Some Of The First RCA TK30s Delivered…KSD TV, St. Louis

Some Of The First RCA TK30s Delivered…KSD TV, St. Louis

As I mentioned earlier this week, the first five RCA TK30 Image Orthicon cameras ever built, were delivered to NBC New York for the Lewis – Conn fight in June of 1946. Naturally, being owned by RCA, gets you to the front of the line, and NBC got the first 25 units built. Their cameras also came with electronic viewfinders, which were not available to local market broadcasters at the time, but were to network customers like CBS, and ABC.

Why, because white phosphorus was in short supply to non military users. Although WW II was over, the War Department had given military radar buildup first priority. This affected RCA’s ability to produce television sets too, but since they also built radar units for the military, they managed to come up with enough to equip the NBC, and other network’s TK30s with electronic viewfinders.

RCA’s official release date to independent broadcasters, and other networks was October 1, 1946, and in this first photo, we see the KSD cameras arriving at Lambert Field in St. Louis on September 30, 1946. The station owner, the “St. Post-Dispatch” flew to Camden to pick them up, and since there were no employees at KSD-TV yet (it went on the air February 8, 1947), these are KSD radio engineers unloading them.

All of these photos were taken in 1947, except the last one, that shows the camera with a viewfinder, which was from April of 1949. I think it took RCA about a year to work out the phosphorus issue, and supply their customers with viewfinders. Thanks to John Coleman for the photos. -Bobby Ellerbee

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