Television for the Troops
On September 9, 2013
- TV History
The First TV Network Built in a War Zone – AFVH
The American Forces Vietnam Network
Here’s another interesting article from our friend Richard Wirth. I have a photo of Richard operating one of the TK60s, so I know he knows the AFVH story well. Some of you probably do too! Enjoy!
http://provideocoalition.com/pvcexclusive/story/television-for-the-troops
As America’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan winds down, I think back to another long running war – Vietnam. It is well known Vietnam was the first war brought into people’s homes by television. But television proved useful going the opposite direction as well.
Cool plane. I knew they had these planes with transmitters but I thought they were relaying ground based programming.
Great article! In 1971, right out of basic training at Ft. Bragg, N.C. I was assigned a MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) 84F20. Nobody in the basic training area knew what that was! I just moved across the base to the JFK Center for Military Assistance where there was a closed circuit cable playback and record facility complete with a studio and 3 camera remote truck. The package was put together by Ampex. One of our main jobs was to record field training exercises for Special Forces troops. I remember running camera on top of the truck during a simulated fire fight, while praying earnestly that all the ammo rounds were indeed blanks. By the way, the 84F20 MOS was for Television Production Specialist. We had several enlisted men, plus a civilian producer-director and a civilian engineer/maintenance person. The truck was a tractor-trailer unit with a 30KW Onan generator behind the cab, and a VR-1100 quad machine and film chain on board, plus a small Gates audio board, a simple switcher and camera control units.