Mil-Spec Roundie...
 

...I just wondered, did anyone make such a beast ? We've all heard horror stories of the early color sets being troublesome...wonder if anyone made one that was made to "Mil-Spec" w/ a notch or 2 better coponents than what was normally provided.

I've a book that RCA published that talks about tricolor monitors and systems for military use. I'll see what it has to say tonight.

I know they had government CRts that were pretty damn decent. Charles put one in a zenith awhile back that had a sweet picture

Good question Sandy. There was bound to have been some made.
Hmm...didn't Radar O'Reilly wear "military specs"? :scratch2:

http://www.speakeasy.org/~fortuoh/radar2.jpg

LOL..that is funny!

Nah...They weren't those butt-ugly "serial killer" plastic frame things...

>>LOL..that is funny!
__________________
"All I know is that I know nothing">>

Wrong war sitcom, that was Shultz on Hogan's Heroes! ; )

Seems the early RCA TM-10 (15") and TM-21 (21") round screen color monitors come as close to over- built military specs. as any roundie. Rack mounted and used in both studio control rooms as well as remote broadcast trucks. both built like a bank vault, and weighed almost as much. 21" pictured here:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/images/RCA-TM21D.jpg

Courtesy ETF site from the John Folsom collection.


-Steve D.

Double hernia!

Charles

Wow!
 

That is one beautiful piece of electronics!
Did the 15" monitors look like that but with smaller CRT?
I suspect there must be a few of those lying around. Am I right?
I bet if I brought one of those to the ETconvention I could make some friends!
LOL
Does anybody here have one? I guess not but I would think(hope) so.

Bobby,

Here's the RCA TM-10A 15" color monitor:

http://www.nrcdxas.org/articles/tm10a/monitor.jpg
-Steve D.

That's really neat!
 

Will somebody be bringing one of these monitors to the next ETconvention? This 15" is super cool. I like the newer 21" version equally.
It would be real neat to see the scehmatic.
Did Sam's have a schematic for those monitors?
Anybody know the chassis #'s?
I'd like to see what the flyback and it's circuitry looks like!
Thanks

Bobby,

Here's about all you need to know about the RCA TM-10A 15" color monitor. A simple Google search will usually provide the answers.

RCA TM-10A Video Monitor:
http://www.nrcdxas.org/articles/tm10a/ Ch


-Steve D.

Steve D. is right about the Tm-21. The transformers and chokes are all hermetically sealed and potted. With the exception of the flyback. All power supplys are regulated and if I remember even the filaments receive DC. It used either a 21cyp22 or a 21fjp22 CRT.
I had a mint example of this set, but sold it to Dan Gustafson 15 or so years ago. Darned Heavy ! Each side of the case has 2 large self retracting road case handles on each side. The chassis is composed of sub assemblies mounted on a frame all cabled together via Jones plugs. An easier set to service couldn't be designed.
According to my copy of "Closed Circuit Television Systems- Color and Monochrome Fundamentals-Planning -Applications" published by RCA in 1958, and prepaired the Government Service Department , RCA Service Company, RCA sold stock studio equipment without special componentry. All devices shown are stock RCA with
the exception of Huston-Fearless camera dollies and mounts.
But if the electronics are built as the TM 21 is built, I don't see how it could have been improved upon at that time.
A paragraph at ther bottom of the title page states " This research was supported in whole or in part by the United States Air Force under contracts AF 30(635)-7557 and
AF 36(600)-3468,Call RM 57-3 , monitored by the Systems Engineering Division, Directorate of Maintainance Engineering , Rome Air Force Depot, Griffiss Air Force Base
New York.
It appears that a tricolor system was installed at Walter Reed Army Hospital for instructional and training purposes.
There are also a couple of photos of monochrome cameras being used to provide support of remote defusing of bombs.
I hope this is usefull ! :D

Here is a picture of RCA TK-41 color cameras in action at SAC headquarters in Omaha, Neb. I believe this was in the early '60's. You'll notice the foreground TK-41 is operated by remote control. We had a similar color tv set up here at the Los Angeles Air Force Base, home of the Air Force Space Systems Division, for daily secured closed circuit broadcasts to SAC & the Pentagon. Most equipment was unmodified out of the box.

rca-tk41(sac).jpg
http://www.oldradio.com/archives/har...-tk41(sac).jpg

-Steve D.

Here is another monitor with high quality components:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/ge_4tm15.html

I'm not so sure "Mil-Spec" is all the high 'n' mighty its cracked up to be.. R-390As certainly were made to mil-spec standards, but they still suffer from leaky caps, & out of tolerance resistors...maybe not nearly as bad as "civvie" stuff. But maybe the "good" caps weren't around back when, I dunno...But in about all other respects an R-390 is a beautifully made-obviously costly- instrument.

Mil-spec can be great for some applicatons and irrelevant for others. A monitor is a case where it would be relevant - high quality components designed for long MTBF. But some mil apps mean pushing the envelope of performance rather than life. which you would never do in a consumer product design. In the 60's we ran into some things like that in transistor specs - some devices could meet mil-spec but not the kind of environmental life tests done for consumer TVs. The most stringent non-mil environmental specs are for automotive electronics, due to the temp ranges and voltage supply spikes they have to survive.

All that said, the examples of chassis posted here are obviously built to sturdier rules than consumer TVs, but it's not clear if they could make much more reliable lytics, for example.

déjà vu
 

That GE monitor is commercial gear with a mil-spec heritage IMO.

At the ETF museum a few years ago, when I first saw that GE color monitor linked in Steve's post above, it swept me back to the very early '60s and troubleshooting mill-spec tube-based CRT monitors.

Mil-spec back then meant components designed, manufactured, and tested to mil specs, that were soldered by hand, to mil specs, with mil spec terminal board construction, where every wire got terminated with a service loop that allowed it to be terminated three times over, and enough cooling so that it ran just warm to the touch, including most tubes.