WYTV was the ABC Network station in Youngstown, Ohio.
I worked here in the late 60s and took these Polaroids.
This is me switching a local station break during an ABC Network broadcast. My left hand is on the projector start controls for projector #1, which was one of the 16mm film projectors on the KY-27 film island. My right hand (hidden) is on the fader bars which allow me to fade between video sources on the switcher.
Wide view of the WYTV video switcher as it was in 1968. Video switcher and monitoring on the left and audio console and switcher on the right. The two bright, angled levers above the book on the desk are the video faders. My right hand is on those levers in the first image.
The WYTV video switcher as it was in 1968. This was early in the station's life, and things looked a bit crude, but it all worked. We used the three audio cart machines at the left in sync with silent 16mm film to produce commercials for local clients. Again, sort of crude, but it worked.
These racks held the tube-type sync generator, the camera control unit for the KY-27 film chain camera, video distribution amps (DA's), audio amps, and other support equipment. That 21" round color monitor was state of the art in 1968.
We had two Eastman model 250 16mm film projectors and an RCA 35mm slide projector feeding via a multiplexer into an RCA TK-27 film camera. This camera was introduced in 1965 for use in film chains like this. It is a 4-tube camera (like the RCA TK-42 studio cameras), with three 1-inch vidicons and a 1-1/2 inch image orthicon tube for the luminance channel. When it was working right, it produced very nice color pictures. In this era, most of our regional and national commercials were provided on 16mm film. They were on tiny reels, such as you see on the top arm of the projector.
These two RCA 2-inch quad video tape recorders were the first ones WYTV had. The little RCA TR-5 on the left was a record-only machine, while the taller TR-4 at the right could record and play back low band color. Both machines required an air compressor and a vacuum pump to operate.
The RCA TTU-1B UHF transmitter took up an entire wall of the control room. The serial number of this transmitter was "002." It was the second one RCA had made. The TTU-1B design dates from the 1950s. By 1968, RCA no longer stocked or even cared about parts for this antiquated beast. There was a relay on the aural side that often would not pull in at sign-on. We could not get a replacement relay, so step #10 in the sign-on check list instructed the sign-on engineer to: "Deliver a sharp blow with the heel of your hand within the marked circle." The faulty relay was on the other side of the bulkhead in that circle, and rapping it always got it to pull in.
This is the visual transmitter. The 1,000 watt driver on the left drove the 12,000 watt final amplifier tube on the right. That final amp fed the antenna atop the 650-foot tower. For those of you who understand vacuum tube tech, the final amplifier tube was a tetrode with a directly-heated cathode. This means that the filament of the tube was also the cathode. The filament voltage was 1.2 to 1.4 volts at 1,000 amps!
I left WYTV in 1969 and enlisted in the Army. I was going to be drafted anyway, but by enlisting for 4 years I got to choose my military MOS (Military Occupational Specialty.) It was 26T20, Television Equipment Repairman.
I ended up at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. I was assigned to the TV Production Studio in the Brooke Army Medical Center. That studio was state-of-the-art in 1969, with three of these RCA TK-43 color cameras in the studio.