How did people watch 7" sets?
 

As I've been using my Admiral and Motorola 7" sets, it occurred to me to wonder how the living room of the late 1940s 7" set owner set up their living room to use their televisions.

If it was set in the traditional few feet in front of the coffee table, people would have went blind watching TV or had to watch the set with a pair of opera glasses. Yet, I don't ever remember seeing any pictures of any living rooms with any of these sets....seems that 10" was the minimum living room size set.

We can pretty much be sure that TVs in the bedroom weren't the standard back then unless you were filthy rich.

Here's the only photo I could find that shows a living room with a 7" set, I took this as a still out of a Motorola TV commercial from 1948. They can't be more than 3 feet from the set, which is actually about right. I picture all of their living room furniture moved into a corner, and the rest of the room totally empty :D

Just the thrill of the new entertainment absolved all inconvenience of viewing hurdles.

Yeah, just HAVING one of those "Majickal Boxes" that had radio AND pictures was the Marvel of the Age.. Went to a wedding reception last night, talked to a woman who REMEMBERED sets like this & my Porthole... She said they'd put chairs in a semi-circle in front of 'em & stare intently at the flickering box..

Well, I can't testify how they watched 7" sets, but I can sure testify how I watched my 2nd TV, a huge 8" Motorola that looked like this,
http://www.tvhistory.tv/1949-Motorol...kelite-8in.JPG
except that the volume and contrast control had a brass insert with a red Motorola squiggle in the center matching the fine tuning control. Since I bought my set for $10 used and almost working at a 2nd hand store in Brownsville, TN, in 1958, I am assuming these matching knobs were original for this set. While I was still in high school in Dyersburg, TN, the set lived on a table in my bedroom with a rabbit ears on top, and could receive a beautiful picture from Jackson, TN (Ch. 7 CBS) and a slightly snowy picture from Memphis (Ch. 5 NBC and Ch. 13 ABC) but absolutely nothing from the CBS station there (Ch. 3)

After graduating in 1959 and moving to Atlanta, GA, not only was I not rich, but had trouble stretching my paycheck from week-to-week, but I had my set sitting on top of my wardrobe in my bedroom, with a rabbit ears on top and got a good picture of all four channels there. Of course, since I had a one room apartment, it was also in my kitchen and my living room.

When I moved to NYC, the set lived on my kitchen table, except when company was over, and then it was dumped in the closet. This set continued to be my daily driver until NBC started carrying the space flights in color in December 1965 and then I replaced it with Sears made by Toshiba.
http://www.earlytelevision.org/image...iba_16inch.jpg
http://www.earlytelevision.org/image...nch_chassi.jpg
I kept the Motorola as a backup set for a few years and it still put up a rather good and bright picture, but the center of the screen had picked up a 4 inch round brownish ion burn, a very common problem on the 8BP4's. I tried to find a replacement CRT and could not, so I gave the set away.

The Toshiba was a daily driver until 1972, at which time it too became a back up set, and again with the legs removed up on top of our bedroom wardrobe, so we could watch Johnny Carson in bed. In 1984 it was retired as a working set, but kept as an emergency backup until I junked it in 2006 still working, but needing a recap in the worst way, never realizing that it was a rather rare set.

However, I still have a Pilot 37 that I bought for $15 in 1965, in one of the junk shops down in Radio Row (this is the area that was demolished to make the original World Trade Center) and I've always wondered how one watched a three inch set . . . . . . :scratch2:

James

I basically asked my dad the same thing once and he said that they just didn't know any different. It was just amazing to them to be able to see pictures from St. Louis or NY, it didn't matter what the picture was or how good the reception. He did say that after a while the charm wore off and they realized the shows weren't that good.

Here's a photo from Life magazine's archive showing a family in Erie, PA that just got a TV. There's another picture in the series showing the kitchen full of empty beer bottles after everybody left. Others show the man buying the tv, and setting it up at home. I think the photo essay was originally about a new TV station going on the air and the effect it had on residents.
http://images.google.com/hosted/life...5f1776c24.html

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/972...776c24_landing

Siting closer would benefit for sure , this is why Jack Webb had so many close ups in the 50's Dragnet , he felt that even with 10" or 12" screen you still had a small picture so by doing close ups people could see the faces , also in the movie with Shirley Temple and David Niven from 1949 ( the name escapes me ) there is a 7" Emerson in the living room .
the up side to a 7" is it didn't take up much room.

Funny how times changed between then and the 70s, when a 12" set was a common bedroom fixture and a 25" console was considered a giant screen set. Then there's the Mitsubishi World Square 37 from the late 80s, biggest set I know of from that time. Imagine one of those bad boyz into your living room, or even getting it in there, ouch.

What gets me is that in SO many pics from "Back in the Day", the people were always dressed up like they woulda been if they were heading off to church... Here in Greater Bugtussle, as I write this on Sunday, 12.30 pm in early June, its already 80-85 degrees w/withering humidity... I DON'T see how people stood being dressed up like that back in the days before A/C..

I think Dan pretty much hit the nail on the head.... As for the semi-circle
around the tv, just before the tv, was the radio, and pictures I have seen show
most listeners pulled up a chair and sat near the radio, even though those old sets
had amazing sound quality that easily filled a room, or two. I don't think back then
that people generally "needed" the picture for them to enjoy the show. They
were use to radio. I bet for a while, they didn't feel they were missing much
if the picture was too small, as in the 3" or 7" sets. I think the "picture" part was
a novelty, but it was still Burns & Allen, or who ever else they were now "watching"
instead of just listening to. And I bet they knew what they (B&A) looked
like anyway.... From other advertisements for the radio shows.

Very simple! If you wanted a job other than ditch-digging or farm labor, you had to get dressed up!


The interesting story behind the picture that egrand posted is about the opening of WICU in Erie, PA and it is on pages 101-107 in the May 2, 1949 issue.

WICU was a new in 1949 small station with only 12 employees. Apparently when the station first opened, despite the fact that the AT&T cable that carried the network programs was nearby, it was not available to the station, so all network shows were on film.

This link should get you there:

http://books.google.com/books?id=hk4...0Nuber&f=false

If it does not, do a Google search for: Life Magazine all issues

or try:

http://books.google.com/books?id=R1c..._issues_anchor

and find the issue by date.

James

Young people watch full length movies today on their tablets with 7 inch screens and on their 3 inch screen cellphones.

Absolutely true, but in the case of tablets and phones, they sit on their laps.....

I'd just like to see more pics of living room setups around a 7" set, which must have been common in the house of 1948. Of course, RCA (I'm guessing) took the market for 1949 with their "anniversary" model (9T246) priced at 199.95, only $10 or $20 more than the Admiral and Motorola 7" offerings.....not to mention the other companies in the fray at that time.

Yes.absolutely correct. I'm monitoring all this on a 7-inch tablet. Sitting 12 inches away from it.

When I restored my 7 inch National television, I said pretty close to it too on the kitchen table.

It does get tiresome, though. I can see how RCA Victor went immediately to a 10 inch minimum CRT size after the 621TS. Best way to combat the cheapies. Of course, they were in a position to do so.:smoke:

That's a good segue into another question. Does anyone use a 7" set on a regular basis, or is it more of something that gets turned on for company to show what TV was like, and to keep the circuits fresh?

I use my 8" Motorola 9VT1 regularly. i have it hooked to a DTV converter and a Roku box so it is a set that is actually watched, not just for show. I have it in a 10' x 10' bedroom and it is big enough to watch from anywhere therein. I also think living rooms were a bit smaller in those days too. The limited amount of programming and the novelty factor probably made the small size not much of a bother. Round screens also appear to be larger than the same size rectangular. I also have an RCA 8" metal portable but the Motorola just seems bigger and easier to watch at a distance.