[QuadList] Story - New member Background

Mon Oct 19 17:10:02 CDT 2009

Hi Doug:

Welcome to the group!  I'll be glad to answer questions on your VR-1200B restoration.  It's remarkable that most of the machines from that era can usually be fairly easily revived.  Since they contain almost all discrete circuitry, repairs are often much simpler than some of the later models with IC's that are now classified as un-obtanium material.  Look forward to sharing your adventure!

Don Norwood
Digitrak Communications, Inc.
www.digitrakcom.com
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Doug Bingley 
  To: quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com 
  Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 4:03 PM
  Subject: [QuadList] Story - New member Background

  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.rock95.com later followed by a Hot AC, KOOL FM  www.1075koolfm.com in 2001. In 1994 I travelled to Russia and set up a JV radio station in St. Petersburg Radio Hits. 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 www.1075.koolfm.com
  PHONE 705-797-8701 
  FAX      705 - 792-7858

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