According to the FedEx tracking site, the VX-1200 is currently on the truck "for delivery". It is a few minutes before to 11am. The truck left at 7am. Yes. I'm excited about this Television Recorder.

       UPDATE 12:00PM

       The VX-1200 has arrived. Its the usual story. See more here: [Akai VX-1200 "Television Recorder"]

       The size of the VX-1200 manuals' PDF has been reduced from 124MB to 9.8MB with no major loss of quality. The new smaller file has the same file name as before. The 124MB file is now called Akai_VX-1200hq.pdf if you still want to dowonload that monster.

       Here is the new: [Akai VX-1200 "Television Recorder, 9.8MB version"]. This PDF contains the four page Ad brochure and a ten page operator's manual. I am still searching the world over for the service manual for this recorder.

       Santa Claus gave Labguy a great gift for Christmas! An extremely rare [Akai VX-1200 "Television Recorder"]. This is a mid 1960's longitudinal scan, fixed head, VTR that uses 1/4" tape running at 45 IPS. With a specified bandwidth of 1MHz, this thing should make really bad video! Assuming, of course, that it works. The photos looked great. We will see how great when the tape recorder arrives in the next week or so.

       Fortunately, I recently obtained a seven inch reel of Akai helical scan quarter inch tape. It is labeled to contain the Apolo 14 mission video recorded off of TV. I am going to repurpose this tape as the recorded material is not unavailable at other sources. Running this tape on the VX-1200 should give me around ten minutes recording per side. If you have a 10.5" reel of video tape, or empty, that you would part with, drop me a line. Ten and a half inch reels of polished half mil tape are alleged to provide 30 minutes running time per side.

       Added a new article to the Electronics Projects pages. Describe how I run amateur television in San Jose, California. [Labguy's Projects]

        Not being in the mood to work on the horizontal deflection for the Golmark 1 project, we return briefly to the servo system. I finally mounted the photo sensor to the support frame and tested it with the laser printed servo disc. It all worked perfectly, the first time! This seldom happens. I'm very pleased, of course. Left to resolve, wheel balance. It does rumble and shiver quite a bit!

       See the latest entries of the project are at the bottom of this page:

       [Goldmark 1, part 3].

       Latest updates posted to the Goldmark 1 project. The CBS field sequential color television is making progress every day. Mechanical construction continues with the mounting of the control pots and the final construction of the monitor support stand. On the horizontal scan front, we are at the point of scanning. Hooray! If you have ever tried to desing and build working magnetic deflection circuits, you have not experienced super frustration! All of the inductance and capacitance forms comples AC netwrks that can be real bugger bears to sort out! So, the scanning is really bad. But, it is locked to the right frequency.

       See the latest entries of the project are at the bottom of these pages:

       [Goldmark 1, part 7] and [Goldmark 1, part 8].

       In my previous post, I whined about not getting feedback and I see it was worded poorly and led to misenterpretation. I was not looking for good strokes. I was seeking circuit design guidance. If you have any practical experience in magentic deflection circuit design, please contact me.

       The development of the new horizontal scan board has been started. See the latest entries of the project are at the bottom of thes pages:

       [Goldmark 1, part 3], [Goldmark 1, part 7] and [Goldmark 1, part 8].

       I am becoming mildly discouraged at this point by the sound of all these darned crickets. My several several past mailings have gone completely unanswered. Seven recipients. No replies in seven days. Three billion people browse the web and no one has comments on this project? Really? Am I making a difference or simply shouting down the well? Who knows?

       Begun to work on the Akai three inch CRT monitor again. Took some baseline measurements in preparation for the serious conversion part of the project. See the latest entries of the project are at the bottom of this page: [Goldmark 1, part 7].

       Good news, everybody! The Goldmark 1 color wheel was servo locked to video as a whole unit for the first time this evening. See the latest entries of the project are at the bottom of this page: [Goldmark 1, part 3].

       Picked up the color wheel discs and spindles from the machinist today. What a fine job they did too. Well, they should for the several hundred dollars they cahrged me. See the latest entries of the project are at the bottom of this page: [Goldmark 1, part 3].

       Did not get the color wheel spindles or discs on Friday as I had hoped. However, my machinist assures me they will be ready on Monday. Now that the servo electronics are completed, I was going to work on the video monitor today. But, instead, ended up building the color wheel motor mount. See the latest entries of the project are at the bottom of this page: [Goldmark 1, part 3].

       The primary wiring of the Golmark 1 servo board is completed. The testing will continue when the spindles and color wheels arrive from my machinist. Expected by Friday. The latest entries of the project are at the bottom of this page: [Goldmark 1, part 6].

       10:30am. Breakthrough! The Goldmark 1 Red Sync Detector is working flawlessly. It finds red sync in field 1 only. So, we only see every other red sync pulse. But, that was my plan anyway. The servo only needs the field 1 red sync pulse to work. Otherwise, the color wheel must produce TWO pulses per rotation AND a means of defing phase zero from phase 180 would be needed to make the wheel lock up perfectly every time. More on that when I write up that section of the project.

       9:00pm. Got the ABSOLUTE red sync detector and the ramp voltage generator up and running. This is major signal in the servo loop process. Read more here:[called part 6]. Latest news is at the bottom of the page.

       Moved the Goldmark 1 video pulse processing section to a new page, [called part 6].

       Moved the last two Goldmark 1 project updates to the bottom of the [servo pages] where they belong. Progress continues

       The DC motor drive amplifier for the Goldmark 1 project is completed. It took the lives of several innocent transistors. But, the mission was accomplished. I now have a servo motor with a high-Z input and tons of torque.

       Yesterday, I contracted a machine shop to make two color wheel spindles for me. These will be milled from aluminum and will custom fit my project. As well, they will make new acrylic 12 inch disks that will mate with the new spindles. My contractor swears he can make the disks balanced and does it all the time. That will be awesome! Can't wait to see the quote.

       The next phase will be video and pulse processing. I will post an update here when that info is added to the appropriate project pages.

       I am making the best of my one week 'staycation'. Using my summer holiday time off to catch up on some projects and some long overdue web site updates. Created the new Labguy's Electronics and Video Projects pages today. A work in progress. Look for the on going battery project as well as an Iconoscope camera design project and a CBS compatible Color Wheel TV.

       Created the part two page for the on going saga of the Portapac Battery Modernization Project. Read of my trials and tribulations as I try to get another one of my wild ideas to actually work properly. It's a hoot!

Received this today via my friend Michael Wright

       In the past, I have loaned various pieces of video equipment to a couple of individuals at NASA. Richard Nafzger had my Ampex VR-660 for while during the search for the missing Apollo 11 tapes. Recently, the data tapes from the original NASA Lunar Orbital Surveyor program were located. Hundreds of them! The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) has been established to digitize the contents of the archaic analog high density recordings. The original data recorders were located in the garage of the widow of the engineer who had recorded these tapes. He told his wife to keep the recorders because they would be needed one day. Sure enough they were and that's how they ended up at LOIRP.

       Volunteers have restored the tape decks and they have been interfaced to a modern digital data capture system. The results are beyond stunning. The lunar photos I show here are state of the art in 1967. But, nowhere near the quality of the images obtained at LOIRP, located at NASA Ames. Dennis Wingo contacted me in regards to some early space shuttle belly tank tests that had been recorded on two inch helical Ampex. So, I loaned them (indefinitely) my very rare Ampex VR-660. That is how I am connected with this program.

   
Actual Lunar Surveyer photos from the 1967 NASA program!

       Dennis Wingo, project co-lead, was gracious enough to create this token of appreciation. Right back at ya, Dennis! Along with the certificate, was an additional gift described on the certificate. This is a strip of photographs, printed from the original Lunar Orbiter data back in 1967. It is image number LOI-H116 and comes from the private collection of Don Wilhelms. LOIRP on Wikipedia

       Portapac batteries project report. Located and purchased spare 2 amp fuses and a small push button circuit breaker. If I need to change the fuse again, in goes the breaker! Problem solved.

       Needless to say, I picked two defective cameras in a row. Over time, I have accumulated a large number of misc. portapac cameras of all brands and models. In equally random states of operation, of course. The good news is, at this point, that the VTR is running perfectly well on the new battery. It has played back tape for ten minutes and has been excercised through three complete fast forward and rewind cycles. The battery meter is still pegged. This is awesome! The lead acids would already be showing a lower reading. Can't wait to get that darned camera problem solved! Stay tuned.

       Had a minor setback today with the NV-3082 VTR. I searched my storage locker for the mating camera to this VTR, the WV-3082. When I located that camera, I found that the previous owner had cut the plug off the camera and had spliced it to an RF unit. Searching further, I located a WV-3085 camera. The 3085 is the improved more enhanced version of the 3082. I connected the camera to the VTR and turned it on. Nothing. The main fuse had blown. I don't believe it is the mismatch of the camera model. It is almost certain that camera is defective. I have more to try. But, not having the fuse on hand, it will wait until Monday when I can buy some spare fuses. Better yet, a small 2 amp circuit breaker.

       There is a new project in town. A fellow in Sweden asked me an excellent question. "Where can I get a battery for my old portable VTR"? Good question! A little research gave me some answers and the mail man delivered them today. See part one of my research and engineering.

       Also performed some updates on the Panasonic NV-3082 EIAJ portapac VTR page. Added updated information and new photos of the NV-3082 and matching NV-A610 color converter. The updated NV-3082 page page also links to the battery project.

       I dressed up the new video pages this afternoon. Moved videos together on to there own separate pages grouped by topic. Should be much simpler for you to navigate to your favorite videos and for me to maintain this monster. There are dozens more videos to go. I believe approximately seventy two videos total. We are up to twelve!

       Uploaded a half dozen video files so far today. More to go. Upload speed very slow 70KB/S. It is taking over an hour each to upload some of the bigger files. But, I hope the visitors will appreciate the extreme high quality of the HD videos. These were edited and compiled in their native 1080p format produced by my Canon Camcorder. Visit the "Actual Videos". page to watch them.

       Be aware that not all of the videos have been uploaded yet. They will appear over the next few days. The page will most likely change form as well. Currently, the videos are in no particular order or major grouping. I will be fixing this over time.

       IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: My Facebook and Youtube pages are now permanently closed. The face book experience was so antithetical to my personality, I could no longer take the horrid agrevation it caused me. Sorry.

       Google tried to dupe me into signing up with Google+, a service I loath just as much as FaceBook, so I was FORCED to shut down ALL of my Google accounts, including my YouTube page. So be it! I will not participate in Google's criminal anti-Amercian activities any longer.

       I will be slowly moving my videos to this web site over the next few weeks. So, all is not lost. The videos will still be availabe and in higher quality than you can get from YouTube! YouTube always recompresses videos, making them look like shit. Not any more! And, Oh yes, "Hello Yahoo Search Engine!"

       In fact, this may trigger me to return to the site rebuild that I started. It died due to a lack of any interest from my visitors. No feedback. No updates. This is now as social as I will ever be!

       In rebuilding the site, many of your bookmarked links may stop working. Please be sure to link the front page, the only one I can guarantee will not move or change name.

       To see years 2007 to 2012 What's New pages, [CLICK HERE]. Scroll to the bottom of each year to find a link to the previous year.