Tag: TV

Look at my wonderful tubes!

I found this promotional picture in an old NAB conference technical papers book dating to 1969:

RCA TT-30FL promotional picture
RCA TT-30FL promotional picture

So here we see an obviously qualified and appropriately dressed technician gesturing to all the components she is about to install in the transmitter behind her. I wish I worked there.  No, wait, I wish I had that transmitter and perhaps this fetching young woman would come and work at my station.  Well, hell, I don’t need a TV transmitter, just the woman.

Sigh.

I wonder how many of these rigs RCA sold before the broadcast division went out of business.

By way of reference, the RCA TT-30FL is a VHF television transmitter, 30 KW peak visual power, 7.5 KW peak audio power, air-cooled.

The often misquoted Hunter S. Thompson

I have often heard or read this Hunter S. Thompson piece misquoted as “The Radio business is uglier than most things…”  After a bit of research, I found this directly from his book called Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the ’80s (New York: Summit Books, 1988):

The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.

Phew, thank God I don’t work in TV, that must be really bad.