Unusual Travler console TV on eBay

[decojoe67]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1951-Travle...4AAOSwqqRdpS11
I've never seen this one before with the push-button tuning. I would date it more like '48-'49, not '51.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by decojoe67

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1951-Travle...4AAOSwqqRdpS11
I've never seen this one before with the push-button tuning. I would date it more like '48-'49, not '51.

According to a gentleman that worked a Travler, the Chicago plant, told me the tuner was made by Hallicrafters.
It's probably a 1950 model.

[Kevin Kuehn]

FWIW it's in Sams 86-11 dated 2/50.

[vortalexfan]

It appears to be a very early version of veractor tuning...

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

It appears to be a very early version of veractor tuning...

Varactors? In 1950? Kinda doubt it.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

Varactors? In 1950? Kinda doubt it.

I said it looks like an early version of a veractor tuner, and the reason why I said that was because this TV uses push buttons to tune the stations in on the TV much like how the Veractor tuners work, except that unlike a veractor tuner the pushbutton channel settings on this TV are fixed rather than tunable to different stations like the veractor tuners are.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

I said it looks like an early version of a veractor tuner, and the reason why I said that was because this TV uses push buttons to tune the stations in on the TV much like how the Veractor tuners work, except that unlike a veractor tuner the pushbutton channel settings on this TV are fixed rather than tunable to different stations like the veractor tuners are.

A varactor is a diode that is specially designed so that the capacitance of the PN junction varies in a wide linear fashion in direct relation to the voltage applied to the junction...a varactor tuner in it's earliest/simplest form is just a single knob connected to a potentiometer that changes the bias on the varactor diode.... the push button varactors (and the modern computer controlled rapid access tuners) are just fancier control schemes.

In the early post WWII period there were a lot of conventional LC reconant circuit tuners that used push buttons. Halicrafters , Silvertone (made by colonial radio), Teletone, and probably a few others all made at least 1 model with pushbutton controlled LC tuning....back then electronic presets and the switch mechs were common in higher end radios and it often required little more than a doubling of the button count to use one of those mechs....the rotary knob tuners (ignoring the handful of variable capacitor and variable inductor based odd balls) were the exact same electrically as the push button tuners of the time only they simplified the mechanism to reduce cost and the number of moving parts.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

It appears to be a very early version of veractor tuning...

My neighbor had the next years model Travler, a 16" model using a 16TP4.
That had a similar chassis but with a one tube continuous tuner, using just one 12AT7. The tuner was made by R/C and two knobs, one for high and low band and one for tuning, 2-6 and 7-13. A strange one at that.

[old_coot88]

I once had a little 14" Sears 'flat' table model with a tuning system I never seen before or since. It had 3 concentric shafts, the outermost one for hi-lo bandswitch, the middle one drove a pointer, and the innermost one was continuous-tuning.

The bandswitch knob was big, about 3" in diameter. It turned 180 degrees to select hi or lo band. Half its face was calibrated in channels 2 - 6, and the other half in channels 7 - 13.

The pointer (on the middle shaft) was direct coupled to a 'radio-style' tuning cap gang, and pointed to the selected channel.

The continuous-tuning knob (on the innermost shaft) drove the capacitor gang and was verniered about 3:1.

IIRC, the tubes were 6J6 and 6CB6.

[maxhifi]

That's a nice looking TV, very clean lines. Wish I was closer!