[QuadList] story and introduction: AVR-1 tape shredding

[William R. Short]

This recent discussion about AVR-1's shredding tape prompted me to de-lurk.

An introduction:  In high school and college days, I worked during summers 
and school vacations for WHEN AM and TV, the CBS affiliate in 
Syracuse.  One of the duties was video tape operation and maintenance.

The summer I first started working, the station had 4 VR-1000's with 
varying levels of modifications and updates.  The last summer, they had 
three AVR-1's and one ACR-25, which remains the most amazing 
electro-mechanical contraption with which I have ever worked.

And that was the end of my experience with television broadcasting and quad 
tape.  My career after school took me in other directions.

My AVR-1 tape shredding experience had nothing to do with strobe 
lights.  At the time, the program Lassie was syndicated, and the 
distributor required that all stations play the same episode 
simultaneously.  They sent it out on tape, and local stations were required 
to dupe it and send the original on to the next station, so that everyone 
could play their dupes on the assigned airdate.

While duping from one AVR-1 to another, I heard a bad noise from the 
machine playing the master, saw a bunch of red lights, and no more playback 
on the monitor.  The tape had been severed.

A post-mortem showed nothing.  The only thing out of the ordinary was a 
piece of hold-down tape lying on the edge of vacuum column, not the normal 
place for one of those.

The tape was deformed on either side of the break.  I cut out some, spliced 
it (the first and last time I've ever done that, since even the VR-1000 at 
the station had an Editec), and restarted the duping process.  It didn't 
look pretty on the monitor when the splice passed the head.

So, what happened?  Did the hold-down tape fall off the overhead monitor 
bridge (where folks often stuck them) and gum up the works?  That was 
always my theory.  Did the previous station in the circuit damage the tape 
and not bother to leave a note in the shipping case?

It never occurred to me that a servo might have gone haywire until reading 
some of the discussion here.  I always thought my experience was an 
anomaly, and that AVR-1's were very gentle on tape until I read the 
comments here.

Best regards,
Bill Short