Restoration of Broadcast Equipment

I have been enjoying restoring old radio broadcast equipment. These are the exact
models I used when I was a radio disk jockey in the 1970's. I loved the Gates consoles with
their huge knobs and giant VU meters. Classic. The one below was filthy with years of tobacco
smoke and tar. It smelled horrible and took hundreds of Q-tips to clean all the little internal parts.

My goal is to restore this equipment to factory like-new condition.

Gates Radio "Diplomat" mono console from the mid-60's

What the Gates Diplomat board looked like brand new at AFN Frankfurt.

Before restoration. Notice rust from condensation since the console was purchased from a northern location.
All the internal cables had to be cleaned several times to remove all the gunk.
A lot of modifications had been done over the years that had to be un-done. I wanted it "factory".

Cleaned, painted and ready to put back together again.

Here is a CU of the clean top lever switches and a comparison of the dirty and cleaned switches. 40 years of goo and tobacco tar!

Ampex 440-B-2 audio tape recorder I restored. This is a stereo 1/4" version from the 70's.
Many hits of the 70's were mastered on this model.

An Ampex 351 from the early 60s I restored to like-new condition. This is a full-track monaural unit with all tube electronics. It sounds great!
The original heads were re-lapped and brought back to life.

More pictures of my Ampex 351, 440-2 and Gates Diplomat console.

My next project: to restore this Gates Radio Gatesway 80 board. I used this board in the military at AFN Kaiserslautern.

Gates Radio CB-500 turntable with a Micro-Track tonearm. Built like a tank (notice the brass components), it will last another 40 years!
Picture on the lower left is a "before" shot.

ITC "SP" model cart machine restored.

Electro-Voice Sentry 1 wall mount speaker, new old stock. This speaker was in its factory crate for 30 years in storage.
I am the first purchaser.

Ampex 440B-2, AEG German recorders and mono Scully recorders.

RCA 44BX, Telefunken (Neumann) U-47 and an RCA 77DX.
These mics have all been restored to factory new condition and sound great.
The U-47 is the best recording mic ever built, IMHO.

Ampex ACE 25 video editor. I restored this from ebay parts. It is a four VTR editor
that controls VTR through a 9-pin serial port. It will control 1" through HD VTRs.

On the left, Chuck Pharis's TK-31 and TK-30. You can see on the table the studio monitor, video switcher and two camera control units.
Under the table are the power supply units. This was set-up at Chuck's house north of Los Angeles.

Here is a behind the scenes look at my project for getting operational cameras from the 50's ready for Disneyland's 50th anniversary.

On the right, Walt opening the doors of a 31 to keep it cool. We are going to supply the same cameras used for
the opening day telecast for Disneyland's 50th anniversary.

A model 5820A RCA Image Orthicon camera pickup tube used in the above cameras, 3 inches in diameter and 15 inches long.

This is a close-up of the fine mesh copper screen inside the tube.

Back in the days of Rock Radio, jingles were an important part of the music flow.

The best producers of radio station ID jingles were PAMS of Dallas.

The best jingles were done for WLS and WABC by PAMS. My all-time favorite was the

"Solid Rock" package of 1971 for WLS, Chicago. Here is a short sample:

SOLID ROCK WLS.mp3

The PAMS web site is http://www.pams.com/