Did Muntz have a color roundie in 1971 ?

[timmy]

Thought roundies were done by 68.

[John Adams]

I think they stayed around a few more years. I think Philco kept offering one. They could a prior year chassis going. Offer a low price in a black metal cabinet for under $300 to get people in the showroom.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by John Adams

I think they stayed around a few more years. I think Philco kept offering one. They could a prior year chassis going. Offer a low price in a black metal cabinet for under $300 to get people in the showroom.

I had a Sears Silvertone roundie, a trash find in the 1970s, which was in a black metal cabinet and which, to my amazement at the time, worked as soon as I got it home, the only problem being a broken push-pull on-off switch. These sets were, as you mentioned, probably priced as low as they were simply to lure potential buyers into the store.

I did not realize, however, until I read your post, that Philco was also offering the same type of TV, probably within the same price range. Like my Silvertone, this Philco may well have been a roundie in a black metal cabinet, VHF only, with no high-end features.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I had a Sears Silvertone roundie, a trash find in the 1970s, which was in a black metal cabinet and which, to my amazement at the time, worked as soon as I got it home, the only problem being a broken push-pull on-off switch. These sets were, as you mentioned, probably priced as low as they were simply to lure potential buyers into the store.

I did not realize, however, until I read your post, that Philco was also offering the same type of TV, probably within the same price range. Like my Silvertone, this Philco may well have been a roundie in a black metal cabinet, VHF only, with no high-end features.

I had one of the last Silvertone roundies, built in approx 1967. It was a plain metal cabinet, Warwick built, cheapie transformerless chassis with the circuit boards mounted on a plastic frame. The color circuit used a 10LE8. The CRT was made by Sylvania and was bad, as well as the flyback. It got scrapped!
The Philco wasn't as bad, as it used a chassis similar to the better models. The CRT was made by Philco and not very long lived!
BTW, all TV sets sold in the US had to be equipped with UHF, whether it was used in the area or not, Since May of 1964!

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

I had one of the last Silvertone roundies, built in approx 1967. It was a plain metal cabinet, Warwick built, cheapie transformerless chassis with the circuit boards mounted on a plastic frame. The color circuit used a 10LE8. The CRT was made by Sylvania and was bad, as well as the flyback. It got scrapped!
The Philco wasn't as bad, as it used a chassis similar to the better models. The CRT was made by Philco and not very long lived!
BTW, all TV sets sold in the US had to be equipped with UHF, whether it was used in the area or not, Since May of 1964!

UHF TV tuning would be of no use today anyway since the FCC screwed up the TV channels ten years ago, replacing them with this digital monkey business. I am finding it increasingly difficult to find my area's local TV stations, since they are not listed anymore the way I am used to. For example, Cleveland has had channels three, five, and eight as long as I can remember; three was NBC, five was ABC and eight was CBS. Then along came this digital nonsense ten years ago, and I lost the CBS TV station in Cleveland, which had been moved from channel eight to channel nineteen more years ago than I care to remember. I still think of the Cleveland television stations being on channels 3, 5, 8 and cannot for the life of me get used to this monkey business of channels 3.1, 5.1, 8.1, and 19.1, not to mention other channels I have never heard of here (I have lived in this area my entire life). Why on earth didn't the FCC leave well enough alone, rather than fouling up the stations so no one can find them anymore? I remember when Cleveland only had three channels and TV sets all had a big knob that clicked to select those channels. I miss those days, more than I can say. I don't care for the reception problems these UHF stations are causing (and have caused for years). I wish the TV stations had been left the heck alone, as this reshuffling of the channels is causing me more trouble and annoyance than I care to think about. I understand they went through the same monkey business in Detroit some years ago, when that city's FOX and CBS television stations were swapped in the same manner as Cleveland's eight and 19.

However, I don't think Detroit has near the reception problems we had (and still have to this day) when their CBS went to a UHF channel from the VHF channel it had been on for years. The way it is in the Cleveland area, especially near Lake Erie, where I live, some of the stations either do not reach here at all or, if they do reach here, the signal is so weak it is unwatchable.

One channel which absolutely does not reach my area without a very large antenna or cable (I have what Spectrum refers to as "streaming" service; however, they tell me I no longer have cable since switching to that service) is channel 19, the station CBS was moved to (from channel 8) in Cleveland more years ago than I care to remember. Since that station is (and has been for some time) the northeast Ohio affiliate of the CBS television network, which is an important network in this country, it should reach every square mile of this area with no exceptions. Channel 19 has been fooling around with a network of translator stations to fill in the spots where the station's real signal does not reach, well or at all; this may get the station's programming to these areas but it isn't the right way to do it, not by a long shot. The station should have either put up a much better transmitting antenna than the one it is currently using or increased its transmitter power from its present power level. (To make matters even worse, the station's transmitter was all but destroyed by lightning six months after the station went on the air in 1985; the station's signal was never the same after that.) Before DTV, channel 19 had a power level of well over three million watts; then, when DTV came along and messed up everything, that power level went down drastically, which cut out a heck of a lot of the station's coverage area and forced people either to get cable or put up a large antenna.

Good grief! As I said, I wish Cleveland's TV stations had been left strictly alone, with NBC on channel 3, ABC on channel 5 and CBS on channel 8. Ever since the new UHF stations came in, they have caused more trouble from a reception standpoint, especially in areas far removed from the city of Cleveland, than most of them are probably worth, with the exception of channel 25, which is the PBS affiliate and has been in Cleveland since 1965. The reception of this channel is terrible in most areas, but since it is meant for viewing in northern Ohio's schools and not for mainstream viewing, the station's owners probably don't see that as a problem.

Again, sheeeeesh.