{"id":28543,"date":"2013-10-12T06:22:52","date_gmt":"2013-10-12T10:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyesofageneration.com\/?p=28543"},"modified":"2026-04-21T16:18:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:18:33","slug":"the-rca-tj-48-televisions-local-market-workhouse-remember-these-in-1948-th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/?p=28543","title":{"rendered":"The RCA TJ 48, Television’s Local Market Workhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you worked in local television in the late \u201940s or early \u201950s, chances are you remember these…the RCA TJ\u201148. <\/strong>It wasn\u2019t just another piece of gear \u2014 it was the moment local stations finally got a purpose\u2011built mobile unit instead of the homemade specials everyone had been cobbling together out of buses, bread trucks, and whatever rolled into the station\u2019s back lot.<\/p>\n

When RCA introduced the TJ\u201148 in 1948<\/strong>, it came with a price tag of $9,000<\/strong> \u2014 which means today, the unit would land north of $123,000<\/strong>. For a small or mid\u2011market station just getting its footing in the postwar boom, that was a serious investment. But it bought something priceless: a real, engineered\u2011from\u2011scratch remote truck that didn\u2019t require a staff engineer with a welding torch and a prayer.<\/p>\n

Inside, the TJ\u201148 carried the full complement of early postwar RCA field gear, laid out in a way that finally made sense for crews who had to work fast and work small. And RCA didn\u2019t let it sit still \u2014 by 1950<\/strong>, the interior electronics were updated, and the improved package became the TJ\u201150<\/strong>, the next step in the line.<\/p>\n

Before this? RCA had only built 3 big, custom remote trucks for NBC’s<\/strong> Iconoscope cameras back in the 1930s \u2014 beautiful machines, but none of them ever went to competitors. If you weren\u2019t NBC (owned by RCA), you were on your own. That\u2019s why the TJ\u201148 mattered: it was the first time local broadcasters could buy a standardized, factory\u2011built mobile unit<\/strong>, ready to roll out of Camden and straight into parade coverage, football games, political rallies, and county fairs.<\/p>\n

The TJ\u201148 didn\u2019t just fill a need \u2014 it set the template. It showed RCA that local stations were hungry for real field capability, and it proved that remote production wasn\u2019t just a network luxury. It was part of the everyday life of American television.<\/p>\n

For a lot of stations, this little truck was where their remote story truly began.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you worked in local television in the late \u201940s or early \u201950s, chances are you remember these…the RCA TJ\u201148. It wasn\u2019t just another piece of gear \u2014 it was the moment local stations finally got a purpose\u2011built mobile unit instead of the homemade specials everyone had been cobbling together out of buses, bread trucks, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":28544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_vp_custom_popup_image":0,"_vp_format_audio_url":"","_vp_album_images":[],"_vp_custom_thumbnail":0,"_vp_custom_thumbnail_focal_point":[],"_vp_custom_thumbnail_cover":0,"_vp_hover_thumbnail":0,"_vp_hover_thumbnail_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[683,724,709,742,692],"class_list":["post-28543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cameras","tag-cast","tag-engineer","tag-iconoscope","tag-remote-truck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81288,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28543\/revisions\/81288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}