[QuadList] Helicals, Quads

Mon Feb 8 16:04:52 CST 2010

George...

WCIX-TV in Miami had a 1200E that was not only used direct to  air
from the studio, but it fit neatly in our Cortez Motor  home.  We could
record in motion with the GE PE250 that was mounted up  front!

Very neat machine!!

73,

Don Murray, W4WJ
Fredericksburg,  Texas

Retired from 40 years in Miami TV
35+ years at NBC O&O WTVJ  

In a message dated 2/8/2010 3:58:26 P.M. Central Standard Time,  
georgenann at aol.com writes:

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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