[QuadList] Ampex XVR-7500 details

Wed Feb 15 02:18:37 CST 2012

I had two 7800's that I took care of on the USS Kearsarge CVS-33 Carrier. They were for the ships entertainment TV system. My rate was actually Gun Fire Control Electronics Technician (FT), but the little third class electronics tech that was supposed to work on the 7800's to keep'em going, was in way over his head.

I had the 6PM to 8PM disc-jockey slot in our KEAR radio DJ booth, so I was well known on the ship.

I needed some transistors for the Ampex machines and was told that I could get some much more reliable parts by taking'em out of a Sono-Buoy the ones that our S2F sub-trackers carried.

I went down into the hangar bay in the dark one night and went around behind the Sono-Buoy pod on one of the planes and ejected one out, and the Ships XO came by and caught me. He said Spears...is that you?...where you goin' with that Sono-Buoy?...and I said Commander...you wanna' watch Dean Martin tomorrow night? I need some some transistors for one of our videotape recorders.

Take whatever you need son !
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bill Carpenter 
  To: quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 10:14 PM
  Subject: [QuadList] Ampex XVR-7500 details

  Hi Chris and everyone!

  Yes, the VR-7000 type products could have been much better with torque motors. 

  When I started with Ampex in Nov of 1965, I had six years of design experience with Govt. magnetic recorders and before that I had three years of running my own wedding recording business, "Tru-Sound Recording" using an early three motor audio recorder, made by TDC, which had very low W&F and fast winding. 

  The VR-7800 was the first machine that I worked on from the start w/ Barry Guislinger as project engineer and I designed all the controls, mechanical interfaces and the i/o areas. 

  When we went into production in 1968 (Barry had moved back to Ca, to work on the AVR-1) I moved up to project engineer. 

  The 7800 had five DC motors, scanner, capstan, supply & takeup, and slo-motion (this was a small Globe motor w/ a teflon felt drag system for stable low speeds). 

  This was the first capstan servoed machine, the first use of Yaskwah printed circuit motors, and the first tension servoed machine and the first editing machine.
  Another interesting point was that the "Assemble" mode was fully servo locked, unlike all previous Quad's.

  IVC had great tape handling, but in a head to head shootout, the IVC-960 vs. VR-7800 for the EBU (European Broadcast Union) in Paris in 1969, we won hands down on the signal handling quality in both PAL and SECAM.

  I had spent 2 weeks in the summer of 1968 in Paris, at the ORTF labs, since they bought about 15, VR-7800's, and I went to tweak the tension servo's since the factory setup caused some problems in Secam. 
  It worked well and that caused the shootout, the next year.

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

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  From: "Chill315 at aol.com" <Chill315 at aol.com>
  To: wcarpen107 at yahoo.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 5:06 AM
  Subject: Re: [QuadList] Ampex XVR-7500 details

  Bill

  Thank you for the input.  I remember a number of them at the University of Michigan Hospital.  They had a VR-660 as the first video recorder.  Then they went to the XVR-7500.  Later to a 5000 series machine.  The signal to noise was not an issue as the imaging device was an orthicon.  

  The biggest issue was the interchange.  The moveable gates just did not keep the mechanical tolerances.  The other issue was the rubber belt used to drive the head.  It did not last that long.  

  I always was of the opinion that if Ampex had used a mechanical layout like IVC with their electronics, it would have worked very nicely.

  Chris Hill
  WA8IGN

  In a message dated 2/14/2012 1:46:32 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, wcarpen107 at yahoo.com writes:
    Hi Don, and everyone!

    The Ampex XVR-7500 was 7500 with a wider output filter (trade S/N for increased BW for B & W xray's) which was built for X-ray customers like G.E., Westinghouse and such. 

    Mainly used in Heart Catherization Lab procedures, and we also made a 875 line version for some folks with a slightly different capstan speed to provide slow motion sync pulse line-up with the different line rate. 
    More 45 year old details if needed.

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

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    From: Don Norwood <dwnorwood at embarqmail.com>
    To: Quad List <quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com> 
    Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2012 5:17 PM
    Subject: Re: [QuadList] OT: Ampex 7500 on ebay

    Hi Dave:

    You'll note that this is an XVR version of the 7500.  Parts of the description do not make sense to me, and maybe this is different from the XVR-7500 that I am familiar with, but if it is a conventional XVR, it's not really compatible with standard Type-A tapes recorded on a regular VR-7500 or other Type-A machine.  Also, even if it really will play standard tapes, a compatible TBC (wide band direct color, not heterodyne) will be required since this does not include the color pilot processor that is used with the VR-7500C.

    Don Norwood
    Digitrak Communications, Inc.
    www.digitrakcom.com
      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Dave Sieg 

      There is an Ampex 7500 on ebay if anybody's interested. 
      It looks like its in decent shape.
      I owned one for many years, have no tapes I need to play, 
      and don't need to own one again, no matter how pristeen it is...

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