Interesting abandoned Zenith motel TV. Would this be from the early '70s?..

http://www.uer.ca/locations/viewgal.asp?picid=29596

Interesting abandoned Zenith motel TV. Would this be from the early '70s?..


I remember staying at some fancy place in Chicago area and they had TVs like that, with AM and FM radios inside. The sound volume levels from the radio was way louder than the TV sound. Seems that manufacturers never get such a product intergration right.

That's an early '80's set. I found one of these several years ago in a ditch with dings in the CRT face and a broken tuner shaft. I brought it home, cleaned it up and it worked fine.

Interesting abandoned Zenith motel TV. Would this be from the early '70s?..

http://www.uer.ca/locations/viewgal.asp?picid=29596

Hawkwind, I gotta tell you that I really enjoy your UE posts... I've done a bit of that myself, before digtal cameras :no:

I do have some shots of Hudson's department store in Detroit (Circa 1992) while it was still very intact, but they're pretty lousy considering I was trying to light a 100,000 sq.ft. building with a $35 camera!

I remember staying at some fancy place in Chicago area and they had TVs like that, with AM and FM radios inside. The sound volume levels from the radio was way louder than the TV sound. Seems that manufacturers never get such a product intergration right.

I have a similar but slightly later Zenith motel TV w/digital tuner and digital clock on top of the refrigerator in the kitchen. There are separate volume limiter controls for both the TV and the radio. In the one you saw, the TV volume limiter must have been turned too low while the radio control was at full blast. For some reason the one I have does not seem to give enough radio volume even when its volume limiter is all the way up.

Here are some photos:
http://www.retroaudiolab.com/pictures/equip/tv/zenithmotel2.jpg

http://www.retroaudiolab.com/pictures/equip/tv/zenithmotel.jpg

http://www.retroaudiolab.com/pictures/equip/tv/zenithmotelchassis.jpg

I just looked at the picture of the Zenith TV with AM/FM radio and noticed a comment near the image: "No UHF, just 2-13 and a few movie channels." If this set was made after April 30, 1964, as I'm sure this one was, it would have to have UHF to be in compliance with the all-channel rules which went into effect on that date. This particular TV has Zenith's 18-position one-knob varactor electronic tuner in which there are six presettable UHF channel positions marked U1 through U6, after channel 13. The UHF positions, which are independently adjustable varactor tuners covering channels 14-83, are not and for practical reasons cannot be preset at the factory because different cities have different UHF channel assignments. The only explanation I can come up with that makes any sense (to me, anyway) for the comment that the TV being discussed here has "no UHF" is that, since these particular models were made for use in hotels/motels with master antenna distribution systems or cable, which downconvert UHF channels to unused VHF channels, only channels 2-13 were used, with the extra UHF channel positions being left set on their factory defaults. The only other explanation I can come up with is that this set was in a motel/hotel located in a city or town with no UHF stations whatsoever, only VHF.

BTW, the comment regarding the volume limiters for the TV and AM/FM radio in this TV has me wondering. Why on earth would the TV's volume limiter be set for normal listening, while the limiter for the radio was set at maximum? :scratch2: In a hotel/motel setting, I would think both level adjustments would have been set (when the TV was installed) to prevent the volume from being run so high as to disturb occupants of adjacent rooms. Kids like loud rock music, but I very seriously doubt that some kid got into that set and turned the radio volume limiter up sky high.

BTW, the comment regarding the volume limiters for the TV and AM/FM radio in this TV has me wondering. Why on earth would the TV's volume limiter be set for normal listening, while the limiter for the radio was set at maximum?

Looking at it from a systems engineering point of view, I'd almost would think that the FM radio IF and detector could be the same one used for the TV sound (which is also an FM signal). The FM radio would then need its local oscillator to be 4.5Mhz higher, instead of 10.7MHz higher, to get it to an IF of 4.5MHz. Could be done. However, TV sound deviation is less than that used for FM broadcast radio. Thus the TV sound will come out at a lower volume than the FM radio stations would.

Another consideration is that it would be cheaper (at the low manufacturing volumes these sets would be done at) to just grab AM/FM radio circuit boards, the ones intended for clock radios, and just stuff them inside existing design TV sets. This is the usual reason for otherwise stupid design decisions one finds inside TV sets.

Every one of the RCA, Zenith, & Magnavox motel sets I've seen with radios had a seperate radio chassis.

Yes, all the ones I have seen too have seperate radio chassis with their own power transformers and audio output stages. In this picture you can see the radio chassis and power transformer at the top left:

http://www.retroaudiolab.com/pictures/equip/tv/zenithmotelchassis.jpg

This particular set has a single 2-gang volume control for both radio and TV but often they are separate front panel volume controls too.