Ray Kimber
Member
By way of introduction my name is Ray Kimber. 70+years old this year (everything works- nothing hurts) Was always a techie, even in elementary. Started my college days at Weber State College (now University) and signed up for the campus radio station. I was a night DJ for KWCR, a 10 watt FM station, anyway they had a big new Ampex (maybe a 350?) recorder sitting there in the boxes for weeks and weeks, and without considering the need for permission I unboxed it, installed it in the rack, and wired it into the console. When the station manager was asking who installed the R2R I said that I did it, he seemed bewildered. Later I would find out he thought I was pranking him. A couple of days later I was summoned to the administrative offices, and was quizzed about the install. At the end of it Lou Johnson told me that he wanted to hire me as a stage manager for the Fine Arts Center (now the Val A. Browning Center for Performing Arts), right now! A few days later I found out that you had be be on stage crew for at least 2 years before any consideration of being a stage manager. I had a glorious time. Somewhere along the way I became friends with Rell Thompson, joined IATSE (closing in on 50 years) - oh the stories. I do have a special reason for joining this group - which to tap into some vintage equipment history. Weber State had a system by Major Electric, with super heavy plug in dimmers modules in the basement. Solid State magnetic amplifier technology with a little "preamp" module that plugged into the face of the dimmer. I have been searching everywhere for any brochure or catalogs that show that dimmer. AND on the nose of the balcony was the main lighting control positron a 2 scene preset that used heavy paper cards that were about 12" x 24", using little metal rivets. When you dropped a card into the slot you moved a lever that pressed the rivets between a common conductor and a long wire wound resistor, that then sent a 0-10volt signal to the dimmer vault. the house dimmers were a gigantic motor driven variable transformer. Can anyone point me to any information about the system? In the meantime I do have a private library of 20,000 books, focused in the fields of technology... and I have 7,000+ factory reel to reel tapes and a plethora of machines and other audio equipment. More later, I am delighted to be a part of this group
