Westinghouse K840CK15 Restoration

[etype2]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

I forget who it was, but your dad's story reminds me of someone who I think may have been a kid at the time. Sometime in the 50s when color TV was new the person went to a department store and a there was a crowd to see the color set but it's picture looked bad the person who I heard this from walked up and turned the tint control to the correct setting and the crowd started oohing and ahhing.

When there was only one color show a day the sales people neglecting to properly adjust a set often was to blame for bad sets on sales floors, but once more than 1 show a day was on the stations were as much to blame...Live, network, tape and film often all looked different and color quality would vary from channel to channel. If sales staff didn't keep sets adjusted from show to show things could go downhill fast.

So true and nothing has really changed in 65 years. Go into a big box store and you see an array of misadjusted color sets.

[etype2]

Originally Posted by Dave A

Down the WTMJ path again. Do you remember one Chuck Faber on air? He distinguished himself by wearing a black eye patch on air. He left there in 1965 to be a news director at my first station WCEE in Rockford, IL...minus the eye patch. A miracle. I directed the news back then and he was a piece of work but a great news director. Ownership changed and he ended up in FL selling condos. Now passed. I miss him.

I hope you don't mind a few diversions from the original thread but this trip down memory lane is fun. And the collection video is even better. Keep up the good work.

Yes I do remember Chuck Faber. I think he was the sports director at WTMJ. I remember he had a Sunday night show.

Don’t mind going down memory lane. I hope I can still keep mine. :-)

Ah, the golden age of television.

Edit: I think he was at WTMJ prior to Earl Gillespie. Maybe Chuck was not the sports director, but I remember him having an “important” role at the station and that Sunday night show.

[JohnCT]

Originally Posted by etype2

Was your Dad a tech or good with electronics?

My father was a staff sergeant in WWII (Third Armored), and one of his duties was to take care of the radios and other wired communications. After the war, dad took radio and TV courses through the GI bill and opened up the family business which I still run. Dad was a very good tech, but he was smart enough to have 5 sons..

Here's another true story. My older brother is truly gifted and brilliant. Electronics is a hobby for him. His career was as a research chemist. He holds a patent on plated through hole chemistry. Anyway, my dad used to take him to TV service seminars when he was 12 or so. During one of the service seminars (Motorola I believe it was), the presentation was color theory followed by questions from the Motorola engineer. My brother kept sticking his hand up to answer. The Motorola engineer's assistant came over to my dad and told him to keep the kid quiet as he was embarrassing the other seasoned techs who were struggling with the new technology.

By the time he was in high school, my brother was my dad's bench tech. By the time my brother got a full time job for a large chemical corp, I was at the age and took over.

But my father was thorough and taught us a lot about TV and life in general. He had more common sense than any person I ever met. If I could spend just one more day with my father, I'd pick a day when I worked with him.

John

[Titan1a]

My dad did Air Force teletype repair during the Korean War. I passed him up. I miss him!

[etype2]

Originally Posted by JohnCT

My father was a staff sergeant in WWII (Third Armored), and one of his duties was to take care of the radios and other wired communications. After the war, dad took radio and TV courses through the GI bill and opened up the family business which I still run. Dad was a very good tech, but he was smart enough to have 5 sons..

Here's another true story. My older brother is truly gifted and brilliant. Electronics is a hobby for him. His career was as a research chemist. He holds a patent on plated through hole chemistry. Anyway, my dad used to take him to TV service seminars when he was 12 or so. During one of the service seminars (Motorola I believe it was), the presentation was color theory followed by questions from the Motorola engineer. My brother kept sticking his hand up to answer. The Motorola engineer's assistant came over to my dad and told him to keep the kid quiet as he was embarrassing the other seasoned techs who were struggling with the new technology.

By the time he was in high school, my brother was my dad's bench tech. By the time my brother got a full time job for a large chemical corp, I was at the age and took over.

But my father was thorough and taught us a lot about TV and life in general. He had more common sense than any person I ever met. If I could spend just one more day with my father, I'd pick a day when I worked with him.

John

I can feel the pride and love you have for your father. I asked the question, because that is why the color looked great on the Admiral.

[etype2]

They call my father’s time “The greatest generation”. My dad was a World War II veteran who participated in most of the major campaigns including Normandy. He survived the hell and came home to his beautiful wife waiting for him. He was an immigrant brought to America at 18 months. I’m here, standing on his shoulders and his mates.

We are getting off track here, but thank you for the stories.

[etype2]

Here is compilation of color TV show clips from 1958 to 1966. Most of the clips are from the 60’s, but it includes a clip from “An Evening With Fred Astaire”, 1958. My recollection of the very early 50’s color show was similar to the Astaire show.

In this video you see the progression and improvements in color shows.
https://youtu.be/zUCnrpFQ-JI

These live screenshots were photographed yesterday on the Westinghouse H840CK15.

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[dtvmcdonald]

Most of my memories of color TV in the mid to late 50s were of live, locally produced shows. They were much better than the taped ones on youtube. I don't remember
a big difference between them seen at home and seen on studio monitors. The ones I saw on the monitors were kiddie's shows (the weatherman's son was a friend of mine).
I should point out that we were between 0.5 and 3 miles from the transmitter.

I think that color cameras of the day, with enough light so there were no bad halos, were just fine. Some fine day the one being restored by the ETF will work,
and we will actually know.

[etype2]

It’s been seven months since the Westinghouse H840CK15 restoration was completed. All is well with stable operation. The tuner does not drift, stays locked in and I have not adjusted the fine tuning since restoration.

These shots were taken today, 04/28/2020 from live OTA sources. This time I tried to capture the cabinet with the screen lit. I set the aperture for proper exposure of the light from the screen and then zoomed out to capture the cabinet.

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...CB1D3C059.jpeg

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[oldtvman]

Originally Posted by etype2

Larry, I agree, but being there as you were, my memories were of compromised color akin to the restored tape of “An Evening With Fred Astaire”. I saw my first color TV in 1956. The technology of the broadcast color chain back then could not exploit the capability of color TV receivers. Today we pop on a DVD or watch HD on our restored roundies and they look great, but they didn’t look that way to me back then, so I was prejudiced. When I got my first color set on my own in 1966 I saw big improvements, but again when I rewatch old episodes from the 60’s I can see the difference from what we have today.

When folks got their color sets, we tended to over saturate and over time, we set the color back. The problem was that the average consumer didn’t know what good color was supposed to look like. Radio and TV were my hobbies going back to the mid 50’s and I read all the books and magazines I could get my hands on. I considered myself an “educated consumer” regarding color TV.

John McCullough came to Milwaukee’s WTMJ as a weekend reporter and fill in anchor. He distinguished himself during the Milwaukee racial riots. He anchored 24/7 until the situation was in control. He had the presence of a big city news anchor like Huntley, Brinkley, Concrite. Very balanced politically and reported without bias. I wish we had more like him today. He had offers from the big markets but loved Wisconsin. He retired to my neck of the woods and recently passed away.

Totally agree, while any of us would have taken the time to provide the set with a good signal and set up the controls as they should be, it was my experience then when we went into a customers home, and looked at the way they had to tv's set up, they may have been better off with B & W. Why else do you think the tv manufacturers added all the auto settings? If they would have left the status quo, I doubt they would have sold many sets. I really miss those days.

[etype2]

UPDATE, MAY 11, 2020
More experimentation with Westinghouse television photos. Photographers find it hard to capture a properly exposed color television screen and still show the vintage television cabinet in the same shot. I give priority to a properly exposed screen. This series of shots were taken today with a Sony A6300 mirrorless camera, tripod mounted. Time around Noon. The sun was almost directly above the house with viewing room windows facing West. To capture the entire cabinet, required the camera lens to be about 3.5 feet from the screen. As a result the screen is small, especially a 12.5 CRT screen. I placed a light source on the floor to illuminate the bottom portion of the cabinet and controlled ambient light for the remainder. Camera settings: SS 1/20, FL 25, Aperture F14, ISO 3200, AWB. The color bars were locally broadcast OTA later in the day. The shots capture the screen light and color okay, but the camera and kit lens lacks the dynamic range to create a properly exposed image as my eye sees it, or the operator hasn’t found the right combination yet. �� I’m dealing with a 16X50 mm. 3.5 kit lens.

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...B5836C600.jpeg

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[old_tv_nut]

The color bars are excessively bright on the magenta, red, and blue, and dim on the yellow, cyan, and green. Either your camera is doing some unwanted color enhancement, or the TV color is turned up too high. That seems to be the case on Laverne's and Shirley's skin tones too.

You will not likely get consistent results using auto white balance. You need instead to use a custom white balance based on a monochrome image on your set.

[etype2]

I turned the TV color up a wee bit. The screen images are so small that I can’t see much detail. It does seem balanced. Was going for a proper image while still seeing the cabinet. A faster lens would be good if I could afford it.

I will explore setting the White balance based on a monochrome image. Learning from a pro with pro eyes.

[etype2]

Two more. I’ll look into the white balance.

https://visions4netjournal.com/wp-co...52B1DA5AE.jpeg

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[Steve D.]

Hey Marshall, Always a difficult balance between having proper screen image brightness and keeping the cabinet and surrounding room also lit properly. You have an amazingly bright screen image. This affords you plenty of room for additional light on the cabinet itself. Soft, but effective, front lighting can be achieve by placing a light behind a sheet or as in TV production called a scrim. This avoids reflection on the TV screen while producing a flat overall lighting effect. Attaching a photo, as an example, of a scrim in a production setting: