View Full Version : watching the color snow on first color tv


Richard D
01-20-2004, 02:19 PM
Looking at the pictures of the roundies reminds me of 1961 or 1962 when we got our first color set. I was 5 or 6 at the time. It had a black metal cabinet and the chassis was mounted vertical on one side of the set. It was made by Admiral and the channel # was projected above the tuner knob. What's funny is that all the neighbors would come over to see it and unless there happened to be a color commericial on or it was sunday night they would stare at the colored snow on unused channels. Dosen't seem that long ago.

Steve Hoffman
01-20-2004, 02:25 PM
I used to stare at the colored snow of my friend's parents Zenith set back in the early 1960's when I would do a "sleepover" there. Sad but true; even the snow was neat to me. It's also scary to recall that all the stations went off the air at night back then, even here in LA. Seems like a long time ago..

Celt
01-20-2004, 03:08 PM
Richard, I think we had the same set! We kept ours until '72 or '73. It wasn't all that attractive in its styling, but it was a top-notch performer!

heathkit tv
01-20-2004, 05:07 PM
Speaking of early color experiences, a friend of mines parent's had a color Panasonic (late 60's or very early 70's) and I recall reading the owners manual which had some statement about the tube using "rare earth phosphors" and thinking WOW!

And wondering how soon this supply of "rare earth" would run out. LOL

Anthony

Rob
01-20-2004, 07:05 PM
Color snow is OK just don't eat the yellow snow. :D

Richard D
01-21-2004, 07:25 PM
Hi Celt, The Admiral was finally mine in 1970, took off the four metal legs and put it up on a tall chest of drawers, took up alot of the space in my room but I had my own color tv, I had it until 1975 when I sold it. It was still going strong and I don't think it was ever serviced! original crt still in it.

Richard D
01-21-2004, 07:33 PM
Originally posted by Rob
Color snow is OK just don't eat the yellow snow. :D Do you mean from right there where the huskies go?

Rob
01-22-2004, 02:35 AM
Originally posted by Richard D
Do you mean from right there where the huskies go?

Yeah, and watch out too for the slime oozin' down from your TV set there.

Steve D.
01-22-2004, 04:44 PM
Ya, I'm as guilty as Steve Hoffman and the rest. Back in the 50's I used to camp out in Sears' TV dept. waiting for a color show to come on. Failing that it was the color snow. And when the tech brought out the degaussing coil I just about.....:p:

Dave A
01-22-2004, 06:04 PM
If my cloudy memory serves me correct, networks would transmit a narrow green stripe down the side of the video during daytime B&W shows for servicemen.

As there were very few daytime color shows and most sets were delivered and installed during the day, the stripe was transmitted several times a day so installers could see if the set was picking up the color signal.

Not sure if all the networks did this, but NBC would be a likely choice to help RCA sales.

Steve Hoffman
01-22-2004, 11:57 PM
Originally posted by Dave A
If my cloudy memory serves me correct, networks would transmit a narrow green stripe down the side of the video during daytime B&W shows for servicemen.

As there were very few daytime color shows and most sets were delivered and installed during the day, the stripe was transmitted several times a day so installers could see if the set was picking up the color signal.

Not sure if all the networks did this, but NBC would be a likely choice to help RCA sales.

Wow, interesting!

Rob
01-23-2004, 01:34 AM
My RCA color books talk about the greestripe test signal. I believe it was the same phase as the color burst and was placed at the beginning of eac H. line, or else they relied on the burst to make that stripe and the other was placed at the end of each H. line, just before H. interval.

I should have read that part more carefully. ;)

Jeffhs
01-28-2004, 03:40 PM
Why on earth would anyone want to sit in front of a TV set and watch a screen with nothing but snow? :dunno: I can understand someone looking for distant signals doing this, but to simply stare at a blank screen with color snow (sounds like the color killer adjustment may have been a bit off as well, as the color will disappear from the snow when the killer is properly set), well, I have to wonder. What was going on? Even if the local stations weren't broadcasting color shows from the networks, etc. they would still have b&w shows on (old movies and the like).

I remember seeing color pictures in TV textbooks of the green stripe test signal, but I never actually saw it first-hand on any of the local TV stations in Cleveland.

BTW, in color TV's early years, some manufacturers put color indicator lights on the front panels of sets which would illuminate when the station to which the set was tuned was telecasting in color (technically, when the 3.579545-MHz--what all TV people today call "three-point-five-eight"--color-burst signal was being transmitted with the station's monochrome carrier). RCA used three such lamps to illuminate the color controls on the front panel when a color show was on, Motorola had its color indicator behind a rainbow-colored lens on some of its sets (IIRC), and so on.

I don't recall if Zenith used a color indicator on its early color sets, though I honestly don't think so. For example, the Zenith 29JC20 from the early '60s, IIRC, did not have a color indicator anywhere on the panel that I could see (I remember we had one of these sets in the electronics shop in high school, 30+ years ago, which is how I know what the table model 29JC20 looks like).

Eric H
01-28-2004, 06:55 PM
Just thinkin' if you saw color snow on a blank channel wouldn't that mean the color killer was set wrong? or does it only work on a signal?

Richard D
01-28-2004, 07:31 PM
That is the way all early color sets I remember worked which was early 60s. I don't know if these sets had a color killer circuit as you had to adjust the tint on black & white programming to get something close to black instead of green or purple. I can't imagine all those sets had bad or out of adjustment color killers, thats how they worked out of the box.
Richard

gyusher
02-27-2004, 04:28 PM
Speaking of watching color snow. . . My old Pot smoking buddie used to come over to my house get loaded and watch snow for hours. . . He said he was inside a bag of cotton and the snow was cotton being picked and quickly thrown into the bag. . . I dont understand but I guess it takes all kinds. . . He actually ruined my TV by cranking the color and Contrast wide open. Finally after many many years he told me what he was doing. . . I would have shot him if I had known. I always wondered why my color and contrast were always out of wack. . .

Jeffhs
02-27-2004, 07:22 PM
Originally posted by gyusher
Speaking of watching color snow. . . My old Pot smoking buddie used to come over to my house get loaded and watch snow for hours. . . He said he was inside a bag of cotton and the snow was cotton being picked and quickly thrown into the bag. . . I dont understand but I guess it takes all kinds. . . He actually ruined my TV by cranking the color and Contrast wide open. Finally after many many years he told me what he was doing. . . I would have shot him if I had known. I always wondered why my color and contrast were always out of wack. . .

I'm curious. How did your friend actually "ruin" your TV set? I can see how turning the color and contrast controls all the way up would ruin any TV--it overloads the CRT, the power supply and everything else.

Turning the brightness control to maximum can damage the CRT permanently by causing the picture to "bloom" out of focus at maximum brightness; the tube will become gassy from the overload, and several other tubes in the set could be damaged as well. One set I read about in an old color-TV repair book some years ago was heavily damaged, and the culprit was a gassy CRT which caused a chain reaction; the resulting overload caused an arc on one of the set's PC boards, near one of the chroma demodulator tubes. The arc actually flashed across the base of the tube, cracking the glass immediately. There may have been, and probably was, even more damage as well, such as to the power supply, video amplifier circuits, etc. My best guess is the set was junked after the owner found out how much it would cost to repair it.

Another dandy way of wrecking a color set in the early days through about the '80s or '90s :eek: was to turn the three G2 (screen) controls on the back of the set all the way open, then turn the set on. If you were lucky, all you did with most sets was blow a fuse or kick out the circuit breaker, but some sets weren't that well protected and could be ruined in a minute by running the screen controls (which controlled the brightness of the three electron beams in the CRT) at maximum.

Today's microprocessor-controlled color sets have been made more or less "tinker proof" by putting almost all the service adjustments (except the focus control) in software accessible through a service menu, which itself is accessible only through a complicated series of keystrokes involving the front-panel buttons. The access sequence, and the meanings of the hexadecimal numbers in the menu itself, are normally known only to service technicians, which prevents set owners from altering settings they have no business changing in the first place. The focus control, although mounted (at least in RCA sets such as my CTC185 and others using that chassis design) on the rear of the set, has been made tamper-proof by making it impossible to adjust without a special hex-head tool available, again, only to qualified service technicians. Moreover, the back covers of all new color sets are now secured by fasteners which require, once again, a special tool not available to the average set owner. I believe the master G2 adjustment is on the rear panel of recent-vintage RCAs and possibly other makes as well, just above or below the focus control; it has the same type of tamper-proof hex-head shaft.

BTW, I like your avatar--very cute.

gyusher
02-28-2004, 10:10 PM
Only thing I remember (1962) was that the set was screwed up a lot and wouldnt last long. Sometimes when I came home to watch it the thing just wouldnt turn on.
I know very little about the inner workings but I certainly remember taking tubes in a grocery bag to the grocery store to use their tube tester and check tubes. I also remember how good the picture was on some of those old round tube TVs. The last one I had (1978) I let play for 4 years without turning it off. Every time you turned it on it would take longer and longer to get bright enough to watch so we just left it on, turned the sound down at night. then one day the power supply melted and smoke was every where. I remember the insulation on the wires was so hard and brittle that you couldnt move a wire without shattering the insulation. This was before we let it play so long. I was young and foolish and never thought about consequences. That TV was a RCA, dont remember the model but its picture even by todays standards was spectacular. I certainly understand the appeal of these early birds.