KTLA has a live countdown timer to DTV

[David Roper]

The NTSC to which we bid final farewell was a spectacularly successful thing. Think of it. The reverse engineering of compatible color to an existing black & white standard, which itself had been a compromise between the maximum resolution which contemporary technology was capable of in 1941 and the maximum change existing receivers of the time could adapt to.

In that sense it was an evolved standard whose roots go back 70 years.

Yesterday a TRK-12 could receive television signals off the air just as it did in 1939. It was not obsolete.

That was yesterday.

[Tubejunke]

The only thing obsolete on our old sets is the tuner, or more specifically the use of the tuner for channel selection. The tuner as a component must still work to receive, so it as a component is not obsolete.

Realistically, in our everyday high-tech/junk, lazymans society, our old black and white, single speaker, NON REMOTE (dare I say it) televisions are, and have long been obsolete. God forbid having to use something like that. I have actually seen a welfare mom turn down a free 19", perfectly working, color, NON-REMOTE set because their teen son was going to be using it. OH, POOR KID!! Lets not torment him with extra physical movement! Actually, I think the mom was lazier than the boy. He likely would have adapted, as opposed to doing without. While mom knew that she could hold out a few days and flirt some poor, dumb guy right out of his "extra" set, or perhaps his ONLY set, depending on her looks. Single mothers seem to have special powers over free stuff, courtrooms, and DOCTORS.....Whats up?

[SDA SRS 1.2]

Originally Posted by Eric H

I caught the last 30 seconds of KTLA's sign off and recorded it with my digital camera.

Stan Chambers threw the switch (I suspect it was just a prop switch or else they have some really primitive equipment at KTLA!)

http://www.vintagetvsets.com/temp/arf/ktla.mov

Excellent! Thank you for providing this!

[AUdubon5425]

Originally Posted by Tubejunke

I have actually seen a welfare mom turn down a free 19", perfectly working, color, NON-REMOTE set because their teen son was going to be using it. OH, POOR KID!! Lets not torment him with extra physical movement!

That's okay, those "poor kids" just go take what they want in New Orleans. And it isn't unusual for "single moms" to flirt/hook-up/go-home with someone just to case their place out and send brother/cousin/son/boyfriend to rob the place soon thereafter.

Of course, you wouldn't think something like a B&W set would be in danger, but the only thing I've had stolen out of my house was, of all things, an AM-only Panasonic portable radio from the 70's.