Interruptions to Service
D G House and R Brandwood
29 July 1976
In the near future there will be a number of interruptions to the FR80 service. These are listed
below with as much detail as possible.
-
August - for approximately 3 weeks:
Due to building works the film processor used for 16/35/105 mm monochrome will not be available.
Standby arrangements have been made for microfiche to be processed daily and 16/35 mm every other day,
depending on demand. The standby arrangements have meant a change of film stock for 35/105 mm,
locally operating parameters have been changed to compensate for this and the quality is comparable.
16 mm should only be used for test runs, users requiring a final copy of a film sequence should
consult Program Advisory Office.
-
NEW TUBE: A new PLS was to be fitted on 13 July. The tube arrived on site in time but
the Engineer responsible for installing the tube was not satisfied, after some consultation with
senior Engineers from the USA, it was decided to ask for another tube. This will be installed as
soon as conveniently possible.
-
HARDCOPY PAPER:
Approximately 10 weeks supply of paper was found to be faulty and had to be returned to the
manufacturer. The supply being a special order takes 3 months to manufacture and to be shipped
from the USA. This has left us very short, economies have been made locally and pressure
applied to the manufacturer to supply the outstanding order as soon as possible. It is possible that
the paper supply may run out by the first weekend in August.
However we hope to receive the next delivery before then, but this cannot be guaranteed. The
paper we are using at present is from the faulty batch, it has static marks spaced
about every 6" down the centre of the roll, but not every roll is affected.
- It is proposed to move the FR80 some time in the Autumn, this could mean a downtime of about
5 days. More information will be given about this later.
Monitoring of the present Precision Light Source (PLS) has indicated that the intensity
required to expose hardcopy and colour film cannot be consistently achieved. Therefore the tube
will be replaced.
It is hoped to have a replacement tube on site and ready to install Tuesday 13 July.
The consequence of replacing the tube will not be clearly understood until the tube characteristics
are known.
The following areas will or may be affected:
- Minimum of 24 hours downtime from 09.00 13 July.
- Refocusing all cameras - this depends on new tube.
- Re-establishing image sizes.
- Colours may be slightly different.
It is hoped to keep the downtime to a minimum and make the change as
transparent as possible. Please direct any enquiries
to Program Advisory Office.
