Color tv sets in Cuba

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by AlanInSitges

Some high points:

- RCA owned the market there, though Admiral, Philco, and Zenith were very active marketing and selling sets

- color broadcasts began on March 19, 1958 on Channel 12. It was the second color station in the world outside the US.

Wait, Zenith Sold color TVs in Cuba in 1958?!..
If so, this peaks my interest, hard.
I have to wonder what the design of those sets were and why they didn't offer them in the USA.
It's well known among collectors in the US that Zenith did a tremendous amount of technical development on color up to 1954 and built a variety of prototypes demonstration sets (they were also involved in medical closed circuit field sequential color before this), but did not sell any sets to the public in the USA before the 1961 (62 model year) 29JC20.
If they did sell color sets in Cuba I have to wonder what chassis they were...Left over 1954 43M20 demonstration sets, an early version of the 29JC20, or something completely different?...Say an in-between design or maybe they had consumerized a medical closed circuit color set. As I understand it 1958 is when medical closed circuit color which had existed as field sequential since the late 40s transitioned to NTSC...I don't know when Zenith got out of medical color, but if they stayed in until the late 50s they may have had a production medical market NTSC chassis to modify.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Wait, Zenith Sold color TVs in Cuba in 1958?!..
....Left over 1954 43M20 demonstration sets, an early version of the 29JC20, or something completely different?...Say an in-between design or maybe they had consumerized a medical closed circuit color set. ...

Can you point to where anything says that Zenith sold color sets in Cuba in 1958? I think you misread or are jumping to conclusions.

Zenith certainly never sold any demo chassis to the public anywhere. Those test sets were built strictly as lab chassis so that whole sections could be replaced by one-off experimental designs. The ones that survived are probably similar but different from each other in details, and certainly would not have gone into even limited production.

Also, as far as I know, Zenith had nothing to do with the NTSC medical systems; I believe their involvement stopped with the field-sequential monitors.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

Can you point to where anything says that Zenith sold color sets in Cuba in 1958? I think you misread or are jumping to conclusions.

Zenith certainly never sold any demo chassis to the public anywhere. Those test sets were built strictly as lab chassis so that whole sections could be replaced by one-off experimental designs. The ones that survived are probably similar but different from each other in details, and certainly would not have gone into even limited production.

Also, as far as I know, Zenith had nothing to do with the NTSC medical systems; I believe their involvement stopped with the field-sequential monitors.

The only prototype Zenith color set I heard of is the one in John Folsom's possession! I understand, it was bought from a Zenith design engineer.
It also had a Zenith prototype 15" round CRT!