RCA TK-43 colour camera chain on Ebay
 

G'day all.

Someone is selling a RCA TK-43 colour TV camera chain on Ebay, start bid is $10 and buy it now price is $1895 and it is local pick up from BETHLEHEM, PA. 18017. The camera is missing its lens and 3 vidicon tubes but still has its 4.5" IO tube. Here is the link to the auction:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=300479015472

Hope to see this camera go to a good home.

Cheers
Troy

Fabulous camera, could be restored to a 42!

RCA TK-43 colour camera chain on Ebay
 

Hi

Sometimes I wish I lived in the USA, I suppose if I did I would be looking at all those wonderful British cameras and thinking" It's a long way...."

Thanks for posting I hadn't spotted it. But I do have a scan for the TK 42 Brochure

http://www.tvcameramuseum.org/rca/tk42/tk42brochure.pdf

Best Regards Brian

Thanks for the brochure. Looking at the specs, you can see where modern cameras are greatly improved: the video signal-to-noise ratio. Current CCD-based HD cameras have about 30 dB better SNR and of course a much wider bandwidth.

Also, RCA didn't put an operating illuminance level in the brochure, and I wonder what it was.

A fascinating brochure, a real blast of history about this 300 lb tweaker's dream/nightmare. And one can perceive RCA worried a bit as they pour on the hard-sell - which ultimately wasn't enough to take this over-design over the top.

But a real coup to have one of these in a museum.

I would love to have it in my museum, if only I could be got here economically!

RCA had a bit of bad timing with the TK-42, It was designed just before the Lead Oxide vidicon, or Plumbicon as we know it became available. At that time it was perceived as the best way forward, EMI, in the UK, made a prototype on the same lines. It was a little later and was quickly discontinued when the plumbicon arrived.

It would/was hard to set up with the different tube sizes and characteristics as well as needing a lot of light.

Brian S

I used to run the 43 version of this beast. At least I had a real zoom and not that back handle zoom/focus arrangement. Whatta dog! We normally used 300fc of light on the sets. It needed a full hour of warm-up and some nominal tweeking by the engineers. If you looked at the R/G/B outputs on the test monitor, you wondered how it made color. The vidicon image was lousy.

Because the I/O faced backwards, our chief engineer used to yell at us to not tilt it too far forward fearing that loose junk in the I/O would fall back in to the guns and short it out.

It did have one good side though. The low profile on a cam head put the center of gravity very low on the pedestal and made it very easy to maneuver about in the studio unlike the taller cameras that preceded it on cradle heads.

It was rather fluid in motion. I could push off with my right foot on the pedestal, steer the ring with my right hand to start and jump hands to the zoom/focus and make a very good move with my left hand using the pan handle to continue pushing. Most dolly moves were with the lens wide so focus was a minor factor.

That's the first time I heard about not tilting too far because of concern about the gun. The RCA spec sheet on IMOs had a limit on tilting towards the face to prevent junk from forming spots on the target, IIRC.

Wow...Hearing some of these "War Stories" like this is WILD...That these things worked at all is somewhat amazing...

Old,

That may have just been my chief engineer's imagination. He was a bit odd anyway. He believed in keeping used I/O's and vidicons in a refrigerator for reuse.

Sandy,

More 43 stories. My friend Paul was running it one night and between tapings of a church show, he was moving it out of the way. The pedestal wheels locked up and the momentum took the camera over. The pan-handle hit Paul and knocked him over. The ring hit first and the camera flew off (a cam head is just a floating connection) and hit on a corner and bent the frame so all of the boards on that side were listing to port. No glass damage. It was laying on its top with it's little rest feet sticking up in the air like a cartoon corpse. The best part was watching the church members standing in a ring around it praying for it and Paul. We did the news in B&W for a few days until RCA got us a loaner. Paul is fine and driving a limo in Chicago.

I was behind the camera one night doing the same church show when the block and tackle electric lift system in the pedestal cut loose and the camera dropped about 18" with a two-hundred pound thud. I held on and the pastor kept going.

The pic is Paul as stage manager and me behind it circa 1970 shooting the "womens news" segment of the 6pm news. The one for sale is near me and I am not tempted one little bit.

Yeah, well, Dave, if you were so tempted 'n' got it, you could take out all yr pent-up frustrations on it...(grin)

Sandy,

I'm only going to grin when I learn this this has been sold to someone in Moldovia. The only thing I ever got from this is a chapter in color tv history that I survived.

An aside story. About 20 years ago, I visited a station in Lancaster, PA and they had one in storage I saw laying on the floor. I will see that station this weekend at my ballpark (Go Phillies) and will prompt them to contact me to see if it is still in the attic. But then, this could be the one for sale.

Yes the anecdotes make it more interesting

Update: Now $119 or 42cents/lb

1960's American opulence - Wide, high priced no compromise 4-tube.

First picture on brochure (RCA artist's illustration?) makes it look more acceptably slimmer ?
(compare with viewfinder end picture)
http://www.tvcameramuseum.org/rca/tk42/tk42brochure.pdf

Dave-If you feel THAT way about this Valuable Piece of Plunder, I gotta know- What did the poor Moldovans even do to you ?!? Hehehehehehehe...

1966: I can see some engineers trying to explain to management why (already mature)Philips product was 1/3 the weight.

So next year comes the TK44 with 3 x 'Isocon'(?) tubes (very short production?)