Predicta on American Restoration

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

I catch glimpses of TVs & radios all the time on "Pickers" that I just CRINGE that they pass over..

Same here. There was an episode a while back where they were in this warehouse that had belonged to someone who tore buildings down, and there were glimpses of this rack of tube broadcast equipment that judging by the tri-colored knobs was likely an early piece of color TV gear...Maybe a TK-41 CCU....

[bandersen]

They could have just bought this 24" color reproduction. It's been kicking around on ebay for a few months now.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Predicta-Dan...-/130927258054

[andy]

...

[Sandy G]

I really don't know why WE'RE carping quite so bad-A good third, if not HALF of the membership of this board could EASILY have restored that Perdition THE WAY IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN, & had it rigged to where it could have easily run a VCR, cable, Blu-Ray, whatever. I think Rick does a tolerable job on "Mechanical" stuff, but we ALL here know that a much better job could be done on electronics, & likely cheaper than what he wants for stuff...

[WISCOJIM]

We certainly could have got it working, but I would bet they wanted a COLOR display.

[N2IXK]

Originally Posted by WISCOJIM

We certainly could have got it working, but I would bet they wanted a COLOR display.

And a set that can run all day every day unattended....

[Sandy G]

Yeah, & I think that I've read "Between The Lines' a bit, & Predictas were "Maintenance Hogs", even for the standards of 1958..We ARE kinda spoiled nowadays..

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by N2IXK

I've met several folks over the years from the "creative" side of the TV/radio business who have absolutely NO respect for the hardware or the technical side of the industry whatsoever. They view such things as annoyances they need to deal with with to do their work, nothing more.

Back at my college Syracuse U in the 70's, a guy down the hall of my dorm was majoring in TV and movie show production (we had a journalism college there, newspapers and TV news productions and such). I mentioned to him I was majoring in electrical engineering. He said something to the effect that "Technology should not get in the way of my creativity". He complained that some TV graphics he tried to make, with the color yellow, didn't come out right. Today I'd know that yellow is a color that NTSC can easily get wrong, back in the 70's.

Every so often, film director majors would try to make movies shooting them inside the dorms. These would probably make some of those bad 50's movies look good... One guy didn't put the film in the camera right, so all his efforts, and others, were for naught. I imagine none of these are around anymore, ought to search youtube when I have nothing better to do....

[Jon A.]

Keeping the original electronics intact and maintained may have been a good way of showing clients that they actually care about what they do, thus generating more business.

P.S. Anyone recall the Predicta's appearance in Revenge of the Nerds? I suppose they weren't as collectible in 1984, and production wanted to put something in there that would be thought of by the general public as old, cheap junk. Also, I have seen Philco "Directa" ultrasonic remotes on eBay. Do they operate Predictas?

[David Roper]

Predictas were not remote-operated sets.

Here's a screen cap from the 1982 film 'Eating Raoul'



Poor Predicta. Had a sketchy reputation to begin with. :P

[StellarTV]

I'm having trouble "picturing" an LCD set inside the CRT case on a predicta looking worth a darn. Maybe with some one way tint or something so that you only see a picture when the screen's lit up or something....

[hi_volt]

I knew exactly where that episode was headed when I started watching it. Totally ruined the set as far as I'm concerned.

[N2IXK]

Originally Posted by KV-1926R

Keeping the original electronics intact and maintained may have been a good way of showing clients that they actually care about what they do, thus generating more business.

Sure, assuming they had a qualified electronics person on staff to do the work. And more importantly, if that was what the client wanted. The client wanted a set that "just worked", in the lobby of his business. It needed to run 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Even a brand-new Predicta, like other sets of the period, typically needed a service call a couple times a year to change tubes or tweak adjustments that drifted out of spec. Nobody is going to find that acceptable nowadays, even if you could find a qualified repair tech to keep the set operating. And repair parts availability would be limited at best once you get beyond tubes and basic resistors/caps. At best, you might get a couple years out of it before the unobtanium CRT went soft, assuming that the flyback or similar part didn't go out first. A fully restored original Predicta would be practical for a museum or private collection where it might be run for an hour or so at a time once in a while, but it just wouldn't make sense for what the owner wanted to do with his set.

The towel steamer that they restored in the same episode seemed like it would have been a prime candidate for a refit from gas to electric heating (again, making the unit more practical for modern use, and not requiring a gas hookup wherever you want to install it), but the subject was never even brought up with the client. Makes me wonder if they have anybody on staff who has a clue about electrical stuff at all.

[Joe Connor]

I have to confess I watch that show now and then. However, is it my imagination of do they over-restore everything? And don't their prices seem ridiculously high?

Here are some threads from another forum concerning Rick Dale's "restoration" of an Edison phonograph and an Atwater Kent Model 37

http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/...p?f=2&t=196097

http://antiqueradios.com/forums/view...p?f=2&t=192244

[Sandy G]

Somebody oughta take him a Quaranta...He'd likely strip the chrome off the chassis, & metal-flake it..