Why were monophonic TVs sold for so long?

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Popester

Etype2 brings up an interesting point about AM FM broadcast. I think the technical term was either simulcast or multiplex. My parents stereo system was made in '58 or '59. It was a Thomas stereo made in Sepulvida, CA. It had a setting that allowed the AM station to come through the left channel and the right channel to have the FM station. Thomas made mostly organs that were highlighted on the Lawrence Welk tv show.

The Thomas organ firm was a division of Warwick Electronics in Chicago. The stereo was probably similar to a Sears Silvertone.

[bgadow]

I had a Westinghouse console stereo from that same era (very late 50's/early 60's) with separate knobs for AM & FM tuning and a spot on the band switch to play both at the same time. A pretty useless novelty, fun to play with every so often.

In the 80's the big FM country station in Baltimore would simulcast Austin City Limits on PBS, with an announcement at the opening of each episode encouraging you to turn down your TV sound and flip on your stereo at 93.1

[DavGoodlin]

RCA history with FM and "stereo" - interim notable here between Armstrong FM patents and Zenith multiplex run-arounds
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Restoring a pair of 1961-2 RCA 3-channel consoles, both have a RC1192C tuner with this 3 position selector(FM/AM/FM-AM), the first two being mono , "living stereo"
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In the simple days of joint ownership with TV and Newspaper enterprises, with AM and FM studios in the same location, it was easy to broadcast one channel on AM and the other on FM. I imagine those without this feature heard incomplete audio if tuning in only one or the other

[jeffs01879]

In the late 1950s, some AM radio stations also had FM transmitters which often duplicated the AM broadcasts. This was after stereo LPs were released to the market, but before FM multiplex stereo.

Some stations would broadcast a few hours a week in stereo using the AM transmitter for one channel and the FM transmitter for the other channel. They would only do it for a few hours a week because, as was noted, a listener tuned to only one or the other would receive only half the audio.

My dad had his FM hifi in the living room, and on Sunday night, from 6 to 8PM, a local station would broadcast in simulcast stereo. He would get the AM radio from the kitchen and set it up on the end of the couch and listen to the stereo broadcast. Primitive but it worked. It was general knowledge that multiplex stereo was coming, so this was only temporary.

I have a Pilot tuner from the late 50s with separate AM and FM tuning made explicitly to receive these broadcasts, and I have an AM and an FM transmitter, and sometimes I'll transmit simulcast stereo to the tuner just to relive that experience.

This is all quite a diversion from the original topic of mono tvs.

Jeff