It’s Alive! This RCA TK30 Is Making Pictures Again!
It’s Alive! This RCA TK30 Is Making Pictures Again!
I’d heard that Ralph Sargent in Los Angeles had been working on restoring a TK30 and finally we have pictures and the story from Ralph as he told it on the Videokarma site. Thanks to our friend John Bolin for sending this along. Here’s what Ralph wrote….
“As some of you may know, I have been working on a “secret” project since February. The project is now pretty much complete and it’s time to let you in on it. Project: The resuscitation and restoration of a 1946-47 image orthicon camera.
Here are the 1st pictures of TK-30A, serial #101 making TV pictures for the first time since the end of 1966! These were taken in my office today and I haven’t retouched anything. What you see is what I saw. (The slightly greenish cast is from the florescent lamps in the workspace.)
The turret has on it 2 – 135mm lenses and 1 – 90mm. The black hole is actually black masking tape so I can cap the tube in that I don’t have a legit cap. I think I’ve gotten the alignment fairly close and the results are starting to look pretty sharp.
The camera was owned by CBS-NY and had the usual Stanton-decreed, “Get those RCA insignia and so forth off my cameras and paint ’em all grey!” Fact was that when I got the cameras they were painted a sort of bilious green which I had to strip off of everything and repaint. Same was true of the CCU and PS.
The pictures are from my office windows looking across the street at a new condominium being built there.
The reason for the 8 inch modern monitor on the top of the CCU is that the CCU CRT has pretty severe linearity problems that I have yet to figure out. I’ve got to poke into this next week.
Notice the digital meter to the extreme left of the CCU in picture #5. This gives me instant numbers for the AC voltage and current. Was handy for starting this up for the first time and knowing that it wasn’t about to blowup. Helps build confidence. (Notice this gear is pulling about 8.5 Amps @ 116 vac. Less than I thought it would be!)
As far as the number of components replaced: I replaced all of the caps with the exception of a few micas. Overall this was a rather expensive project given that the .05 mfd/ 7kv caps cost about $80 each and the oil 0.5 mfd/1500v was $148.00. I’ve replaced very few resistors except the bleeder chain in the viewfinder which had gone skyward with age. Surprisingly, practically every resistor in this chain is 5% or better and have held their values remarkably well. I’ve ditched a great number of the electrolytic cans as part of the recap to try to improve the airflow throughout the camera. Also, all of the HV wire in the camera had to be replaced because the insulation had rotted. I used the super flexible Alpha wire that John Folsom uses on his CT-100 vertical transformers, but had to buy 100 foot spool at $2.00 a foot!”
My first remote truck had ’30’s and went big time when we got ’31’s! Great to see one working…Nice!
plus..i was lucky enough to have had my hands on the wonderful TK-30 just a few years later when i started working at WEDU Ch 3 Tampa/ St. Pete. and i think that thay were from WFLA Ch 8 when Ch.8 switched 2 COLOR ! and ch 8 gave them 2 wedu !
when i was in 8th grade i had a friend who’s father worked at WFLA ch 8 tamp/st.pete..and his father gave me a IO that they were throwing away in the trash..that was the most BEAUTIFUL tube i have ever seen !
…what a treasure ..so nice to be able to see people who can restore this vintage equipment ..hats off to ya !
Luv to see the new footage. ;0)
My dad worked with these on CBS soaps in NY in the 50s and 60s…. Great to see one again.
This is great news to see old technology and history working once again. Great job!
Cool!
WUNC-TV Chapel Hill NC
Used their TK -11&14 cameras well into the mid 1970’s. What you’ve done is remarkable and makes me feel ,not Old ,but Part of History.
And James could operate it.
GREAT WORK !!!!
La TK-30..mi juventud entre ellas..y con ellas !!!
Good job !!!
Congratulations! That is so cool. What a great project!
Wow. The camera I used in college in 1974!
WOW, this is totally awesome!!! 😀 I am aware of Chuck Pharis’s excellent restoration on his TK-30 and 31 cameras but didn’t know about this one till now, excellent work, I really really hope Ralph will upload direct videos from this camera so we can get the full feel of 1940s/50s era 3″ image orthicon pictures! 🙂
That’s cool I wanna go see it