Westinghouse K840CK15 Restoration

[Tom9589]

The first color TVs were made to be the best they could be and closest to the NTSC standard so they would sell. After that the bean counters stepped in and started reducing costs and quality. Muntz would have been proud. Speaking about Muntz, did he ever make his own color TVs or did he just use RCA clones?

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by Tom9589

The first color TVs were made to be the best they could be and closest to the NTSC standard so they would sell. After that the bean counters stepped in and started reducing costs and quality. Muntz would have been proud. Speaking about Muntz, did he ever make his own color TVs or did he just use RCA clones?

You're wrong about the reason for phosphor changes. The original color phosphors used in the 15GP22 and 21AXP22 were VERY dim and the amount of light output per unit of gun current was badly imbalanced. The blue phosphor would produce 3x the light as the red for the same gun current (surviving CRTs tend to have worn out red gun cathodes because of this). They simply used existing primary color phosphors when they designed the 15GP22 so they left HUGE room for improvement.
Because the NTSC correct phosphors we're horribly dim and terribly unbalanced once the early adopter boom ended they started trying to solve those problems. The 21CYP22 had a different blend that improved gun balance and brightness, and the 21FBP22 improved on it further. Those improvements did shrink the color space and change color accuracy a bit but in exchange for brightness that was competitive with monochrome TVs and improved longevity.

The oldest surviving Muntz color I'm aware of is a CTC-5 chassis in a Muntz made cabinet...It makes sense since the CTC-5 was the most Muntz-like color chassis RCA designed.