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LOG IN Forgot Login? Register General Discussion • Trading Post • Non-Film Score Discussion  Profile • Preferences • Community Rules • Help/Contact • Search Board Search Terms:  Search Within:  topics posts since 2019 2018 posts 2017 posts 2016 posts 2015 posts 2014 posts 2013 posts 2012 posts 2011 posts 2010 posts 2009 posts 2008 posts 2007 posts 2006 posts 2005 posts 2004 posts 2003 posts 2002 posts 2001 posts 2000 posts users  search tips  You must log in or register to post.   Go to page:  1 2 3      Non-Film Score Discussion: Old TV's     1 2 3    NEXT   LAST   Last Post   Posted:   Apr 13, 2013 - 9:37 AM     By:   Solium   (Member) Remember the old days when the televisions reception would get all messed up if you used certain household appliances like a blender or vacuum cleaner? Why was that? Why did televisions have two signal knobs? UHF and VHF. Was their competition going on for which signal would win out like the VHS/Beta and BluRay/HD DVD wars?    Posted:   Apr 13, 2013 - 11:01 AM     By:   Dyfrynt   (Member) Okay I'll bite. I think there were the two dials because the TVs at the time had the potential for actually having 2 dials of channels. The interference problem was, I think, a matter of the old TVs not being properly shielded from electrical interference of other devices. Plus if you think about it, there were not all that many other electrical devices in a typical house at that time anyway! But honestly I am guessing, and someone can come along and tell me I'm completely off base. Won't be the first time!    Posted:   Apr 13, 2013 - 11:18 AM     By:   Solium   (Member) Thanks for the reply. Speculation is always welcome.    Posted:   Apr 13, 2013 - 11:35 AM     By:   Bob DiMucci   (Member) UHF isn't any mystery that a Wikipedia search couldn't solve. In short, UHF (Ultra High Frequency) covers a different band of the electromagnetic spectrum than does VHF (Very High Frequency). The VHF band could only accomodate so many stations without stations causing interference with each other, so the FCC allocated the UHF band, which during World War II was reserved for military use, to additional television stations. UHF stations had slow growth, however, because (1) they were limited by FCC policy in the power of their transmissions, (2) not all television sets were able to receive them, and (3) they required a different type of antenna to receive them than did VHF broadcasts. So, to spur UHF growth, the FCC eventually expanded the power that UHF stations could use and required that all TV sets be capable of receiving them. Hence the two dials on sets. UHF allowed the expansion of broadcast alternatives beyond the big three networks. Many UHF stations were independent stations, Public Broadcasting Service, religious broadcasting, or Spanish language. Much more info can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UHF_television_broadcasting#United_States    Posted:   Apr 13, 2013 - 12:23 PM     By:   Solium   (Member) That rings a bell! I forgotten about PBS and random Spanish channels on UHF. I haven't followed the link yet, but I will read on.    Posted:   Apr 13, 2013 - 12:45 PM     By:   gone   (Member) I distinctly remember having to get up, walk to the TV, turn the dial, and then go back to the couch. No remote! I also remember turning the rabbit ear antenna in every possible direction trying to pickup the least crappy signal. No cable! Now we have progressed and I can remotely flip through dozens of channels trying to find the least bad cable program... and end up watching 2 guys wading through people's junk piles and offering to buy rusty old relics from my childhood. Hmmm!    Posted:   Apr 13, 2013 - 1:00 PM     By:   Solium   (Member) I distinctly remember having to get up, walk to the TV, turn the dial, and then go back to the couch. No remote! I also remember turning the rabbit ear antenna in every possible direction trying to pickup the least crappy signal. No cable! Now we have progressed and I can remotely flip through dozens of channels trying to find the least bad cable program... and end up watching 2 guys wading through people's junk piles and offering to buy rusty old relics from my childhood. Hmmm! Yes our television experience has really progressed hasn't it?! I have several hundred stations and almost nothing to watch. Whats ruining it for me is the over commercialization. To many commercials, to many commercial plugs superimposed over the show I'm watching. Now they write commercials for the fictional characters to say within the story lines. If you watch hockey they are now adding digitally ads behind the goalies. It's extremely distracting. I'm so close to canceling cable.    Posted:   Apr 14, 2013 - 12:59 PM     By:   dan the man   (Member) Well you know that adage the more things change the more they remain the same.100 stations but nothing you really want to watch. It is all about moderation. However there is one true good thing about today against the past. Something you really want to see you most likely can see. unlike years ago you waited for years to see what you really wanted to see or in my late aunt's case, died before she ever got to see it.    Posted:   Apr 14, 2013 - 1:30 PM     By:   eriknelson   (Member) This is a little off topic but... Early color TV's had three extra knobs that allowed the user to manually adjust the color balance. As a kid it was fun to play with them and make the picture look bizarre. It drove my parents crazy because then they would have to readjust everything. The biggest challenge was achieving realistic flesh tones. People often looked purple or green. Then the Sony Trinitron came along and color balance became automatic.    Posted:   Apr 14, 2013 - 1:40 PM     By:   dan the man   (Member) Yes that brings back memories I used to as a kid do that too, adjust the colors creating a bizarre look to the shows or movies. that was fun. Also I remember a few years ago a guy complain about the new TV sets when he was watching a colorization of a old movie and said years ago you could turn color with a knob to b/w, he wanted to do that with that movie he was watching[ha-ha] yeah those good old days in some ways.    Posted:   Apr 14, 2013 - 4:02 PM     By:   Solium   (Member) I forgot all about those color knobs. Like everyone else, I remember trying to get the green out of the flesh tones. Regarding those inside antennas, it was always frustrating that you got the best reception when you "held" the antenna. Of course you couldn't watch television like that. Then we improvised, like using a metal coat hanger as an antenna, or wrapping foil around it. Not sure what that was supposed to prove.    Posted:   Apr 14, 2013 - 4:21 PM     By:   Adam.   (Member) The first remote control we had was hilarious. It had two black buttons on it. Only two. One for changing the channel. The other for volume and on/off. When you pushed the top button the channel dial on the TV would rotate clockwise to change channels (2-13). If you overshot the channel you wanted, you would have to go through all channels again. The bottom button adjusted the volume, but only upward. Low, medium, high and TV off. If you had the volume on medium, but wanted to lower it to low volume, you had to click to high volume, turn the TV off, then turn it back on for low volume. Old technology at it's finest.    Posted:   Apr 14, 2013 - 4:50 PM     By:   ANZALDIMAN   (Member) I know one thing. The bigger sets were a bitch to get rid of for one person once the picture tube blew out and nobody seemed to be left alive who fixed them anymore. The last time I had one fixed was sometime in the 90's when there was this old German guy who lived in a small barnyard red colored house on a hill across the street from where I worked at the time. His shop was attached to his house and looked as dusty and cluttered inside as one of those stops on American Pickers. But this guy came recommended by friends because he supposedly fixed anything. You just lugged the thing in, told him what was wrong and in a thick accent he said he'd call you when it was finished. That was it. On my way out I wondered if he even had a phone buried someplace in there. But he did, the repair only set me back about 35 bucks and the set lasted me another couple of years before it eventually went out to the curb on electronics pickup day.    Posted:   Apr 14, 2013 - 6:11 PM     By:   dan the man   (Member) Well there are endless stories I could talk about when it comes to those old TV's in my life, But what was interesting was the fact the TV that lasted the longest for me was the one that was given to me by my parents when I was a kid in the early 70's, It was a HITACHI, 12 INCH B/W with a very modern looking screen, then it look like 21st century. I used it a lot through my teen years.Would you believe it was still working up until 2006[34 years]Whoever said the Japanese make good TV's were right. As for nostalgic I should have kept it, but with a little sad emotion I dumped it in the trash. a lot of memories.    Posted:   Apr 14, 2013 - 6:54 PM     By:   Solium   (Member) What always had me scratching my head was the excitement over the big screen televisions before HD. I remember looking at those screens and just thinking to myself, "Is this the best they have to offer? This looks terrible." I was not bitten by the big screen TV bug.    Posted:   Apr 15, 2013 - 9:51 AM     By:   jackfu   (Member) Remember vacuum tubes? As in, the TV picture is scrambled diagonally to the right or left and no amount of adjustment of the vertical or horizontal hold knobs will fix it. The intro of the original Outer Limits TV show will give you a clue if you haven't experienced it. So you have to open the back of the unit, remove the suspect vacuum tubes and take them to the local Sears, or sometimes, hardware or other department stores had tube testers. You plugged them into the appropriate connector and if it tested as bad, you purchased a new one at the same store if you were fortunate enough that they stocked them.    Posted:   Apr 16, 2013 - 1:28 AM     By:   Bob DiMucci   (Member) Remember vacuum tubes? As in, the TV picture is scrambled diagonally to the right or left and no amount of adjustment of the vertical or horizontal hold knobs will fix it. The intro of the original Outer Limits TV show will give you a clue if you haven't experienced it. So you have to open the back of the unit, remove the suspect vacuum tubes and take them to the local Sears, or sometimes, hardware or other department stores had tube testers. You plugged them into the appropriate connector and if it tested as bad, you purchased a new one at the same store if you were fortunate enough that they stocked them. I remember going with my Dad to our local Zayre store (later Ames, even later bankrupt) with a bag full of tubes to test on their machine. Since you were never sure which one(s) might be bad, you pulled out any tube that didn't light up or heat up and traipsed off to test them. We may have occasionally fixed a TV that way without eventually calling a repairman. I'm not sure.    Posted:   Apr 16, 2013 - 6:17 AM     By:   jackfu   (Member) Oddly enough, as frustrating as the old TV's seemed to be when I was growing up (waiting for them to "warm up", tube problems, unreliability, etc.), I still have a 1983 RCA XL 100 25" console model that saw over 30 years of everyday usage, 12 hrs a day, often, that still works as well as when new. I gave it to my father-in-law as a backup for his use after I got a big-screen unit, because I didn't have the heart to throw it away. He still uses it most everyday.    Posted:   Apr 16, 2013 - 2:19 PM     By:   Bob DiMucci   (Member) Oddly enough, as frustrating as the old TV's seemed to be when I was growing up (waiting for them to "warm up", tube problems, unreliability, etc.), I still have a 1983 RCA XL 100 25" console model that saw over 30 years of everyday usage, 12 hrs a day, often, that still works as well as when new. By 1983, even the XL-100, which was RCA's lowest price line behind the Colortrak and Dimensia, was probably "all solid state"--remember that term?--meaning no tubes.    Posted:   Apr 16, 2013 - 8:10 PM     By:   dan the man   (Member) I remember as a little kid how i loved when the TV repairman came around to fix the TV, and his tool box was filled with multicolored screwdrivers etc etc. I love looking at those colorful items.     Non-Film Score Discussion: Old TV's    < 1 2 3  > >>  Go to page:  1 2 3   First Post    General Discussion • Trading Post • Non-Film Score Discussion  Profile • Preferences • Community Rules • Help/Contact • Search Board You must log in or register to post.   Go to page:  1 2 3

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