[louisiii]

My Dad was a manager at Warrick Television in Zion, IL. He and eight engineers brought home (Waukegan, IL.). A test set. We had to jack the living room floor to support the weight, even thought it was only a 14" round tube. We only got two programs from Chicago, "How Does Your Garden Grow" (elapse time films of flowers growing and dieing, PBS) and "Gene Aughtry". Both where test programs for color. There was a special transmitted to the studio in Chicago via phone lines. It was the live stage play of "Peter Pan" staring Mary Martin. Our living room became a block party that night. RCA won the competition for the exclusive rights to license color TV, because they where the only one that was compatible with black and white transmission; even though there existed cheaper and better systems for color. A year later my Godfather bought a 25" round tube color TV made by RCA and for 25 years a paid $5.00 a year for an unconditional in home service contract to RCA. RCA finally bribed him with a new color TV of his choice and a B&W Portable TV of his choice to let the service contract laps ( they could no longer find parts and had to fabricate many to keep the set running, 1954-1968).