AFTV-22's nerve center

When you entered master control at AFTV-22 you took a step back in time. The only pieces of equipment of anything like a recent vintage were the two Spotmaster audio-cart machines (on the left, behind me). Spotmasters had been standard broadcast equipment in the States for six or seven years. They played endless-loop audiotape cartridges, and they re-cued themselves automatically using a tone on a separate track. We used them for station breaks and, with slides as visuals, for local PSAs.

That's our resident rebel, Airman John David "Wild Child" Wild, sitting next to me. Behind us is Sgt. Peter Neumann, who was an adroit news anchorman as well as a clever and witty colleague.

Note the 15-inch reel-to-reel audiotape machine to our right, rack-mounted above a patchboard. Anybody who had worked radio in the 1950s would have been right at home with that bulky machine.

A small live-announce booth is on the other side of the window behind us. Peter is sitting on the console where the audio operator would be during a live broadcast.

To my right you can see part of a row of camera, preview and on-air monitors that have a 1950s "Industry on Parade" look to them. The rudimentary switcher is to my right below the monitors. Note that it's on a sloped surface, slanting down and away from the director, who would be sitting where I am. I had never before seen a switcher configured that way, nor have I seen one since. We could see the studio itself through a large window behind the row of monitors.

There was never any hope of more modern equipment at AFTV-22 during my tenure. The brass already knew that microwave links would eventually tie the American Forces Television stations together and that Spangdahlem's site would eventually be nothing more than a repeater for programs from AFTV headquarters at Ramstein AB.

In 1970, the links went into operation, and AFTV personnel at Spangdahlem were assigned elsewhere.