Hey Joe Perez and any other broadcast engineer types..
 

I'm looking for a bunch of old (older the better) and non-functional broadcast gear for a project for a client of my Weird Stuff For Bars And Restaurants biz.. We want to fill the back wall of the DJ booth with blinky lights and buttons and dials and meters, purely for aesthetics. The older and weirder looking the better. I'd be re-wiring them to power only the lights, so operational status is unimportant.

So, how would one find such a thing? What becomes of obsolete gear? Can you suggest any specific items one might look for that would look really buttony?

Oh, and at scrap prices please...

I have about 50 Redfly C7's you could have for $2 apiece plus shipping cost. They have lots of buttons.

Apex Jr has interesting stuff sometimes.

Movie Props

But call them... Steve doesn't always list everything on the site. Tell him what you want and he might be able to help you out.

Also is a good source for reclaimed teflon coated, silver plated wire.

Not quite what I'm looking for.. More like this:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1386553512

Hmm. Ok, how about a few dozen desk phones instead?

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386555263

Attachment 239420

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386606625

Attachment 239421

A lot of it winds up in the trash, to be totally honest. There's not much of a secondary market for old broadcast equipment. Radio and TV stations tend to hang onto their gear until it's totally dead, then store it in a closet for two more decades in case they need the spare parts, and then chuck everything into a dumpster all at once when they re-locate to a new facility and realize that they don't have room to store all that useless crap anymore.

Also, the stuff you pictured in the racks isn't broadcast gear, that's a bunch of HAM rigs.


So, to answer your questions...

Some of it actually winds up on eBay. And a lot of it finds its way to HAMfests.


How buttony do you want? I'm getting ready to pull this Sony switcher out of service in our news control room:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386607527

[QUOTE=Joe Perez;1081053]A lot of it winds up in the trash, to be totally honest. There's not much of a secondary market for old broadcast equipment. Radio and TV stations tend to hang onto their gear until it's totally dead, then store it in a closet for two more decades in case they need the spare parts, and then chuck everything into a dumpster all at once when they re-locate to a new facility and realize that they don't have room to store all that useless crap anymore.

Also, the stuff you pictured in the racks isn't broadcast gear, that's a bunch of HAM rigs.


So, to answer your questions...

Some of it actually winds up on eBay. And a lot of it finds its way to HAMfests.


How buttony do you want? I'm getting ready to pull this Sony switcher out of service in our news control room:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386607527[/QUOTE

Yeah, I know it's ham gear, just sort of representative of the "vibe" we're looking for... As if the club was running its sound system on old weird crap. To be honest with you, I don't care if it's a kidney dialysis machine or a Titan Missle launch console, it's just gotta be buttony and obsolete looking. That switching console is exactly what I'm looking for, although I'd prefer stuff that's rack mounted. What will happen to that lovely buttony thing when it's no longer beaming The Maury Povich show to the Tri-state area?

Gotcha.

Yeah, the problem with obsolete electronic equipment is that basically one of two things tends to happen to it. Either it goes into the dumpster, or it gets snatched up by collectors who place a higher emotional value on it than its scrap value. We've got one guy here who has a basement full of 70s and 80s vintage arcade games, pinball tables and jukeboxes. In the "real world," 99% of that stuff wound up in landfills because there's no practical market for it, aside from a few neckbearded virgins who are trying to re-live their teenage years.




That particular one will be refurbed and then shipped to one of our sister stations in a smaller market, where they will probably get another 20 years of service out of it. It's not quite obsolete enough for the dumpster yet, and when something costs a quarter of a million dollars, the company tries to get their money's worth out of it. It's coming out mostly because we're renovating the second floor of the building and it (along with the entire control room) is in the way of the demolition crew.

Those little T-handle levers are awesome.

Reminds me of this:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386615070

Ironically, although the T-bars are expensive, high precision devices, they hardly ever get used. Normally, the TD just dials in a transition duration and then taps the AUTO-TRANS button, which is equivalent in software to running the T-bar fully from stop to stop at a given speed, just much smoother than you can do it by hand.

Still, switcher porn:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480



The first switcher I ever used as a TD, years ago:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480

(It seemed so much bigger back then...)




And finally:


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480


Yup. The control panel used to fire the Death Star main laser was actually an ISI / Grass Valley TV switcher:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480




The close-up of the hand pulling the T-bar was shot separately from the main control room scene, which was, in fact, on another continent. Specifically, in the control room of a steam-generating plant in Los Angeles:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1386700480

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1386700469

I would use a combination of fake printed machines and real machines, mounted on huge plywood face. Then add a bunch of random lights to the fake ones on a random timer. Add some 8 track players and an old megaphone record machine spinning the whole time.