[QuadList] Super Stars etc

Sun Feb 7 00:49:26 CST 2010

George...

Where is his cigar!!  ;-)

73, Don

In a message dated 2/6/2010 12:33:00 P.M. Central Standard  Time, 
georgenann at aol.com writes:

-----Original  Message-----
From: W4wj at aol.com
To:  quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com
Sent: Sat, Feb 6, 2010 12:48 am
Subject:  Re: [QuadList] Super Stars etc

George...

Don (The Gorilla) Adamson, (K4FBP, Free Beer and  Pizza)...  Definitely 
always on his best when he could shoot one  across the bow!! 

hE SURE IS! 

Don left TVJ and went to work with the Hero  Teleproductions and 
teleport in Hialeah.  Hero was later bought out by GlobeCast.

I wasn't at that particular Super Stars  shoot...

BTW, one year, the tape bus was hit by a huge  wave as it was being
barged from the port of Palm Beach to  Nassau!!  The windows were
both blown out!!  What a  mess!!

DON TOLD ME ABOUT THE BUS, i SAW IT A WHILE BEFORE   IT WAS HIT.  I SEE HIM 
FROM TIME TO TIME AND WE ARE ALWAYS IN TOUCH VIA  E-MAIL.

AM INCLUDING A FOTO OF US IN THE HOT TUB HE HAS IN HIS  GARAGE.  I WONDER 
WHAT ALL THOSE BUBBLES ARE AROUND  HIM???

73,

GEORGE KELLER

Later...

73,

Don Murray, W4WJ
Fredericksburg, Texas

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

In a message dated 2/4/2010 12:54:52 P.M.  Central Standard Time, 
_georgenann at aol.com_ (mailto:georgenann at aol.com)   writes:

Guys,

RE: ACR blowers: CBS always had 3 or 4 spare  blowers on hand, they were 
rarely needed, also the machine shop rebuilt them  on a couple occasions. 
(Geniuses)

When all 6 ACR's went into the dumpster, I  gave a couple blowers to one of 
the guys for his organ. (The one that  makes music)! One of the guys in my 
shop grabbed the spare blower motor, for  his lathe.  One evening he came in 
with a suitcase in which he brought  it home on the LIRR.

I'm glad I retired before the blowers in the  Archive AVR-1's die.  I tried 
to set the position of the pulley on one  of them, but found someone had 
put too much "Locktite" on the setscrews in  the pulley.  I was able to loosen 
it by heating it with a small  blowtorch, but it is now frozen again and 
the setscrews are somewhat "Reamed  out". Not to worry, the guys in the 
machine have bailed maint. out of worse  situations.

My earlier comment about blanking widths was  not a joke, it was serious 
business. Back when the FCC had nothing better to  do than complain about 
blanking widths (Was it 10.7us??) one of the managers  who had heard some of the 
"Buzzwords" about it had a meeting with me in  which she asked me if the 
blanking was OK on all of the ACR's.  I  explained to her that the tape 
tensioning system on all of the ACR's was  very good, perfectly servo controlled 
so that if the widths were too short  it would put a little extra tension on 
the tape to make them a bit wider or  if they were too wide - less tension.  
She expressed great joy and  thanked me very much for my attention to this  
matter.

Oh yes! Some time later after CBS had put in  it's tape distribution 
facility, (Lots of dubbing machines, NTSC, PAL  conversions) which is supposed to 
be making lots of money,  I told her  that we needed Time Code converters 
for the PAL Digibets's, because "Over  there in Europe, where they use PAL, (I 
was pointing my finger twords New  Jersey) they use "Zulu Time" which is 
different than "American Time", and it  must be converted to "Zulu Time" or 
they can't use it there. She went to one  of the guys in Engineering and he 
told her that CBS ordered the Digibetas  with the Pal Time Code converter 
boards installed. Again she was quite  pleased.

Years ago I had the occasion to do a couple of  "Super Stars" shoots (ABC) 
with the crew from WTVJ who did the taping,  production, etc. I went with a 
rented VPR-2 for maint. This was the  first time a 1" tape machine was being 
used on the show. WTVJ's tape Guru  was one of the best in the business 
named Don, (K4FBP) who is about my best  friend.  He is also (almost) as good a 
joker as am I.  After we  got everything set up, there was sort of a 
production meeting in the tape  truck.  Don was standing off to one corner and 
spoke rather loudly to  the director and told him "You Had Better Watch Those 
Wide Shots". The  director did a double take and asked him "Why"? Don told 
him that we have a  1" machine in the truck and it can only handle the narrow 
angle shots. For a  brief moment the director stood frozen, as he hadn't 
expected this curve  ball.  Then he caught on and the whole truck broke  up.

There were also a bunch of BBC guys there and  that was the first time I 
tried the Time Code conversion gag, (On  them) but they were a sharp bunch and 
it didn't phase them at all, they  saw the humer, I think, but they have a 
very dry sense of humer to begin  with.

I'm sure I will burn in Hell for some of these  gags, if they have internet 
there, I will let you know what it is like. I am  used to this Global 
Warming so it may not be so bad.  HI

DE,

George  Keller

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