[QuadList] TV Tape takes to the Road--Chuck Reti's scan from June, 1960 Electronics Illustrated

[Ted Langdell]

More than fifty-four years ago, CBS News scooped NBC and ABC through the use of Ampex Quad Videotape equipment and a four-camera mobile unit when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's visited an Des Moines, Iowa meat packing plant and farm near Indianola. 

The September, 1959 tours were part of a 13-day trip including Washington, D.C., New York City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Smithsonian Magazine documents the tour here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnkhDANo5rY

The June, 1960 Electronics Illustrated enabled readers to see what kind of equipment was used by Oak Park (Detroit,) Michigan-based Giantview, to cover the Iowa stops.

QuadList member Chuck Reti has a scan of the two-page coverage on his flicker.com photostream

The mobile unit carried an Ampex VR-1000 VTR.

The Iowa coverage was not the first time Khrushchev had been recorded on Ampex Videotape.  The first time occurred on July 24, 1959 during the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, in what came to be known as "The Kitchen Debate."

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7HqOrAakco

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6RLCw1OZFw

GiantView's equipment was part of nationwide closed-circuit network that served business, medicing and entertainment, including boxing matches transmitted to theaters for projection using units like this one at the Early Television M.

Records for the General Television Network, at the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library report: 
In 1957, Stanley Akers created Giant View Television, predecessor to General Television Network (GTN), renamed in 1960. GTN grew out of manufacturing and steel stamping, and began by producing metal casings for the first TV projectors. However, its cameras and engineers soon began to travel to cover events worldwide. After acquiring Universal Broadcast Systems, the company established a national closed circuit television network.

The company steadily grew in size; by 1990 it housed two divisions: Communication Systems Group-CSG (a company that designs telecommunication systems), and GTN (the production and post-production facility). The physical expansions occurred well into the 1990s, adding a library, Combermere Stage, and various additions to the headquarters in Oak Park, Michigan.


Chuck's Photostream also includes pictures of him operating RCA TR-4 and TR-1 series Quads at WSU-TV, a scan of Ampex's guide to splicing videotape on a VR-1000, and other cool stuff to scan through.

Cheers,

Ted

Ted Langdell
Secretary
Skype: 	TedLangdell
e-mail:	ted at quadvideotapegroup.com
Web:	www.quadvideotapegroup.com
FB:		www.facebook.com/QuadVideotapeGroup

First QuadVideotape Group Dinner at SAA, 7pm, Tuesday, August 12, 2014, Washington, DC

Seventh Annual Quad Videotape Group Dinner at AMIA:  7pm, Tuesday, October 7. 2014, Savannah, Georgia
Eighth Annual Quad Videotape Group Lunch at NAB:  12:30pm on Tuesday, April 14, 2015, Las Vegas Convention Center



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