Telecruiser.com
The DuMont Telecruiser
1949 DuMont Telecruiser, Model B, Number 101
Another surviving Telecruiser has been discovered!
This one is outside the Channel 8 Studios in Bogata, Colombia.
For more pictures visit our “Other Telecruisers” page
Interior shots are now here!
The restoration is making progress, even if it has taken a lot longer than I ever imagined. I’m now nine years into the project, and counting….
Decked out in its original color scheme and lettering as it was delivered by DuMont Labs to Channel 8
WFAA was originally called “KBTV.”
Ready to roll! At least sort of…. It is a real “exercise” to drive in the 100 degree Texas heat, but it starts right up and runs fine.
The ladder allows access to the roof deck. Elsewhere on this web site, you’ll find pictures with cameras and a microwave dish on the top. The ladder is how you got that very heavy stuff up there!
The paint and body work was done by our friends at Fishburn Auto Body in White Oak, Texas. Hand lettered signs were done by Bella Mia, Longview, Texas.
Here is what it looked like when I found it….
This is the way I 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.
I’m now working on the interior and electronics…
A pair of Conrac Monitors are resurrected for use in the Telecruiser. There will be seven monitors when I’m finished.
Here is a Dumont Camera actually making a picture. When we removed the multiple coats of paint, it said “KBTV” in the side. That is what Channel 8 was originally called. As far as we can tell, the station signed on with five of these cameras, three in the Telecruiser and two in the studio. This is one of them. Because early TV equipment was prone to occasional failure, it was common practice to swap out a working a camera from the Telecruiser for one in the studio. When the brokwen camera was repaired, it was usually put back in the bus, so it is quite likely that this camera actually saw duty on the Telecruiser.
It is hard to see in this shot, but the is a picture on the viewfinder.
It doesn’t look like much in this picture, but here is the interior before equipment was installed. The audio console sat on the left while the video switcher sat on the right. The green and gray panel on the right is the power distribution panel.
“Driving Miss Daisy….”
Driving the Telecruiser takes a lot of muscle power. There is no power anything…. Steering is the brute force “Armstrong Method,” with a huge steering wheel that Ralph Kramden would have been familiar with. The four speed manual transmission has no synchronizers, so double clutching is a necessity. In fact, just figuring out what gear you are in is somewhat of a leap of faith. With more than 25 feet of linkage, between your hand and the transmission, you tend to revert to “The Biblical Method” of shifting. Seek, and ye shall find. If you don’t find it, you get to listen to gears gnashing against each other. The bus has air brakes, which does make it stop fairly well. The down side of that plan is early air brakes stopped working if you lost air pressure. Break the belt that runs the air compressor, and you have no brakes. That isn’t very convenient at highway speeds…. Not that this bus can really keep up on the highway. 50-55 mph is about it.
On location at Burnett Field in Dallas, Texas about 1952 for a baseball game.
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 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). It was featured in DuMont’s 1949 Broadcast Equipment catalog.
