[QuadList] OT: QuadList] project mystery stuff needs id--Dynair models and Co. info

Ted Langdell ted at quadvideotapegroup.com
Fri Feb 10 11:09:39 CST 2012


Ed, 

This looks a lot like a simple control rack for a Cable TV local origination channel. The tuner would provide background music for the channel. 

The Panasonic monitor could be looking at what's "on the air" (or, "on the cable?").

The equipment below the three Dynair boxes looks like a panel for remote Pan-Tilt-Zoom camera controls.

On Feb 9, 2012, at 8:16 PM, COURYHOUSE at aol.com wrote:

> <Untitled.jpg>
> what are the three white things


As Chris and several others advised on the QuadList and OldVTRs, they're from Dynair Electronics, a San Diego company that made video terminal equipment beginning in 1957and into/through the 90s.

The company was known for its relatively inexpensive "Mini" series of boxes such as you see above.  Cable Local O, education and other closed-circuit users used them a lot.

The left hand unit is likely a "Mini-Aud" audio power amp. It's the only item in the catalog I have that has the knob on the right-hand side.

The various video tools—audio pre-amp, 2-input fader and "Mini-Seq" 4-input sequential switcher all have the knob on the left. 

The center box is a "Mini-6" mechanical routing switcher. 

The "crash box," "glitch-box" or other less than kind names are related to the random nature of where in the video signal the switch would occur... usually with picture breakup.

To avoid that, "vertical interval switching" was introduced, which timed the switch so it occurred in the vertical interval.  That works fine as long as all the video sources are synchronized.

The Mini-6 has double-pole, double-throw switches on the video, and also an auxiliary set of contacts, also DPDT that can be wired for different purposes, such as tally lights or some other activation.  A 3-input version was available.

The far-right box may be a blank panel, but could also be Dynair's "Mini-Spk" speaker in a box. The poor quality of the image makes it hard to tell whether there's a blank panel or a grille there... but I suspect it's a Mini-Spk.

Dynair's "Mini" line included a wipe generator that could do H & V wipes and corner splits, a sync generator, a pulse DA, a sync-mixing video DA that added sync to non-composite video, and ordinary video and audio DA's.

The "Mini-Bal" video DA could be used in 75 ohm differential mode, 75 ohm grounded or 124 ohm balanced.  The 124 ohm balanced lines were used by telco on local loops to deliver video to stations or other users. The balanced method helped address hum.  A couple of switch-flips changed modes.

The company was founded in 1957 by Garry Gramman and owned by the founder until he sold it in 1995 and retired.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040319/news_1m19gramman.html

NASA was a big client for Dynair's video switching gear.  It's likely that space-shot video recorded on Quad passed through some Dynair equipment.


Ted

Ted Langdell
Secretary
Fifth Annual Quad Videotape Group Lunch at NAB
12:30pm, Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Lower South Hall REAR food concession area

See us at NAB 2012, April 16-19 in Booth SL-9607
Use code 2012 for your free NAB Exhibits Pass

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