What do you really do with your sets?
 

I mean of course we use them, but as I collect more and more TVs it seems too often they just sit there. Its not what I want to happen, just that I don't watch much tv, and one is sufficient at a time.

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Nothing is easily accessible at my house, unfortunately. But I always seem to be using TV's in my collection for projects of one type or another. I've been using an old Zenith portable (about 1963ish) for a monitor lately for my hard drive recorder. Its B&W, but its fine for a confidence monitor for such a device, and the on screen text the recorder generates is easily readable. You just have to wait for the tubes to warm up. :thmbsp:

David

Thats the biggest issue with this hobby. Ive heard the line over and over again "why so many you can only watch one, besides they wont be any good in 2009".

I try to display my sets in a nice presentable way, but like any large collection with space limitations, you cant make everything perfect. Some sets end up getting buried in the back. You know its back there, but nobody will ever know what it is. Most of my sets just get "displayed" after they get repaired. I have three designated TVs that are set up for every day use in different rooms of the house. One day I might decide Id like to use a different set as the "main" TV and they get traded out. I'll use whatever set I decide for a few months then go to something else. I can't say every TV gets that kind of treatment though.

Ive got a nice open spot in the basement where I can move a TV into and be able to use it without altering the "main TV area". I guess its like the "featured TV" viewing area.
Yeah, I know it sounds strange but thats the way it goes with a strange hobby.

Hey Doug I don't think its a strange hobby-- just a little 'unconventional'. :D

I try and rotate through a few different tv's too.... even tried using my portacolor in the kitchen but that didnt last long since direct afternoon sunlight washes it out too much.

Right now I'm using my ctc97 as my daily watcher (which I know is sacrilege considering I'm zenith2134) and its all the TV I need at this point. However we both know that it'll get traded out when a bigger or better vintage set passes through. Thats the fun of it for me.

I guess I am one of the fortunate few with lots of space. I work for my brother and he has given me a very nice room with natural maple wood floors that is about 22 by 40 feet. All of my sets are displayed and those that have already been restored are connected and can be watched. I have procured some used closed circuit master antenna components and I will be building an analog antenna feed system on 5 modulated VHS chanels. The system will be fed by 4, D to A converter boxes and a DVD player. The system will be operating on chanels 3,6,8,10,12

The collection is approaching 40 sets now. With the exception of 3 sets (the Halli in my avitar, a 1955 RCA 21", and a SC Chineese) all are Roundies, 6 are color roundies.

Current restoration project is a 1950 Stromberg Carlson TC125 12" porthole.



So much to restore and so little time.

I used to be TV collector, for historical reasons. I preferred rare and unique TV's in excellant condtion.
Every one would say they wanted a certain TV, when I would obtain one, the green that they said they were willing to pay seemed to dematerialize.
There seemed to be an overabundance of hot air in the hobby.
My psychologist told me that TV men sounded like a bunch of weirdos.
My priest and rabbi told me that TV men sounded like weirdos.
My accountant asked me if I was crazy and a weirdo.
I changed my ways after that, I got my collection down to 2 TV's, stopped associating with some of the most experianced electronic minds in the USA.
I no longer go on treasure hunts or flea markets.
My new life consists of healthy habits like gambling, and procurring married women for pleasure.
Who needs to rot in a basement restoring old TV's.

Eberts, I think almost every post i have seen of yours, has been negative towards TV's. I am wondering why you are even here. If i am mistaken, please feel free to correct me in the error of my ways. Logan

Moderators need to watch this one. Read his previous post. We dont need any trouble getting started.

Well I don't know if I am a weirdo or not (sure seems to be a lot of us out there):scratch2:

I don't know if I should get out more or what the heck it is about this hobby that lights the 6LQ6 in my mind but I am glad it is there.

These old sets are many things to those of us who collect them. To me they are history. They are windows into a time when a human being actually put things together with their hands. A time when people took pride in the product they built; often pushing the envelope of technology to do something miraculous like beam a moving image into our homes and our lives.

Not to wax too nostalgic here but while I was just a tyke in 1969, sitting in front of my beautiful CTC-21 seeing man land on the moon...it is something I hardly, if at all really remember but that moment in time came through that set and through those speakers and was a magnet for my family that we all shared together.

I also think of the older 40's and 50's tv's and radios that were parts of so many different people's lives. Some of these radios heard Roosevelt on December 7, 1941. They living history beamed into their very living rooms. They heard and saw incredible moments in time from the Korean war to Uncle Milty to Jack Benny and back again. These wonderful old machines carry the ghosts of those who cherished them and they are very special.

For me, I have many sets in my collection. I have set up my garage to be more like a tv sales showroom and run electricity and antenna to all the sets so I can turn any of them on I wish to view them in all their glory. As they get restored, I hope to be able to turn on more of them.:D

So let em call us weirdos or whatever. They can think (albeit ignorant or misguided minds) Our good old RCA's, Zeniths, Philcos, Crosleys, GEs, Admirals, Hoffmans and all the rest of our so called junk tvs and radios will be playing and bringing history and entertainment into our lives long after this "modern" stuff has made its trip to the landfill.

Just my 2 cents on the subject of this thread and other comments within it.

Roy

I'll have to admit that my daily watcher isn't all that vintage. It's a 1993 GE 25" AV monitor being fed by a DigitalStream 3150plus ATSC receiver. However, I have a sun-room at the front of my house that I keep a vintage TV displayed in and I rotate TVs every so often. Currently my RCA 9-T-246 is in there. Also I keep my RCA G2000 permanently displayed in a corner of my dining room. The rest of the sets reside in my basement in my "shop" area. I'm currently working on a Predicta and am looking forward to finishing it and putting it on display.

Tv collecting is not a detrimental hobby by any means. In fact it is a supreme hobby, since it A) Makes you smarter and B) Means you are a unique and individualistic person who could care less what the masses say, and draw their own conclusions.

More people should find themselves a healthy outlet for their creativity, IMO.

And eberts, just so you know: Tv collectors are not rotting away in some basement. They are simply people who are passionate about pieces of history just how original Constitutionalists and others are. Why must people always pass judgement here? Just get the hell out if you want to stir up trouble...

Matt, bet that G2000 turns a lot of heads in the dining room :thmbsp:

Digital TV isn't as bad as it's cracked up to be for me. I enjoy terrestrial digital via my Zenith DTT900 box on a 1975 GE and digital (QAM) cable into my old RCA.

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With all vintage TVs and radios, it's a good idea to power them up and use all of the controls every month or so. Let everything get up to normal operating temperature and drive out moisture, distribute lubricant on moving parts, etc.

Phil Nelson

eberts reply was sarcasm, he was joking!(i hope)

Very well put. I'm not the best writer, but I'll try to translate my thoughts into words here:

A large chunk of what collecting is, is that it's usually items that evoke memories of (probably) a simpler or more pleasant time in our lives. A big amount of eBay sales is made up of vintage items, and ironically it's mostly folks buying the things [or types of things] they've already owned once before. For us, it just happens to be TV's. So what? Why should any of us even entertain the idea of it being wierd? It's no different than collecting stamps or coins or artwork or buttons or dolls or bottle caps. Some stuff appreciates in value, some doesn't (or hasn't yet). What it boils down to is personal enjoyment of the hobby as well as collectability. The naysayers can't say that vintage TV's aren't worth anything, as I've seen some sets command a pretty healthy price.

Perhaps it's collector envy, as TV repair & restoration requires a working knowledge of electronics and broadcasting theory, as well as other skills like woodworking & refinishing. The end product not only becomes just another piece in a collection, but something that can be used and enjoyed in it's original capacity (much like a classic car for instance). In contrast, the stamp or coin collector merely looks in a book to find it's value, and stores it away for safekeeping.

Also, we're collecting a product that everyone can relate to. Everyone knows what a TV is, and what it does. Everybody has a memory of something TV related in their lives. Television has brought the last couple of generations more information, entertainment and knowledge of our world than any other device on this planet. Who can say that about a Mercury dime or Ken & Barbie or an old Coke bottle? The only people who say folks like us are strange, are those who are only into collecting for either monetary reasons or bragging rights, and are not true hobbyists.

Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.

Not a strange hobby
 

I guess collecting old tv's is better than if you were a mortician and collected dead bodies:banana:

I just like to have them... Once I restore one, and know it works, I usually only turn it on every 6 months or a year to keep the caps formed. Otherwise, I don't watch TV except for news in the early morning. And for that, I use a Sony Profeel. I come & go, and wouldn't want to leave any vintage set unattended.

Charles

Howdy!

I have my 66 Zenith roundie which is our daily watcher in the bedroom. My other TV's in my "office" go through a rotation. Every month or two I'll swap them out. My collection is small, living in an apartment has its limitations. So I have four that get used often.

When they are used I use them when I am studying or on the computer. That can be as long as 5 or 6 hours. I know for a 1950's TV its a long time, but I never leave it unattended.

I can't wait to move into a house! I've got a few years, hopefully the airlines will be strong,and then I can re-add my collection again. I have a Dumont RA-105 colony console sitting in Maine waiting for the year for me to finish restoring it. That would become my daily watcher, as long as that 15AP4 is still strong.

Kinda long winded I know, but I really enjoy these Tv's. So, lets keep on collecting!!
Best regards,
Matt Davala

If I were to turn all of my TVs & radios on at once, it could quite possibly cause a rift in the space/time continuum...Not to mention a rather hefty electrical bill. Being a person who practises financial restraint, and furthermore not wanting Species 8472 type creatures loose in our galaxy, I have refrained from trying such shenanigans.

Are you sure? I've heard of several UFO sightings in East Tenn.:scratch2:

I do like Doug mentioned where i rotate mine out once in awhile and also have a separate viewing area for the others. I mainly watch dvd's of old tv shows from the era of the tv as there is rarely anything worth watching on the old tv's on regular cable. In the end all my working tv's get played on a regular basis. I also do the rotate sysem with my radio collection.
-Tony

I get the most enjoyment out of rebuilding them and making them work again, I rarely sit down and actually watch anything on them though.

I thought I was the only one afraid of that happening!!!LOL!!!!!:lmao:

It has probably been a month or more since I sat down in the TV room to actually watch something. Just not much on that is worth my time these days. Eventually I'll build on my collection of old shows on DVD and will get some more use. The fun of the hobby, for me, is bringing that set back from the dead, and tweaking it to work as much like new as possible. I do try, when I watch TV, to rotate. There are a few that work fine but haven't been turned on in over a year, and I know that isn't good for them.

Is the old TV hobby strange? As others have been quick to point out, there are a lot stranger things to get in to. I have an uncle who has quite a bit tied up in model trains. A great hobby, and I love to look at that stuff. When we share stories I can tell he doesn't have quite the level of respect for my hobby as I do for his; but his hobby is well established, with a much larger base. We are still on the "fringe". But when it comes down to it, which is stranger: spending thousands on old toy trains or on old TV sets?

I will say this: I have met a variety of people through my hobby, and some of them were strange ducks, indeed! Some of them probably said the same about me! But I don't think the hobby had anything to do with them being strange...these are just unusual people who I would never have met had we not had this one thing in common.

I guess a lot of it, for me anyway, is that I've never quite got over the little boy's fascination w/how radio & TV work. I mean, I KNOW how they work 'n' all, its just there's still something "Majick" about the whole business, in a way...

Personally my attraction to the hobby is I like to see the history of the equipment. Equipment changes over time and as fashion and technology change. I think its fascinating to see equipment from a particular time period.

For example, I wanted to know what a video distribution amplifier looked like in the 1950's. Today they can be as small as the connectors themselves (usually BNC or F depending on the whether the video is baseband or RF). Well, its actually rather difficult to find out what a DA in a a 1950's television station looks like. Its a subject that doesn't have a lot of pictures lurking around on the net. Most people know about the cameras of the 1950's, but not all the equipment that surrounded them to make them work. Anyway, I enjoyed doing some research to find out. Number one because I'm interested in where things came from, and number two because sometimes knowing the way a piece of equipment was at one time can answer the question as to why it takes its current form. Equipment designers tend not to go off on a tangent.

Anyway, that probably all sounds weird, but I think its a fascinating hobby.
For the record, at least one video distribution amplifier from the 1950's was just a shelf with some tubes and connectors on it about 6 rack units high. Amazingly 1950's television equipment has all of its guts out in the open, only later did they start packaging it neat enclosures.

David

As I have mentioned before, my sickness extends to lusting after a TK-41, complete w/Houston-Fearless dolly...I have never even SEEN one of these things in poison, I understand they are so big I couldn't even fit one in The Mighty Valdez, but I'd STILL like to have one...

I started to collect a few tube color sets and then all of a sudden I felt like I did when I was making my living working on the things again, I've sold most of the sets that I'd picked up to folks that they didn't remind of how much work it was to keep them going back when they were everybody's daily watcher sets.

I've got quite a few B&W sets of the type I watched when I was a kid growing up at home and worked on as a kid with the help of my Father. I always enjoy working on them and getting them up and running. I have about a dozen or so B&W's of which I keep about 3 in a rotation and use to watch my old favorite B&W movies. In the rotation now are a 51 Zenith 17 inch table model, a 55 Zenith 17 inch table model and a 60 model Magnavox 17 inch portable, I say portable because it does have a handle and it is possible to move it...

Oh yes. I basically have 3 hobbies; the TVs (my first hobby since age 9), is only the middle-of-the-road one. My more common one is old cars; Toyotas and Cadillacs with Diesel engines. But my WEIRD hobby is old Cold War air raid sirens. The siren hobby has it's own group, like we have here on AK http://www.airraidsirens.com . I'm probably the only man in California (or even West of the Mississippi?) with a 1200-pound, 1965 Federal Thunderbolt siren mounted on the deck in back of the house. It's wired up, and I blow it every last Friday of the month at noon, and on New Years Eve at Midnight, everybody in Moorpark and Somis gets treated to the blare of my sirens. This year, I blew the Thunderbolt (136 db & 100'), and also a big old 500-pound Federal model 5. In the video of the New Years Eve run, the Thunderbolt is sounded first by the AR timer on the kitchen counter, then I disappear out back and manually cycle the Model 5 with a 70-amp cutoff switch. :banana:

Video:

Friday noon "test" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezCyvZsA8hk

New Years Eve 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hewzjF3ka7w

Charles

Most of mine are sitting in a storage locker. I haven't had much time lately, but I like to fire-up something I restored and watch it for a while occasionally. As I've mentioned in the past, the attempt to keep what I believed was a rational amount of roundies, console and boatanchor radios and Cadillac restorations in my condo life helped end my marriage. My new lady actually liked my Dumont RA-109, Radiola 62, Philco 38-7 and HaloVision end-table (not the TV part) enough that they grace the living room in her trailer where I now live.

I have 4 vintage TV sets, 2 Zeniths, a Toshiba and a Sony. I keep 1 TV per room in my house. All hooked up and ready to be used. Which I do if I am in that room for a while. I would love to have more, but I made a promise with myself, If i bring something into my house, I have to remove something of equal size.
I am a 2nd generation Pack rat, whom my friends are pack rats and even the parents of some of my friends were pack rats. Over the course of 10 years my parents and my best friend's parents passed away and we had to empty the houses in preparation for closing the estates.
The stress of having to deal with the masses of stuff affected me, but it was not unprofitable, since the invention of ePay, stuff=money. I've paid my living expenses for 3 years now just by selling off my excess stuff.
If anything would happen to me i don't want to leave a bunch of headache to my friends who are left behind.
The up side to all of this, is how much i enjoy Audio Karma. All of you showing pictures of your latest finds brings me the joy of discovery without having to find a place in the house to put it, also it works like consumer reports so i can best decide what specific model and brand to lookout for. Logan

As I mentioned in another thread, I have endured persecution from my family all my life for my hobbies...Even after I moved out into my own house ! When Lauriann & I got engaged, about the 1st thing my mom said to her was, "I sure do hope you can get rid of all those radios & TVs !" Lauriann, however, cemented her relationship w/me right there by telling my mom that she liked the radios & TVs just fine, she didn't see any need to "get rid" of them. My family NEVER really came out & said they didn't like my stuff, it was just the host of back-handed compliments, snarky remarks, & "turd-in-a-punchbowl" looks that let me know LOUD & CLEAR what they thought. Screw 'em. I'd just go get another...(grin)

I rotate mine regularly as far as use goes, some get used more than others. As others have mentioned, It is good to keep the caps formed, parts lubed and ect. As far as '80s and newer stuff goes, I have no room for that stuff. I fix it if it costs little or nothing and then donate them or put them out in front of my house with a "free, works" sign. the rest stays with me until I'm dead or sometimes I sell stuff {not often}. I also have other hobbies that constict my space like a boa. They include antique lawnmowers and other household appliances. I am making videos of that stuff for You tube so I can share it with others instead of it sitting around doing nothing besides me using it for daily life:D. I love to live in the past as far as technology goes for the most part. Call me crazy, I dont care. I am one HAPPY crazy person!:yes:

Hey, this is just like what it's been like for me too, I'm sure we have all endured thas kind of treatmen,t but like you said, "Screw 'em" and I'm right there with ya, go for what makes YOU happy.{ I used to buy stuff just to piss them off when I was a teenager HE HE} But as an adult, I guess 'ya gotta keep the family happy too, BUT, we only live once as far as we can remember.

my computer messed up......uggh....new stuff..

OK, what do I do with my sets? Most of the really "vintage" TV's are either in the shop or the basement waiting on me to get off my lazy butt and bring them back to life. Since most are consoles, there's no way they can come in the house due to space restrictions. I have a working '76 Zenith CCII 19" in the basement, a 13" '86 KTV in my bedroom (just to take up space), and an '85 19" Sony in my "den/computer room". I'm not much of a TV watcher; but, I turn them on fairly often to keep them healthy. I also have tons of tube radios that I pull off the shelf and sometimes use. I'd use them more if there was something decent on AM to listen to.


Sandy, I know where you're coming from as far as being persecuted about your hobbies & you are one blessed guy for finding a lady that can accept your radio and TV collection! The main grief my family gave me was because of lack of space. My mother would always say "But, at least I know where he is". I used to hear a lot of crap from my classmates because I am legally blind AND because of my hobby. Of course, they got real nice when they wanted something fixed. I finally had to do what others have done and just say the heck with them all! I'll continue to do what I enjoy for as long as I can.

Hey Charles! You got one of these??

http://www.victorysiren.com/x/index.htm

I want one!!!! Now where to put it so my wife doesn't see it. Hmmmm.

There is a you tube video of Don Garlits firing one up.

Bill R