[QuadList] Visual/Allen--The story as related by Al Sturm

[Bill Carpenter]

Hi Ted,

That was a very good interview. 
I explained many things that I had heard about, before I moved to California,
Thank You very much.

A suggestion from me would be a similar interview with John Streets.
Since he was a mechanical engineer, I believe his view from what he did mechanically for the Quads whould be great.

Bye for now, Bill & Ginger (whoof...whoof)

--- On Tue, 3/22/11, Ted Langdell <ted at quadvideotapegroup.com> wrote:

From: Ted Langdell <ted at quadvideotapegroup.com>
Subject: [QuadList] Visual/Allen--The story as related by Al Sturm
To: "Quad List" <quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 22, 2011, 2:44 AM

What follows is the background on Visual/Allen as related in June 2009 over several e-mails by Al Sturm, a principal in Merlin Engineering Works, which succeeded the Visual/Allen enterprise.
I've corrected spellings. typos and formatting and added photos as available. Otherwise, it's as Al sent it.
Ted
------------Visual/Allen and the Bosch connectionI’ll try to do a chronology of Allen/Visual/Fernseh (Bosch) association from the period of 1965-1970. 
Steve Allen was a sharp video entrepreneur who from the early days of Quad was able to come up with accessories to improve the operation of the Quad machines. Among some of the products were:
A manually operated adjustable delay line that went in the channel amps before the switcher. This was the first quadrature corrector. A very early manual Amtec.This was a time in electronic state of the art when transistors were first being used in video design. They built a solid state switcher, and An improved limiter low band demod. This was about the time of the VR-1000B. Their next project was to replace the tube servo.  Steve had two sharp engineers working with him, Clarence Boice (ex Philco), and Dick Silver (Stanford student.) who were the “power behind the throne.”  They were very innovative for the time. 
Steve had friends at Ampex, and learned of a problem that it was difficult to obtain quality variable delay lines for Amtecs. It was very difficult matching the varicaps and holding tolerance on  the wound inductors. They then started building and selling them to Ampex. They also built balanced output filters for the VR-1000C demod, which Ampex used.  Simultaneously, Visual Electronics was a primarily a rep company for broadcast TV equipment. 
Jim Tharpe—Visual's president—was involved in TV all the way back to the  DuMont  days. One of his coups was to become the sole  US  importer for the Philips Plumbicon cameras. This was about the time when color hit so they were the “only show in town.” Among products Visual sold were the accessories from Allen Electronics.  In 1964 when the VR-2000 was introduced. High Band became the standard for broadcasters. 
Jim Tharpe was intrigued with Allen and thought they could build a competing high band system due to their experience with signal systems. He then bought Steve Allen out. 
The problem turned out to much harder to solve than Visual was led to believe. Among the problems were:
Number 1: Understanding Charlie Ginsburg's high band patent, and Number 2. Designing a high band signal system that didn’t infringe the Ampex patent. 
Along with Clarence Boice and Steve Allen , Visual brought in engineers from  France ,  Germany , and  New York  to solve the problems. This is when I went to work for Visual because of my field engineering background with Ampex. My job title was “Jack of all trades” trying to be a go between with Visual, Allen, and customers. I ended up being somewhat of a “fire fighter”.  They had some success. As a result Visual put together a VTR using the VR-1000 console and monitor rack with a solid state H-locked servo, signal system utilizing the MK10 head, Amtec, and Colortec. Because of the buyout of all the Ampex equipment, Ampex wasn’t too concerned with the competition.
That's me with my "AJ squared away" crew cut. The pix is at Visual Sunnyvale, CA, (Circa 1968),  in front of  Visual/Allen VA-1000 " 
A number of the “Allenized” machines were sold by Visual Electronics. Some customers were: Corinthian Broadcasting (then a subsidiary of Dun and Bradstreet,) NBC New York for their time delay, and a number of educational and religious broadcasters. (TL notes that in 1977, an Allenized VR-1000 was still in use at KXTV, 10, Sacramento, often recording the first feed of CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite for "cherry-picking" stories, and other feed duties.)
The Visual/Allen machine at KXTV was from a purchase made by George Jacobs, Director of Engineering for the Corinthian stations. KOTV Tulsa was another. The president of Visual Electronics Jim Tharpe and George were good friend from their past DuMont days.
The next step by Visual was to build their own VTR. Tharpe had contacts in  Germany  with Fernseh who had a monochrome VTR with their own air bearing heads. 
(Bosch Fernseh BM-20 Monochrome Tube Type Quadrupled VTR--Deutsches Fernsehmuseum Wiesbaden website)

An association was formed between Fernseh and Visual. Fernseh supplied frame, transport, and heads to Visual who built a high band signal system, motor controls, and servo from the Allen electronics to compete with Ampex.  I was in Darmstadt, Germany many times during the development and know quite a bit about their products. The Fernsh head was very good. It had some good features, one of which was linear bearings for the guide. It was very repeatable and positive.
(Fersnseh head from Al Sturm collection-Al Sturm photo) 
Visual then made and marketed a machine called the VA50.
(Engineer Bruce Braun monitors a VA-50 at Rev. Gene Scott's KHOF-TV, 30, San Bernadino, California—Bruce Braun collection)
(Pair of VA-50's, likely at KHOF, from former KHOF-TV Asst. CE, (now Meredith Local Media VP of Engineering) Joe Snelson via Bruce Braun)

 The VA-50 was a striped down version of the VA-100. I frankly can't remember what was left off. Pricing was around  $45,000.00 for the VA-50 and $55,000.00 for the VA-100.
(April 1966 (NAB?) Visual/Allen Quad VTR Catalog from Don Norwood Collection)

It had limited success. The problem was with all the design engineering, field engineering, and buyout items from Ampex and Fernseh costs profit margins were very slim. 
Visual was having other financial problems so they shut the VTR project down.  This is when John Streets and I  started Merlin by buying out all the excess inventory from Visual. We then started refurbishing and reselling VR-2000’s , VR-1200's, building our own high band signal system and offered  high band kits for older machines.  This is the story to the best of my recollection.  Al Sturm   
Ted LangdellSecretarySkype: 	TedLangdelle-mail:	ted at quadvideotapegroup.com 

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