Old (1954 Model) TV- with Digital Signal!

[SCCutler]

I bought an old TV, a 1954 RCA, at an auction some years back. Had not turned it on since the digital conversion of terrestrial TV, but attached a digital converter to it (because I don't own other any analog TVs anyway).

Something really satisfying (or, maybe, just weird) about seeing digital TV on this old beast.

 

[LDJones]

I bought an old TV, a 1954 RCA, at an auction some years back. Had not turned it on since the digital conversion of terrestrial TV, but attached a digital converter to it (because I don't own other any analog TVs anyway).

Something really satisfying (or, maybe, just weird) about seeing digital TV on this old beast.

Yeah, but....how's the HD?!?

 

[denverpilot]

Nice furniture. Haha.

 

[Pilawt]

My two sons are in their mid-30s. They have never seen a TV that required them to actually get up and walk across the room to operate the channel selector -- which, by the way, only included channels 2 through 13 ...

 

[denverpilot]

My two sons are in their mid-30s. They have never seen a TV that required them to actually get up and walk across the room to operate the channel selector -- which, by the way, only included channels 2 through 13 ...

Nah, they also had UHF. On another dial.

My little sis is that age. We must'a been poorer than I thought in the 80s, 'cause she remembers being our remote control as a kid. Only one set of grandparents had a remote and it was flakey as hell.

I remember one of the huge benefits of Cable TV back then WAS the set top box... It had a remote, and the TV stayed on Channel 3 or 4 depending on which was in use in your area for broadcast.

Still had to get up to go turn it on or off though.

And the little switch box on the back to switch to the ATARI.

My folks were somehow impressed when I figured out how to gang two switches together so we could switch between ATARI, the Tandy computer, and CATV.

Seemed obvious to me. Heh. They quickly tired of me using the family TV for computing activities and I got a 13" Emerson for Christmas one year. Had thumb wheels inside a door for fine tuning each channel and it wasn't stable... Would have to pop that thing open about once a week and tweak Channel 3 so I could read the computer screen.

 

[John221us]

I must be older than I thought. We had black and white until I was 10 and one of our TV's had a mechanical remote (you could hear the motor whir). The other one was operated by whatever kid was ordered to turn the channel. Eventually we bought a color TV and the Zenith B&W became the Pong TV (no Atari, yet).

 

[kgruber]

My two sons are in their mid-30s. They have never seen a TV that required them to actually get up and walk across the room to operate the channel selector -- which, by the way, only included channels 2 through 13 ...

The first TV in PDX was KPTV, channel 27.

 

[Steve Foley]

In the late 1960's, my father's gun club held an annual raffle and told the members they must each sell ten tickets. Dad hated imposing on people, so he simply bought them himself. One year, he won second prize - an RCA Color TV.

 

[Pilawt]

Nah, they also had UHF. On another dial.

On our 1962 Zenith console, the UHF tuner was optional at extra cost, and we didn't have it. 2 through 13 was it.

I grew up in the Los Angeles market, with channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13. There were no repeaters, so if you weren't line-of-sight from the transmitters on Mt. Wilson, you were out of luck. Nearby San Diego had only channels 6, 8 and 10; and Santa Barbara only channel 3.

Now there are 500 channels, and there's still nothing on worth watching.

 

[MAKG1]

My grandparents owned a massive early 1950s Zenith console with built-in turntable and wired remote. Weird thing, that. It was pretty easy to trip over the wires draped across the room, and the two buttons made this weird "whooshing" noise.

 

[fgcason]

I must be older than I thought. We had black and white until I was 10 and one of our TV's had a mechanical remote (you could hear the motor whir).

How about the old Zenith Space Commander 2 and 4 button remotes that had a spring loaded hammer hit a tuned metal bar.

We use to come home and the tv would be on for some reason. We made sure it was OFF before we left..and sure enough it would be on about twice a week. My dad had his own tv repair business and we never could figure out what was going on. Whatever was happening was not in the tv. One day our dog came trotting through the living room with his collar jingling and turn the damned thing off while we were watching it. The little guy was watching tv while we were gone...no telling how many times it was turned on and off when no one was home but him. Of course that lead to a whole bunch of "let's see what else can turn the tv on and off" games. Pretty much anything could do it.

We even had one customer that was hard of hearing and asked if there was something in the tv that would let him know when the phone rang. My dad said he could make something up..and the guy said "no, no, no, it already does that, just wondering what it was." Ringer on the phone he had, dog collar, same thing. He refused to let my dad do anything about it because it was so nice to be able to know the phone was ringing when he was watching tv.

And anyone who thinks they are hot shot tv repairmen nowadays should go look inside those old tv's. They are all hand wired with minimum circuit boards. You had to know your stuff to fix them because there was no shooting the parts cannon at them to fix the problem.

edit: good grief. ebay has those remotes for up to $500. We probably have several hundred of them, and even more parts, scattered all over the place.

 

[SCCutler]

(chuckle)

We had one of those hammer-thingy remotes, you could change channels on the TV by jingling the swag lamp (remember those?) chains.

You could tell, at night, when my mom could not sleep, because you could hear the remote, followed by the channel-changer motor, "CLANK!, ka-CHUNK, ka-CHUNK, ka-CHUNK...).

 

[tonycondon]

thats just awesome spike

 

[Anthony]

Too cool. Love the old TV's, and radios.

 

[jesse]

We were running a TV with channel 1 through 13 and no remote until I was about 7.

 

[Jaybird180]

I bought an old TV, a 1954 RCA, at an auction some years back. Had not turned it on since the digital conversion of terrestrial TV, but attached a digital converter to it (because I don't own other any analog TVs anyway).

Something really satisfying (or, maybe, just weird) about seeing digital TV on this old beast.

You da man

 

[Jaybird180]

Nah, they also had UHF. On another dial.

My little sis is that age. We must'a been poorer than I thought in the 80s, 'cause she remembers being our remote control as a kid. Only one set of grandparents had a remote and it was flakey as hell.

I remember one of the huge benefits of Cable TV back then WAS the set top box... It had a remote, and the TV stayed on Channel 3 or 4 depending on which was in use in your area for broadcast.

Still had to get up to go turn it on or off though.

And the little switch box on the back to switch to the ATARI.

My folks were somehow impressed when I figured out how to gang two switches together so we could switch between ATARI, the Tandy computer, and CATV.

Seemed obvious to me. Heh. They quickly tired of me using the family TV for computing activities and I got a 13" Emerson for Christmas one year. Had thumb wheels inside a door for fine tuning each channel and it wasn't stable... Would have to pop that thing open about once a week and tweak Channel 3 so I could read the computer screen.

And now I know how we got that little TV. Must've been after you were done with it because it worked well on my C64....until one of my mods took it out hahaha

 

[Sam D]

You know, Spike, watching the Cowboys on an old TV does not make them the Cowboys of old!

 

[Ghery]

First TV I saw that had a remote belonged to my grandparents. Wired. Push the knob to cycle from Off to Ch 2 to Ch3 to Ch4.... to Off. Twist to control the volume. Then my great grandmother had one of those two button space command deals. We got our first color TV around 1968. Last Motorola chassis before Quasar came out. The Quasar sets were a home repairman's dream. The service guys would carry the equivalent of two complete sets in their box. Our set still used tubes. So they carried a bunch of those when they came to our house.

 

[wabower]

True, but watching them will make an old man out of you, especially if you live in Dallas.

You know, Spike, watching the Cowboys on an old TV does not make them the Cowboys of old!

 

[Ken Ibold]

I remember when I was 9 my family of 7 had crowded around our only TV -- an 11-inch portable B&W -- on a muggy July night (no air conditioning, either) when some guy said, "That's one small step ..."

 

[denverpilot]

You know, Spike, watching the Cowboys on an old TV does not make them the Cowboys of old!

ROFL! Ouch. Haha.

 

[tinerj]

Metal water pipe holding the antenna way up over the house. Used a pipe wrench to rotate it so we could pick up stations either in Memphis or Little Rock.

Highway Patrol, Life of Riley, Mr. and Mrs. North and SKY KING!

Actually, no Sky King on any of the channels we got, but when we bought the TV, it included the Sky King ranch as a give-away. Go Figure.

I don't think the first ones had the UHF dial.

 

[Ghery]

I remember when I was 9 my family of 7 had crowded around our only TV -- an 11-inch portable B&W -- on a muggy July night (no air conditioning, either) when some guy said, "That's one small step ..."

I was a bit older (17) and watched that on a TV in Albuquerque at the home of a Navy buddy of my dad's. I will never forget that broadcast.

 

[Pilawt]

I remember when I was 9 my family of 7 had crowded around our only TV -- an 11-inch portable B&W -- on a muggy July night (no air conditioning, either) when some guy said, "That's one small step ..."

VCRs weren't around then, so I resorted to the technology available: a 35mm camera pointed at the TV screen:

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

I remember when I was 9 my family of 7 had crowded around our only TV -- an 11-inch portable B&W -- on a muggy July night (no air conditioning, either) when some guy said, "That's one small step ..."

I was on a boat in the middle of Lake Huron. Had to wait for the re-runs.

 

[Steve Foley]

I was on a boat in the middle of Lake Huron. Had to wait for the re-runs.

I was in the back seat of the family station wagon driving home from vacation. Also had to wait for reruns. We were less than a mile from home when he stepped onto the moon.