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Originally Posted by colortrakker
They had to shield them with mumetal because of the electrical interference caused by the subway near the theatre.
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Those magnetic fields were produced I believe by genemotors located behind what is now called the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway, where Letterman is produced. At age 11, my parents and I were in the audience of the Arthur Godfrey and His Friends Halloween show in that same theater.
While waiting outside before the show, I was checking things out, heard a whirling noise and, around the corner from the theater entrance on Broadway, found the genemotors, which then provided 600 Vdc for subway cars, but are now I guess long gone and only remembered for their magnetic fields that interfered with CBS cameras in the theater.
At the time, I didn’t know or suspect the real reason for those giant machines.
I remember being wowed by how much electricity it must take to run television cameras!
I walked by there this past summer, but couldn’t find a trace of what I heard and saw back in 1951.
Sidebar: There were three cameras as I recall, probably RCA TK-11’s. Partway through the show a camera started to smoke a little. A guy ran out from behind the stage, opened it up, and started poking around inside. They finished the show on the remaining cameras. Live television!