[QuadList] Octaplex--Even GE built them, using what look like RCA Octo heads

[Bill Carpenter]

Hi Ted and folks,

Having spent the first five years of the engineering part of my career
working for the Gov't Div of Webcor, we bid on many second and third generations of products.

Our group only worked on Magnetic recorders.

You would get, in the bidding phase a full set of drawings of every part and full schematics and full test procedures and a working(?) physical example of the product. You also would try to understand the history, like who designed and built the first production run, and how many were built.
Then you would bid on building the next group of products that the Gov't needed.
If you got the contract, then you would understand the problems that the original folks had in building the product. We would usually know who we were bidding against and it the designer was not in the group you figured that they may have had problems and probably lost money.

Note: In the early days, of in some Gov't work there were many CPFF contracts. (Cost Plus Fixed Fee) contracts were GREAT, the more you spent, the more money you made!

I worked on quite a few designs where Ampex had built the development phase of the product and we received the next generation contract.

So, RCA could have done the development phase and GE got the next production run!

Bill Carpenter

--- On Mon, 3/7/11, Ted Langdell <ted at quadvideotapegroup.com> wrote:

From: Ted Langdell <ted at quadvideotapegroup.com>
Subject: [QuadList] Octaplex--Even GE built them, using what look like RCA Octo heads
To: "Quad List" <quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com>
Cc: "Richard Diehl" <richcam1 at yahoo.com>
Date: Monday, March 7, 2011, 5:13 PM

Looking on Richard Diehl's website for the Merlin ME68 link, I ran across a GE made 2" Octoplex recorder made on a Navy contract.
http://www.labguysworld.com/USH-17.htm
It seems to have used an RCA head...http://www.labguysworld.com/USH-17_072.jpg
As showcased in this April 18, 2010, QuadList post from Don Norwood, subject 	Re: [QuadList] RCA 2 channel (8 head)
Hi Steve: Both RCA and Ampex built transverse scan recorders with 8 heads.  There were designs that had all 8 heads on a single drum as well as designs that had two drums sandwiched together.  There were many different applications for these and machines were manufactured starting in the early '60's.  In addition to the 8 head versions, there were also a variety of slow speed designs which had some unique headwheels, some even utilizing belt driven drums!  I've collected some head assemblies as well as some documentation on some of these systems, and included a few pics below. Here's a "late model" RCA, 8 heads on single drum
That's the second time this head has visited the QuadList.  It was first seen January 13, 2009 when Don posted a reply to Re: [QuadList] New Octaplex recorder design accompanied by a track layout for the recording format for the AN AHL-4 machine:

 In the post with this track layout, Don reported:
"Following up with a little more info, attached is a pic of the head assembly, a pic of a "modern" RCA octaplex head, and the track format specs for the machine.

You can see that the RCA head very closely resembles a quad video head, except that it has 8 transducers on the drum. Additional studying of the manual indicates that the female guide on the early Ampex did not have any vacuum.  Instead, the tape path appears to have placed the guide slightly outside of the normal plane of the tape path, thus causing the tape to travel against the guide.

Don"

 SecretarySkype: 	TedLangdelle-mail:	ted at quadvideotapegroup.com 

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