Please start at
the KRLD Pictures Index Page, if
you have stumbled across this page through the use of a search engine.
Yesterday [11/28/2007] I met with Richard Bauer, who was one of the engineers who put KRLD-TV
on the air in 1949. Richard handed over a bundle of medium format glass slides that were
used in the station's early days. I hope to have them professionally scanned and presented here
in the near future, but just to get a good look at them I shot a couple of the slides with my
camera.
This is self-explanatory.
This is a real gem -- a KRLD-TV test pattern that appears to be in excellent condition.
The back-light is just a paper towel over a light bulb. With that in mind, the slide should look
really good when it is professionally converted into a computer-readable file.
Updated 11/30/2007:
The two slides shown on this page have been carefully packed and shipped and are now on their way to
Dig My Pics in Arizona for scanning. In
a few weeks I should have some impressive scans to show you.
Updated 12/14/2007:
The people at DigMyPics wrote a few days ago and said they were unable to scan the old slides because
the images were printed directly on the glass (!) and they didn't want to take a chance with their
scanner. (Never mind that, I thought... just don't break the slides!) But then a couple of days later
I got an invoice for scanning services, not just return shipping; so when I inquired about that, I was
told that they were able to scan the slides after all. That's great news. I should have some
excellent images to post here in a few days.
Updated 12/17/2007:
The FedEx package arrived today, and the results are quite good. The only drawback is that since
the glass slides have some considerable thickness, compared to film, there is a slight shadow evident in
the finished products. A few hours of restoration work with Photoshop could eliminate most of these
artifacts, but it hardly seems worth the effort. The scans turned out very well.
This looks pretty good.
As usual, click to enlarge.
Updated 12/18/2007:
Today I experimented with a different approach: Instead of scanning the test pattern slide,
I illuminated it from behind and shot it with a camera (like the first two photos at the top of this page), but
this time I used a much more even back-light and had Travis take the photo with his camera, which is much
better than mine.
Those are my thumbs and index fingers acting as a mounting bracket.
Using Adobe Photoshop, I cropped the picture and rotated it 2.36° counterclockwise to make it horizontal.
I then adjusted the black and white levels, sharpened it up, and cleaned up some of the spots and
scratches. The restored slide looks even better than the scan, I think.
The interesting thing about test patterns is that they really put your equipment to the test — hence
the name. If there are any shadows, ghosts, or distortions of any kind — especially a soft
focus — the test pattern will show it. Thus a test pattern one of the most difficult
subjects to photograph, because you can tell what it's supposed to look like, even if it's not
quite right. That was the whole purpose of test patterns years ago.
Updated 11/27/2009:
Richard came by the other day and dropped off some snapshots, mostly from the 1970s.
Marvin Reynolds, Dan Smith, Horace Liles.
Bill Bragg.
Two Ampex AVR-1's and an ACR-25.
Nick Mueller.
One of the first ENG vans.
Chuck Armstrong.
An overview of the news set in Studio A.
Howard Chamberlain, and another man
who might be Gene Dimock. The man in the background might be Dan Smith.
Bill Hathaway, Ed Shellhorn, Bob Jacobs.
Chester Creech and ... somebody else.
The engineering department secretary, whose name I do not know.
Gene Roberts, engineering supervisor.
Allen Levy.
Tony Santos and Projector 3.
Judy Overstreet, CG operator in the newsroom.
Marlene McClinton (?), Warren Culbertson,
and Dick Johnson.
Bob Natho, surrounded by videotape machines.
The quad machines were equipped with Editec editors, which were almost never used. Shows
like "Dance Fever" and re-runs of "Sanford and Son" were played on these machines.
The man on the right is probably Ken Hansen..
Marvin Reynolds, and in the background,
the original 1949 water-cooled GE transmitter.
This is a Collins microwave transmitter,
the studio-transmitter link, which sent KRLD-TV programming to Cedar Hill (about 16 miles
to the southwest), using only 100 milliwatts of power. Callsign: KKW-88.
Marvin Reynolds, Billy Grant, and Warren Farrar.
A bank of CG / data entry people, probably during
election returns, possibly November 1978.
