WGSF Television

Link: http://wgsf.oldgleaner.com/

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Several measures and procedures are utilized to protect the WGSF on-line presence, as much as possible, from the prevalence of SPAMmers, phishers, identity thieves, and nere-do-wells in general.
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We will attempt to make your visits to the WGSF Internet sites as secure and pleasant as possible.

Leland Hubbell
Site Administrator

With SPAMMERS, SCAMMERS, and PHISHING attacks, These options become very necessary.

Link: http://wgsf.oldgleaner.com/

This Is A Multi-Page Post

"The Hartford Independent Agricultural Society, or better known as the "Hartford Fair" is located in the Northwest corner of Licking County. It is a unique fair in comparison to other Ohio fairs. It incorporates directors from Licking County and two neighboring counties, Delaware and Knox. Because Licking County does not have a County fair, the Junior Fair includes exhibitors from all of Licking Co. and portions of Delaware and Knox Counties."
"Agriculture has been stressed through the years along with the promotion of 4-H and youth activities. The Licking County Junior Fair was added to the program in 1938. From that time the majority of the growth of this fair has been with youth organizations and centered around their activities. We are proud of having one of the largest Junior Fair programs in the State."
From . http://www.hartfordfair.com/hstry.htm

It seemed natural, then, that a youth oriented television station should become involved, providing coverage and publicity for the youth participating in the Fair, as well as an outstanding learning experience for the students at WGSF Television.

Accordingly, WGSF Produced a number of programs from the fairgrounds. The mobile TV van, purchased in 1969, opened up a lot of possibilities, and those were explored extensively.

WGSF visited the livestock barns, 4-H talks, demonstrations, and concerts by the Licking County 4-H Band. The cameras focused on project displays of arts, crafts, and skill demonstrations. Many 4-H, FFA, and Scouting exhibitors were interviewed, as well as members of the Senior and Junior Fair boards.
The TV Station even had their own 4-H club, focusing on journalism and photography. WGSF Manager Leland Hubbell was the club advisor. The students had their own individual entries, and the station had a display booth entered in the "Schools' category.

The station had only one video tape recorder, which meant that the 100 pound recorder had to be transported to the fairgrounds every morning, and back to the station in Newark for the evening broadcasts. The process was rather frenetic! Several students were sent out to roam the fairgrounds, looking for program possibilities. The rest of the crew set up equipment, recorded the program segment, then took everything apart and moved to the next set-up.

Could high school students produce high quality television programming? Yes, they could!
The WGSF Student Staffer's were given a great opportunity, accorded a large measure of responsibility, and their actions spoke well for themselves and the "Student Staff" program at the station.

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Link: http://wgsf.oldgleaner.com/

The original equipment used at WGSF was built in the heyday of the vacuum tube, following in a long tradition of both broadcast and consumer equipment. Practically every piece of equipment used them, lots and lots of vacuum tubes. Cousins to the light bulb, with many of the same characteristics: they weakened with age, and often departed this useful life by “burning out,” that is, the heater or filament opened. Of course, they could also develop a short between the elements in the tube, sometimes taking out several other components as well.
Most broadcasters - and industrial users of vacuum tubes - tried to head off such disasters through “Preventative Maintenance.” That is, we periodically checked or measured the quality of the tubes. Time consuming, yes, it meant pulling out each vacuum tube in turn, usually with the equipment turned off, dialing up the tube characteristic on a roll chart on the tube checker, inserting the tube, allowing time for it to “warm up,” and pressing the test button. The reading was duly noted and recorded on a chart listing each tube, the equipment location, date, etc. Those that failed to measure up were replaced from the spare stock. We were required to maintain sufficient spares to restore operation in case of an outage.
Most of the vacuum tubes were similar to those used in countless radio and television receivers all over town. We could obtain these at one of two dealers in town, and were given quantity discounts, the same as radio and TV repair shops.
Other tubes were more specialized, especially those used in the power stages of the transmitter. Industrial types, like 5763, 829B, 4X150, 866A and 872. We went to an industrial tube dealer in Columbus for those. The price was still reasonable, but the “biggie” was the GL-6942 transmitting tube. Made only by General Electric, the manufacturer of the WGSF transmitter, a trip to the store hit the supply fund hard. Always above $1,000, they were going for about $1,600 - each - by the mid 1970’s, and the transmitter used two of them.
The Gl-6942 was a specialized power tube, designed for use in a coaxial cavity at UHF frequencies. It required a specialized turn-on and warm up procedure, blower cooling at all times it was powered on, and gradual cool down. Still, a filament or inter-electode short took out more tubes than old age. Replacing a final tube also required a lengthy retuning process - no two tubes were ever exactly alike - electronically.
The transmitter was not the only equipment to require kilo-buck expenditures for tube replacement. The television cameras had their equivalent in the photo pickup tube, the image orthicon, or I.O. Though not subject to shorting like the transmitter finals, these tubes had their own quirks. As they aged, the tubes would tend to retain the image focused upon the photo mosaic. They became “sticky.” It helped if you could “orbit” the image, that is, you slowly moved the camera just a little bit to the right, then up, then left, then down, over and over, trying not to jerk or be readily noticeable to the audience. It took practice to become a good “orbiter.” Electronic orbiters were eventually developed, and were included in the units in the mobile truck when we got it. Still, the time came when replacement was a necessity. We would hold out as long as possible, then cough up the $1,200 to $1,600 price tag, and enjoy a new, non-sticky tube - for a while.
We discovered that we could buy a new videcon type camera for the price of that one tube. Mostly solid-state (transistorized) except for the pick-up videcon tube, and the CRT in the viewfinder. Low power, long lifed, and certainly attractive. Except that the cameras in that price range didn’t meet broadcast video specifications for certain waveform measurements. We found a way around that, though. The TK-30 camera control unit provided the necessary horizontal and vertical drive pulses going to the camera head, and then added the proper sync, blanking, pedestal and shading signals for the return video. We made an adapter that allowed us to connect the GBC Videcon camera to the TK-30 camera control unit. The camera got the necessary synchronizing drive pulses for proper timing, sent the video back to the control unit - which didn’t know that the original TK-30 I.O. camera head wasn't "out there!" We could set the pedestal and gain, and even adjust the shading, all with a substitute camera that cost about the same price as a replacement I.O. tube.
Later, I was able to obtain a small,transistorized rack-mounted unit to replace the TK-30 control unit. The full TK-30 complement went to the Ohio Historical Society when the station ceased operation. By that time, newer camera equipment and video production switchers contained more elaborate circuitry than our racks and boxes of tubes ever had.

Link: http://wgsf.oldgleaner.com/

The Media section of the Columbus Dispatch, March 19, under Broadcast Bits, announced that WOSU-TV will cease analog broadcasting at 7:a.m. March 31.

I have no knowledge of plans to continue operation on W31AA, the Newark Translator station, when this happens.
The Channel 34 to channel 31 translator has always depended upon the channel 34 analog signal.

MORE:
March 25, 2009 - Columbus Dispatch
Dates for switch to digital only:
WSFJ-TV (51) - April 16
WBNS-TV (10) - June 12
WCMH-TV (4) - June 12
WSYX-TV (6) - June 12

Link: http://wgsf.oldgleaner.com/

This report outlined considerations to implement the reception or distribution of Instructional Television programs in the Newark, Ohio City School District.

Newark Public Schools
Department of Instruction

Audio-Visual Services
February 5,1959


FROM: R. G. Powell, Audio-Visual Services


THROUGH: Forest Moran, Director of Instruction


THROUGH: Thomas B. Southard, Superintendent of Schools


TO: Officers and Members, Newark Board of Education


SUBJECT: Educational Television Status Report


PURPOSE:

The purpose of this report is to report on the progress of research that has been undertaken by various members of the staff of the Newark Public Schools concerning the possible applications and potentials that educational television offers to the Newark Public Schools.


(Note: Parts of the above listed document will be here excerpted to provide a sense of the scope of the original plan for television utilization in the Newark Public Schools.
The entire document contains eighteen (18) pages, including estimated construction and operating costs.)




(Excerpt)


THE NEWARK PLAN:


After much discussion and planning, a workable system for Newark has taken form. The basic plan has been reviewed by many persons associated with education and the telecasting industry and has gone through many revisions. It is presented here in the phases that we see it developing.


PHASE I: A building, perhaps of geodesic design, would be constructed on the high school campus to house the television facilities. It is believed that the building, itself, could be constructed in such a way as to make it unique to television application to school systems. Equipment would be purchased to allow us to connect to the co-axial cable system that is being installed in the three little schools, the science building, and the Hub,to distribute films, film-strips, slides, audio signals only, and live programs. At the same time, the persons assigned to the staff could be working with the studio equipment in preparation to presenting certain parts of our curriculum to classes throughout the school system


PHASE II: Co-axial cable would connect the television center with every school in the city, enabling each school to to receive as many as twelve different programs at one time.
.

PHASE III: Since the initial purchase of equipment would be along broadcast quality lines,this same equipment could be used for open-circuit telecasting. A transmitter would be purchased and an antenna erected, and certain programs would be transmitted to the public living within a certain radius of the center.


(End excerpt)


(Ed. NOTES: - A new campus-style high school was under design and/or construction at the time of the publication of this document in1959. The reference to the "three little schools" was the working designator for Newark High Buildings later known as 'C' 'D' and 'E' buildings.

Much of the 1959 'Newark Plan' was in fact accomplished, although in reverse order: (a) A television broadcast station was built on Horn's Hill, remote from the Newark High School campus, and operated from March 18, 1963 through June 30, 1976 (See Phase III above) (b) Co-axial cable (CATV) connected the television center with every school in the city of Newark (Phase II.) (c) It may be of interest to note that, by 1990, many other parts of the system proposed as Phase I in 1959 did in fact exist!


(1) - The TV Center was located in 'D' Building on the Newark High School Campus.

(2) - Live programs were broadcast from the TV Center's studio, not only to the High School Campus, but to the entire Newark School System, and the community at large, via the community-wide CATV system, on CATV Channel 19.
(3) - The TV Center staff scheduled, and distributed upon demand, video programs made possible through a State of Ohio network. The Newark Public Schools were a charter member of the Central Ohio ETV Foundation, a consortium that provided Instructional Television (ITV) programs from national sources.

(4) - The daily school announcements were provided to all teaching stations at Newark High School via television receivers in each classroom, and also by audio over the campus-wide Public Address system.
(5 - Audio only signals could be directed to selected buildings and classrooms, providing students with radio broadcasting experience.

(6) - Pick-up points throughout the high school campus also enabled and were used for telecasting from the Performing Arts Center (NHS Auditorium), the Jim Allen Gymnasium, and the new Library/classroom Building.
(7) - Several of the Elementary and Middle schools were operating their own closed circuit (CCTV) systems, in addition to the building-wide CATV distribution.

8) - Students and teachers in those buildings had received training in television production, telecast their own daily school announcements, and often participated in a weekly school report to the community (via CATV Channel 19) - Schools In Action.
(9 - The monthly Board of Education meetings were video-taped, and telecast to the community. Upon occasion, the Board meetings were aired "Live."

(10) - The TV Center utilized automation and other technology not envisioned in 1959 to maintain a full-time presence on the community-wide CATV channel 19, which included school announcements, program schedules, and telecasts of school activities.