Welcome to the Archives section. On these expanded and updated pages, you will read and hear untold stories and see unique images by the hundreds dating from the earliest days of television, to the present.

The content here was not widely available to the general public and contains a lot of information that was created for internal use, or as business-to-business material from broadcasters and affiliated industries. This is also home to unique, unpublished information contributed by authors, and a good example is the great AT&T Book…Connecting The Continent For Radio And Television by our friend Mark Durenberger and others.

Some of the other exclusive features of this page include my Total Color Camera Sales In The US, The Ellerbee Classic Camera Census, and First Person, An Oral History of Broadcast Television. Hundreds of new entries on a variety of television topics have been added, with more to come. -Bobby Ellerbee

Above, “Tonight” show in NBC Studio 6B at 30 Rockefeller Plaza circa 1963. 

August 25, 1968...NBC Debuts Color Portables In Chicago

August 25, 1968…NBC Debuts Color Portables In Chicago

The day before the riotous Democratic National Convention opened in Chicago, NBC broadcast color images from the convention floor, using ...
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EXCLUSIVE...Inside The First Color Television Remote Unit

EXCLUSIVE…Inside The First Color Television Remote Unit

Thanks to Chuck Pharis, and his very rare RCA “Red Book”, I have new information and images to share with ...
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THE NBC BUILT, ND-8G CAMERAS

THE NBC BUILT, ND-8G CAMERAS

UPDATED March 3, 2023: Around 2010, I found a photo of an odd looking NBC camera in use in 1947 ...
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THE SECRET BACKSTORY OF THE RCA TK 44

THE SECRET BACKSTORY OF THE RCA TK 44

Chapter One: by Bobby Ellerbee Over a period of months in 2009, I spoke to former RCA engineers Lou Bazin ...
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HISTORY FOR HIRE: A Grand Tour of Hollywood's Top TV Prop House

HISTORY FOR HIRE: A Grand Tour of Hollywood’s Top TV Prop House

In February of 2011, Concord, California camera collector John Bolin took a tour of Hollywood’s top ”prop’ house, History For ...
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The Virtual Archives of RCA Engineer Harry Wright

The Virtual Archives of RCA Engineer Harry Wright

He helped design the RCA TK42, TK42XX, TK43, TK44, TK47, TK48, TK76 and more. The man in the suit is ...
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CBS Field Sequential Color Cameras at Studio 57

CBS Field Sequential Color Cameras at Studio 57

Below I have collected more than twenty images of the fabled CBS Field Sequential Color cameras in action. Until their ...
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Six Decades of “Tonight”

THE TONIGHT SHOW: Six Decades of Television and Camera History A look back at more than 60 years of the ...
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WSB-TV: The Early Years

WSB-TV: The Early Years

Here are about 16 images from Georgia’s first TV station, WSB-TV in Atlanta, showing their RCA TK30s at work. The ...
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WAGA-TV: The Early Years

WAGA-TV: The Early Years

This was Atlanta’s second TV station. It was a CBS affiliate until the late 1980s. WAGA had TK30s and later ...
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WKY-TV: First In Local Live Color

WKY-TV: First In Local Live Color

In this piece, you’ll see television history in the making that starts in 1949 and continues into the present. Now ...
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ULTRA RARE HOWDY DOODY IMAGES! The Original Howdy...

ULTRA RARE HOWDY DOODY IMAGES! The Original Howdy…

Be sure to click through these historic images, as I have made extensive comments on each of them, and each ...
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June 8, 1938...The New RCA Orthicon Camera Debuts

June 8, 1938…The New RCA Orthicon Camera Debuts

This was a step up from the Iconoscope in it’s light sensitivity, but it was a remote camera and still ...
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Television's First Studio Camera...RCA's Studio 3H Iconoscopes

Television’s First Studio Camera…RCA’s Studio 3H Iconoscopes

In 1935, two years after Radio City opened, NBC Radio Studio 3H was converted to RCA Television Studio 3H. Technically ...
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Surprise! CBS Had Marconi Mark IV's In 1960...

Surprise! CBS Had Marconi Mark IV’s In 1960…

For those of us interested in the technical side of broadcast history, this comes as a surprise. Pictured here are ...
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AMPEX = Alexander Matthew Poniatoff EXcellence...

AMPEX = Alexander Matthew Poniatoff EXcellence…

This is the history of the fascinating early years at Ampex. I hope this will give you a new perspective ...
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1929: Radio Movies in Color

1929: Radio Movies in Color

One of the leaders of Bell Labs had an idea of how to show the black and white movies of ...
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1930: Television Gives Radio Eyes and Ears

1930: Television Gives Radio Eyes and Ears

Discussions of 1929 TV milestones like ‘color over a wire’ and other events are described, but TV had yet to ...
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1931: 3-D Television?!

1931: 3-D Television?!

And you thought 3-D television was a new thing. Ha! ...
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1932: David Sarnoff on "Where Television Stands Today"

1932: David Sarnoff on “Where Television Stands Today”

“Where Television Stands Today” is an 8-page article written for Modern Mechanics by one of the most important names, and ...
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