Category Archives: Locations
Ian Norman sent me a video of a live transmission from VT on Saturday, March 14th 1981. He was the cameraman for Swap Shop (Ikegami HL79) – you can find the full version in The 1980s under Swap Shop and in Programmes under VT on TV.
Two instantly recognisable faces in the still above, Murray Needham & Mick Goodenough, but take a look at the still below.
The first still is of the hexaplexer desk, with Al Goddard driving VT10, but who is the editor on VT9 (updating Grandstand titles) and who is the Sports PA?
Nick Martin has just updated the 40s & 50s Reunion website with details of the Tel Rec & Friends Christmas Lunch at Surbiton on Thursday, December 5th.
Also, don’t forget the next Oldboys Lunch at our new venue at Chorleywood on Thursday, September 19th. Emails have gone out to those on the list, but everyone is welcome. Full details in Future Events, and Howard would like to know if you are coming so he can give the pub an idea of numbers.
See you there!
Dave Rixon has sent me the final details of John’s funeral:-
I have now heard from John’s sister Kay (via Chris Tandy) and the funeral will take place next Thursday September 12th in the Milton Room of the Chilterns Crematorium, Amersham from 15.15. http://www.chilternscrematorium.co.uk
then afterwards at Missenden Abbey http://missendenabbey.co.uk/about-us/directions/
They have requested no flowers, but donations to the Thames Valley and Chiltern Air Ambulance http://www.tvacaa.org
Tony Scott is researching the history of this auspicious venue – any pix or thoughts to:-
http://tonyscott.org.uk/2013/03/30/researching-a-short-history-of-the-television-centre-club-bar/
Yesterday’s Oldboys lunch was at a new venue, “The Black Horse” at Chorleywood Common. Chose by Howard Dell after a strenuous time spent trying different pubs in the area it proved to be a very good choice indeed. Pictures of the event are now in Past Events, Current Lunch.
The food was excellent and the portions so generous virtually everyone had the ‘small’ version! It was good to welcome Nick Pitt and Ian Howlett as well as Bernard Trim who will be unknown to many of you. His connection with VT machines was connected with their use as data recorders …… a subject still subject to the OSA!
Further to the piece on the gates to Wood Norton I posted on January 1st, I have received the following from Nigel Adams,(Head of Network Architecture) at BBC Wood Norton):-
Thought you might like to see this from Evesham Journal June 2012 – we hope they might come back one day…
At the beginning of this year I received an email from Larry Odham in the US with an enquiry:-
“I have been trying to find a equipment manual to get a copy from for a Ampex 1012 universal colortec.
The 1012 was used on the Ampex VR-1200 and VR-2000 quad machines.
I have several Ampex VR 1200s here operational and I use them to transfer NTSC quad tapes for preservation. I want to make one of the machines here PAL-capable.
I was very happy to find a 1012 spec sheet on your website that I was able to print out.
Is there anyone on your site or e-mail list that may have access to a 1012 manual, or know where one might be found?
I read an interesting passage in one of the history tabs,might have been under the hardware tab?, about the first Ampex VR 2000 VTRs using a standard NTSC colortec that had been modified by the BBC fellows with a “box” in order to use for PAL. I sure would like to know more about how that worked.
thanks for any help, or suggestions, or leads.”
Clive McCarthy took on the challenge and Larry has just sent me some photographs of his set-up and a brief description.
Clive McCarthy has been a real help at every turn, supplying me with important information about how the early Ampex quad VTRs did PAL before the 1012 colortec. I doubt I could have gotten very far at all without him, or you and the vtoldboys website! Thanks very much!
To bring you up on the project, What I built is exactly what Clive had written me about in his detailed circuitry analysis – and it works beautifully!
What I basically did was to place a rack next to the VR-1200 with the two NTSC 1011 colortecs to be PAL-modified. Then, added a patch bay with all the signals to and from the VR-1200 making it possible to patch the 1011 NTSC colortec out of the machine and patch a PAL modified 1011 colortec into its place. A Tektronix 1411 sync generator was added to supply the correct PAL syncs.
The actual delaying, burst switching and error detecting circuitry is breadboarded on the small table in front of the rack. I was able to go one more step beyond and found a complete 1012 colortec manual at the Stanford University archive that they were willing to photocopy for me. That was more help in filling in some of the technical gaps.
Well done Clive! Oldboys to the rescue. Mark you, I’m amazed he can still remember it all!
Larry has sent a link to his own website advertising his conversion business – some nostalgic pictures here(!):-
http://www.quadtapexfer.com/Home.php
And here is a link to the Tennesse Archive of Moving Image & S0und where it all started!
http://www.tamisarchive.org/TAMIS_Web/TAMIS_home.html
I recently received an email from Simon Ellis who is involved in the disposal of TC contents(!).
“Currently undertaking mass disposal effort of redundant equipment currently languishing in tech stores throughout TVC. No real treasures -I have looked thoroughly! I have sent remaining 1”s to John Ireland and Mike Lambert at BFI Berkhamstead for spares/repair.
I intend to take more pics before destruction/part sale of TVC – need decent camera – not my phone this time!”
These are the photographs that Simon sent – a view that we never saw!
I suspect that the far corner is VT16, with VT14 & 12 nearest camera. Left hand wall is TX area 2. There’s a potential clue in a closeup of the sign over the door centre frame. (see below)
But I could be wrong…….
Along with pictures of the Surbiton Lunch, Rod Green has sent me the photograph below of the new Salford Quays development – thanks very much, Rod.
Keith Graham (see entry for December 16th) has sent me a couple of pictures of the Ampex sign from ground level. You can find a link to them from Beginnings, Ampex, and click on AMPEX sign at the bottom of the page, or go direct from here!
