grandma's not so roundie

[peverett]

FYI, Motorola does not make chips, transistors, etc any more. This was either sold to On Semiconductor or spun off into Freescale Semiconductor(which was just purchased by a private equity firm).

That said, I too have a simpler and older Motorola phone that gives me no trouble. However, as far as older TVs are concerned, it has been my experience that their TVs were never the quality of RCA, let alone Zenith, even back at the begining. They always seemed to take shortcuts, using Selenium rectifiers in transformerless sets with the cheaper, wafer type tuners. They never became as bad as GE with some of their sets, but they were not the highest quality.

Motorola began as company in 1928. One of the first products was an automotive radio dubbed a "Motorized Victrola", hence Motorola.

[andy]

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[Chad Hauris]

I wonder if Motorola radios were made under a different division...their console radio/phonos, car radios and even printed circuit board-based table radios of the 50's-60's seemed to be of pretty high quality.

[reeferman]

I whole heartedly agree with oldtvman. Hey, all big companies have their cross to bear. Moto put out some good B&W products.

I can tell you how so many of these stinkers were sold in the St. Louis area. The discount retailer E.J Korvette (really) had literally a wall full of these things on the second floor at the top of the escalator. On Saturday night when "Flipper" was on, one's senses were overcome with a huge gigantic wall of Moto's with all that blue water. Since there are so many shades of blue water, and not many know the exact shade of a porpoise, a lot of poeple bought these. Oh, and don't forget Lawrence Welk color extravaganzas on Saturday night either.

Oh, the Flipper song included the line "no one you see ... is smarter than he". That's because Flipper never bought a Moto color set. But I'm sure he had the opportunity to see a few in Davey Jone's locker.

[bgadow]

Motorola did seem to be an "engineer's company" but somehow never built the highest quality products, at least not top to bottom in their product line. I want to be careful here, as I know we have a former Motorola TV engineer in our midst! There was owner loyalty built up over the years...not everyone cared about sloppy tuners on their '59 Moto nor did they care about less than perfect color, since they didn't have much to compare it to. They bought those sets from George, their friendly local Motorola dealer. You know George, he coaches little Billy's little league team, his store is right downtown between the corner grocery and the Sears catalog store. George wouldn't steer you wrong...

Another company that I consider an engineer's company is Sylvania...their sets could make a very good color picture but they had their problems, too. The last one I fooled with had circuit board traces that would lift if you looked at them funny.

[fujifrontier]

i agree about motorola. a lot of their old stuff seems pretty solid and well built. now to get back on topic... i'll have those pictures soon