RCA TK-60 on Crane
 

Uses lots of nuvista tubes but has pwr transformers on board making it a bit heavy for for field operation. Overall, very high quality state of the art for Image Orthicon. Don't know how picture compared to competitive cameras.

Is that YOUR garage/basement/mancave ?!? If so, can I come over 'n' play w/yer kewl, neat Toys ??? Pleeze.....(grin)

The TK-60 was the first camera I ever ran in 1969 at WCEE-TV (now WIFR-TV) in Rockford, IL.

We only owned one TK-42 color camera and the studio crew would not let the rookie touch it. We used it in the news to show UPI news fax photos. Burst on...burst off...who cares. Early in 1971, the TK-42 went over on its side and was bent up badly but repairable by RCA. We did the news for a week in B&W with the lowly TK-60 until a loaner arrived.

One night, the northern lights were visible in northern IL and we wheeled the TK-60 up the ramp from the studio and out the master control back door by the base of the tower. The engineers cranked up everything that camera had, we turned off the tower beacons (try that today and unmarked black helicopters will arrive soon) and made pictures of the lights that we put on the air.

I remember that if you adjusted the VF brightness, the image would change. I think the VF and the cam shared the HV supply. The camera did make a remarkably sharp picture and the engineers kept the IO's circulating through and stored the standbys in a refrigerator.

We bought the loaner color camera and when the wreck was fixed we now had two color cams and the TK-60 was retired around the same time to storage in the stations barn and when last heard from it had moved to a station in Chicago for more storage.

I want it back! I have been so lucky to get in to broadcasting at the last gasp of B&W and see all the changes since.

Design does seem conservative/no compromise and top notch performance no doubt. Camera is in private museum near me--other cameras there in next post.

A few years ago, VH1 showed segments of old episodes of Dick Clark's American Bandstand . . . and the B&W picture emanating from the TK-60 on videotape episodes from 1967 before the show went color, was to die for.

CBS, of course, was "anything but RCA" with regards to purchasing new equipment, thus they completely bypassed the TK-60's in favor of Marconi's Mark IV which also provided outstanding pictures. And forget NBC - they were a few years away from becoming "the full color network" when TK-60's were introduced, yet NBC studios still held on to their old TK-10/30 and TK-11/31 stock.

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Amazing to see the heavy duty materials used in those, and the diecast nameplates and logos. Sad to think of the manufacturing capability that is now lost, which allowed RCA to produce such a device and make a substantial number of the components themselves. Remarkable.

"The Big T.N.T. Show" (Theatre Network Television) and released for theatres by Ameican International Pictures in 1966, was done with TK-60's. You can see them in some shots. It was a rock and roll variety show with everyone who was big in the mid-60's was on it but is was a poor musical second to "The T.A.M.I. Show". As soon as I find my copy, I will try some grabs.

And earlier R&R show called "The T.A.M.I. Show" from 1964 by the same producer may have been done with TK-60's. I am not sure if the T.N.T. show used the same format. T.A.M.I. used an early HD format using jeeped up cameras recorded to 35mm film using a format called "Electronovision". I suspect the TK-60's were there for both. There is a hint at Wikipedia;

"one of the first high-definition video cameras that captured somewhere between 1000-1100 lines at 25fps. Then, via kinescope recording, it was converted to film with sufficient enhanced resolution to allow big-screen enlargement." Full article here;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.A.M.I._Show

I could find no complete description of "Electonovision" save for an interview with the T.A.M.I. director Steve Binder;

http://www.nealalpert.com/binder1.html

After many years of bootleg copies, the T.A.M.I. show is now available in it's original roadshow version including the Beach Boys performance which was missing from all the bootleg copies.

Although it is a HD kine, it could be the definitive look of the TK-60's. Gotta order mine now on Amazon.

I'll say! And outstanding industrial style/design - in step w/ the late 50's/early 60's Modern Space Age w/ its stepped top/tapered blue sides and RCA's best electronic build-quality equaling that of Ampex.

Quite a coup to get these for your collection - very significant items from the price-no-object Golden Age of television.

That very thing-the downright "Huskiness" of older equipment is no small part of its attraction to me. I have a couple of E.H. Scott naval morale receivers, an SLRM, & an RBO-3, & they're built "The NAVY Way"-like battleships. Substantial. Downright heavy & massive. Enduring.

The TK42 had similar stylistic cues (would like to see one in museum or running:tresbon:) but the TK60 is the King of the studio. The TK42 having more severe angles as Deco influence completely faded - like we would later see in the Marconi mark VIII for instance.

Here are some better pictures of the crane [early 50's ?] not fully shown in orig pix. Made out of massive cast aluminum.