The Golden Telecruiser
More information will be posted soon.
We recently woke up to find out that our web server provider had gone
bankrupt, switched off the phone, shut off the servers and gone
home.
We are working to resurrect as much of the lost data as possible. The good news is it is still on the hard drive of my desktop computer. Putting it on the web in some manner that makes sense is another story. That will take time.
This adventure makes a good argument for backing up your work....
On location at Burnett Field in Dallas, Texas
about 1952 for a baseball game.
1949 DuMont
Telecruiser, Model B, Number 101
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).
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. It must have been quite hot inside during the summer.
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.
DuMont made quite a few Telecruisers. As far as I know, I have the only
survivor. I'd love to discover that more are still with us.
This one belonged to WDTV in Pittsburg, which was owned by DuMont.
WDSU, New Orleans, LA.
WKY-TV, Oklahoma City
