TV in the classroom - 1954

[stromberg6]

The first time I saw TV in school was in a Catholic school in Danbury CT around 1961 or so. The school bought 23 inch Motorola table tops, and had them on AV stands. The antenna system was stacked yagis aimed at channel 13 in NYC. The picture was usable, but not perfect. Couldn't watch Soupy Sales, though lol.
Kevin

[GeorgeJetson]

Originally Posted by Ed in Tx

Here's TV in the classroom 1962. My 6th grade class. TV was a "Ling DeLuxe Television" built by Ling Electronics here locally. They outfitted the main high school in the district with a small studio setup and transmitter that was on UHF ch 23. Each school had a parabolic dish UHF antenna. Each classroom had a kid appointed to be the one who pushed the TVs from one room to another, as the TVs were shared. At least once someone got going too fast and toppled one over in the hallway. I remember getting Spanish lessons and some history lessons on those TVs.

Good ol' Mr. Duncan standing beside the TV.





(Yes I am in the picture. No I won't say which one!)

WOW!!,THAT LING TV IS AMAZING!!!

It's straight out of the world of tommorow!

Were these available for home use? Did the monitor move like a predicta?

Any more photos??

[Ed in Tx]

Originally Posted by GeorgeJetson

WOW!!,THAT LING TV IS AMAZING!!!

It's straight out of the world of tommorow!

Were these available for home use? Did the monitor move like a predicta?

Any more photos??

No none for the home as far as I know. This is the only picture of one I have.

They were made for the RISD, and I doubt any still exist, maybe in the back of someone's storage or garage. I've often wondered what happened to those sets. The CRT was fixed position to the cabinet. The whole thing was on wheels.

Here'as some history about KRET-TV and Ling Electronics connection, from a friend's web site dedicated to DFW TV history..

"UHF 23 KRET, Richardson. Station established 2/29/1960; dark in 5/1970. Owner: Richardson Independent School District. Call letters stood for "Richardson Educational Television." First TV station in the nation to be owned by a school district. Broadcasted on weekdays only, and initially, for only two hours a day. Schedule was later lengthened to match school hours (with five minute breaks between shows, where music was played.) Station signed off during the summer. Start-up cost of $70,000; operated with $50,000 of Ling electronic equipment; broadcast range of 20 miles. Studios were located at Richardson Junior High (1960-63,) Richardson High School (1963-1970,) and at Hamilton Park Elementary, 8221 Towns (1970-1990s.) On 8/31/1970, KRET was converted into the closed-circuit "TAGER" network (WEF-69) for high school and college telecourses, carried on an RISD closed-circuit system and over many local cable TV outlets."

[cbenham]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

Seems like a pretty good guess... Here Is a list from 1955 (pix1):jr

WNET CH 13 is missing...Anyone know when it went on the air?
Cliff

[HadYourPhil]

My old yearbooks list WNET as being licensed to Newark, NJ, so it would not necessarily be on a New York TV station list. WNET went on in 1948

At my school, we had a 21" Crosley that was brought out for special occasions, like Alan Shepherd's initial flight. I was elected to rig up a satisfactory antenna.

[vinljnkie]

I started elementary shcool in 1970. The school was built in 1965 and every classroom had Magnavox table top B&W's on those tall carts. Every classroom was also wired with cable tv as where I grew up is about 90 miles from Boston and surrounded by hills blocking out most channels. We very often, probably weekly would watch educational programs on NH public tv. Also any time we were stuck inside for recess due to the weather on would go the tv and we'd watch some mid morning game show The school also had 1 RCA Lyceum color tv that was connected to a Sony open reel VTR that was used for special programs.

[GeorgeJetson]

Thanks "Ed in Tx" for the additional info.
I wish you could have save one of them too!
I wonder if any still survive somewhere?

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by HadYourPhil

... WNET went on in 1948

Not precisely, according to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirtee...ision_station)"WNET commenced broadcasting on May 15, 1948, as WATV, a commercial television station owned by Atlantic Television, a subsidiary of Bremer Broadcasting Corporation."... "On October 6, 1957, Bremer Broadcasting announced it had sold its stations for $4.5 million to National Telefilm Associates, an early distributor of motion pictures for television. On May 7, 1958, channel 13's callsign was changed to WNTA-TV" ..."Educational Broadcasting Corporation -- flipped the switch to WNDT (for "New Dimensions in Television") on September 16, 1962"..."Channel 13's callsign was changed to the present WNET on October 5, 1970. NET ceased network operations, though WNET continued to produce some shows for the national PBS schedule with the NET branding until about 1972." Almost as many call sign flips as the typical commercial station nowadays.

[HadYourPhil]

Well... I looked in a 1972 yearbook. My bad.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by HadYourPhil

...I looked in a 1972 yearbook. My bad.

No biggie

[radiotvnut]

I was in elementary school from '83-'88 and most of the TV's were early '70's era 23" RCA tube type CTC39 metal cabinet color TV's that were connected to Sony U-matic tape machines and the equipment lived on tall roll around metal carts. The TV's had special jacks on the rear and the speaker tilted out to reveal the user controls, similar to standard consumer RCA TV's. There were only a few TV's in the school and they had to be reserved in advance by the teacher who needed one. There were also a couple of newer solid state Zenith system 3 TV's and one of the old RCA's that remained set up in the library. I don't ever remember watching any OTA programming on these. Most of the material was provided by PBS on U-matic tape format. We didn't get VHS until around '87. In '89, the schools got new 19" Magnavox color TV's in each room and they were connected to a master control center where all a teacher had to do was tell the A/V dept. what tape to play at what time.

My elementary school switched from incandescent to fluorescent lighting between my 1st and 2nd grade years and it was also during this time that they installed ceiling fans in most of the classrooms. That school didn't get A/C until the year after I left there. Before that, we relied on ceiling fans and some OLD Emerson pedestal fans with open blade guards that would likely not be allowed today. Back then, we had sense enough not to stick our fingers in the fan. We had steam heat and a blower powered radiator in each classroom. The desk were probably 30 years old and we still used old projectors, film strip viewers, old tube califone record players, etc.

I called a friend of mine, who is in charge of A/V for the district, to see if any of that old equipment was left. He told me that they had a house cleaning, aka - auction, several years ago and very little of the stuff actually sold. The rest went to the crusher, which is sad.

[Dude111]

Originally Posted by AndyMack

The local paper for that date is online, and only two stations were on the air during the daytime hours that day, Channel 6 and Channel 41.

And your probably correct my friend!

Beautiful picture you found,thanks for sharing it...

Stuff was MUCH PRETTIER back then for sure

[ggregg]

I remember in fourth grade, in 1967, the teacher brought in a TV which stayed in the class room. We were the only class that had a tv that year. All I remember is that is was a huge table set, probably a 21 incher, with a rounded top, and was already quite old. The PBS channel, or whatever it was called then, was usually on even though, at that time, Duluth MN had a CBS, NBC, and ABC affiliate also. A year or two later, the school got a few Setchell Carlsons which seemed to be the school tv of choice, in Minnesota, for a long time, probably because it was a MN company for one thing. If I remember correctly, they all seems to look the same, upright table sets with about a 19" tube and two big knobs centered on the bottom panel. I've never seen any SC's that looked any newer than those so maybe they concentrated on institutional stuff the last few years in business?

[AUdubon5425]

I remember reading that Setchell Carlson focused a lot of energy on CCTV systems for schools. I'm not sure just when they stopped marketing sets - I don't recall seeing any ads this side of 1970. I think they were bought out by a corporation out of Mpls. in '66 (Marquette Corp.?)

[ChrisW6ATV]

The name Setchell Carlson was used until about 1979-80, and the company was in Minnesota. It changed its name to Audiotronics and had that name until the 1990's, when it changed again to Dotronix. All of that time period, they were only making monitors for CCTV and other uses, as far as I know. Many of their color and B&W monitors have been very reliable even in 24-hour service for 10+ years. They stopped making monitors in or shortly after 2000, I think.