This is the first time I've taken the working TK-30A out on remote. The location is the Pickford Center of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in Hollywood. You might not know it, but this building was the original home base for Don Lee's 1930s television station and later, CBS's Los Angeles local station, then called KNXT. Other occupants since then have been ABC for its headquarters for the Olympic Games in 1984 (?) and KCET (PBS in LA) and its productions for "Hollywood Television Theater."

In this case this evening was the opening reception for the Association of Moving Image Archivists' "The Reel Thing" a technical symposium on new methods for image preservation.

As you can see in the pictures, the room was mostly empty as the reception was just beginning and early attendees were clustered around the "bar" in the adjoining room. Later on more than 250 people jammed into the room where the camera was and enjoyed seeing themselves on the IO camera.

Kewl ! ALWAYS nice to see that the old stuff is being kept in working condition... I noticed a "Handle" on top-How much does one of those "Bad Boiz" weigh ?

Sandy: The viewfinder weighs 35 lbs. and the camera weighs 65 lbs. In pictures from RCA sales literature, there's a fairly hefty fellow toting both sections down a hallway and looking like he enjoys it. I don't like having to carry the viewfinder alone, much less the camera. Incidentally the camera came from RCA with a top carrying the camera minus viewfinder that had the same heavy duty luggage handle as the viewfinder. I think this was wishful thinking.

NO WAY would I chance carrying EITHER one nowadays, other than maybe from one side of the room to the other..Bad knee that likes to "Collapse" every once in awhile. Would be scared of boogering-up a virtually irreplaceable historic artifact..

Thanks for sharing those photos, Ralph. Your TK-30A looks to be in top operating condition! Did you restore it electronically?

I had one of those camera'a given to me last year. It was sitting in a pawn shop upstairs in an old JC Penney building built in the 1920's. I ended up giving to a TV foundation that is local since the camera came from CBS KBOI and the guy used to work there. They thought it was lost forever. It almost got scrapped.

Yes, the camera, CCU and Power Supply have all been completely overhauled. See my previous thread, "RCA TK-30A lives again." I wouldn't attempt to fire up something this complex without a complete rebuild first.

Very neat pictures!

When I was going to college at Youngstown State, in the one "Audio Lab" of the telecommunications department, there was a TK-11/31 on top of a cabinet, it had been there for years had lenses and VF but had been scavenged for some parts internally.

One day a Ped with a broken wheel showed up(who knows from where) and was taking up a lot of room in the lab area, me and one of the other guys decided to wheel the beast out of the room and into a large mostly empty classroom across the hall.

After that I decided to get the TK down and mount it on the pend, after that I balanced the camera on the ped by removing some of the led weights in the base, and managed to get it more balanced then the Sony CCD cameras in the TV studio.