http://cgi.ebay.com/General-Electric-Vintage-color-TV-/140454256273?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item20b3b9de91#ht_500wt_1154

19" General Electric, manufactured in September 1987.

You are right. Rotary tuner sets were less common by '87. That set uses an RCA CTC136 chassis. I think the year was '86 when GE bought RCA. A year or so later, GE sold the RCA/GE consumer line to Thomson. I do believe this was the last RCA/GE color set to use a rotary tuner.

Actually, there were some "off brand" rotary tuner sets made up until '93, when the gov't required all sets 13" and above to have built in closed captioning decoding. I remember back around '93, one of our discount electronics stores was selling a Megatron brand 13" rotary tuned color TV for less than $100.

Most of the rotary tuned sets that I remember from the late '80's-early '90's were by samsung, goldstar, KTV, emerson, sharp, and a sears (which I think was a rebadged goldstar). I also remember seeing a 19" Zenith rotary tuned color TV from the late '80's.

There were a lot of older people who were used to knob tuned TV's and they felt intimidated by pushbutton sets; so, a few companies continued to produce rotary tuned sets for this market. It's possible that these sets might have been made after '93, had it not been for the CC mandate.

And, there was another type of rotary tuner that was popular in the '70's and '80's - the single knob varactor type. This tuner had the standard 2-13 VHF channel positions as well as several UHF positions on the same knob. Each channel position had, usually behind the control door, a set of "tuning preset" controls for each channel position. That way, the user could set up whatever channels they wanted for each channel position. This type of tuner was popular in Zenith, RCA, and Sylvania TV's.

Instead of a rotary knob, many sets had individual click style pushbuttons for each channel and many VCR's used this tuning format.

Dang! That is a nice looking set from the 80's. Why the heck can I never find one of those 80's classics close to home. I could fill a 55' tractor/trailer rig with all of the uninteresting black/charcoal/silver sets I come across - damn - never anything interesting close to me.

Dang! That is a nice looking set from the 80's. Why the heck can I never find one of those 80's classics close to home. I could fill a 55' tractor/trailer rig with all of the uninteresting black/charcoal/silver sets I come across - damn - never anything interesting close to me.

Hey, at least Tennessee is 6 and 1/2 hours closer for you. lol

By the way, did you ever find someone to sell your 1978 RCA XL-100 or your ChromaColor II to? I would've bought one of them but, as you know, it's too far of a drive for me.

Still have the RCA and the CC2.
I never sell/resell sets, just give them away when I am tired or bored with them.

Dang! That is a nice looking set from the 80's. Why the heck can I never find one of those 80's classics close to home. I could fill a 55' tractor/trailer rig with all of the uninteresting black/charcoal/silver sets I come across - damn - never anything interesting close to me.

And, that CTC136 chassis didn't give a whole lot of trouble and they made a decent picture. The most trouble I've had with the 136 chassis was in sets that used the MTT electronic tuner/tuner control module (non-rotary knob sets). The wirewrap stakes and plugs would develop solder cracks that needed to be resoldered and there was a transistor in the off/on switching cricuit that gave trouble.

I remember when these were sold new, in 1988, for $199 everywhere. That was a seriously cheap color set for the time, replacing the ubiquitous 19" Emerson sets in the stores that sold for about $225-250 I think. Just a basic 19" color set no frills. Rotary on-volume, and I think 5 or 6 adjustment knobs under a velcro'd hinged panel below the UHF.

I bought the RCA twin of this at walmart for my mother when her 19" GE from about 1982 finally got retired. The picture tube in the GE was almost unwatchable lavender in color, not that the set wasn't a disaster over its lifetime with color-killer issues, tuner, and other assorted problems. We were glad to put that GE out of its misery. I got handed down the RCA in college in the mid-90's and ended up giving it away before an out-of-state move. Still worked with no problems at all through the end.

Around '87, my Dad bought a 13" Emerson rotary tuned color TV to replace an early '70's 13" Truetone tube type color set that no one would work on anymore. IIRC, the Emerson was $149.95. After a little over a year, the set would still operate; but, we detected an electrical odor like something was arcing. Dad took it to a local TV shop and he resoldered a loose connection on the flyback transformer that was arcing. He told my Dad that if we had not turned it off when we did, that would have been the end of that TV. After that, the TV never gave another problem and was still working fine when I sold it in '97-'98. For a cheap Emerson TV, it had a very sharp and accurate color picture.

I remember last July when I worked at this warehouse in Dayton, Ohio for a day and saw a 1987 set (can't remember the brand) with a rotary tuner. It surprised me how new it was, especially since it looked about ten years older that in my opinion.

It could've just been a brand that didn't progress to well.

I came across a 19" color Zenith last year at a thrift store with the rotary tuners - It was from '87 or '88, kind of a gray cabinet if I remember right, and made in Mexico.

It's a shame that the rotary tuners have become almost useless (except on low-powered channels) since the DTV transition. Turning those knobs truly made the TV what it was.

Around here, the only way I can use my rotary tuners is with channels 2-13 on cable. Of course, that will all come to an end when the cable company switches to all digital delivery. The only other way I could use the TV's built in tuner would be to construct an "in house" MATV system.

Around here, the only way I can use my rotary tuners is with channels 2-13 on cable. Of course, that will all come to an end when the cable company switches to all digital delivery. The only other way I could use the TV's built in tuner would be to construct an "in house" MATV system.

Do you know when cable companies will switch to all-digital? I can't imagine it being anytime soon since most people still receive basic cable on their analog sets.

I have no idea and I don't think there's any legal time period that the cable company has to go by. They can go all digital tomorrow; or, they can offer analog delivery for the next 50 years, if they so desire. When I got back on the cable, around 3 years ago, I ordered the basic analog package. The woman on the other end told me that they would do away with analog cable within the next few months and that I needed to go ahead and subscribe to a digital package. I told her that I'd worry about that when it happened. Well, they have taken a few channels off of the basic analog service; but, I still have over 60 channels available on analog cable. I can use the rotary tuner inside the TV for channels 2-13 and the VCR tuner for anything above 13. A few months ago, my Sister and Brother-in-law got cable and they went ahead and got a box because they were told that analog cable would be dead within the year. Who knows when the switch will happen im my area. Until then, I'll continue to use my current set-up as-is and worry about what to do about digital cable when the time comes.

I have no idea and I don't think there's any legal time period that the cable company has to go by. They can go all digital tomorrow; or, they can offer analog delivery for the next 50 years, if they so desire. When I got back on the cable, around 3 years ago, I ordered the basic analog package. The woman on the other end told me that they would do away with analog cable within the next few months and that I needed to go ahead and subscribe to a digital package. I told her that I'd worry about that when it happened. Well, they have taken a few channels off of the basic analog service; but, I still have over 60 channels available on analog cable. I can use the rotary tuner inside the TV for channels 2-13 and the VCR tuner for anything above 13. A few months ago, my Sister and Brother-in-law got cable and they went ahead and got a box because they were told that analog cable would be dead within the year. Who knows when the switch will happen im my area. Until then, I'll continue to use my current set-up as-is and worry about what to do about digital cable when the time comes.

That's good to hear that not all people are being coerced into buying the digital package with threats that if they don't, they won't get any channels.

I feel the same way. I have Time-Warner cable, broadcast channels only. I have not heard one thing to date as to when or if they will phase out this level of cable service, but I'm not concerned in the least. TW is digital anyway, with the BB (bare-bones as I call it, broadcast only) service probably making use of conversion schemes not unlike those $40 DTV converter boxes for TVs still on antennas. I suppose this will be phased out eventually, but since there are so many analog TVs still in use in this country, I don't see it happening for quite a while.

I have not seen any new-in-box knob-tuned analog TVs lately. I think the government allowed the sales of these older sets until stores exhausted their inventory, but afterwards the only sets these stores were (and are to this day) allowed to sell were digital flat-panels.

BTW, I wonder if Zenith's 12" digital B&W solid-state TVs from the early '80s (those that are still in use, if any) would work without modification (for broadcast channels only) on digital cable systems. :scratch2: Were these sets truly digitally tuned? I'm thinking (but am by no means certain) these sets had digital tuning systems almost identical to that used in Zenith's larger System 3 non-remote color sets.

My cable company switched to all digital last june.They gave me a cheap little motorola converter that I had to have activated just to get my limited basic locals
only package.It does include the secondary channels(rtv,this tv).
I am going to give it up because I can get those channels and more from my
30 foot outdoor antenna.When they were analog,I got a lot more channels.

Double rarity: Tatung 19" metal cabinet sets with rotary tuning from 1988! They were lowest-bidder-gets-the-Navy-contract sets. The sets had a wierd configuration - manual pushbutton degaussing, an isolation transformer with a clamp-on heatsink, and no interlock - the 4' cord stayed with the set.

My first thought was they were hospital sets, but the manual degauss was a Navy requirement, as ships changed direction/lat/long all the time. if the picture got a little squirrely, just tap the deagauss button to get back the good pix. We had one in my shop that was on almost 24/7 for several years, with nary a problem. Other shops had problems with theirs - mostly bad electrolytics. I had to get real creative to find capacitors that fit and were available onboard. Taiwanese sets with mil-spec parts - go figure!

Cheers,