Why do you like old tv sets?

[TVTim]

Much simpler times. Also, the remote was named Tim. Wait, that was me.

[truetone36]

Yep, I was the remote for the first 17 years of my life.

[N2IXK]

I owe my career in electronics to an early interest in the workings of television, and building all kinds of projects and circuits from a combination of trashpicked TV sets and parts from the pegboards at the local Radio Shack. I soon moved on to reading some books on TV repair and learned to fix up some of the nicer discarded sets and sell them for extra spending money. The ability to do this got me my first couple part-time jobs in TV repair shops, while most of my friends were pumping gas or flipping burgers for considerably less money.

By the time I got out of HS, the age of BPC sets was well underway, and it was apparent that TV repair wasn't going to remain a profitable endeavor much longer. I made a shift over to commercial/broadcast video repair (lots of work for VHS duplicating houses with endless racks of VCRs) for a year or so while studying EE during the day. Eventually was offered a job at a university research lab, in part because of my experience with video systems, but I eventually moved up to replace their retiring instrumentation guru building all manner of one-off custom instrumentation and systems for scientific research.

I still like playing around with analog TV and vintage sets as a hobby partly to keep the technology from being completely forgotten, and because it reminds me of my younger days and several great folks (now gone) who taught me about the workings of the technology over the years. I like to restore sets to working condition for people who want them, partly out of a sense of guilt for all the restorable now collectible sets I shredded into pieces in my early years of learning...

[Telecolor 3007]

And sometimes I want to revenge on the hard times.

[MadMan]

Why do I like anything that's old?

I'm insane.

But seriously, ever since I was a wee lad, I've had 2 major fascinations: learning how things worked, and old stuff. As a baby, the instant I could crawl, I went straight for the electrical outlet.

[DavGoodlin]

+1 I was the one who freaked out his parents going after this stuff. Anything electrical did not escape my notice. The high voltage and hums ot the TV was the ultimate in cool stuff, right at home

The warm aroma and sight of tubes in back of any old TV or radio always had a special appeal. 1950s TVs in particular use similar circuits with familiar tubes making them easy to repair.

Most of us also like *old* cars, considering anything built before the game-changing mid 1970s to be easy and fun to work on.

[Philco1968]

Old TV sets remind of my much younger days is why I like old sets! I practically grew up around RCA even though I'm a Philco fan,...especially the Philco-Ford sets of the mid to late 1960's! Still like RCA,too!

[tom franco]

I love this hobby of old TVs I was born in 72 my parents had a magnavox total automatic color set when the TV repair man would show up my day was made 😀 loved the orange glow of the tubes but I also lived in an era 1980s people would throw reciving tube TVs away left and right and all the TV repair shops around plus my grand father God rest his soul played a big part he did tube type electronic repair also I look at it this way if people love collecting old cars exotic pets well why not TVs they were a big part of American history

[tom franco]

Love collecting old TVs all my life for me it's a passion I look at it this way people like vintage cars exotic pets etc well why not TVs there a great part of American history😃

[Electronic M]

+1 In the early 90's my folks could not find child proofing for the outlets my infant self could not figure out how to defeat in under 30 min.

I was the kid that rather than run scared from the noise of the vacuum instead looked on with awe and curiosity...

I killed a hybrid Moto WID set at 2-5 because I wanted to know why sound came on before the picture and toggled the power repeatedly till it failed....

As soon as I could hold a screwdriver anything I could dismantle, without getting killed for it, got dismantled.

I have a 70's car and plan to own older ones too soon.

[Titan1a]

Old sets don't require a Masters Degree in Engineering to operate.

[Telecolor 3007]

The ones with more digital options do Heck, it took me some time to understeand how to easy memorize the staions on an old 30 channel tv set, but after I understood how to do it, it was easy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw1LtbSm8l8 Don't blame them. When I was around 15 and half age I wanted to record an episode from "Sailor Moon" onto video cassette, but I dind't know how to make the connection (it was at a relative - geesh, I wished that I had that dubbed episode on a cassette).
But talking of easines, when I was a kid I found out on my own how te memorize the stations on sets with mecahnichal memory (push button stuff). If you put me to operate me something as complicated as today are smartphones...

Oh, most old tv's got the LOOK. Even some early ones with plastic faces. The early ones made 100% with plastic case (and some up to early '90's) didn't had the look (execept for some portable models), but the plastic dind't look agresive... but after early '90's, they all becamed horrible. Only reason for getting me an 1998-2001 color tv set: good image provided.

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

The ones with more digital options do Heck, it took me some time to understeand how to easy memorize the staions on an old 30 channel tv set, but after I understood how to do it, it was easy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw1LtbSm8l8 Don't blame them. When I was around 15 and half age I wanted to record an episode from "Sailor Moon" onto video cassette, but I dind't know how to make the connection (it was at a relative - geesh, I wished that I had that dubbed episode on a cassette).
But talking of easines, when I was a kid I found out on my own how te memorize the stations on sets with mecahnichal memory (push button stuff). If you put me to operate me something as complicated as today are smartphones...

Oh, most old tv's got the LOOK. Even some early ones with plastic faces. The early ones made 100% with plastic case (and some up to early '90's) didn't had the look (execept for some portable models), but the plastic dind't look agresive... but after early '90's, they all becamed horrible. Only reason for getting me an 1998-2001 color tv set: good image provided.

Cool! Some of those kids were open to using an old TV even though they didn't get to see an actual picture. Clean the volume control, feed it a signal and shape 'em while they're still young.

At one time I didn't know how to hook up a VCR; I knew I had to use a coaxial cable but didn't know which F-connector to use on the VCR. Fortunately there was no harm in hooking it up wrong.

In my opinion, not knowing how to use a smartphone is no loss and you're better off. I'm sure I could learn how to use one but that would go against my lifetime practice of running in the other direction.

Agreed on the look of old sets. The newest set I have by far is a 19" set from 1987 that has a particle board cabinet and plastic face, but I think it looks good. Sure, particle board isn't desirable, but not many table sets from that time are made with it and it's in excellent condition.

[Marco-nix]

Originally Posted by Jon A.

In my opinion, not knowing how to use a smartphone is no loss and you're better off. I'm sure I could learn how to use one but that would go against my lifetime practice of running in the other direction.

I agree, i'm near 60 years old and,I know the old stuff but i can't say momething on a smartphone, Ipad or Iphone... this kind of stuff is very stranged to me.. I don't know how work this kind of stuff. However, talk me about old tv, old radio and many others old stuf, ahhhhhhhh i know how work the old stuff . I have no modern tv ( plasma , LCD or what ever.. ) i have about 10 old tv with a CRT only, old transistor radios.... old watches and old clocks....that's better than the new stuff.

[rose14]

crt sets still have better depth of color and motion compared to modern flat screens .