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Old 05-12-2016, 08:45 PM
Captainclock Captainclock is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Elkhart, Indiana
Posts: 1,189
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffhs View Post
There was a large-screen Westinghouse flat panel TV last year beside the trash barrels behind my apartment. I have no clue as to why it was being discarded, but I'm glad I left it where it was. I have read about the power supply problems these sets are prone to, and figured I would be better off without it.

I haven't seen another Westinghouse FP since then. Who makes these sets? I very seriously doubt it was any reputable manufacturer, which would explain why the PS boards go bad so often.

If I were to guess, however, I'd say the Westinghouse branded FPs were then and are to this day made offshore, like all other flat screens. The only American TV manufacturer left is Motorola, unless they too left our shores (as I am almost certain they did) and are now turning out short-lived FPs. Motorola was a great brand of television (I had a Motorola 21-23" b&w console, a trash find in my home town, in the '70s that worked very well) when they were making b&w and color NTSC TVs; it is a darn shame their sets' quality went downhill, not unlike Zenith when that company left Chicago.

If anyone here knows if Motorola is still making flat screens (or if they ever did), please let me know. Many Chinese and/or Japanese no-name electronics firms make the chassis for these TVs, which are subsequently rebranded using the names of former American TV giants like Zenith, Magnavox, RCA, et al.

Nice try, but this junk does not deserve to bear the name of any former great TV manufacturer; in fact, I believe it gives these companies, especially Zenith and RCA, a very, very bad name. This is exactly why, when my flat screen finally quits, I will bring out my 19" Zenith Sentry 2 to replace it. I am not that impressed with high definition TV, so going back to a 19" CRT set will not bother me in the least. This is the same thing, IIRC, that VK member Kamakiri has said he will do when his flat screen quits, and it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of other folks will do the same when their FPs do the same; that is, unless they made the mistake of throwing away their CRT TV when they got the flat screen. I will have no sympathy whatsoever for these people when (not if) they are left without TV (if they cannot afford a new FP) after the flat set quits. They were asking for it.

Update (5-12-16 8:28 PM EDST): I just looked up Westinghouse TV on Google, and found that they are (at least they say they are) the leading LCD TV manufacturer in the world. Perhaps they have gotten most if not all the bugs out of their flat screens, and the sets now being sold are much more reliable than the early ones. I have no idea how old the Westinghouse FP I mentioned earlier in this post (the one behind my apartment) was, but I would guess it was an earlier model; that or else it was used a lot, failing due to the usual reasons FPs bite the dust (exploded capacitors, et al.). The owner put it out with the trash and didn't look back.
As far as I know Motorola got out of the Consumer electronics business back in the early 1970s selling their consumer electronics arm off to Matsushita Electronics Co. Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan aka the parent company of Panasonic and Quasar (which the Quasar brand name came about because Matsushita bought the Quasar name from Motorola) so I'm sorry to say that Motorola does not make TVs or radios anymore and haven't made them for over 40 years. Mostly Motorola just makes 2-way radios, Pagers and Cell Phones now.

I never said that flat-panels were good TVs I was just saying that basically the only thing you can do now if you want to stay in the TV/consumer electronics repair business is basically just repair failed Flat Panel TVs for people or for yourself, even if the profit margin isn't as big as it was with the CRT TVs. Anyways I agree with you I think that ATSC was the worst thing to happen to Television. I realize that a lot of people love the new dtv but in reality it just doesn't stack up agaisnt a good NTSC signal because unlike NTSC, ATSC leaves you with only 2 options either you have signal or you don't whereas with NTSC you at least had a picture and sound even if you didn't have the greatest signal. Also the audio quality leaves little to be desired ATSC TVs have the worst audio quality in the world I believe because since TVs are no thicker than a wall clock you are stuck with using horrible quality speakers that make the audio sound tinny and malformed.

Thankfully I have was able to get a hold of a few old Analog TVs (CRT units) that were just going to be junked and so I'm set for when my Flat Panels finally die. I have a nice 2000 vintage 27" Sony Trinitron TV, a 2004 vintage 27" Toshiba CRT TV, a 1986 vintage Zenith 9" Portable Color TV that can run off of 12 Volt car adaptor or 120v AC Adaptor (its one of the famous Zenith "Cube" TVs), a 1968 Sony 9" B & W TV, and a 1981 Vintage 9" Montgomery Wards Portable Color TV.

Anyways All I was trying to do was see if I could get this TV going and see if I could sell it to someone who might need a TV, that's all and yes I realize the "Westinghouse" name on this TV is not the same Westinghouse that made TVs 50 years ago here in America, that's not why I bought this TV from the salvage bin at work, I bought it because I figured that it would be something that if it wasn't working right I could see about fixing it up and then reselling it even if I don't make much of a profit off of it.
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