Rca Tk-41

[W.B.]

I noticed the photographer misidentified the TP-7A slide projectors as TP-6's, now that you mention it. So if NBC did have TK-28's as of 1976 and he called them TK-27's, well . . .

As for WNAC-TV using PE-24's (as I saw in GE ads from 1964-65 - they might've added some PE-240's to their roster of equipment after 1966), they were in good company with other RKO stations: WOR-TV (Ch. 9) in New York, KHJ-TV (Ch. 9) in Los Angeles, and WHBQ-TV (Ch. 13) in Memphis also used these GE film chains in their respective setups.

And I wouldn't be surprised that WBZ-TV would've had TK-27's; sister station KYW-TV in Philadelphia also used them. (Whereas WFIL-TV, known after 1971 as WPVI-TV, had PE-24/240's.) As for WKBG: Would anyone know if the use of those TK-27's crossed over to the station's 1974 call letter change to WLVI? It would seem that those TK-27's also had horizontal linearity issues, along with the other bugs you mentioned.

[John Hafer]

Originally Posted by W.B.

As for WKBG: Would anyone know if the use of those TK-27's crossed over to the station's 1974 call letter change to WLVI?

I don't know but I was living in Boston at the time they switched call letters. They stayed at their same studio location at the switch so I assume they really never changed anything at the time except the call letters.

WKBG-TV ch. 56 signed on in December of 1966 and I think the call letter change to WLVI-TV came in the early 70s' so that would not make the TK-27s' that old.

One interesting memory: As I said earlier, the TK-27s had, IMHO, very poor contrast and lacked "shap" to their pictures. I remember back in 1967 watching a rerun episode of 'The Patty Duke Show' on WKBG-TV ch. 56 and even though it was being shown in B&W off their TK-27, the contrast was so low and poor, I almost called the station. I had to manually crank up the contrast control on our TV to compensate for it. It was not just that film copy either for I could tell every time they aired a film from that film chain, the picture was poor. Their other film chain was somewhat better so it was interesting watching them switch films from one chain to another and actually see the difference.

[W.B.]

I also have some questions for NYC viewers, but first a little background. Aside from WNBC-TV which went from TK-26's to TK-27's around 1965 (the same time that the picture quality of film-based shows like Flipper changed, and not for the better), I seem to recall WCBS, WABC and WOR used GE PE-24's (and probably a few PE-240's if acquired after 1966), and WPIX was equipped with TK-27's while that station was being prepped for color in 1965. I'm at a loss as to which film chains WNEW-TV used, though from what I've seen I could've sworn they too had TK-27's when they started running films in color in fall 1965. (Irrespective of their getting Norelco PC-70's when they added live studio color to their setup in '66.)