I suppose we all have memories of special places in our lives. This is one of mine & the place where I did a lot of my 'growing up'. This picture was taken in May, 97. The original Wenzel "Ace" projector heads have been replaced by a single Century "DA", although the original Motiograph soundhead is still running (now with stereo pickup). The Brenkert Enarc carbon arc lamps have been replaced by a Christie xenon lamp, and the left projector has been replaced by a Speco platter system. The show is controlled and monitored by an Eprad Co-Operator automation system. The drive-in features FM stereo sound, but still sports its original (and completely operational) speaker system and RCA tube-type amplifiers. The Hobart generator (for the carbon arc) is still in place, but is now retired. Notice the big windows in the front... fairly unusual for projection rooms of this era.

This pictures shows the view to the screen. Large windows make monitoring the show (and the crowd) easy from any location in the booth.

All major sound equipment is on one wall. The original RCA tube-type amplifiers are still there & run like new. The original window speakers are still provided for customer convenience and nostalgia, although the FM system has proven to be much more popular. Shown is the amplifier/FM rack, the Motiograph exciter lamp supply, ramp/amplifier switching panel, ramp light transformer box and the old record player cabinet. Any idea what that black box at the far left is?

This is one of the original 1952 vintage RCA amplifiers. It can power a drive-in at least twice the size of the Wheel-In. There are 2 of them in this rack, still going strong and each powering half of the field. If one goes out, the other amplifier can take over with the flip of a switch. This kind of conservative design was common to the original installation of the Wheel-In, and made this booth very reliable over the years. The amplifiers supplied filament and high voltage to an S.F. Burns tube-type preamplifer chassis. This chassis provided the 80 volt bias voltage to the old monaural soundhead photocells and boosted the very small voltages from film, microphone and record player sources to something the power amplifiers could handle. This chassis was removed when we installed the FM stereo system. The FM unit now handles the preamp and switching chores and drives the power amps through a monaural summing amplifier.

This is the control panel for the Hobart DC generator that powered the carbon arc lamps until the drive-in was automated and the xenon lamphouse was installed. Anyone need a great welder?

Finally, this is the original projector & lighting control panel. It's still located between where the two projectors were, although some switch functions have changed or been eliminated (see picture 3 on this page). If you ever ran a manual 2-projector booth, you'd recognize much of this layout. If you didn't, it might help to know that movies were (and still are) provided on reels that held about 20 minutes of film when full. It took 2 complete projectors to switch between the average 5 or 6 reels per movie... and prior to automation, it was pretty much a full-time job for one person to keep the two of them going. The two big pushbuttons at the top were for switching the picture between the two projectors. The center switch was for sound changeover. The top switches at left and right were the projector motor controls. Sound sourcing (film, music and microphone) and volume is still controlled from the box at right, although it has been modified to interface with the FM system (all dc switching and volume control). Field & booth lighting switches are at lower left. The VU meter was added in the late '60s and is used for monitoring level and balance of the 2 speaker amplifiers. This panel controlled all major booth activity from 1952 until we automated around 1994.