The Golden Telecruiser
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Click to send Chuck Conrad an email
Phone 903-643-7711
Or by Snail Mail:
Chuck Conrad
P.O. Box 1008
Kilgore, TX 75663
Originally I thought this project might take two or three years. I should have known better. As of this writing, we are now about six years into it. A lot has been done, but there remains a lot more to do.
Elsewhere on these pages you will see some of the adventures we've had.
The good news is on February 15, 2011, we actually drove the bus onto a giant Land All trailer supplied by our friends at Duncan services in Longview, TX. It is on its way to a local paint and body shop for some dent removal and a nice new paint job.
If you ever need something large moved, I can highly recommend the folks at Duncan. They are nice folks with great equipment. They are also quite reasonable.
Unfortunately, the paint shop where we initially took it went out of business before finishing the job. It took several weeks to retrieve the bus.
This could have been a huge disaster, but luckily their landlord was very helpful in letting us rescue the bus from his building. It did represent a huge setback in both time and money .
My friend, Bill Fishburn, who owns Fishburn's Auto Body, was willing to take on the task, so it has now been transported to his well equipped shop. Progress is being made on a daily basis.
I'll be posting more pictures as the paint and body work progresses. Stay tuned!
1949 DuMont Telecruiser, Model B, Number 101
Have you seen this plug?
It goes to a DuMont camera, and we need the cable mount female version for our restoration. Actually, we need cables and connectors. Any leads would be appreciated. Email Me
This Picture Just In!
Photo
Courtesy SMECC - Do not reproduce.
-
www.smecc.org
This is the very Telecruiser we are restoring. It's shown here in some
early DuMont camera sales literature.
On location at Burnett Field in Dallas, Texas
about 1952 for a baseball game.
This picture was scanned from original DuMont literature. It is
the same unit we are restoring.
You can see this and other pictures by clicking on the TA-142 Camera
link (above).
February 15, 2011, The Telecruiser drives (under it's own power) onto a giant truck to be transported to the body shop for some dent removal and a paint job! It's currently at Fishburn Autobody in White Oak, Texas where it is being sanded down to bare metal before dent removal and painting. Bill Fishburn, the shop owner, is an "old car guy" who appreciates the historical significance of this job. He and his crew are doing a great job.
Down to shiny bare metal.
Epoxy Primer is Applied
This is the way we got it. It had been sitting in a vacant lot in Dallas for years. The Telecruiser was originally purchased by Kilgore oilman, Tom Potter, who put Dallas' original Channel 8 on the air in 1949. At the time it was called KBTV and had studios and transmitter located at 3000 Harry Hines Blvd. in Dallas. The story goes that Potter spent over a million and a half 1949 dollars getting the station on the air. A year later, he sold it to the Dallas Morning News (A. H. Belo) for a mere $100,000. I guess he thought this "radio with pictures" stuff would never amount to anything.
The original KBTV building still exists today. It is occupied by KERA-TV, the PBS station in Dallas.
This is the way we found it parked in a lot near downtown Dallas. The folks at Dallas's Sixth Floor Museum let us know about its presence. It is thought to have been used during part of the ABC TV/WFAA coverage of the Kennedy Assassination. Even if it wasn't, there is a lot of Dallas history to it. It was used by WFAA-TV well into the early 1970's. We purchased it from the estate of Edward Terry, of Dallas, who purchased it at auction from A.H. Belo Corp, parent company of WFAA. That makes us the third owner. (Perhaps the fourth owner, since Belo purchased the bus when they acquired Channel 8 in 1950). Mr. Terry intended to make a motor home out of it, but never got that far. It seems he used it as a traveling store, visiting numerous flea markets with it. To his credit, Mr. Terry saved most of the electronics that came with the bus. We are still missing quite a lot, but the equipment we got from Mrs. Terry is certainly a good start to restoring this to a working black and white TV Mobile Unit. That is our goal.
This TV Mobile unit was originally built for Channel 8 in Dallas, Texas by Allen B. DuMont Labs in Passaic, New Jersey. (Parent company of The DuMont Network).
Channel 8 was originally called KBTV, before it was purchased by A. H. Belo Corp. (The Dallas Morning News) in 1950. The coach originally said KBTV on it. KBTV was originally owned by Tom Potter, an East Texas oil man who lived in Kilgore. The funny thing is, is our mailing address is Kilgore, so in a way, the Flx has "come home."
Part of the KBTV crew outside the door of the bus. If you can identify any of the people, let us know.
Master Control inside the bus, Manning Truett at the controls. Since the bus was not originally air conditioned. it must have been quite hot inside during the summer. All those tubes give off a lot of heat!
This is probably a different Telecruiser. Ours does not have light
switches on the wall just left of the meter panel. Also the Variacs
located below the Power panel on ours are factory painted gray.
These appear to be black.
Other Telecruisers
DuMont made several of these vehicles, but we are not sure how many.
I'll conjecture less than a dozen. As far as I know, all
DuMont and Paramount owned and operated stations had one. That's
five. The Telecruiser pictured below belonged to DuMont's flagship
station in New York, WABD (For Allen
B.
DuMont).
Since we have Model B, Number 101, I wonder if this might be "Model A,
Number 101?" I am always happy to hear from anyone who has
information about any of them. Feel free to send me an
email.
Photo Courtesy SMECC - Do not reproduce. - www.smecc.org
