Westinghouse K840CK15 Restoration

[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.

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[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.

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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:

[etype2]

Thanks for that Steve. I’ve noticed those in photography sessions. Good idea to invest in a smaller version. I used a shaded lamp with a 4 watt incandescent bulb on the floor, that’s why the light looks warm on the pencil box.

As to Wayne’s suggestion, I read about the importance of setting white balance manually as AWB in not reliable. Future photo sessions will be set manually.

[etype2]

Here is a short video done at the same time as the photos. First 52 seconds, slightly over exposed.

https://videos.files.wordpress.com/g...mg_3940_hd.mp4

[oldtvman]

WTMJ, back in the sixties and seventies, I worked at an RCA distributor and put up the largest antenna we had in an effort to pull the Packer games out of TMJ and WISN, from South bend, that was quite a trick, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by oldtvman

WTMJ, back in the sixties and seventies, I worked at an RCA distributor and put up the largest antenna we had in an effort to pull the Packer games out of TMJ and WISN, from South bend, that was quite a trick, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't

Back in 1972 when Franco Harris had his "Immaculate Reception" as the Pittsburgh Steelers played the Oakland Raiders at Three River's Stadium, the game was blacked out on local Pittsburgh stations so we had many stories where people had to use their outdoor antennas and/or rabbit ears on their old sets in the attic to watch the game from WJAC, channel 6 from Johnstown, PA

[etype2]

Had the largest Jerold I could find, maybe 9 feet long atop a tower tripod with rotor mounted to our roof in Milwaukee. When conditions were right, a station from South Bend came in. Can’t remember which one. This was the same time period, 1966-70. The Packers would play at Milwaukee County Stadium twice a season.

[oldtvman]

Originally Posted by etype2

Had the largest Jerold I could find, maybe 9 feet long atop a tower tripod with rotor mounted to our roof in Milwaukee. When conditions were right, a station from South Bend came in. Can’t remember which one. This was the same time period, 1966-70. The Packers would play at Milwaukee County Stadium twice a season.

Those were the days that die hards had to go the extra mile, now everything comes down from high power satelites. BTW, I just missed out on a Bart Starr autographed Packer pennant for $17, almost made me sick