Broadcasting Telecasting (Jul-Sep 1959)

Ampex vtr's for 43 educational stations National Educational Television & Radio Center, New York, has placed an order with Ampex Corp.'s Professional Products Div., Redwood City, Calif., for $2.5 million worth of video tape recorders. Funds for the purchases come from a $2,706,000 grant to the center from Ford Foundation (Broadcasting, June 29) . Deliveries to the 43 NETRC member stations start next month and will be completed in October. In addition to equipping the stations, Ampex will install tv tape recorders in the center's facility at Ann Arbor, Mich., for duplication of etv classes. George I. Long Jr., company president, says that "at Ampex we long have believed that the vtr would be as useful for education as for entertainment. . . . The Ford Foundation's contribution and the Center's program has brought this day nearer." Transmitter business KFI Los Angeles, KDKA Pittsburgh and CJAD Montreal have ordered new transmitters from Continental Electronics Manufacturing Co., Dallas. KFI's transmitters include Continental's new Type 317B 50 kw and Type 316B 10 kw. The latter is for standby and Conelrad. KDKA's order is for a Type 315B 5 kw unit for standby and Conelrad. These transmitting plants will operate unattended. CJAD Montreal is installing its second Continental 10 kw auxiliary transmitter. Orders for 12 am transmitters and 16 remote control systems are being processed at Continental. • Technical topics • Camera Equipment Co., N.Y., announces a new tripod unit, the Ceco Pro Jr. fluid head. The fluid within the head is a highly molecular silicone polymer unaffected by temperature ranges from 20° below zero to more than 120°F; price: $300. • Nems-Clarke Co. (division of Vitro Corp. of America), Silver Spring, Md., reports its business for the first six months of this year was $5,145,000 as compared with $2,719,000 for the same period in 1958. Nems-Clarke designs and produces a line of proprietary communication and telemetry equipment. • RCA Electron Tube Div., Harrison, N.J., has introduced a new tv camera tube for both color tv cameras and black-and-white cameras. Called the RCA-7513, the new image orthicon features precision construction to provide pictures of high photographic quality and realism in both color and blackand-white tv, according to C.E. Burnett, manager, industrial tube products department. Giant step toward shrinkage • "Pretty soon they'll be doing it with nothing but air." This sums up the impression of observers at the unveiling of General Electric's newest development last week in New York, the "tunnel diode." The device amplifies, generates radio-frequency power and can be used for switching. Dr. Guy Suits, GE director of research, predicted its use soon in tv receivers, communications equipment, high-speed computers, nuclear controls, satellites and space vehicles. Smaller than a transistor, the tunnel diode has been operated as high as 2,000 mc and is expected to perform as high as 10,000 mc. Electrical charges move through the device with the speed of light, making it 10 to 100 times faster than the fastest transistor, according to GE, and thus ideal for computer switching. It also withstands nuclear radiation better than any other component, GE said. The device uses solid state conductors, like silicon, germanium, gallium arsenide, allium antimonide and indium antimonide. In the pictures above, the tunnel diode is shown nestling inside a paper clip (1) and an entire transmitter using a tunnel diode is compared to a half-dollar (r). RCA Thesaurus Commercial Library Service can help your station stir up a lot of new business in your town. William E. Stamps, Manager of WCLE, Cleveland, Tennessee, offers this example of Thesaurus magic: "13-week SHOP AT THE STORE campaign grosses $9,750.00 . . . each, listener received one ticket per visit to participating stores and over 900,000 tickets were given out! Our net on first campaign handily covered entire THESAURUS contract cost, plus a nice profit . . . looking forward to next SHOP campaign." Turn your town upside down — and watch your profits turn up! Write for the complete Thesaurus story today! @ THESAURUS 155 East 2Uth St. • New York 10.N.Y. BROADCASTING, July 27, 1959 l'IIK'AC.0, NASHVILLE, ATLANTA, DALLAS, HOLLYWOOD