[QuadList] Doug Hamer's Introduction Repost

[John M]

Great Intro Doug,
You must be a similar age to me  - left High School here in Oz end '73 and
started with ABC Australia in 74 - we had 6 2000's then which were quickly
joined by 2 ACR25's, an AVR1, and 4 AVR2's by the time we went to VPR2's in
80...
Cheers
John Miller
Creations Unlimited
 

-----Original Message-----
From: QuadList [mailto:quadlist-bounces at quadvideotapegroup.com] On Behalf Of
Douglas Hamer
Sent: Thursday, 19 June 2014 18:52
To: Quad List
Subject: [QuadList] Doug Hamer's Introduction Repost


Well, I'm going to send my intro again. This is a different email client
than the one I was using in the hospital. (Kindles are amazing things.)
We'll see if it goes through.

Hello, I've been lurking on the list for a few months now and thought I'd
finally introduce myself. My name is Doug Hamer and I appear to be alot
younger than some of the people on this list. But in spite of that I do
actually have some quad experience, primarily as an operator although
occasionally some emergency repairs may have occurred when I was nearby. (I
can neither confirm nor deny them.)

I've always been interested in television and my first experience with video
tape recorders was in junior high where they had early 1/2" Sony format
recorders. The ones that only recorded every other field. I knew there were
better recorders around but I couldn't get my hands on any of them. By high
school the school system had acquired 1/2" EIAJ Sony machines. We finally
got to see both fields (yay!) but they still left a lot to be desired. (Like
color) The television production handbook the school library had showed quad
machines but warned that they were already obsolete, soon to be replaced by
better and better helical scan machines. I was scared to death there
wouldn't be any quad machines left by the time I managed to get a job
playing, er, working with them. This was 1974.

My senior year I got a part time job recording network shows for the local
school systems to use in their curriculums. (Fair use,
dontchaknow.) There I met my first 3/4" machine. A rebranded Sony sold as a
Wollensak, I believe.) Yuck! But it was color. Also played with some Ampex
type A 1 inch machines, but they were already retired at that point. Awesome
pictures, though.

Off to college, I chose Iowa State University partially because at the time
they owned WOI-TV. One of only two educational institutions in the country
to own a commercial television station. I studied electrical engineering and
in my spare time tried to get hired there. Eventually I succeeded in landing
a part-time job. There I met my first quad machines. Ooh! They had 3
VR-1200's. They could have been 1200b's, I'm not sure. One of them was
fitted with the Editec option. They also had an ACR-25. Which I still think
is the world's most awesome tape deck.
They even had a VR-1000 at the AM transmitter site, although it was
non-operational when I saw it. At last! Recordings that you could actually
pass off as live. Simply marvelous! I only worked there a short time before
leaving school and coming back home. By then they had added
3 VPR-2B's to the equipment room and I had to admit they looked pretty
darned good.

I got a full time job at KCRG-TV after leaving WOI. They were an RCA house
so I was presented with 2 TR-60's with the CAVEC option 1 with an electronic
RCA edit controller that I'm totally blanking on the name of.
It had lots of thumbwheels where you could dial in edit durations and do
previews and trims and such. Somebody had built a home-brew intervalometer
which operated that controller to make radar time-lapses.
That was the only time anybody ever used it while I was there. They also had
2 TR-4's converted to high band color and a TCR-100. After working with that
beast I'm frankly lucky to still have all my fingers. There's lots of fond
memories working with the TR-60's, though. They made great pictures.

One of the fun things I did on a nightly basis was to use 3 of the decks to
delay ABC late night programming by 30 minutes. It helped to develop my OCD
to a frightening degree. You couldn't take your eyes off them for a second.
I'm now mostly recovered, recovered, recovered.

I did that for many years, but slowly other formats crept in. They had 2
VPR-2B's when I started, eventually adding a pair of VPR-6's with TBC-7's.
One of those had a Lexicon box on it for "seamless" time compression of
playback. Probably one of the most evil things ever invented.

Eventually 3/4" took over the tape room and drove out the quads. One day I
came to work and they were gone! I have no idea what happened to them,
although I believe the TCR-100 was sold to a religious broadcaster in
Virginia. We were left with an automation system that played 3/4" to air for
spot playback. A sorry state of affairs.

Later we got an Odetics system loaded with BetacamSP decks for spot and some
program playback. So that helped. Still not as fun as the quads, though.

Now it's all servers and HD transport streams. No fun at all, except for the
occasional random freak out of the computer systems. "I don't want to play
TV today. So suck it."

There was a definite sense of pride knowing that not just anybody could
throw a tape on one of those quads and get a useable picture out of it.
Even fewer people could make a recording on one that would play back
properly. And to be able to get the playback aligned and cued for air in
under 15 seconds was just icing on the cake.

Sorry for being so long winded. I'm enjoying the conversations and hope to
be able to add stuff from time to time. 
-Doug Hamer

______________________________________________
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