Hi to all,

Saw this 13 inch RCA XL-100 in Germany. Pretty much a common set in the US, but unusual on this side of the Atlantic.

Mystery is explained by the fact this is probably a TV purchased by a US Army or Air Force person stationed in Germany as the main US bases operated NTSC low power transmitters in Frankfurt, Ramstein and probably other places.

http://www.ebay.de/itm/RCA-XL-100-Fernseher-TV-Gerat-Tragbares-Gerat-USA-Europa-Dachbodenfund-/170949876990?pt=Radio_TV_Musik&hash=item27cd681cfe

The barely readable sticker in photo #3 specifies "Frankfurt area color system".

Personal memories: i stayed twice in the Frankfurt area during 2 summers to learn German, this was in 1965 & 1967. The US base radiated a B&W 525 line signal and local radio/TV shops would install for a few tens of DMs an FM audio adapter in your TV to pickup the 4.5 MHz US audio channel.
The H/V scan rate differences were accomodated simply by tweaking the H Hold & V Hold controls.

These kits were very popular with German families as they could watch US TV series straight from AFN instead of waiting sometimes for years until they were aired dubbed in German from their national broadcasters.

Nope, i won't buy it, too big & no more space.

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

Cool, I have a couple of that model, one is exactly like that with wood grain, the other is silver, late 70's models.
I found both of mine in thrift shops for a pittance, maybe $5-$10 or so and they both work.

Besides being cool and streamlined looking they are also the model used on the TV show "House" Dr House has one in his office, along with a SOTA Turntable.

had several of these back in the 80s and 90s.my kids had one in their bedrooms.never an issue,these are good performers.

Here's my thread on it's American Cousin.

http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=252123&highlight=rca+1979

These are really heavy sets by the way, old enough to have large metal chassis, none of the all on one board stuff that came shortly after.

The auction mentions it has a switch to allow "usa and euro" reception, I wonder if it has a mod to allow simple pal decoding?

Hi to All,

Eric, Thanks for the link to the older thread. Nice to see this model with a real picture on it and not just white noise.

Colorfixer:
The auction mentions it has a switch to allow "usa and euro" reception, I wonder if it has a mod to allow simple pal decoding?

Just my guess, but i would say a simple mod to switch the audio from the US 4.5 MHz to the CCIR 5.5 MHz used in Germany.

This would allow (shaky) reception of German TV in B&W, i say shaky because the US vs German frequency plans really don't overlap and the channel widths are not the same. Just retrieving enough of the PAL color subcarrier to make it decodable would be quite a feat...

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

In the movie Forrest Gump, Major Dan had that same TV in his apartment.

I believe some US manufacturers did make NTSC/Simple PAL receivers for this market.