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1967 ATV Research Vidicon (Do It Yourself) Kit Camera

       Since the early 1960's, ATV Research has been meeting the needs of experimenters. They started out by making vidicon deflection yoke kits! Early TV camera experimenters were often hampered by the lack of components. The idea of hand winding your own deflection coils can be daunting, even for the experienced hack! Along comes ATV Research to the rescue! Ultimately, they began to sell entire camera kits (this is one) as well as video camera accessories like lenses and tripods, etc..

       In the center photo, it is quite easy to see the vidicon tube encased in the deflection and focus coil assembly. The one piece circuit board was quite an advancement for kit products of that era too! Across the back of the camera, third photo, are the BEAM, FOCUS and TARGET controls. In this case, "FOCUS" refers to electron beam focus within the vidicon tube itself. Not to be confused with the optical focus of the lens. Electron beam focus is controlled in two ways. The first is by a strong fixed magnetic field running parallel through the vidicon, produced by the focus coil assembly. That's the big fat black cylinder around the outer most portion of the assembly. The second electron beam focus is achieved through voltage gradients between internal elements of the vidicon tube.

       Light, focused by the lens onto the target (front face) of the vidicon tube, is converted to varying voltage by sweeping a finely focused beam of electrons back and forth across its surface. The sweep action is achieved by two more sets of electromagnetic coils, also located in the black round cylinder that surrounds the tube. The varying voltage contains the brightness information for each point in the image. In a TV monitor, the process is reversed. A beam is swept across the posphor in the picture tube and the varying voltage becomes various shades of grey at just the rigbht points. Simple, eh?

       The lens is 25 mm, f 1.8 made by Sony. These cameras usually had a surplus lens that was used on 16 mm movie cameras of the 1950's! I do have two of those lenses. I forgot to install it for the fashion photos. (Maybe later!) I haven't had time to test this guy either ~ stay tuned!

       Whoever built this one, did a fine job. I have another camera, just like this one in the museum, but it looks like it was pulled from the trash bin. Poor storage over the years and moisture infiltration have left it in the category of "curiosity"!

       Read the [ATV RESEARCH XT-1A CONSTRUCTION MANUAL] (Courtesy of Mark Nelson)

        Created: Before January, 2005 Last updated: October 10, 2021