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1957 photos of UNC basketball team
returning to RDU

WRAL-TV 60 second 8mm 1957 film
The film is from an 8mm home movie camera.

WRAL-TV Photos

1956, 1957, 1959

Click on thumbnail to see large version of picture.

01cWRALTV-Nov1956TransmitterSign2.JPG (8523 bytes) 02cWRALTV-Nov1956antenna2JPG.JPG (6415 bytes) 03cWRALTV-Nov1956antenna2JPG.JPG (9473 bytes)
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.  
04cWRALTV-Nov1956antenna2.JPG (4773 bytes) 05cWRALTV-Nov1956antenna2.JPG (2875 bytes) 06cWRALTV-Nov1956transmitter2.JPG (2177 bytes)
04. - November 1956 - Tower workers going up. 05. - November 1956 - Tower workers very high still riding.. 06. - November 1956 - GE Transmitter
07cWRALTV-Nov1956transmitter2.JPG (3084 bytes) 08cWRALTV-Nov1956transmitter2.JPG (2705 bytes) 09cWRALTV-Nov1956transmitter2.JPG (4237 bytes)
07. - November 1956 - GE Transmitter 08. - November 1956 - GE Transmitter 09. - November 1956 - GE Transmitter
10cWRALTV-Nov1956ControlRm2.JPG (3653 bytes) 11cWRALTV-1957ControlRm2.JPG (5845 bytes) 12cWRALTV-1957ColorFilm-SlideChain2.JPG (4342 bytes)
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.
13cWRALTV-1957ControlRmEqu2.JPG (5614 bytes) 14cWRALTV-1957GarageStudio-HerbMarks2.JPG (6229 bytes) 15cWRALTV-1957GarageStudio-NewsSet2.JPG (5692 bytes)
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.
16cWRALTV-1959WesterBlvdMasterControlRm2.JPG (4333 bytes) 17cWRALTV-1959WesterBlvdMasterControlConsole2.JPG (4793 bytes) 18cWRALTV-1959WesterBlvdVideoTapeRecorder2.JPG (5616 bytes)
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.
19cWRALTV-1959WesterBlvdTowerChristmasLights2.JPG (5332 bytes)

Pictures on this page were scanned from 35mm slides.

20WRALTV-1959DirectedbyDLslide2.JPG (5533 bytes)
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-off

http://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. 

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 museum’s A.J. Fletcher Foundation Gallery, and remained on view for 18 months."

museum-director3.jpg (13175 bytes) museum-wral3.jpg (10932 bytes)
Some have called me a museum relic.
(Click on pictures for larger version)

WRAL-TV at Raleigh Museum

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 city’s 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.


WITN-TV pictures 1955

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