The Ampex BCC 10
On December 18, 2012
- TV History
The Ampex BCC 10
Yesterday, I made a comment on the BCC 10 and low and behold, I just found a photo of them at work at KPRC in Houston. I’ve never seen these cameras in a studio, only in catalog photos and that’s probably because so few were made. Only 69 were built between ’78 and ’81 and they sold for about $70,000 each.
I know Ampex sold Cei cameras in the early 70’s but I believe that they built the bcc 1, 10 & 20. The 1 & 10 are a total copy-cat of the Philips ldk-25 with 1″ plumbicons.
I thought they were Daleks before TV cams!
Ampex was trying to do turnkey installs like RCA. (Who actually made these cameras?) They were also selling Townsend transmitters. At one point they were in bed with Marconi. Ages ago when you could fit NAB into a hotel ballroom, Ampex engineers were complaining about a bad ground. Marconi engineers about a bad earth. As Joe Roizon told the story there was a new hire on the Ampex team who asked what the difference was between earth and ground? A Marconi engineer told him, “About 30 f*cking volts!”
Waga TV in Atlanta had these back in 1978. They never looked as good as the Norelco PC-70’s that they replaced. Part of a huge Ampex purchase at the time.