Early 60's rca color remote hand unit

[frenchy]

http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-RCA-VICT...QQcmdZViewItem

I think somebody in here was looking for one? Dirty but mine cleaned up like a new penny.
Frenchy

[frenchy]

Here's another one...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Early-RCA-Color-...QQcmdZViewItem

[Jonathan]

Too bad my CTC9 never had the remote option. But then again, it only had a VHF tuner.

Jonathan

[frenchy]

Did any of the sets that old work the UHF channels thru the remote anyway? I think all you could do was click it up to "U" and then had to tune the UHF yourself anyway. Even my CTC-16 only has a variably-tuned vhf tuner, no clicks. Maybe the fancier remote sets let you do it though, dunno.

[vintagecollect]

good point, I guess 13 poistions(U-13) was enough engineering for an electro -mechanical remote. Did any manual tuning sets- american or foriegn- also have UHF remote tuner function in the 70s/80s?? I guess constructing gears/mechanism was too costly or complicated for a remote 70 channel UHF tuner?



The contacts would have to be fairly sophisticated as positions for UHF channels are closer together on the channel knob. Were stepper motors ever used in TVs as these are very accurate, speed and rotation can be controlled? A continous UHF tuner would seem easier to make remote just needing two directions and stop contacts. Maybe gears needed would just be too large,too many positions for tuner to 'Clunk'.

[drh4683]

remote UHF tuning was available on zenith and magnavox sets in the 60's. In 1969 zenith introduced the "ultra-matic tuner" It was offered with sets having space command or power tuning. The ultramatic had 6 presets for UHF channels A-F. It was entirely mechanical. You would open the door on the set and dial in the channel desired for channels A-F. Each channel had a worm gear that moved a pin up or down. The shafts were arrayed around a cast aluminum drum that would rotate via drive motor. As the drum rotated to the next UHF preset, one of the pins would make contact and move a cam on the UHF tuner. The UHF tuner was just a typical continuous tuner but it had a spring loaded return. This is how the channels could switch just by moving the preset pins up or down.
This was a very noisy system! With all the mechanical components moving produced a very loud "clunk clunk". It was much quiter operation once you got to the VHF channels. The tuner mechanisem was continuous, from channels 2-13, then the UHF tuner would active then you would go from channels A-F untill you got back to channel 2 when the VHF tuner would reactivate.
Its zeniths most intricate tuning system. For that fact, its my favorite tuner out there and works very well.

Magnavox used a motorized continuous UHF tuner. The motor would stop when the signal strength peaked, it would stop. There is a coil that fits over the 2nd IF and decected signal strength. Once the signal was strong enough, the voltage produced would click the motor relay off to stop. I had a '67 model magnavox TV with this set up and worked excellent. oldtvman has it now.
The nice feature on this set, is that the remote control actually had UHF tuning buttons so you would not need to cycle through all the channels before you get back to UHF like the zenith did.

Here is a picture of the ultramatic tuner in my '69 zenith space command 600. I got this TV about 2 years ago already. At that time, The UHF tuner needed work so it got pulled and took pictures then.

[vintagecollect]

Thanks for the info, DRH. I remember one of my realtives years ago getting , I think it was-- a Motorola with clicker remote. That TV was very noisy when used, making a clunking sound. I Don't know how else to describe it. The tuners must be a bear of a project in themselves. I really wish I had that TV today. Nice work fixing those.

[frenchy]

My CTC-10 channel changing is not clunky at all, more of a motorized 'nyuhh-nyuhh-nyuhh' sound with slight clunks in between. Might have something to do with fact that the tuner is not connected to a knob... even changing it manually you have to use the electronic push bar on the front panel.

[frenchy]

Hey look, another one!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-RCA-Vict...QQcmdZViewItem

[kx250rider]

What's weird is; every TV shop had a whole drawer full of those lucite-buttoned RCA handunits, yet I think the TVs that used this early handunit were rare. I have only seen one or two pre-CTC12 sets with remote. By CTC-16, a whole lot of them were remote. On the other hand, late 50s and early 60s Zeniths showed up with remote more often than not.

I've sold a half dozen of those lucite-buttoned RCA remotes on eBay, and I still have them falling on my feet every time I pick up a box of old remotes

Charles

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by frenchy

Did any of the sets that old work the UHF channels thru the remote anyway? I think all you could do was click it up to "U" and then had to tune the UHF yourself anyway. Even my CTC-16 only has a variably-tuned vhf tuner, no clicks. Maybe the fancier remote sets let you do it though, dunno.

A quick and dirty way to get preset UHF on those old sets (this dodge will also work for non-remote color and b&w sets of any make or vintage, with continuous or detent UHF tuner) is to set the UHF tuner on a favorite channel (say, your local PBS affiliate, a favorite movie channel, etc.) and then use the remote to set the VHF tuner to the UHF position. Presto, your favorite UHF station would show up immediately. The only drawback is this only allows for one so-called "preset" UHF position (to get the others, if your area has more than one, you had to set the UHF tuner to the other stations manually, of course). Some sets with varactor VHF/UHF pushbutton tuning and remote control could be set up this way as well, but the tuners all had to be set up for all-channel tuning (some pushbutton tuners had the first 12 buttons arranged so they only tuned VHF channels). For example, in my area, I could conceivably set up a TV like this to step through all the local stations (VHF and UHF) from Cleveland: 3-5-8-19-23-25-43-55-61. Nine stations, and if they were all arranged in a column in ascending order, one could select any one of them with the remote. This will work in any city, of course. The nice thing about this arrangement is that the channels can be shuffled around any way you like, not unlike the favorite channel lists on today's cable boxes. The only limiting factor in either case is the number of channel positions available for programming. If you have digital cable with a box you can have this kind of remote tuning even on your treasured old CTC-16, or, for that matter, any TV capable of tuning to channel 3 or 4.

BTW, many late-1960s Motorola works-in-the-drawer color consoles had five-button preset UHF tuning (not unlike a car radio), but the VHF channel selector was the regular 13-position detented tuner. I don't think any of those sets had remotes.

[vintagecollect]

There may be a solutiuon to your tuner gear problem. DRH has link or PH# for tuner rebuilder, two other Akers have mentioned replaced worn gears AND refurbished tuners at great price.

[Chad Hauris]

We have a 1967 or so RCA CTC-30 that has power-tuned (but not remote!) UHF tuning. You can push the UHF button and it will skip through the VHF channels and tune the UHF. The UHF tuner has detents with one detent per 3 channels and you turn the fine tuning to set it up for the channel you want. The UHF mechanism is mechanically jammed so we haven't seen it in action but this is how it is supposed to work.