RCA and You

[Sandy G]

I wonder what a 2013 Human Resources wonk would have to say about THIS..

[bgadow]

I noticed that the control panel covers aren't installed on the CTC-15's. Easier to adjust them that way? Lots of great stuff here.

[Sandy G]

Sarnoff was, to say the least, a "Controversial" character. One of his reputed favorite personal quotes was-"I don't GET Ulcers-I GIVE them"...He more or less personally drove Howard Armstrong to suicide, and was saved from being brought up on criminal charges only thru the influence of powerful friends in government. Yet his empire lived but a few short years longer than he did.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

...He more or less personally drove Howard Armstrong ...

I've often wondered if Armstrong mentioned to Sarnoff, when he was demonstrating his FM radio system, that FM would make an excellent sound carrier for TV. "Pictures and hifi sound, the public will go nuts buying all you can manufacture."

[Sandy G]

Thing of it was, in the early days, Sarnoff & Armstrong were best of friends..Got along famously..Armstrong LOVED to climb towers, the higher the better, & as he was working for Sarnoff, Sarnoff had to berate him CONSTANTLY not to do that..I've often seen that the great inventors/Industrialists, while they were BRILLIANT, often as not had a "Peculiar" streak about them... Edison abhorred baths, only took one 2-3 times a year. Ford was semi-illiterate, Sarnoff was a megalomaniac, George Eastman killed himself at a rather early age, as he felt his work was done, why wait ?

[mpatoray]

What was salvageable form the Sarnoff museum (a lot of which was stored in the basement which had major flooding issues) was donated to the Hagley museum, including such priceless things as Zworykin's "Television notebook #1". Other bots when to the New Jersey Historical society and also the Infoage museum.

http://www.hagley.lib.de.us

http://www.jerseyhistory.org

http://www.infoage.org

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by mpatoray

What was salvageable form the Sarnoff museum (a lot of which was stored in the basement which had major flooding issues)

I remember that basement area. When I worked there, there would be abandoned racks and odds and ends down there, some of which I grabbed for my work. Figured, why wait for an order to come in, here's a rack I can use right now. Just stuff ten to twenty years old, nothing interesting from a history angle. There also was a big power transformer labeled "contains PCBs" down there behind a chain link fence style door.

As for GE taking over RCA, that videodisc debacle (RCA dropped about $660 million on it, big money back then) probably prompted the investors to get some better managers on RCA... Turned out we ended up with evil managers from GE.

[zenith2134]

Yes, it seems as though hardly any collector wants to save some of the later RCA chassis sets... I try to save them all however. Even if they were pieces of crap or there was greed involved, etc. Remember there was a time when round crt color sets were undesirable/considered old junk.
One day the 70s and 80s color sets will be just a memory.
I have a CTC-89 somewhere which has a nice pic and build quality, for instance. It's from '77

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by zenith2134

One day the 70s and 80s color sets will be just a memory.
I have a CTC-89 somewhere which has a nice pic and build quality, for instance. It's from '77

I kinda wish I still had my old CTC101, the 1st I think RCA with a comb filter.
Made a nice sharp picture, with extended luma bandwidth from the comb filter.
Also the infamous integrated flyback, that would short out and take the HOT with it. Which is what it died from. Also the CTC111 was pretty good.

[zenith2134]

Nice! I was once given a CTC-117 which had memory for the channels and on screen display. It was from 1983, old enough that the multisection filter can was labeled as a 'condenser' on the prints. Wish I would have saved that one.

[NowhereMan 1966]

I always got a big kick out of the time they used Armstrong's FM antenna at the Palisades in Alpine, New Jersey as an emergency broadcast antenna for WNBC-TV and many others. I'd love to think what Sarnoff would have though that his TV station had to use Armstrong's antenna.

[Sandy G]

I STILL think RCA, Zenith, Motorola, GE, et al, COULD have beat back the Japs if they'd really tried..When Sony came out w/the 5-303 series sets in '62, why didn't Sarnoff order his engineers to come out with a 5" solid-state COLOR set, & send 'em back to Japan w/their tails between their legs ?!? You can't tell me RCA didn't have the technical wherewithal to do that...Imagine a 5" solid state Roundie... The mind BOGGLES..

[zenith2134]

How right you are, Sandy!
Ever see the youtube footage of vintage RCA factories? The vacuum tube production, 78rpm records, etc. The amount of research & quality control that went into products back then really was intense. A bygone era...
The fact that any of these old sets can be found still working is really a testament.

[bgadow]

RCA had a great business model of creating what the next big thing would be, inventing it, holding the patents and reaping the rewards. Color TV is a great example of a longterm investment that paid off big for RCA in the end. Trouble was, RCA quit guessing right on what the next thing would be. They kicked VCR's to the curb. If they had invented VHS they would have been as dominate in the 80s and 90s as they had been in the 60s and 70s. CED was a massive left turn into the ditch, not only for what it cost the company in R&D money but for what it cost in lost revenue for not coming through with what America wanted. They could have also dominated with flatscreens, small sat dishes, home computers. The RCA of old didn't have to sell more than the competition, they just had to have the competition selling RCA designed products. Once they gave up that lead to the Japanese, they were just another manufacturer, subject to competing in a crowded global market. It was only a matter of time before building a color TV in Indiana would be a losing game.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by bgadow

RCA ... could have also dominated with flatscreens, small sat dishes, home computers.

Back around 1983 at the old Smirnoff Labs there was talk of RCA getting into home computers. But this was after several other players had the market, and IBM had come out with their PC. RCA abandoned the idea when they realized that they would do little more than say "Me too"... I knew some guys in a group that was looking at the existing home computers of the day, the Commodures and Atari 800s, and I remember when the Coleco Adam came in, what a POS that was... We all liked the Atari 800 the best.