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MODERN NEWS REEL 205
The first RCA Photophone news truck was designed for a dual purpose, news reel work, and a rolling studio — mostly the studio. Trying to coax it into performing all the tricks a news cameraman could think up was no sinecure. Two Bell and Howell cameras, two variable area recorders, all four driven by synchronous motors, necessitated power equipment of an unusual size, that is, heavy duty storage batteries and a rotary converter. The necessary charging equipment to keep the batteries in condition added to the weight. Add to all this the recording amplifiers, microphones, etc., a motor generator set for plate supply and you have a good idea of what we were transporting. A few days' experience taught us the motor generator set couldn't stand road shocks, so out it came in favor of "B" batteries. Next we shed one camera and one recorder in the interest of space. In this condition, a news reel a week was turned out for nearly five months — quite a record. This truck gave us our first real test of the durability of our variable area recorders. Although the recording machine was solidly mounted, to the best of my knowledge a mirror has never been shaken from the suspension strips by road shock. The optical system will stay in adjustment for months at a time and the balance of the mechanism has needed little servicing in spite of dirt, grit, and climatical changes.
A real test for an amplifier is to bounce it around a hundred miles or so on choppy roads and find tubes and connections in usable condition on arrival. And may I also add a good word here for the Bell and Howell cameras.
A news cameraman's creed is ''get your story" and usually he does. At all principal events provision is made for a camera stand, but the microphone placement man is not always so fortunate and must use dexterity, skill, and, many times, real ingenuity.
The advantages in two-machine recording systems for the news reel are identical to their use for studio work and far overbalance the additional equipment necessary for their operation.
For use in those places where a recording could not be made within four or five hundred feet of a truck an equipment with portable amplifier and power supply was next adapted to field work, and, within a limited scope, proved satisfactory.
Later, trucks were built after the style of the modified first truck. Then came a change; the trucks looked the same but things inside were different. A new and better recorder replaced the old, ampli