Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamakiri
We can pretty much be sure that TVs in the bedroom weren't the standard back then unless you were filthy rich.
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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 . . . . . .
James