Over the winter I posted about a set I got from one of my extended relatives. It was a late 80s Magnavox console; nice cabinet but lots of chassis problems. Since I could find no interest I junked it.
This relative, a sweet little southern lady with lots of charm, passed away recently. Someone I will really miss around the table at Christmas. Well, the family has been cleaning the house and they asked if I wanted the other console TV. I didn't know about this one, and wasn't sure what to expect. Since the first one was the "daily watcher" I figured this one must be older. How old? What make? My imagination, as usual, ran wild. Well, no, it did not turn out to be a Motorola Quasar remote set in a Drexel cabinet...not quite
But it isn't exactly junk. I got it tonight: Magnavox T989-14 chassis (shows up in Sams 1418-2 from '74) This must have been the most popular cabinet style they offered as I've seen quite a few over the years. This one appears very clean inside and out. At first I held out hope that it might be a tube chassis but, no, it is solid state. I haven't dug into this enough to see if the tuning is electronic or just electric; pushbutton, nonetheless. And, yes, it is remote, complete with the orginal transmitter. One oddity is the digital LED display, nevermind that it's hidden behind a door. Pretty early use of that technology.
I haven't tried the set yet-I have no place to put it so it has to ride in the back of the truck for a least another day. I didn't feel like running an extension cord down the driveway. My stepmother said it does work; it has the original Magnavox crt (EIA # 337, Westinghouse)
I guess I will put out my usual pitch: does anyone want to come down and get this set? It is almost gimmicky enough for me to keep it, but there really, really isn't any room.
While I was shuffling sets tonight I also got the GE CTC-146H that my father bought new in the spring of '90. Lots of hours on this one, but still going. Someday I may regret it, but I can't collect everything! It will go on freecycle.