First time post- I found this site by accident. I was wondering if there are any pictures available of the Zenith Commander ( early 1960's) with the remote control; when broken, you could press one of the switches on it and it would keep on flipping through the channels as if it had a mind of its own. Also, any pictures of the 19 inch portable ( a heavy portable) from around 1968. Boy, did we ever love our T.V.'s back then. I can remember going to the drugstore with my dad to test the tubes from our sets to see if they were still good or needed to be replaced. I did find a site which shows some of the old sets from the 50's and 60's. We had at one time a Natalie Kalmus that I climbed on when I was a tot and the doors to the unit flipped open when it fell over on top of me; the doors broke the fall and saved me from any injury. The site with the pictures is www.tvhistory.tv

Ahh, one of these days I'll get a pic of my RTC color roundie with remote.

It's a CTC-7 :D

Welcome, Bill! In this thread

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=38539

look at the second picture, the set at the top of that pile is a '68 Zenith bw portable I just brought home. Minus the knobs so it might look a little funny. This one is actually listed as a 20". Not a remote set, of course!

Here's the CTC 31 remote set that I just got from bgadow. It will need some work but I will do that in the winter months.

looks nice! You probably know this, but the remote chassis has a green pilot bulb between the two channel indicators. The pilot indicates that the remote chassis is on.
Good luck with the rest of the restoration.

wasn't this the set with the color issues? If so, how did you get the color back, and what work has yet to be done?

Justout66,

That is old Sparky! It had issues with sparks flying around in different places. There is a thread with OLD SPARKY in the title.

polaraman

Need to add these next too sets to the remote control TV list to keep it up to date. First one is the 1973 space command 500 the "Langtry" SD1950R. Space command 500 tuned channels either up or down, stepped volume 3 units then relayed the TV off.

http://audiokarma.org/forums/attachm...id=32685&stc=1

16" Space command 100 chromacolor. The "Clinton" SD1610R, 1973. This is the bottom line of remote control TV's zenith ever made. Space command 100 only tuned channels, and an unused channel would be selected to turn the TV off.

General Electric wired remote of the late 50s
http://tvontheporch.com/images/remote.jpg
tethered to a 21C2550
http://tvontheporch.com/images/21c2550.jpg

A 1974 RCA model 157ER. It is a 16" B/W TV, all tubes except in the remote circuit. Uses a single button ultrasonic remote (which I need to obtain for it.) This is my first and only ultrasonic remote TV I have at the moment.

Yes, the CTC31 I just got was "old sparky" Bryan pretty much fixed that problem before I got it. I found a couple cracked solder connections and replaced the chroma takeoff coil to get the color back. I just wanted to basically make it work for now, will need to check the IF alignment later when I have more time.

Mike if you can find any type of ultrasonic remote hand unit it will likely have one function that will operate your channel selector...also if it's an electronic hand unit you can retune it if none of the functions work "as is"...had to do this with a Magnavox electronic remote hand unit to get it to operate the functions on an older magnavox set.

Be on the lookout at the Goodwill, etc...they usually have a box of old remotes: have found several ultrasonic remote transmitters including Zenith rod type for $1.00.

Really neat to be able to watch the set brought back to health even though its not here anymore. Hopefully it behaves, maybe it just didn't like me! I'll take full blame for the screwed up IF! Couldn't keep my grubby little hands out of there...I really think that -31 has great potential.

I just scored a Zenith Space command color set, complete with clicker. Pics will be posted soon.

Here's the pic.

Congrats on an excellent find! Where did you find it? Curious what chassis is in there. It looks like a 1971 or so.
Is it in working order?

Found near Canton, OH. The chassis is a 12A12C52. I forgot to take the variac when I took it north. I'm going to figure it's not working.

Last week somebody, I forget now just who, called me at 9:30 at night. I was thinking the other night, you know, that was really rude of them. My wife goes to bed at 9 so it always wakes her up. So last night the phone rings again at 9:30. Its my buddy Hobie. Now, the last time he called me that time of night it was because he drove his car in a ditch & needed someone to come get him. So I guess he is in the ditch again...but no, Hobie, a real character, tells me that I need to put my shoes on & head for the auction barn. He has bought me a television. Only about 5 minutes away but I never go there because you have to wait so long & they don't usually have stuff worth the wait to me. So I get there & he gives it to me-don't know what he paid but I'm sure it was cheap. Yep, a genuine Zenith Flash-Matic complete with working "Ray Gun". Of course, I haven't checked the set out yet. This ones a keeper. Where I'll keep it I don't know!

And, no, I guess it wasn't so rude for him to call me last night!

Bryan, you do have a rare set. The FlashMatic, introduced in 1955, was the very first attempt by Zenith at wireless remote control; while it worked after a fashion, the system was a colossal flop and was pulled from the market after perhaps a year or even less. Here's why. For openers, while the control system worked well enough when using the small flashlight "ray gun" controller (which was little more than a fancy flashlight--in fact, I would guess any ordinary flashlight with a pulse or "flash" button would have worked as well), there were no protection circuits to prevent stray ambient light from triggering the remote receiver. This meant that if your FlashMatic TV was located near your living room picture window (or any place else where the sun shines brightly in the daytime), on a very sunny day the set would go absolutely bonkers. No kidding. The sun shining on one or more of the four control photocells, each located at a corner of the screen, would cause the remote system to raise and lower volume, turn the set on and off at random, change channels up or down . . . in short, all hell would break loose. Moreover, since the photocells were not identified on the front of the set as to their function (TV on/off, volume/mute, channel up or down), viewers often became confused as to which photocell controlled which operation--here we go again!

A couple years later, IIRC, Zenith introduced its Space Command remote control system. This used ultrasonic signals generated by metal rods, struck by spring-loaded hammers, in a handheld remote controller unit; the receiver at the set was designed to respond to these signals, of course, and operate the various control functions. (Sometimes these would do strange things as well if, for example, the owner's dog was in the same room as the set, and the tags on its collar clinked against each other in such a way as to reproduce just the right frequency to trigger a remote function, such as on/off or volume; some set owners reported being awakened in the middle of the night when their Space Command-equipped TVs would turn on, at full volume, for no apparent reason.)

Later, the mechanical Space Command hand units were replaced by an electronic version which offered more functions. Still later, the controller was designed to produce infrared (IR) control signals; the remote receiver operated on the same principle as the older models, except the IR receiver only responded to infrared control commands. The beauty of the IR system is that it is virtually impossible to trigger it with anything other than signals from its own hand unit (ambient light, sounds, etc.)

I have never, however, heard of any infrared controller (IR is the industry standard for all remote controls these days) being "fooled" by stray light or other signals to which it was not designed to respond. The IR systems are practically foolproof, but I'm sure anyone who has ever owned a Zenith FlashMatic will always have stories to tell about, for example, the sunny summer day when the control circuits went bonkers in the middle of a soap opera or the like. Can you imagine watching, say, Days of Our Lives on NBC and suddenly having your set switch to Guiding Light on CBS when the sun hit the photocells that controlled the channel up/down function, or the sound (or the TV itself) suddenly going off when the same stray sunlight hit the cell for the mute/volume/on-off control? :eek:

Weird.

That IS a great find. I recently bought a similar set, but no Flashmatic hand-held.

I'd give good money for one-anybody got one for sale or trade??

I did think it was strange that they didn't label the functions of each photocell on the front. I guess you were just supposed to memorize it. I did power it up. It has promise. The raster came up & it just has the typical vertical problems, short with foldover. The remote motor works fine with the manual switches but none of the "eyes" are responding. The bad news is the crt is pretty well shot. It had a brightener on it; I hooked it up to the tester & the needle didn't even move. I ran the filaments all night at 8 volts but it never budged from about 1/4 through the "bad" scale. So now I can look for a 21ALP4A or equivalent. I looked up all the substitutes-will have to check on the ETF classifieds & see if the poster on there has something. I have some other 21" tubes but they are not on the list, I think maybe I could make one of them work but for now I won't worry about it.

I was searching for something else, and came across this thread, thought it would be a good one to bring back, seeing all the pictures had been lost. Here's my two remote sets, both from 1960: a Zenith 17" SC300 and an RCA CTC-10.

You guys have probably already seen this pic but this is a 1966 Magnavox U910 Chassis and motor varactor tuning, uses the 2 button air bellow remote that changes VHF channels and a 3 setting Volume that if pressed the fourth time set turns off. When I bought the set the chassis was smoked, flyback was cooked and the horiz and chroma boards were badly damaged. I replaced the chassis from a similar model that used the 23EGP22 crt and a non remote unit. Got the remote from KX250rider, and it works great!

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...8/P1010001.jpg

just got a ctc 15 remote set .craigslist,mt.vernon ,ohio.they were asking 250.00. i got for 40.00. very sharp cabinet,2 remote units,all paperwork,brochures,etc.it has a replacement 21fjp22 from video display corporation. installed 1991.tuner is
very bad and it has a few adjustment issues-purity,convergence,vertical.the son is a tinkerer,and i think he turned everything he could! i drug this around my job from 9:00 a.m untill 8:30 last night.over 300 miles,hopong it wouldnt get damaged.the owner went to a nursing home and the son quickly sold everything she had. i will post pics later.