[QuadList] Another disaster

Sat Jan 30 11:51:50 CST 2010

Park,

That is somewhat common, remember the false start thing happening, but don't remember when.

CBS had big problem with RW,FF back when the 1100's first started.  They were interfaced to the plant "Master Exchange Switcher" (MAX) thru a tray of interface boards each of which had it's own function.  Two boards were exactly the same, but one was Play/stop the other was FF/RW. These boards had a miswire/design problem in which the input optocoupler was improperly wired/designed.  Frequently an on air machine would go into FF or RW by it 'self or even stop.  After we figured it was a interface board problem engineering said just pull the FF/RW interface boards out since we don't do FF/RW from any studios it will be OK. They disabled the stop function for the same reason. But kept the "Play" function.

I checked many of the opto couplers and kept finding out that they were all bad.  Infact they would blow the first time they received a "go" command from a studio, but they were so wired that they would not only blow, but developed a short thru the opto xsistor in the coupler so the machine would start and of course losing whe isolation of the coupler..  A 5 minute rewiring fix took care of the whole problem although nobody would admit there was a problem in the first place.

Another funny thing was during a transfer to ACR cassette there was a commercial, it may have been a credit card with purchase insurance attached to it in which it cuts to a TV screen in "Hash".  It sure looked like the machine was having trouble, all I saw was the ACR playback at first, then I looked at the original and even then it took a while to realize that lit was supposed to be that way. This killed half a day.

73,

George Keller

-----Original Message-----
From: C. Park Seward <park at videopark.com>
To: Quad List <quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com>
Sent: Sat, Jan 30, 2010 12:10 pm
Subject: Re: [QuadList] Another disaster

I actually have a rewind story.

Press event, Disneyland. Japanese crew rushes into the mobile unit with their story on tape. Just finished editing. No time to look at it, just cue it up. Reporter on camera live to Japan. Intros the piece and the tape op rolls it. Plays for about 20 seconds and then we see the picture rewind. The tape op stops the tape, cues it back to the beginning and rolls it. Then, 20 seconds in, the picture rewinds. 

When the crew was editing their piece, they had a false start on the tape and the rewind was actually recorded on the tape. They forgot to tell us to cue the story AFTER the false start and the rewind.

Best,
Park

C. Park Seward
Visit us: http://www.videopark.com

On Jan 28, 2010, at 1:32 PM, georgenann at aol.com wrote:

Roger that, Dave,

Things like that can happen to anybody. They realy are easy to remember, I wish I could remember how the equipment worked as well.  HI

One evening Letterman went into rewind on air, (in NYC).  The op was a great fellow, WWII Vet, was at Normandy, in his 80's and the finest fellow you could ask for and good friend.

CBS put a bunch of D-2's in rollaround racks. 2 in each.  The 2 D-2 machines were on the bottom of the racks and the 2 control panels were about halfway up fastened to drawers which were on ball bearing slides. They are called R2D2's. One R2D2 was in the area from which the air tapes are played.  There was a small dent in the tile on the floor and the R2D2 was sitting unnoticeably slightly leaning backward.

The area supervisor told the op to make a dub of something on the unused D-2, while the other D-2 was airing Letterman.

The op pulled out the control panel he was going to use to do this dub, which was the top panel, turned around to pick up the tape he was going to put in the record D-2, and while he had his back or side to the R2D2, the top panel rolled back it, leaving only the bottom panel visible, the panel for the Letterman machine. I don't think I have to tell you what happened next.

After everything came off the fan, I had to write up a report on this failure.  It was obvious to me that it was an equipment malfunction due to the defective floor causing the panel tray to slide back in by it 'self, which it wasn't designed to do.

Shortly after, the poor guy was transferred to "Tape Degaussing".  I blew my cork, since it was an "Equipment Malfunction" nobody should have come down on him at all.  I told him I was going to file big complaint with the union (I may have been ABM for Maint at the time, not sure).  He said don't bother, he was happy there, he could make his own hours and he liked it.  A few weeks later he was transferred back to the area he was in in the first place.  Months later he retired.

73,

George Keller

-----Original Message-----
From: dcfwtx at aol.com
To: quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com
Sent: Thu, Jan 28, 2010 3:53 pm
Subject: Re: [QuadList] Another disaster

George, 

I clearly remember one "disaster" incident where the degausser was located in the tape room adjacent to the daily use (usually meaning low-pass zone delay) tapes (by that time, 2" and 1" type C . A fella (self proclaimed hot-shot) had just finished a camera shoot in an edit bay down the hall. It was some sort of interview in the machine room for promos etc. recorded on a BVH 500 1" type C. After the successful shoot (with on-camera talent), he somehow got flustered and took the record tape directly to the degausser. 

Needless to say, I don't recall much of an employment longevity for this NABET individual. My apologies for those who read this story I either posted earlier  here or on another similar list.

Regarding big degaussers, I seem to remember ruining more than one wrist watch while using them. 

David Crosthwait

-----Original Message-----
From: GEORGENANN at aol.com
To: quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com
Sent: Thu, Jan 28, 2010 10:59 am
Subject: [QuadList] Another disaster

Guys:

Dave just reminded me of something that happened many years ago, with his referring to quick turnarounds.

On the CBS tape floor there was a tape degausser, a big degausser.  It was so big that it would actually heat up a 90 min 2" tape reel. Was it made by Ampex??

Most of the ops were in the habit of routinely taking a fresh tape and degaussing it, then making their record. (After completly cleaning the machine, of course).

One evening, one of the ops took the air show, (Either 60 Min or Sullivan, not sure) and routinely put it in the degausser.  About half way thru. he realized his mistake and almost fainted.  WOW! was he shook.  He was a Hasidic Jew, very dedicated to the VT business and was so upset nobody even mentioned it to him, they were afraid he would pass out.  So the air master aired with no backup for a while till another copy could be located and synched up.

The next day the degausser was removed from the tape floor and brought down to the basement to the new "Degaussing Dept." Later this became the "Punishment" department for the techs which management didn't like.  I never was sentenced there, they needed maint. types too bad, (Thank God)

This also pissed off some of the "Wise Asses" in the dept, as back then the CBS paychecks had magnetic ink on them and they degaussed the checks which made the banks work a little harder. (The way  the banks are acting nowadays, I think I would do the same thing now if they had magnetic ink.) HI!

Oh yes, another thing comes to mind about those "Wise Asses". Someone came up with the idea to bring in their telephone and charge card, etc., bills, back when they were IBM type punched cards and put them in the paper slicer and take a 16th or so off the bottoms so they would look OK, but be kicked out of the readers and have to be processed manually. I had nothing to do with either of these activities, really!

73,

George Keller 

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