[QuadList] South Carolina ETV was (Quad on the Air!) now Dage520

[Gideon4]

Hi all,

This is my first reply to the list, I have been reading it for a few weeks
now. I run a virtual TV camera museum in the UK www.tvcameramuseum.org It is
an ongoing project I write a few more pages as and when I can.

I have a number of VTRs in the physical collection, A pair of Ampex VPR3s
with Zeus TBCs, A pair of Marconi MBR2s, these are Marconi clones of the
VPR2s and a AVR1, as well as a sprinkling of umatics. There are loads of
cameras as well.

I would like to thank Dale for the information about the Dage cameras. I too
have been looking for the info on the 520. The Dage section of my website is
mostly complete so this is useful info to add.
http://www.tvcameramuseum.org/dage/dage_thumbnails.htm

Thanks Brian Summers
  -----Original Message-----
  From: quadlist-bounces at quadvideotapegroup.com
[mailto:quadlist-bounces at quadvideotapegroup.com]On Behalf Of Dale Lamm
  Sent: 13 January 2010 06:44
  To: Quad List
  Subject: Re: [QuadList] South Carolina ETV was (Quad on the Air!) now
Dage520


  [snip]

  I need  model # of this, I need  manuals...  would be  fin to have the
rest of the guts... has a big ass plug that hooks to a ccu...  also need
tripods and pedestals  for them and i want to set one of the camera up with
a full turret of lenses  so we need  lenses to fit it... but most of all....
wanna  hear how these were used and where and maybe some stills of them in
use.

  [end]

  Those are Dage 520's. They were mono Vidicon cameras. This is confirmed by
7735 tube type numbers in one of your pix. My understanding is that Dage
equipment was popular with educational institutions. The company I once
worked for (both a UHF broadcaster and an equipment dealer) sold Dage and
other brands to colleges. We even used a pair of them on our B & W remote
unit, along with a Dynair switcher, Riker sync gen and RCA TR-5 quad. Back
in 1970, this wasn't too bad a setup for a small town station. The color
truck had PC-70's.

  That big connector has been around at least since the days of a TK-11
camera. Nearly every domestic camera maker with split camera-CCU used it. In
the color realm, it was TV-81 and TV-85 nomenclature, IIRC. The CCU's you
seek are just 2RU tall. Dage could take a zoom lens, as your pix show. We
only had one of those, the second 520 used C-mount fixed lenses.

  520's weren't too heavy. One person could place them on a Hercules tripod
easily. Being Vidicon, they were almost unusable doing night high-school
football games at your typical 1970's era stadium. Pretty much a daytime
camera. I am still amazed that our sales department could line up any
sponsors for some of the horrible quality tape we dragged back to the studio
after shooting a Friday night football game. Towards the end of their life
at our station, the best 520 got to be the scoreboard camera in the color
truck. Hardly a glorious end to one's career.

  To a kid of 17 working his first job in broadcasting, a 520 was a
magnificent triumph of engineering, exceeded only by a quad tape machine.
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