[QuadList] Helicals, Quads

Mon Feb 8 16:29:31 CST 2010

That is an amazing story. I had forgotten about the 7.5ips machines. I had experimented at the TV station I worked at (CITV in Edmonton Canada) with 7.5 ips on AVR-1's. We might have had an application but we also had an ACR25 and 3 other AVR-1's so it was not worth trying to have a mix of heads.

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Wayne Watson
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From: quadlist-bounces at quadvideotapegroup.com [mailto:quadlist-bounces at quadvideotapegroup.com] On Behalf Of georgenann at aol.com
Sent: Monday, February 08, 2010 2:58 PM
To: quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com
Subject: [QuadList] Helicals, Quads

I am impressed how so many of you guys remember not only the model numbers of the helical machines but some of the history of them. I always had trouble with model numbers, Revision Numbers, etc.
CBS only went so far as the BVH-2000's after the BVH-1100A's as far as I can remember, although there is one PAL VPR? not sure of the number, which fortunately has been working OK at least till I retired. There are a couple of BVH-3100's (?) around.  I don't know where they came from, perhaps a garage sale. They have the self threading feature.  I don't know anyone who had trouble with threading up tape and it seems like a lot of work to come up with one of those.  I didn't like working on them because of the keypad on them.  Almost everything I needed to do was by inputting codes from that damn keypad, even putting it into E-E.  Fortunately there was one maint. tech who would bail me out as she remembered the codes.  When she wasn't around it was a pain as the book was never in the same place twice.

Back to quads, before Ted fines us for chattering about helicals.

I ran into one neat machine.   It is an Ampex 1200-E with the flat deck.  It belonged to Charlie (Chubby) Salvato from Orange County, NY.  It was put together by AF Assoc.  They installed Volvo motor mounts on it with wheels so it could be rolled anywhere with just your fingertips.  It also had no Amtec, Colortec, Proc, etc.  They put in a CVS Digital TBC, I don't remember the number, but it had a "16" in it (I think).  CVS had a mod for it to work with Quads, it was a board which had to be installed in it.  I remember taking it to CVS to have it done for Chubby.

This was done around the time the AVR-2 came out.  Ampex propaganda had fotos of 2 people picking up the top deck then the TBC bay and showing how easy it was to move. Chubby bragged how easy this machine is to move.  A cavewoman could do it alone. He brought it to my home from time to time so I could tweak the servo, etc. We just rolled it in and out of his van easily. That was the only time I had a Quad in my garage.

It was so neat, it could be moved over bumps easily and when it stopped it would just sit there and rock back and forth a couple of times.  Then all you had to is plug it in the wall, put video in and record or take video from it, no need for sync gen. etc. (It still needed air). I asked him about it some time ago, he said he sold it to a TV station in P.R.

By the way Chubby was known for his "Fire Engine".  He had a big fire engine with a 70 ft. or so ladder on it on which he had a camera mount which he rented out for sport events.  Perhaps some of you have seen it.  Last I heard, his son was running it around for him.

There was a BVT-2000 connected to the the Ampex VR-2000's, before they were removed.  It was used for SCH purposes as it was feeding Betas and D-2's.  I tried feeding the BVT-2000 right out of the Demod, but it couldn't seem to handle the head switching.  I tried widening and increasing the switching suppression pulse but to no avail.

Another interesting thing, sometime in the 80's, my Navy Reserve unit was having a triple Retirement and Change of Command.  I was given the job of getting it done.  I was able to get the "Intrepid" in NYC for the ceremony.  While schmoozing  the museum curator we came across a room full of 2" video tapes.  He told me they were recordings of  flight ops. while she was in commission. (One of the early uses of video tape was recording flight ops on carriers so the pilots could watch their landings, and they still do.) Also that he wanted to get them dubbed to U-Matic as he wanted to use them in displays around the ship. (The machines they were recorded on were gone.) I forgot all about the first thing I learned in the Navy, "Never "Volunteer" and I offered to help him out.  I also forgot how heavy a 2" reel of tape can be after carrying them about a mile, from the Intrepid to CBS, and back but I needed the exercise. I thought I was in deep trouble with the first reel.  I found they were recorded at 7.5 IPS.  Would you believe we also found some 5 Mil heads on the ship which were in good shape.  I put one on the Quad near my shop and had good luck with it.  The only problem is they were ball bearing heads and made about 10 DB more noise than the air bearing heads do and I was trying to do this whole job un-noticed. Fortunately the maint. manager at time was interested in WWII planes as his father worked for Grumman designing some of them and let me get away with it for the small price of VHS copies of some of the tapes.  The tapes were fabulous. I managed to do about 50 reels for him. I don't know what model VTR they were made on.

73,

Georger Keller
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