[BC] Ambassador, Exceutive, President, Executive consoles

Sat Apr 7 20:14:30 CDT 2007

Dave:

I had a sneaky suspicion that it was GE. I remember seeing a GE solid state
console up at Boynton Studio back in the 70s. They were overhauling it for a
customer as I recall. We were up there picking up another GE console a BC6.
This was a just after WWII beast with 6J7 microphone preamplifiers and 6V6
push pull program amps. The monitors were a pair of you guessed it, 6L6s in
push pull. That was a BOAT ANCHOR but built to take it. That console was
thirty years old when we rescued it from Roger Boynton's shop. We used it
for a couple of years and then donated it to a high school where it went on
until some time in the 80s. Consoles like that will never be made again. 

Bob 

Broadcast Devices, Inc. 
5 Crestview Avenue
Cortlandt Manor, NY 10567

www.Broadcast-Devices.com

Our experimental Internet Radio Station:
http://68.199.27.230:8000/listen.pls

Tel. (914) 737-5032
Fax (914) 736-6916

-----Original Message-----
From: broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net
[mailto:broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of dhultsman5 at aol.com
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 19:56
To: broadcast at radiolists.net
Subject: Re: [BC] Ambassador, Exceutive, President, Executive consoles

Bob:

The first to introduce a solid state console of the major manufacturers,  as
I recall was the General Electric audio console. I mean a full audio console
from RCA, GE, GATES, COLLINS.  Not a remote amplifier or something like a
single channel or two channel remote amplifier.  

Thw GE was germanium transistors.  The biggest problem they had was early
circuit boards used brass or plated rivets instead of plated thru circuit
boards.  After a number of years the foil on the circuit card would  become
intermittant with the brass rivet where the components were soldered.  The
board would be come intermittant.  Also the board was an early modular board
and the channels were slide-in as a high-level or low-level channel.  The
module sockets also caused some problems.  KLIF in Dallas has the first
solid state General Electric console in Dallas, Texas.   WFAA had several of
the later versions of that console and had very few problems with them.
They had solved the problem with the rivets on the later version and it was
better mechanically in its plug-in module construction.  In the new
facilities at Communications Center in 1960 WFAA-AM-FM-TV was totally solid
state with all their audio consoles and were from General Electric.  The
KLIF Console was before !
 1960.  When I went to work there in 1967 the GE console was still used in
production.

Dave Hultsman
Continental Electronics .
Birmingham, AL
Tel Toll Free (888) 822-1078
Fax (205) 822-6441

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob at Broadcast-Devices.com
To: broadcast at radiolists.net
Sent: Sat, 7 Apr 2007 12:20 PM
Subject: RE: [BC] Ambassador, Exceutive, President, Executive consoles

To All:

I think RCA used UTC privately labeled transformers in the BC-7. I think
Gates used UTC's also but not the same models. We tore a lot of those
transformers off RCA chassis when we did retrofits for those consoles. One
thing that I thought was elegant in the design of that series of console was
the balanced mix bus. McCurdy did the same thing even in the 1970s. Low
level mix buses were prone to hum pickup and the balanced mix bus solved a
lot of those problems. RCA also split the bus in two to reduce losses. The
buses were combined in the dual primary input transformer of the program
amplifier. We used to buy a special Jensen transformer that I think they
made just for us to replace it with. We used the same amplifier module that
we developed for the Gates snow plows and mounted it on a modified RCA
chassis. We didn't sell nearly as many of the RCA version as the Gates. 

Let's not be too hard on the guys at Gates though. The Executive was
introduced in 1962 and the last one ran off the assembly line in 1982 I
believe. It never had any updates to the electronics to my knowledge.
Frankly, in 1962 an audio designer didn't have much to work with when it
came to transistors. Germanium types were about the only thing available.
They were noisy and fragile. I think what Gates did was a pretty good feat
of engineering for that time. The only fault I see is that they could have
easily done what we eventually did by upgrading the electronics. I am glad
they didn't! It's what got us in the business! 

By the way, does anyone know who holds the distinction for introducing the
first all solid state broadcast console? I don't know but I do know that an
early model that I saw built in 1960 by my good friend Dick Burden was all
solid state. The Burden Associates BC-6 I think. It was Spartan but all
solid state. It was a little six channel console with two preamps, 4 line
passive modules and a pair of program amplifiers. All were plug in. Dick
made his own boards and built them for Fairchild too. That little board
remained in service at WRNW FM in Briarcliff Manor, NY another Dick Burden
creation until about 1986 when we donated it to Pace University.  

Regards, 

Bob Tarsio
President

www.Broadcast-Devices.com

Tel. (914) 737-5032
Fax (914) 736-6916

-----Original Message-----
From: broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net
[mailto:broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Milton R Holladay Jr.
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 02:33
To: Broadcasters' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [BC] Ambassador, Exceutive, President, Executive consoles

When the SoundTech 1710 came out, some of the transformers from this series
of consoles were measured and found to have significant distortion, so it
wasn't entirely the circuits that made them have a very gritty sound.
The RCAs of the time (Bc-7s, etc.) sounded dull , though clean, by
comparison because they had low distortion.............
M
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <dhultsman5 at aol.com>
To: <broadcast at radiolists.net>
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2007 11:04 PM
Subject: Re: [BC] Ambassador, Exceutive, President, Executive consoles

> Those monitor amps were junk.  After repairing them in an AMbassador,
President, Diplomat and Executive I replaced them with DYNAKIT Stereo 120's.
As I recall we muted the inputs.  I don't recall that many problems after
getting rid of those amplifiers.
>
> When WRR purchased their Diplomat for AM,  the first thing I heard was the
distortion on the Control room mikes.  After carefully checking it out,  the
clipping ocurred on the 2N1414 first stage transistor in the mic pre-amp.
To solve the problem I bypassed the solid state pre-amp with a Gates type
5530 amplifier using 6267's and a 12AU7 and the jock were happy.  Additional
checking found that the same stage in the front end of the 5700 program amps
would clip on audio peaks.  As I recall I changed the bias on that stage.
We added another stage on the microphone pre-amp to decrease the gain in
each stage.  Then when we bought an Executive for the FM, my plan was to use
a tube type mike pre-amp in our FM but Harris had changed to the 2n1307's
which were much better and the clipping was not a problem.  u
> Dave Hultsman
> Birmingham, AL
> Tel Toll Free (888) 822-1078
> Fax (205) 822-6441

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