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Thanks for the great info, Dave A. I hope others will step up to talk about their experience with the TK-42.
As I mentioned, I never worked with the TK-42, but saw many of them when visiting various TV stations in my youth.
I've included three pictures.
The first is from a 1967 RCA Broadcast News showing one of two brand new TK-42 cameras in KDKA-TV's Studio B in Pittsburgh. At age 13, I was given a wonderful electronic tour of these cameras by an engineer who I believe was named Larry Kepner, or something very close to that last name. Terrific guy. Ironically, ten years later and fresh out of college, I would begin working as an engineer at KDKA-TV!
The second and third pictures show a TK-42 I saw in 1968 while visiting WCHS-TV in Charleston, WV. They're doing Romper Room in the second picture and The Sleepy Jeffers Show in the third. The Jeffers show was kind of a country music competitor to the Today show. It featured music, news and other segments.
In those days, WCHS-TV only had one TK-42 (plus one TK-27 color film island). They did all their shows with just the one studio camera! They got really quite good at it. They used clever slide bumpers as quick transitions between segments.
For example, just as Jeffers and his band were ending a song, the director would dissolve to a cute "news next" type of slide. As soon as the TK-42 tally light went out, the TK-42 would whip around to the news set in the blink of an eye. By the time the last note rung out as Jeffers introduced the newscaster, they were ready to dissolve to the news set. It was smooth and quick enough that the average viewer was never aware that only one camera was doing double duty.
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