About a year ago a friend of mine gave me an old Ampex Video Recorder (his girlfriend had been raving about how much space it occupied in their one-room apartment). He hadn't used it for a couple of years, but said it was working the last time he tried it.

It's a B/W machine from the late 60s, with 1 inch tape (I got just one tape - which is said to contain a live concert with The Doors - and one empty reel). Of course I can't get it to work, and now, one year later, my girlfriend is beginning to show some impatiance, too... It's really one huge piece of equipment which can't really fit anywhere.

Someone suggested that my TV set (a few years old) might be "too new" - the output signal is too week from the tape machine so that the TV just shows a black screen, like when there's no input signal at all. Could that be an explanation?


http://www.vidipax.com/museum/images/msm30.jpg


The following text is from this page: http://www.labguysworld.com/Ampex.htm

VP-4900 & VR-5100: - Two new compatible video tape recorders designed specifically for use as instructional aids in education, industry, government, medicine and to other areas have been put on the market. The former is a playback unit while the latter is a playback / record unit. Both units feature a video response of 3 Mhz and a horizontal resolution of 300 lines. The video signal to noise ratio is 42 dB. A rotary transformer in the drum assembly provides increased reliability of signal transmission from the head, according to the company. Both units feature four minute fast forward and rewind speeds. Text and photo: Electronics World Magazine - November, 1968.

those decks have 1 video head,and the drum spins twice as fast as a usual home deck.(home vcr has 2 heads on drum and switching is done between the 2 heads,30pgx 2=60)..
anyways those decks are loud..!! if i remember it takes the drum motor a good 20 secs to build up to speed..i also remember the no video,and the common cause was a clogged head,try cleaning the "head chip",it is mounted on a bar under the top cover that covers the drum,hopefully it is not chipped ,you can look at it with a magnifiying lens,and if it is too worn you can actually adjust it so it has more head to tape contact while spinning,
i had a high school that had 2 of those decks and i had to try and keep them running to transfer old footage to a newer format..
that was in the late 80's and those decks where antiques back then..

Pearson,

Wiseguy is correct. Single video head and loud! My high school had one and I got to take it home and play with it when it was declared non--working surplus. I had no service literature and don't recall getting it to work. At the same time I was having a blast restoring some Sony TCV-2110 (?) 1/2 inch skip-field VTR's that needed various repairs including head problems, from a large inventory of about 5 machines to supply parts. I got setting up the head dihedral and penetration pretty good by feel. These were not designed to be set, you had to replace the whole head bar containing two factory aligned heads. I ended up using a pair of these for home video recording off TV and made a fine library of the original Outer Limits series.

These early VTR's are interesting to play with but they do take up a lot of room. Life is about choices. You might want to keep your girlfriend happy, although you could tell her truthfully that this model is much, much smaller than most VTR's that Ampex made! :).

Rob

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll take a closer look at that head chip.

You're right about the machine being loud! The built-in speaker can barely be heard through the noise!

When my friend got the Ampex about five years ago he didn't have any tape or reels at all. He tried to contact Ampex in Sweden, but they almost laughed him in the face; "Noone is using those machines, and there are no parts either". But they gave him the names of a few companies that might still have some old Ampex gear. One of them was The Stockholm Institute of Education, and, unbelievably, they were still using them (albeit rarely)!! He got to spoke to their technician who gladly gave him a tape and an empty reel. He even got a manual which he unfortunately can't find anymore.