Abstract: Significant reductions in transfer smear for charge sweep device imagers is made possible by performing the charge sweep operation during only the line retrace period of the operating cycle of the imager. Complete elimination of transfer smear is then possible by using an optical means for blocking the imager from incident illumination during said line retrace periods.

Abstract: The parallelly arranged charge transfer channels in the image register of a field transfer type CCD imager are clocked with a number of phases equal to 2m, m being a positive integer equal to two or more, during image transfer. The successive gate electrodes receiving each cycle of successive-in-time clock phases during image transfer are considered to be consecutively ordinally numbered first through 2m.sup.th. During the image integration times of odd fields, the first gate electrode in each cycle of the image register is biased to induce a potential energy barrier thereunder, and photoresponse charge is collected under the gate electrodes of the image register exclusive of each first gate electrode. During the integration times of even fields, the (m+1).sup.th gate electrode in each gate-electrode cycle of the image register is biased to induce a potential energy barrier thereunder, and photoresponse charge is collected under the gate electrodes of the image register exclusive of each (m+1).sup.

Abstract: A television camera support for mounting and providing optical alignment between the imaging axes of a lens and an image pickup apparatus. The support is of single-piece construction and generally "L" shaped and includes a vertical portion adapted to receive the camera lens and a horizontal portion adapted to receive the image pickup apparatus. In a preferred embodiment, only the vertical portion of the support is attached to the body of the television camera and the structural rigidity of the camera body near the point of attachment is less than the rigidity of the support, thereby minimizing misalignment of the imaging axes if excessive forces are accidentally applied to the lens.

Abstract: In a timekeeping arrangement, including seconds, minutes and hours counters and associated display decoding circuitry, during temporary power line dropouts, the supply voltage for the hours and minutes counters is maintained by an associated voltage storage capacitor so that their contents are retained, and, upon the return of line power, the seconds counter is set to a number corresponding to 30 seconds. In this manner, over a number of random temporary power dropouts, the accuracy of the timekeeping arrangement is maintained without the need of readjustment or the use of auxiliary systems powered by standby power sources.