WCSC-ETV/WCSC-TV DAGE Model 520 Television Cameras

We have two of these DAGE 520 Cameras here in the museum's collection. we are looking for DAGE catalogs and sales literature, maintenance manuals and spare parts. It would be really special to find the CCU rack mounded unit that went with these cameras.

We would also appreciate photos of these units actually in action out in the broadcasting world.

But... most precious of all would be your remembrances of using, selling, or manufacturing these units.

These 2 cameras had been used at WCSC-ETV...

This is the DAGE version of this Page!

I had posted we were looking for info and here is what came back...

Those are Dage 520's. They were mono Vidicon cameras. This is confirmed by 7735 tube type numbers in one of your pix. My understanding is that Dage equipment was popular with educational institutions. The company I once worked for (both a UHF broadcaster and an equipment dealer) sold Dage and other brands to colleges. We even used a pair of them on our B & W remote unit, along with a Dynair switcher, Riker sync gen and RCA TR-5 quad. Back in 1970, this wasn't too bad a setup for a small town station. The color truck had PC-70's.

That big connector has been around at least since the days of a TK-11 camera. Nearly every domestic camera maker with split camera-CCU used it. In the color realm, it was TV-81 and TV-85 nomenclature, IIRC. The CCU's you seek are just 2RU tall. Dage could take a zoom lens, as your pix show. We only had one of those, the second 520 used C-mount fixed lenses.

520's weren't too heavy. One person could place them on a Hercules tripod easily. Being Vidicon, they were almost unusable doing night high-school football games at your typical 1970's era stadium. Pretty much a daytime camera. I am still amazed that our sales department could line up any sponsors for some of the horrible quality tape we dragged back to the studio after shooting a Friday night football game. Towards the end of their life at our station, the best 520 got to be the scoreboard camera in the color truck. Hardly a glorious end to one's career.

To a kid of 17 working his first job in broadcasting, a 520 was a magnificent triumph of engineering, exceeded only by a quad tape machine.

DAGE Model 520 Television Cameras - The ones we have here!

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Tonight (7-6-2010), after sending of a blast of letters...
and not even enough time for any to come back...

I followed a lead that had been presented to me earlier today... and we got the answer to... What is WCSC-ETV?

We found the home of the cameras yea!!

Here we are... 1972

Time Marches on... 1973

Now I have these cameras I need to find the tripods and control box stuff... Ed Sharpe Archivist for SMECC

Time Marches on... 1974

Time Marches on... 1975

Time Marches on... 1976

Time Marches on... 1977? (Can not find)

Time Marches on... 1978

'79 below - the campus radio station

Time Marches on... 1980

1980 also below

Time Marches on...1981
Nothing more is seen in the books?
-What happened?

What is WCSC-ETV?

Below you will find the entry for WCSC In South Carolina
South Carolina had an ETV station also or so we have heard....

WRONG!!!!!!!!!

WRONG ASSUMPTION!!!!
An Interesting Station but not the one we needed!

WCSC-TV

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

WCSC-TV is a television station in Charleston, South Carolina. It is a CBS television affiliate which broadcasts its analog signal on Channel 5. Its transmitter is located in Awendaw, South Carolina.

History

The station signed on in 1953 from its original location on 485 East Bay Street in downtown Charleston, and was owned by the Rivers family until 1986. After numerous sales, the station's ownership was transferred to Jefferson Pilot Communications in 1994.

In 1997, the station moved its offices to the West Ashley area, at a newly built facility at 2126 Charlie Hall Boulevard, named for the station's first on-air personality, who appeared from the station's first broadcast in 1953 until his death in March 1997. From the mid-1970s until 1991, the main 6:30pm newscast anchors stayed consistent.

The station has been a trend-setter in South Carolina for newscasts as it expanded its evening newscast from one 30-minute broadcast to two hours combined, and a 30-minute newscast at 4pm. In 1991, WCSC switched to a one-hour format at 6pm. In 1997, the station moved the CBS Evening News from 7pm to 6:30pm, resulting in an 90-minute local newscast beginning at 5pm. In 1998, a thirty-minute 4pm newscast was added, totaling two hours of news from 4 PM until 6:30 PM.

Local sports coverage has also been well known. In the early 1980s, the NAIA Charleston Cougars would have games broadcast live on WCSC, and in later years, the station has been the host broadcaster for the Cooper River Bridge Run.

WRONG ASSUMPTION!!!!

See more DAGE in the Azores HERE!

Not sure there was a AFRTS connection on this or not... can anyone tell us?

it was built from funds from ???

Up goes the TV antenna ••• and GI's
stationed in the Azores are all set to
watch programs from their own island
"packaged station". as complete as your
own local station!

THOMPSON BRINGS TV TO GI'S IN MID-OCEAN

First complete " Packaged Station" telecasts big-time programs to servicemen in the Azores!

Eight Hundred Miles off the coast of Portugal, the Dage Television Division of Thompson Products has
built a complete local TV station ..supplying everything but the actors and commercials!

The development of this "packaged unit" by Th o m p son-Da g e electronic engineers has made it
possible for servicemen stationed in remote places to enjoy popular network programs. Live local programs
also originate from this unit. It includes TV cameras, projectors, transmitters, antennae, microphones,
studio monitors, as well as complete lighting, testing and servicing equipment ... the works.

You eaneouMon

CJhompson

Products

MANUFACTURERS OF AUTOMOTIVE. AIRCRAFT.

INDUSTRIAL AND ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS.

FACTORIES IN SIXTEEN CITIES.

TIME, JUL Y 4, 1955

33
Final training of operating personnel under Thompson supervision is included in this package,
now being duplicated at other American military outposts. All personnel and equipment used in the
Azores TV station were flown 3,250 miles to the building site where Thompson-Dage engineers super
vised the installation.

The field of television electronics is but one of many where Thompson

The Heart of the Thompson-Dage Packaged TV Station is this very small Dage TV
Camera. It weighs about one-third as much as the average commercial TV camera, and
requires about one-third the space. A convenrional camera is traced behind the Dage unit
for size comparison. The Dage TV Camera is naturally much easier to handle, allowing
greater flexibility to get "good shots" without a costly. cumbersome carriage.

GI's put a local TV show on the air from studios of the Azores station. Cost of
station installation was about one-fifth that of the usual broadcasting station
equipment-so low that the airmen paid for it themselves through their own
welfare funds. Design and construction were so simple that it was in full oper
ation less than 2 weeks after arrival in the Azores.

Products engineering and manufacturing skills and facilities are developing amazing new products
and improving old ones for such w id e ly- d ivers if ied industries as automotive, aviation, light metals,
metallurgy, home appliances and
. many others that have learned you can count on Thompson!

Thompson

Products, Inc., General Offices,
Cleveland 17, Ohio.

Another Thompson. Dage development is this "pint-sized" TV Camera, weighing just 7 % lbs. It is the smallest, self-contained tele
vision camera and operates on a closed circuit. It has unlimited uses in industry ... to check dangerous operations, guard plant gates and
instruct trainees. In stores it helps spot shoplifters, in homes it keeps an eye on nursery Or
sickroom, in hospitals it shows operation "close-up" to medical students.