama. It was not a good night. Everyone was
tired and the AVR1’s were very poorly maintained, meaning that every once in
a while instead of stopping happily from fast forward they would barf tape
all over the floor. At about two in the morning, the producer realized that
half the shots he was using were from the wrong take. He was so frustrated
that he punched the door (better that than the PA,) only to discover that
the door was lead-lined. He turned white,”Gawd I shouldn’t have done that,”
but we worked for another couple of hours correcting the errors. He showed
up the next day with a cast on his hand. (Second Forrest Gump moment).. Mike
went on to bigger things: Four Weddings and  Funeral, Harry Potter and
Goblet of Fire, etc., but I’ll always remember him as the only guy who broke
his hand during an edit session.

By this time I had married to my dream girl. My new wife worked in Master
Control and could handle tapes with the best of them. Our first son was born
and money was tight so I took a job selling Life Insurance. 

Later I moved on to Bell Canada selling Datacomm products. In 1981 we could
provide email and an integrated telephone and data terminal. Shortly after
that we added access to networks, online shopping, etc. No one wanted any of
it.(another Forrest Gump coming..) A few years later the President of the
United States started to carry a little one of those voice and data
terminals around in his pocket and now everyone wants to send email, and..
that’s all I’m going to say, etc. 

During this period my wife, Pat went back to work first as an ENG editor at
CFTO TV and later, after a bitter strike, back to her old job at TVO in
master control. I wandered in one day in late 1984 and she let me line up
and cue an on-air show. The crew chief was a bit nervous that some guy in a
suit had just cued up the next item to go to air. That was the last time I
operated a quad machine. (come to think of it the shop steward probably
would have ben a bit miffed as well.) 

In 1986 I decided I wanted to get back into broadcasting so I applied for an
FM licence in Barrie, Ontario, about 60 miles north of Toronto. We launched
Rock 95 in 1988, www. <http://www.rock95.com> rock95.com later followed by a
Hot AC, KOOL FM  www. <http://www.1075koolfm.com> 1075koolfm.com in 2001. In
1994 I travelled to Russia and set up a JV radio station in St. Petersburg
Radio Hits. www. <http://www.Radiohit.ru> Radiohit.ru  I’m still the
president of the company and GM of the Canadian stations. (No Bubba Shrimp
Co., but it will have to do..) 

Our youngest son is carrying on the family tradition. He is working for CBC
as a freelance writer/producer and last year did some reporting from
Canada’s far north.

The last few years I have been restoring some boat-anchor radios, but some
of my fondest memories involve working as a tape editor. I have a line on a
VR1200B and I hope to restore it. It’s great to find your user group since,
as compared to fixing an old radio, restoring a 40 year old machine can be a
daunting project. Perhaps some of you can help out with a bit of advice
(not, “run while you can,” I hope)  

I’ve also enjoyed the great videos on restoring a VR1200 on Youtube. It all
looks so easy in high speed
 I’m not sure who that is in the video, but in
addition to his obvious technical skills he has a great set o pipes!

I’ll keep you all posted as the project progresses.
 
Cheers,
 
Doug Bingley
President
Central Ontario Broadcasting Ltd.
431 Huronia Road, Unit 10
Barrie, Ontario L4N 9B3
 <http://www.rock95.com/> www.rock95.com  <http://www.1075.koolfm.com/>
www.1075.koolfm.com
PHONE 705-797-8701 
FAX      705 - 792-7858
 
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