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THE WAY IT WAS . . .by
Maurice Superville
The Korean War was over. The FCC released the CP's
(Construction Permits) that it had been holding up. All the channel assignments
had been decided for locations across the United States, but for some reason
President Truman held up their release. Of course, the American public knew
nothing of this. So how could they object?
The author came on the scene in December, 1953. Already
Channels 2 and 11
were on the air, possibly Channel 8 and Channel 39. The last two were located
on the campus of the University of Houston.
There were two major players in Broadcast Equipment . . .Radio
Corporation
of America ( RCA ) and General Electric ( GE ) in Syracuse, New York. RCA and
National Broadcasting Company (NBC) were affiliated. GE and Columbia Broadcasting
System (CBS) were affiliated. We had acronyms back them. There was a great
deal of competition between RCA and GE, both on the technical and commercial
level.
It's interesting also, because of the origin of RCA. GE was
founded by A.Edison,
inventor of the light bulb. Telefunken of Germany was coming on strong as a world
power in Radio equipment. The United States Government didn't like that.
GE was into Radio, so the Government got GE to spin off a new company ... RCA !
RCA was focused on equipment and Broadcast Networks, Radio &
Television,
Tubes and Parts. GE was less focussed, probably because it manufactured a wide
variety of products from jet engines to pop-up toasters. Television, (both Receivers
and Broadcast Products) was only a part of a larger company...probably a minor part.
International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) was there, too.
ITT made a line of
FM Transmitters. Channel 8's Five Kilowatt (KW) VHF Television Transmitter was
a modified FM Transmitter. It was something else! The Visual Modulator alone
was
three feet high and one rack unit wide. Channel 8's Studio was located in the Cullen
Building on the main Campus of the University of Houston with the transmitter
located in the small building next door along with the FM Transmitter. Naturally,
everything was vacuum tubes in those days.
DuMont was a respected, long-time company. All of Channel
39's equipment
was DuMont. Channel 39's Studio and Transmitter was located on the second
floor of the building where Channel 8's Studio is now. DuMont made a 5KW VHF
Television Transmitter as well, but it didn't catch on because it was a real dog
to tune. KGBS, San Antonio (K> George B. Storer) had a 5KW DuMont
Transmitter
driving a GE 35 KW Amplifier, all on the top floor of the Transit tower, with the
antenna on top of the building. Paul Tarrodaychick, Assistant Chief Engineer, was
the only person who could tune the DuMont.
The original Channel 39 went broke, as did many UHF Stations in
the following
years. The reason (s) for that to be covered later.
DuMont made a quality cathode ray oscilloscope for many years,
the lab standard
for it's day. GE's and RCA's scopes were more of a "utility" grade.
All scopes at that
time were free-running, recurrent swept. It took Tektronix to think of and come up
with a triggered scope . . . a remarkable tool at the time.
Both Dumont and ITT faded from the television equipment scene.
However,
DuMont did sponsor a TV show for a time.
General Radio (GR) of Cambridge, Massachusetts made a high
quality station
transmitter frequency and modulation monitor. It was stable and dependable, but
so expensive that GR dropped out of the market.
That about wraps up the companies that made TV Broadcast
Products. GE & RCA
supplied a complete line of equipment for the studio, transmitter and antenna.
Neither,
made antenna transmission line or antenna towers. Both companies had enough
money to finance a complete station and that they did. Most stations did finance
their
equipment, only one station that I knew of paid cash for their equipment; that was
KTRE, Lufkin. Remarkable!
SOMETHING ABOUT HOW I GOT INTO TELEVISION . . .
So CP's were granted and the stampede was on to get on the air, quick, doing
whatever it takes. I never saw such a demand for engineers in my life. I was
two
years out of college with a BS in E.E. and two years experience as a field engineer
doing radio noise and interference reduction work for a U.S. Navy contractor out of
Washington, D.C.
I sent an application by mail and got a job offer by return mail
without even an
interview. It was for $500/month when the going rate for E.E.'s was $300/month.
Naturally, I took that offer quick. I didn't meet my boss, Roy Duncan, until I
traveled
to the factory in Syracuse for training. They put me up at the Syracuse Hotel for
3 months. At that time, the room rate was $5.00/night; which was high, I thought.
I never did meet the administrative engineer who signed the job offer letter.
They put me to work on the factory floor checking out
transmitters and
studio equipment. Those guys were good. I was so dumb in television that I
didn't
even know what black picture was.
At the end of 3 months, I came back to Houston with the
responsibility as the
District Broadcast Service Representative. They handed me an instruction book
and sent me to Beaumont to put KBMT on the air. Just like that. I had to check
out all three major pieces of equipment . . . studio, transmitter and antenna. And,
make them work to specification; quite a job. However, the instruction manuals
were the best I have ever seen and unlimited factory help was only a phone call away.
There was no such thing as an answering machine then. Interesting, though there was
no direct dialing; you had to dial up the operator and get her to put the call through.
But there was not much time wasted on that.
We engineers paid the price. Long hours, Saturday, Sunday,
Holidays . . . no let up
until the station went on the air. After that, there was always some cleanup work.
Overall, a job took 4 to 6 weeks.
If a station was lucky, they managed to find a chief engineer who
had worked at
a radio repair shop; but most engineers knew nothing about television. But that was
the
way it was all over the country. As expected, under such pressure a lot of things
happened, but in retrospect, we were pretty much left alone to do our work; even though
the owners were chomping at the bit. I guess our bosses at headquarters were
catching it, but they never said anything to us in the field.
So, that was how it was at the beginning of this engineer's entry
experience
in television.
Maurice Superville