Click on thumbnail to see large version of picture.
01.- November 1956 - WRAL-TV sign located at the transmitter entrance road on US70. Left of the sign is US70, a two lane road in 1956. | 02. - November 1956 - Channel 5 Batwing TV antenna at base of tower. | 03. - November 1956 - TV antenna at base of tower ready to go to the top of the 1170 foot tower, I believe the tallest in North Carolina at that time. | ||||
04. - November 1956 - Tower workers going up. | 05. - November 1956 - Tower workers very high still riding.. | 06. - November 1956 - GE Transmitter | ||||
07. - November 1956 - GE Transmitter | 08. - November 1956 - GE Transmitter | 09. - November 1956 - GE Transmitter | ||||
10. - November 1956 - Auburn Control Room under construction. Sorry about the dark pictures. Didn't have any flashbulbs with me! |
11. - 1957 - Auburn Control Room looking East. The director was facing North and the garage studio. The transmitter was on his left. The transmitter blowers did make noise. The door with the window behind the equipment racks is the announce booth and storage room. | 12. - 1957 - Color film and slide chain. Station was the
first in NC to sign on in local color. Slides of scenes from NC were shown while a slow version of "Dixie" was played. It was the regular sign on and sign off. |
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13. - 1957 - Equipment racks and monitors. | 14. - 1957 - WRAL-TV's first weather set located on the East end of the 15 x 30 foot garage studio. Herb Marks is near the set. He did the Captain Five show and sometimes substituted for Bob Knapp for the weather. WRAL-TV only had 2 cameras. Note the GE cameras had turrets to change lens and no zoom. | 15. - 1957 - WRAL-TV's first News and Sports set on the West end.. Bill Armstrong did the news and Ray Reeves did the sports. Ray's sign is on the desk. Only one person at the time was on camera for the News block. News, weather and sports were 3 separate programs with their own intro and ending. | ||||
16. - 1959 - Master control at the Western Blvd. studios. | 17. - 1959 - Director's position at Western Blvd. Master Control. The announce booth window was about 3 feet behind the director's chair. | 18. - 1959 - The first video tape machine. The 2 inch wide tape reel would hold one hour of B&W video. The two 6 foot racks to the left of the machine were part of the electronics. It was installed in 1958 when the new studio was built on Western Blvd. | ||||
Pictures on this page were scanned from 35mm slides. |
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19. - 1959 - Fjirst year the Western Blvd tower had Christmas lights. The December 1, 2006 30 minute TV show lighting the tower, used this picture. | 20. - 1959 and 1960 - Credit slide used by WRAL-TV. It was the standard type used for directors. | |||||
"Gallantly Streaming" Sign-offhttp://www.wral.com/entertainment/blogpost/1558210/ Opens on external page Brian emailed me after he found this web page. Sent him some info about the early days. |
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Raleigh City Museum Debuting in conjunction with the opening of the new Convention Center and Raleigh Wide Open III, The Revolution of Media opened September 5, 2008 in the museums A.J. Fletcher Foundation Gallery, and remained on view for 18 months."
Quote from the Raleigh City Museum web site. "The [R]evolution of Media: The history of newspaper, radio, and television in Raleigh is a new exciting exhibit exploring the evolution of the 3 different media, and the revolutionary roles they have played in our capital citys history. This informative new exhibit will examine the early histories of how newspaper/radio/television each got their start, the major players in each of the industries, the early and modern day technologies that have pushed the evolution of the fields, and include spotlights on interesting sub-stories in each of the media genres. |
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