watching the color snow on first color tv
 

Looking at the pictures of the roundies reminds me of 1961 or 1962 when we got our first color set. I was 5 or 6 at the time. It had a black metal cabinet and the chassis was mounted vertical on one side of the set. It was made by Admiral and the channel # was projected above the tuner knob. What's funny is that all the neighbors would come over to see it and unless there happened to be a color commericial on or it was sunday night they would stare at the colored snow on unused channels. Dosen't seem that long ago.

I used to stare at the colored snow of my friend's parents Zenith set back in the early 1960's when I would do a "sleepover" there. Sad but true; even the snow was neat to me. It's also scary to recall that all the stations went off the air at night back then, even here in LA. Seems like a long time ago..

Richard, I think we had the same set! We kept ours until '72 or '73. It wasn't all that attractive in its styling, but it was a top-notch performer!

Speaking of early color experiences, a friend of mines parent's had a color Panasonic (late 60's or very early 70's) and I recall reading the owners manual which had some statement about the tube using "rare earth phosphors" and thinking WOW!

And wondering how soon this supply of "rare earth" would run out. LOL

Anthony

Color snow is OK just don't eat the yellow snow. :D

1961 Admiral
 

Hi Celt, The Admiral was finally mine in 1970, took off the four metal legs and put it up on a tall chest of drawers, took up alot of the space in my room but I had my own color tv, I had it until 1975 when I sold it. It was still going strong and I don't think it was ever serviced! original crt still in it.

Do you mean from right there where the huskies go?

Yeah, and watch out too for the slime oozin' down from your TV set there.

show or snow
 

Ya, I'm as guilty as Steve Hoffman and the rest. Back in the 50's I used to camp out in Sears' TV dept. waiting for a color show to come on. Failing that it was the color snow. And when the tech brought out the degaussing coil I just about.....:p:

green stripe test signal
 

If my cloudy memory serves me correct, networks would transmit a narrow green stripe down the side of the video during daytime B&W shows for servicemen.

As there were very few daytime color shows and most sets were delivered and installed during the day, the stripe was transmitted several times a day so installers could see if the set was picking up the color signal.

Not sure if all the networks did this, but NBC would be a likely choice to help RCA sales.

Re: green stripe test signal
 

Wow, interesting!

My RCA color books talk about the greestripe test signal. I believe it was the same phase as the color burst and was placed at the beginning of eac H. line, or else they relied on the burst to make that stripe and the other was placed at the end of each H. line, just before H. interval.

I should have read that part more carefully. ;)

Why, for crying out loud?
 

Why on earth would anyone want to sit in front of a TV set and watch a screen with nothing but snow? :dunno: I can understand someone looking for distant signals doing this, but to simply stare at a blank screen with color snow (sounds like the color killer adjustment may have been a bit off as well, as the color will disappear from the snow when the killer is properly set), well, I have to wonder. What was going on? Even if the local stations weren't broadcasting color shows from the networks, etc. they would still have b&w shows on (old movies and the like).

I remember seeing color pictures in TV textbooks of the green stripe test signal, but I never actually saw it first-hand on any of the local TV stations in Cleveland.

BTW, in color TV's early years, some manufacturers put color indicator lights on the front panels of sets which would illuminate when the station to which the set was tuned was telecasting in color (technically, when the 3.579545-MHz--what all TV people today call "three-point-five-eight"--color-burst signal was being transmitted with the station's monochrome carrier). RCA used three such lamps to illuminate the color controls on the front panel when a color show was on, Motorola had its color indicator behind a rainbow-colored lens on some of its sets (IIRC), and so on.

I don't recall if Zenith used a color indicator on its early color sets, though I honestly don't think so. For example, the Zenith 29JC20 from the early '60s, IIRC, did not have a color indicator anywhere on the panel that I could see (I remember we had one of these sets in the electronics shop in high school, 30+ years ago, which is how I know what the table model 29JC20 looks like).

Color Killer
 

Just thinkin' if you saw color snow on a blank channel wouldn't that mean the color killer was set wrong? or does it only work on a signal?

That is the way all early color sets I remember worked which was early 60s. I don't know if these sets had a color killer circuit as you had to adjust the tint on black & white programming to get something close to black instead of green or purple. I can't imagine all those sets had bad or out of adjustment color killers, thats how they worked out of the box.
Richard