Link Electronics Ltd. was a major UK industrial and broadcast television equipment manufacturer and systems integrator in the 1970s and 1980s. The company was founded by John Tanner and David Mann, who began manufacturing television cameras in 1966. Link was known mainly for its range of broadcast television cameras, but was also a manufacturer of outside broadcast (OB) vehicles, including the BBC "Type 5". Link also produced a wide range of ancillary studio equipment, such as distribution amplifiers, measuring sets and test-signal generators.
Cameras Link started as an industrial camera manufacturer but soon moved into broadcast equipment when the BBC approached it to develop a successor to the commercially successful EMI 2001, when EMI's own design for the 2001's successor, the 2005, failed to meet expected standards when launched around 1975. The poor performance of this camera, considering its development cost, led to EMI exiting the broadcast camera industry. A similar fate befell Link around 10–15 years later upon the release of the Link 130 (further down this page).
Type 100 The Link-NEC 100 was the companion camera to the Type 130 and designed in conjunction with NEC. It had a triax interface unit and could be used stand alone, via a radio link or with a CCU via triax cable. it shared a common architecture with the 130 by using the same 18mm tubes and both where fully automatic for set-up and used the same CCU (camera control unit), OCP (operational control unit) and MSU (master setup unit).
Type 109 The Type 109 was a broadcast quality black-and-white camera mainly used as a caption scanner or simple telecine.
Type 110/111 The 110 was Link's first attempt at a colour broadcast camera and around 200 cameras were manufactured. Styling was based on the EMI 2001 colour camera but at an economical price, including what some claim to be a very flimsy casing that was not of rugged design. The camera consisted of a closed body and an internal lens from a range of manufacturers, like the EMI 2001, leading to similar claims that the design was "boxy". The camera was capable of both studio and outside broadcast use and at the BBC found its way into TC6, TC8 and several presentation studios at Television Centre, BBC Lime Grove, BBC Bristol, BBC Cardiff, the Open University studio in Milton Keynes, BBC Wood Norton Training Centre and onto several BBC outside broadcast vehicles. ITV company Thames Television also used the camera at their Euston Road studios from around 1979, replacing their Marconi MkVIIs (with RCA TK-47s at Teddington a few years later replacing the EMI 2001s there). The 110 was seen as a good, cheap, modern option which was lightweight and easier to carry compared to the much older and heavier EMI 2001 camera. The Link 111 was a low-cost version of the Link 110 with a reduced feature set. In the Video Yearbook for 1977 the Link 111 is listed at £12,000 less tubes & lens.
Type 120 The Link 120 was a portable camera system that consisted of the camera head and a portable electronics box that then connected to the CCU via standard TV36 multicore cable. The Type 120 was intended to be able to 'clip' into a studio frame to allow easy conversion from either a handheld camera on location or to a large-lens camera at sports events in studio. An advert in the Guild of Television Cameramen magazine ZERB notes that there are three options, the Type 121 shoulder mount (with long 3-inch viewfinder), Type 122 with 3-inch viewfinder, Type 123 in sports camera body and 5-inch viewfinder, and the Type 124 with full studio lens and 7-inch viewfinder. The Link 125 camera was the next step to a purpose-designed studio camera.
Type 125 The Link 125 camera was purchased in quantity by the BBC and deployed to most of the studios at Television Centre, Pebble Mill in Birmingham and Broadcasting House, Belfast as well as several other BBC studios. It was also the camera of choice at Limehouse Television. In addition, ITV company Television South (TVS) used the model in its Maidstone studios, which were still in use by those studios when they were sold as an independent studio facility following the loss of TVS's franchise at the end of 1992. The 125 was a well-thought-out and well-built studio and OB camera developed from the Link 120 portable camera system. It also contained a comprehensive communications system and used a camera control unit (CCU) based around the 110 but was updated with auto black, white, iris and centering functions. The BBC preferred to use a mid-range Schneider-Kreuznach lens as it gave good zoom angles. Some believed it produced one of the best images for a pickup tube camera; others believed it could never match the quality of the EMI 2001. Many BBC users felt that the image was soft and not easy to focus. It also produced an unusual image effect that formed the shape of a 'teardrop' in the centre of the image. The Link 125 was the most successful of all of Link cameras. It is believed the last studio to use them was BBC Pebble Mill, which decommissioned the last four in 1994 from the news studio, having upgraded to Sony BVP-375's and Ikegami HL-55's a few years before. These cameras have become collectable vintage items.
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