[QuadList] Story - New member Background

Mon Oct 19 16:24:40 CDT 2009

Welcome aboard, Doug. I think you'll fit right in here!
Guy (TR-70 guy)
www.AnalogRetentive.com

Doug Bingley wrote:
>
> _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 
> <http://www.rock95.com> later followed by a Hot AC, /KOOL FM/ www. 
> <http://www.1075koolfm.com>1075koolfm.com <http://www.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 <http://www.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
> www.rock95.com <http://www.rock95.com/> www.1075.koolfm.com 
> <http://www.1075.koolfm.com/>
> PHONE 705-797-8701
> FAX 705 - 792-7858
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-- 
Guy Spiller
email: quadruplex at verizon.net
phone: (804) 379-2050
website: www.GuySpiller.com
Midlothian, VA