I have just returned from Columbus, (Hilliard) Ohio where I attended, along with many others, the 2nd annual Early Televison Foundation convention. Touring the museum and viewing the dozens of vintage tv's that range from the earliest mechancial sets to pre and post war electronic b&w as well as very early color was eye poping. The exhibits displayed, are well lit, in spacious rooms with plenty of documentation and information on each set. If this was not enough, the presentations by various speakers and the demonstrations of newly restored and working CBS field sequential color sets was stunning. To actually view a color picture by this spinning color wheel system on not one but two of these sets was worth the trip alone.
My thanks to our gracious host Steve McVoy for an outstanding job. Check out his site for info on the convention highlight DVD of last years event: etf@columbus.rr.com. I know Steve is preparing a DVD of this years get together and he will post, I'm sure, that info when it's available.

Wish I could've attended, maybe next year. I bet the museum's electic bill for the month will be out of site! Would love a copy of any DVD or tape of the event.

Anthony

Anthony,
There will be a DVD available down the line. Just check the ETF site from time to time. As RCA 2000 mentioned in his post and I neglected to mention. The Philco color prototype was very neat and produced an amazingly bright, sharp picture with its original Sylvania varient of the 15GP. Also displayed and operating were a RCA Model 5 15" color prototype. The Westinghouse 840CK-15 color set (very sharp, bright picture). and a CT-100. Also a Motorola 19" color. Cool stuff
:cool:

You lucky dude!

Wish I could have gone..

I have numerous photos of the sets that I need to shrink the filesize in Photoshop and then I can post them. Will try tonight.

Dave A

Steve did a great job with the convention. So many wonderful items to mention...

It was great to see Chuck's Philco prototype in the flesh. He did a really nice job on the restoration.

I loved seeing the Gray reaearch monitor in operation. The pictures in person outdo the ones on the website. John Folsom's CBS set looked great too. It was nice to see these rare sets restored and working.


I would like to thank Steve for another wonderful convention.

The first one was great, the second was even better. Thanks, Steve. Even Kim enjoyed it, and she isn't the technically-curious girl from high school I mentioned in an earlier post. Kim and I have known each other a little more than 10 years and she has an interest in old furniture, so she was the next most logical choice as a traveling companion when Sarah didn't seem to be adequately prepared ... aside from Kim's phobia of 8-lane highways that ended up causing us to wander 60 miles out of our way Sunday morning and arrive over 2 hours late. Next year, I'll have things confirmed in plenty of time to book a room right in Hilliard like we did for the first one.

It was indeed an excellent two days. I, along with my wife, thoroughly enjoyed the many excellent exhibits and guest speakers. Ed Reitan's talk on the RCA/CBS battle for the color standard was fascinating, I was blown away by Daryl's standards converter, and seeing the CBS color sets in operation was a rare treat.

I had never seen a mechanical set before and it was a blast to view Steve's prototype RCA mechanical receiver, which is fed from a mechanical camera in a nearby booth. As my wife made faces in front of the camera I was able to view her likeness in orange on the RCA set. Neat.

I was a bit stunned to meet Mike Maclean, whose name and photo I had encountered while researching the early Motown studios. Mike was chief engineer at Motown / Hitsville during the glory years and was responsible for many innovations there. The phrase "a gentleman and a scholar" describes him well.

It was a pleasure to meet Steve D and Steve K, both of whom live near us. I hope we can get together again soon!

On Sunday Steve McVoy switched on a large number of sets, including many British and European models, which were fed a converted signal. What a treat to see these in action. Another highlight for us was watching the 30" Dumont Sovereign, which delivers a beautiful picture.

Thanks to Nat Pendleton, who sold me his restored RCA 630. (I hope that Fedex ground will get it to California intact and working!)

For a collector or enthusiast, the many amazing sets at the museum would warrant a cross country trip, even without the convention. But the great people and demonstrations made it something really special. Thanks to Steve for hosting it, and thanks to everyone else for their fine contributions.

David Kulka