Does anyone know if there are aftermarket remote controls out there that can be used with a vintage TV? I was planning to use an old VCR for this but they tend to be too large to fit on top of my bakelite consolette.

There were some, though it may take some work to find them. But the ones I'm thinking of were not wireless. In the 70s Jerrold had one with a box (like a cable box) that sat on the tv and then a tuner to sit by your chair. I had one, it was a varactor tuner, and worked okay but sometimes would have bad connections. Mine had UHF but there was one version that was VHF only. The other one I remember was from the 80s and was a motor that you attached to the tuner knob, it would only work one knob so if you wanted to both tune and work the volume you needed 2 of them. They weren't cheap,IIRC. And with them you had to have this mechanism hanging off the front of the tv.

I guess if you really wanted to you could yank the chassis out of a vcr and use just the tuner,etc, and stick it inside the old tv (which in many cases would have plenty of extra room inside) then you would just need to find a good place to hide the remote receiver.

I remember Zenith had some in the late 70's early 80's. We sold a few. Don't know if they were cable ready. You could turn the set on & off and switch channels. They were wireless.

Thanks for the info. I was thinking about the old cable box (or similar device like the Jerrold you mentioned) and lamenting the fact that it's all digital cable in my area now and the boxes are huge. I think what I'll do is check the thrift stores or wherever for an old VCR that's relatively compact. All I care about is the tuner.

RE: the Zeniths, yes I remember they even had the A/B switching capability. We're still dealing with A&B where I live but it's supposed to be going away very soon. In the meantime I want to keep the A/B switch by the nightstand and then run the cable from there to the TV. This is for a guest room and the TV won't get a lot of use, but I don't know anyone who's willing to walk over/get out of bed to change the channel or shut off the TV anymore.

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Originally posted by rp2813
Does anyone know if there are aftermarket remote controls out there that can be used with a vintage TV? I was planning to use an old VCR for this but they tend to be too large to fit on top of my bakelite consolette.

How big is your bakelite TV? :dunno: Unless it's one of those 1948 vintage Admiral bakelite consolettes, you should have more than enough room for a modern VCR (they are quite small and light these days, unlike their '70s-'80s predecessors). Even if your TV is in fact a '48 Admiral, I would think any modern VCR would fit on top of the cabinet even if it hangs over the sides a bit. Just a thought.

Prehaps you were talking about this old type of remote control?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2273968126

Ross