Location, Location, Location

[Jeffhs]

Most everyone in my neighborhood, including us, had TV in the '50s, mostly black and white. The first television station in Cleveland went on the air in 1947 on channel 5, followed the next year by channel 3, then in 1949 channel 8, though when they first went on the air they were on channels 4, 5 and 9 respectively, where they remained until Detroit got its network stations. (Cleveland didn't get its first UHF station, an NET [now PBS] affiliate, until 1965.)

By the 1970s I was seeing quite a few older (1950s) TV sets in the trash, those TVs having been replaced either by small tube-powered portables or color sets when the old ones developed serious repair problems, though a lot of people kept their old b&w sets in their basements as second sets if they still worked halfway decently. The first color TV I ever saw in the neighborhood I grew up in was a '60s-vintage Motorola console (don't recall if it was a roundie or a rectangular tube set, though since it was from the sixties I'd guess the latter), with an indicator on the front panel to indicate when the set was receiving a color broadcast. My neighbors had sets by Muntz, Sears-Silvertone, Philco, et al.; our own first set was a 1954 RCA Victor 21" console, replaced in the '60s by a '50s Crosley "Super V" 21" console; the Crosley was replaced in the mid-'60s by a 17-inch all-channel Silvertone portable. The last was built like a tank and lasted some six years, continuing to work well even after having been hurled down a flight of stairs in a fit of anger by my dad's second wife (to this day I am amazed the CRT didn't implode when the set hit the wall at the foot of the stairs). I used that set for six months following the incident before something, don't recall what it was after all these years (thirty-plus now), burned out or shorted and rendered the set unusable.

The TVs that were really mine in the '60s-'70s were, with three exceptions, all cast-off sets I found in the neighbors' trash. I had TVs of almost every major make except Magnavox; most of them were in my basement, but I always had one in my bedroom. The first TV of my own I ever had was a 16" Capehart console my great-aunt had; that set lasted a few years, with a good picture even on rabbit ears in our area, then was replaced, IIRC, by a 1955 metal-case Emerson 17" portable. The second set I inherited from relatives was a 1960s-vintage GE portable with a system that automatically adjusted the picture brightness according to room light level, by means of a photocell at the base of the control cluster (the first television I ever saw in my life with such a picture-control system--I think this even predated Magnavox's Videomatic); that set lasted a year or two or so, before something shorted and blew the fuse. Never did find out what the problem was. The third inherited TV was my grandmother's 16-inch 1951 General Electric console, which she gave me after getting a color set when she retired in the early seventies. The GE set worked a year or so and was still working when I had to give it up in 1972, when we moved.

The rest of the TVs I had after that, after a 1961 Philco that replaced my 1964 Silvertone when a circuit board cracked in the latter and a 1969 Sharp 12" b&w portable, were new. I bought my first new color set in 1979, a Zenith L1310C 13" all-channel portable with a delta-gun CRT and a very good picture (using the attic antennas in our house at the time--rabbit ears didn't work well for color where I grew up, and they won't work very well at all where I live now). This set was followed in 1982 by a 13" Zenith portable that had a delta-gun tube and, like its predecessor, an excellent picture, again on our attic antennas. I used that set for 17 years, never had five minutes worth of trouble with it; then, in 1999, I moved again, leaving those sets at my former home. I bought an RCA CTC185 XL-100 color set when I moved here. Had only one repair on it in all that time, when the RF port for the antenna/cable snapped off the PC board; the ground points around the troublesome on-board tuner were repaired at the same time, so I have not had any problems with the tuner. I also have a 13-year-old Zenith Sentry 2, 19-inch inline tube, that still works well but isn't used much these days, except for cross-checking if and when I have cable trouble.

Ah, memories. However, I must say that today's TV stations do a much better job with generating stable color signals than did earlier stations. Note that today's color sets do not have auto-color correction circuitry, at least not as we knew it 35+ years ago (Zenith's Color Sentry, Magnavox's Total Automatic Color, GE's VIR, et al.) as did a lot of '70s sets (remember that on a lot of color sets of that era, the "auto-color" button simply switched in preset controls which were probably set at the factory, using a color-bar generator rather than an air signal). They don't need them anymore (maybe just as well, as most of those auto-color schemes didn't work very well, with GE's VIR being one of the worst; many if not most people didn't use these systems anyway--probably didn't know they were there and left the defeat switch off. I don't think very many folks even knew where on the TV that switch was).

Today's color signals, especially on cable systems, are rock-stable. If I were a betting man (I'm not), I would bet that I haven't had to adjust the color controls of my XL-100 CTC185 more than a few times, and then only very slightly, since installing the set in the autumn of 1999, when I moved here. I don't even need the auto-color feature on that set, since as I said, the colors are extremely accurate and stable; the set produces what is, IMHO, the best picture of any TV I have ever owned in my life, comparable, as at least one person here has noted, to the picture on a '60s-'70s Zenith Chromacolor II. As well, the picture on my XL100 is every bit as good as that of my Zenith Sentry 2. Considering all the troubles (mostly defective CRTs and problems in the video circuitry, not to mention HV regulation problems) reported with Zenith color TVs of 1990s vintage, I consider myself extremely lucky that my set has held up all these years with no problems. I can't help but think I was just lucky to have gotten a set that was built to last, as Zeniths always were when the company was still the Zenith Radio Corporation of Chicago. Unfortunately, as I have noted in the Antique Radio forum regarding today's "Gold Star" built radios carrying the Zenith name and logo compared to older Zenith radios (not to mention today's standard CRT and flat-panel HDTVs with the Zenith logo below the CRT or panel), we will never again see the level of quality attained by the original Zenith Radio Corporation. Being a Zenith radio collector since 2002 and a fan of Zenith home-entertainment gear in general since 1969, when I got my first Zenith TV (a 1963 K2739 23" VHF-only console), it bothers me that the company went downhill so fast after Gold Star acquired them, but that's the way it goes, I guess--especially in these days of offshoring, outsourcing and such.

[jeyurkon]

Originally Posted by Steve McVoy

WSB in Atlanta came on the air in September of 1948, so there are probably quite a few 1949 sets in that area.

I'm really glad you participate on this forum! You provide a wealth of information.

I started to worry about whether I was correct in including a Youngstown TV station as one that we received. Turns out I was wrong. We had a 12 channel set and though WKBN started broadcasting in January of '53, it was UHF. I don't recall having a converter. We did have a Regency DB400 booster. I hope my memory isn't so foggy as to have forgotten a UHF converter.

John Y.

[tubesrule]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

Most everyone in my neighborhood, including us, had TV in the '50s, mostly black and white. The first television station in Cleveland went on the air in 1947 on channel 5, followed the next year by channel 3, then in 1949 channel 8, though when they first went on the air they were on channels 4, 5 and 9 respectively, where they remained until Detroit got its network stations.

Not sure what you meant as Detroit got it's network stations in 1947 and 1948 on channels 2, 4 and 7 where they remain to this day. (although none of them are going back to these after the transition)

http://www.earlytelevision.org/postwar_stations.html

Late 40's and 50's sets used to show up here regularly 20-30 years ago, but it's pretty rare to find one now. The 1956 Sentinel Color set that Steve has was found in the Flint area this spring, in what was a very large house in an affluent area, so they still do turn up.

Darryl

[Dave S]

Originally Posted by Steve McVoy

Another thing I've speculated about is why there are over twice as many surviving American prewar sets than British (as a percentage of sets made). The two reasons I've come up with are 1) American houses are generally larger and 2) There was a lot of destruction during WW2 in England.

Anyone have any other possible explanations?

1. We're a nation of packrats. (I mean that, of course, in the nicest possible way ;-)

2. We save old things. They save old things in other countries too, but we're a young country and something like an old TV might seem a lot more old-and-useless rather than old-and-interesting to someone in a country where many people live in houses that were built hundreds of years ago. I've had this called to my attention in a very old neighborhood outside of Guadalajara.

Just guessing!

--Dave Sica

[RobtWB]

My Observations:
It seems that here in southern Illinois most of the "vintage" sets are long gone, probably landfill fodder. This is a rural area, dominated by agriculture, underground mining and at one time strip mining. I remember that while growing up, the abandoned "strip pits" were a free dump, where one could find everything from old washing machines to diapers.
The last "vintage" set I found at an estate sale, in 2007, was a 1967 Zenith 23" low boy console. Interestingly it came out of a 2 story brick home that was probably built in the late 1950's. The home was full of vintage 50's era furniture, including a beautiful Heywood Wakefield dining room set. That home also had 1960's era green carpet throughout!! Every sale I go to it seems that there is an abundance of 1980's and 1990's era RCA, Emerson, Funai etc portable and table top sets. I have also ran across several of those huge RCA home entertainment centers that were so popular in the 90's. I saw one sell for 350$ in 2007, CRAZY!
I continue to go to all the estate sales I can, and occasionally check the SA and GW stores but never expect too much. The last time I checked GW all they had was a beat up old Toshiba Black Stripe tabletop set and a Monkey Ward Signature2000 tv/vcr combo.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by tubesrule

Not sure what you meant as Detroit got it's network stations in 1947 and 1948 on channels 2, 4 and 7 where they remain to this day. (although none of them are going back to these after the transition)

Darryl

I simply meant that channels 4 and 9 in Cleveland, which had gone on the air in 1948 and 1949, had to move to channels 3 and 8, respectively, when Detroit's channel 4 and Windsor, Ontario's channel 9 went on the air. Cleveland's original three network stations remain on 3, 5 and 8, except that CBS moved to channel 19 in the early 1990s when channel 8, a CBS affiliate for over 40 years, was sold to FOX.

I don't know what channels any of these stations will be on after 02.17.09, although it shouldn't affect anyone on cable; that is, if you have stations on channels 3, 5 and 8 as we do here in northeastern Ohio (for example), these channels will be on the same positions on your TV tuner after the transition if you connect your cable directly to your TV or through your VCR. The only difference may show up when converter boxes are used with analog sets and over-the-air antennas; these boxes may show the actual digital channel positions (3.1, 5.2, 8.3, etc., using my examples for Cleveland's channels 3, 5 and 8) rather than whole one- or two-digit numbers.

BTW: There is some question, however, as to the branding of TV newscasts after the transition; after all, the stations in this area (or any place else, for that matter) won't be able to use (using the Cleveland stations as examples) "Channel 3 News", "News Channel 5", "Fox 8 News" and "Nineteen Action News", because the TV stations themselves will be on different channel numbers. Channel three in Cleveland, for example, will be on channel 2; channel five may be on a UHF channel; eight may also be on UHF; the same with 19 and the other four stations in our area (for PBS, MyTV, The CW and Univision--25, 43, 55 and 61, respectively). I think what may happen with those stations is they may wind up on fractional channel numbers such as 25.1, 36.7, and so on. Again, all this will be completely transparent to viewers using analog TVs with cable; they should get all Cleveland television stations on their usual channel positions, just as they always have.

I think what may happen as far as station branding goes once the transition is complete is that the TV stations just will not use channel numbers anymore. Channel three in Cleveland has already taken a step in that direction, eliminating "Channel 3 News" completely from the opening sequence for its newscasts; today, the station shows an animated NBC peacock, under which is shown the station's call sign, in lower-case letters, with -hd appended to it. The other three news programs, however, still open with their standard branding: News Channel 5, FOX 8 News, Nineteen Action News. What will change on this front after the transition, however, is anyone's guess. I don't even want to so much as hazard a guess right now as to what the local news will look like after everything goes digital in just over a month from today.

[tubesrule]

Hi Jeff,
Channel 4 in Detroit (originally WWDT then WWJ) was the 6th station to go on the air in the US on March 4 1947. (they had been operating experimentally since October 23, 1946) It was originally owned and operated by the Detroit News, becoming the NBC affiliate on March 31, 1948. Channel 4 in Cleveland (WNBK) went on the air on October 31, 1948 as an NBC affiliate.
By FCC mandate in 1953, WNBK swapped channels with Channel 3 WLWC in Columbus to eliminate interference they were causing on WWJ.

The Windsor/Cleveland issue is murkier. WXEL Channel 9 in Cleveland went on the air on December 17 1949 while CBET (originally CKLW-TV) Channel 9 Windsor went on the air on September 16, 1954. Why a station was allowed to go on the air on a same channel as a nearby city after the 1953 FCC-dictated frequency realignment is unclear. Perhaps some issue between the US and Canada allowed this to happen. Also, it seems strange that WXEL was made to change their assignment rather than CKLW since they were operating years before CKLW, unless they wanted to change their assignment for other reasons.

Darryl

[Robert Grant]

<<<The Windsor/Cleveland issue is murkier. WXEL Channel 9 in Cleveland went on the air on December 17 1949 while CBET (originally CKLW-TV) Channel 9 Windsor went on the air on September 16, 1954. Why a station was allowed to go on the air on a same channel as a nearby city after the 1953 FCC-dictated frequency realignment is unclear. Perhaps some issue between the US and Canada allowed this to happen. Also, it seems strange that WXEL was made to change their assignment rather than CKLW since they were operating years before CKLW, unless they wanted to change their assignment for other reasons.>>>


Channel 8 in Windsor would have been mutually exclusive with WXYZ-TV, channel 7 in Detroit (which had already been on since late 1948).
Moving WXEL/WJW-TV to 8 also allowed the use of channel 9 for WSTV-TV in Steubenville, Ohio, which signed on in December, 1953 (now WTOV).

Rob

[Robert Grant]

Originally Posted by Steve McVoy

Another thing I've speculated about is why there are over twice as many surviving American prewar sets than British (as a percentage of sets made). The two reasons I've come up with are 1) American houses are generally larger and 2) There was a lot of destruction during WW2 in England.

Anyone have any other possible explanations?

Yes.

Sets sold in the UK before the late-1960's (and virtually all sets sold before 1964) were configured for what was then TV system for the UK: 405 lines, 50 fields, positive video modulation, AM audio 3.5 MHz below the video carrier, and VHF channels.
The UK went through an "analog transition". Receivers since the mid-to-late 1960's are designed to receive only UHF transmissions on a different standard (625 lines, 50 fields, negative video modulation, FM audio 6 MHz above the video carrier, and PAL color optional for transmission and reception). The two standards were not compatible with each other (some late 1960's sets were actually dual standard!).
For more than 15 years (15 November 1969 to 1 January 1985), BBC1 and ITV simulcast their programmes on UHF color and VHF monochrome transmitter networks.
So, Imagine yourself in your UK home (smaller on average than the US home), with a TV set that is not only black and white, but only gets two of the three (later four) TV networks. Furthermore, in 1985, virtually useless altogether.
In the US, the addition of NTSC color did not obsolete existing 525 line sets. Even the addition of UHF stations could be dealt with by using a UHF converter. This way, the older sets in the US were still useful long enough for people to keep them, in some cases, until they became so old as to be "classics".

Rob

[Steve McVoy]

You are correct that the British 405 line system was eliminated in the 1960s, and that 405 line sets aren't compatible with the new 625 standard, while in the U.S. the 525 postwar standard would work on prewar 441 line sets. However, I don't think this is a factor in explaining why there are more surviving American sets. All prewar sets, American or British, were obsolete immediately after the war because their screen sizes were so small, their pictures so small, and their reliability so poor. I can't imagine a prewar set being kept working past the early 50s at the latest.

[Robert Grant]

One question I am curious about - were 441 line prewar US sets somehow compatible with NTSC 525?
I myself have seen a DVD played on a TRK-12, and someone on AK had posted an image of current NTSC transmission as seen on a TRK-9.
Or are they using 525->441 scan converters?
Or have these TRKs been under surgery?

Rob

[Captain Video]

I think the state of mind, the spirit, the mentality of a place might be also important on determining if something like old TVs will survive or not. I believe, from personal experience, that hot places with beaches are less favorable to vintage TV collectors. Here in Brazil, the first two cities to have television were São Paulo ( September 18, 1950 ) and Rio de Janeiro ( January 20, 1951 ). Very old sets, even a few roundies that most likely might have shown the inaugural broadcast still appear in São Paulo today. In Rio de Janeiro it's extremely hard to find sets from even the late 50's or early 60's.

The fact that so little seems to have survived in Rio de Janeiro puzzles me, but I think there are a number of factors. First and more important to me is the fact that Rio is a tropical city, with very hot weather and beaches. People tend to be much less conservative, and in this case the word conservative carry all the meanings this word have. People want much more to have fun than to care to preserve or store old things. If something goes obsolete, it goes to the trash pretty quickly. That might also explain why it seemed to be so difficult to see vintage ( 1940's and 50's ) table radios in that city as well, when I lived there. On a curious note, however, there was a nice number of 1930's, 40's and 50's cars... and that was in the 1980's.

São Paulo is a different story. The city is on higher terrain, there are no beaches near the city, and it does have a colder weather. Also, the city is bigger ( it is on a larger territory ) and so provided more space for the building of larger houses. The people of São Paulo is known to be more conservative ( again, with all the meanings this word have ) than the people of Rio de Janeiro. São Paulo is a true heaven for a Brazilian vintage TV collector... the older sets I have I got there. Not only televisions, but for all sorts of nice vintage stuff from the 1900's to the 1970's, that place is kind of a paradise.

Also, Italian people seem to care to preserve or store this kind of stuff much more than Portuguese people. And Rio is mostly Portuguese, while São Paulo is VERY Italian ( with also an IMMENSE number of Japanese people ).

Both cities are on the Southeast. I live in the South, in another hot city with beaches and lots of tourists. Very difficult to find nice vintage stuff here, either. Since Brazil is an extremely large country, television only appeared here in this city in 1964. In the South of Brazil, the first TV station went on the air on December 20, 1959. I live here in this town since 1991, and in all this years, I have seem only TWO 1960's TV sets: a 1962 Philips 23 inch with radio and phonograph, that was sometime around 1995, I think. It was in an used furniture store, and the people were asking US$ 45,00 for it. Didn't bought it, because I had ZERO money. It sat there for months and months, until it was finally sold to someone. The only other I saw was a few days ago, in an antique store: a 1961/62 23 inch ABC. This time I was much more happier: I bought and it's at my house already. I was going to take pictures of it today, but I got sick and didn't felt well to take pictures. If I get better I will take the pictures tomorrow.

I know that there was quite a nice number of big sets, consoles and the like, made between 1961 and the late 60's here. No doubt they are all in TV heaven now... my investigations led me to the sad conclusion that the overwhelming majority of those TVs were destroyed long ago. Again, like Rio de Janeiro, here is a hot town, not very conservative ( actually, this city where I live today was quite a hippie spot in the 1970's ), a town with beaches, AND founded and populated mostly by Portuguese people - so many coincidences ( even the topography of both cities are very much alike ) that some people say that here is a "miniature Rio de Janeiro."

Ah, and before someone say something, I have ZERO Italian blood and LOTS and LOTS of Portuguese blood on my ancestry line... so there is no prejudice on what I am talking about here, just an objective analisys.

In the neighbor state of Rio Grande do Sul ( where TV began in Southern Brazil in 1959 ) we found quite a nice number of nice late 50's and early 60's sets there - hell, we have seem there even TVs that were NOT supposed to be there, like mid-50's TVs. Nice late 50's TVs, including some Predictas, appear there from time to time. Rio Grande do Sul is VERY cold, the majority of the population live away from the beaches, and there is a VERY large number of descendants of Italian people there. Many collectors and restorers of tube radios and tube TVs live there as well.

Also, it was a much richer state than where I live ( I believe it still is ).

So, from personal experience, I would say that the places to find nice vintage TVs are not only old cities that were very rich in the past, but also important is to look for rich, affluent cities located in colder, higher areas with no beaches nearby. People tend to store old radios, TVs, refrigerators and all sorts of interesting vintage stuff much more on those colder-no beach cities than on the hotter, sunny touristic places.

[tubesrule]

Originally Posted by Robert Grant

One question I am curious about - were 441 line prewar US sets somehow compatible with NTSC 525?
I myself have seen a DVD played on a TRK-12, and someone on AK had posted an image of current NTSC transmission as seen on a TRK-9.
Or are they using 525->441 scan converters?
Or have these TRKs been under surgery?

Rob

No change to the horizontal is required to display a 525/30i signal on a 441/30i pre-war television as the horizontal hold has more than enough range on these sets to lock in. There may be a slight decrease in the horizontal width due to the increased frequency. The audio does need to be realigned for slope detection as the pre-war sets are AM. I use a converter to generate the original 441/30i and AM audio signal so they work as original.

Darryl

[Robert Grant]

[QUOTE=Captain Video;2365402]I think the state of mind, the spirit, the mentality of a place might be also important on determining if something like old TVs will survive or not. I believe, from personal experience, that hot places with beaches are less favorable to vintage TV collectors. Here in Brazil, the first two cities to have television were São Paulo ( September 18, 1950 ) and Rio de Janeiro ( January 20, 1951 ). Very old sets, even a few roundies that most likely might have shown the inaugural broadcast still appear in São Paulo today. In Rio de Janeiro it's extremely hard to find sets from even the late 50's or early 60's.

The fact that so little seems to have survived in Rio de Janeiro puzzles me
<snip> QUOTE]


I wonder how many people in Rio who could afford a Television in the early 1950's took their sets with them when they (and their jobs) moved to Brasilia.

Rob

[Captain Video]

"I wonder how many people in Rio who could afford a Television in the early 1950's took their sets with them when they (and their jobs) moved to Brasilia."

Probably a good number of people... and I have no idea about the surviving rates of those sets in Brasilia.