[QuadList] NBC Burbank: Au Revior--Historical tidbits about Burbank's early Quad operation

[Dennis Degan]

		On Jan 8, 2013, at 4:55 PM, David Crosthwait wrote:

 > When I was at NBC, the CST took the EST feed live. The MST was  
delayed by KOA in Denver as a regional delay center IIRC. Burbank did  
the PST and sent 2" or 1" to Hawaii by plane for a one week/two week  
delay. The Hawaii-then-to-Alaska bicycle of tapes ended when a C band  
feed from NY went up around 1983 or so, then Hawaii and Alaska did  
their own zone delay.

		I offer:

	Until Network distribution went to satellite, NBC used AT&T Long  
Lines service, the so-called 'coaxial cable' (though most of it was  
actually microwave).  NBC established a system called the 'Round  
Robin' (I'd love to find out where that term originated), in which  
AT&T was fed by the Network in New York and the circuit would travel  
through Cleveland, on to Chicago, then south through Atlanta, back  
along the East Coast through Washington and return to New York.  All  
other affiliates would branch off from the Round Robin.  As I  
understand it, NBC was the only one of the Big Three Networks to use  
this counter-clockwise path for its Round Robin.  ABC and CBS used a  
clockwise path for theirs.
	This big return feed provided the Network with assurance that the  
circuit was operating properly.  BOC operators could see that the  
returning signal was the same as what they were sending out.  It also  
allowed stations along the path to break in and send programming  
material BACK to New York whenever needed.  This feature was most  
likely not used often during regular Network operation as it would  
interrupt regular programming from the break-in point on to the end of  
the loop.  Once in 1976, when I worked at WIS in Columbia, SC, we  
experienced such a break-in on air and could do nothing about it  
except put up a 'trouble' slide.  During an afternoon Network soap  
opera, someone in Atlanta at WSB broke the Round Robin and fed some  
material to New York for Nightly News.  Frantic phone calls to New  
York and WSB got us nowhere.  Apparently, the feed could not be  
stopped or switched any other way.  We waited for what seemed like an  
eternity for it to end, but it must have been at least 20 minutes  
before regular Network programming was restored.

		David also said:

 > When the Ku system was installed by NBC, all time zone delay was  
eventually shifted back to New York.
 > I stand to be corrected on any/all of the above.

		I say:

	No corrections needed, to my knowledge.  The KU system was installed  
on the roof of another Rockefeller Center building, diagonally across  
6th Ave from the GE Building, in 1986.  Ironically, that building is  
now the News Corporation Building, where Fox News originates.  The  
satellite equipment is still there in operation to this day:
	<http://www.flickr.com/photos/dennisdegan/557909649/>

			Dennis Degan, Video Editor-Consultant-Knowledge Bank
					     NBC Today Show, New York



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