I started with TRT-1Bs at a PBS station, then they moved to TR3s and TR4s, and Ampex VR1200s when they went color. I bought a used TR70A for my production company in 1974 and have been a huge fan of them ever since!

Oh yes...the good ol' days, indeed! Great times....

The TR-70 is certainly my favorite piece of broadcast equipment that I've used in my career. There's just something about them that has attracted me all these years. I'm glad you enjoyed the video...gotta keep the memory of "real" TV alive. :)

tvengineer8 may be best machine for RCA. Ice used them all beginning with Ampex VR-1000. I rhink Ampex made the best quads, after all they specialized in magnetic recording. Thats all they did. RCA was unable to develop thier own VTR, they had to partnership with AMPEX to prodice a viable Video Tape Recorder. AMPEX had copyrighted the name of Videotap.RCA called ot Television tape.

Hi...great to hear from you! I knew Clint pretty well, as he did his high band conversion for me in 1973 on a TR-22 and a TR-5 that I started my production company with, before I got a couple of TR-50s, a factory TR-22HB and a TR-70A. I tried to contact him a few years ago when I was searching for a 70B, and sadly found out that he had passed away. I didn't know that he did the nuvistor replacement in the preamps. Two of the 70Cs that I have do have FETs installed in place of the nuvistors. I "assumed", perhaps incorrectly, that this was done per an RCA FEB due to nuvistors becoming rather scarce. The machine shown here has an unmodified preamp and now has a set of "brand new" NOS nuvistors in it that I had collected over the years.

RCAquadruplex Sorry to hear about Clint. Yes, he sold us some potted modules that were wired in place of the nuvistors. It was a sealed module so you couldn't tell what was in it, but probably some FETs and whatever "glue" parts associated with it. This was in 1983, if I recall correctly.

Francis Flynn The machines I worked on were at VT ETV in Burlington, VT and were in use until 1987 when they rebuilt the control room with Ampex 1" VPR-3s and VPR-80s.

That's great! When did you work at WGTV? I have all four TR-70s from there. By the way, this one will often do 2 second pre-rolls now. :)

+RCAquadruplex In 1974 while I was a senior at UGA I was night audio, then 1976-80 as Senior TD, before I moved on to be one of the first TD/Directors at CNN.

is the machine still functional now that it’s over a decade later?

@@davidjames666 Hi David...Yes, it is! Performing very well, and incredibly reliable, as I have found TR-70s to be over the years. Only a couple of minor issues appeared and were fixed since this video was done.

Yes, the machine itself is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The air supply is somewhat critical, in that there cannot be any contaminants...especially oil from conventional compressors...present. These particular machines were originally supplied with their own individual oil-free carbon vane compressors, which often were not used because most videotape operations involved multiple machines, so a common air source for all of them was a bit more practical...not to mention, quieter.. I have several original ones, and that's what I use in my operation. They are small, but quite robust, especially considering they are at least 40 years old. I have the compressor in the next room, as they are quite noisy and run continuously when in operation. The AC power requirements are high, but not crazy high. The TR-70 was designed to be fed with three separate 30 amp 110v circuits. One of those circuits is used only to supply power to the flourescent light above the transport, and four utility outlets, which come in handy for external test equipment, or even powering the external air compressor. In normal operation, it draws about 4-5kw, and heats a room nicely. As for parts, I consider these machines now as somewhat like potato chips. You can't have just one! While most of the discrete electronic components are, more or less, standard items....there are a few electronic and quite a few mechanical parts that are "unobtainium" at this point in time. I had quite an inventory of original spare parts that I had purchased from RCA back in the '70s when I had my studio and was using these machines on a daily basis...which I still have. I've also gotten quite a few spare items included with some of the machines I have picked up in the last few years as well. I did have to "borrow" a pinch roller solenoid from one of my other machines for this one last year. I hate the thought of permanently relegating any of these machines to be parts machines, but that may be the only practical course. The video head assemblies are probably the biggest problem faced with working with these machines in 2015. Fortunately, I have collected quite a few over the years, and I take very good care of them, and fully expect my supply to outlast me. Back in the day, it was not uncommon to clear head clogs "on the air" with fingernails, or whatever happened to be handy....some operators would rewind tapes at full speed and have perhaps some masking tape pieces used to hold the tape end down to the tape pack, or the tape end was wrinkled badly or folded over... and that would fly through the video head and tear them up. All kinds of damage was possible and did occur rather frequently back then, when a video head rebuild would "only" cost anywhere from $1500-$2500, and you were lucky to get 500 hours of use out of it. Good grief...sorry....that was longer than I intended!

tv pattern generator

Hey Vincent! Howya doin?

Francis Flynn Hi Francis doing great. I love vintage a/v!

Pretty much depended on how much time you had to make the adjustments and how good you wanted the recording or playback. :)

or a vacuum pump system

The AMPEX machines only required compressed air for the air bearings on the headwheel. The vacuum was derived from a venturi located inside the machine itself. AMPEX machines were superior to RCA. RCA had to license their machine from AMPEX. The portable AMPEX VR-3000 used ball bearings and sometimes you would get headwheel errors from these balls rattling around. Heads didn't last to long in these machines

No. Never use audio tale on these machines. Audio tape has the wrong oxide layout on the tape. Video tape has the oxide layed out in a vertical format rather than a horizontal pattern

Think about this..... Try designing a machine that can faithfully record/playback a signal from 20hz to 6mhz and put it on tape!! Ever since the first successful video tape machine was developed by Ampex, there was a "standard" that all machines developed after that point had to be compatible. Each of these machines were very expensive and a considerable investment for every television station was needed to be made. The quality of the pictures these machine made were outstanding! So why change? The next offering was helical scan recorders which enabled many benefits for post production facilities at a cheaper cost. BUT a new "standard" emerged the 1" C format that all television stations has to comply with. And now we have an ever changing digital format. These are massive investments that television stations have to make, so any change must conform to FCC standards and be much less expensive than the previous "standard" in order for television stations to adopt it

1800lbs

Well, "some" of the current video equipment used in professional environments actually is pretty high grade stuff, but....I would say there is a greater overall percentage of consumer-type junk in use now, than there was in the days of quad videotape.