Hi, I hope it's okay to ask to pick your brains. I've poked around here, and your expertise blows me away. I know nothing about old tv and radio repair or even electronics, but I love retro. If you saw my home, you'd know what I mean.

I like to write novels for fun (but I'm not hawking them here!). I've written six over the past ten years (my practice novels). They're all set in the mid-20th century. I've recently edited them and feel I'm now capable of writing a new novel good enough to query to a publisher. (You learn a lot in ten years.) I just have to write it.

Anyway, my main character will be a tv repairman circa 1960. I might make him a geezer, and there'll be humor and mystery/suspense. I haven't worked out the plot yet. I've come across some great YouTubes about tv repair (I'm sure I linked off this site) and bought three old tv repair manuals published @ 1960. I plan to do my homework for normal repairs and jargon. What I need (for now) is some out-of-the-ordinary information about old television sets for my plot.

How can I electrocute (or otherwise kill) someone with a 1955 to 1960 television set? B&W? Color? I see in the manuals info about High Voltage area, Medium High Voltage area, capacitors, and antennae that might work, but it's not spelled out for me on how it's done. What can interference or magnets do to harm someone? (Can you tell I don't know anything??? Ha!) Any stupid tv tricks you can do with old televisions to mess with someone's mind?

I grew up in the tube tv generation, so I remember things like horizontal and vertical contrast and contrast and brightness dials and rabbit ears. I remember old tv shows. That's the extent of my vintage tv knowledge to date.

I'd appreciate any help. I can't offer anything but a free version of my last book and a thank you. And a mention in my new book (for what that's worth, ha!).

Thanks, Vivian

HV is a unlikely killer I've been hit with it an can assure you that I'm still very much alive.
On some sets the cap of the Horizontal out tube is able to give bad burns.
If one had to kill someone with a TV the best way would be to grab ground with one hand, and the B+ supply lead with the other, of just grab both terminals of the power cord. Most shocks don't kill if one keeps a hand in ones pocket (which is a SOP for technicians) so a tech is unlikely to get killed by a set, but a layman pokeing around, or the repair man using a TV as a MacGuiver-esq wepon of last/only avaliable resort is possible.

gota run.

I'll have to check out where the cap of the horizontal tube is.:thmbsp:

I'm not sure I understand your second example. The victim would touch the ground and B+ supply lead? Okay. Maybe I've got it.:tresbon:

And third is holding both terminals of the power cord. Gotta see what that looks like.:scratch2:

Yes, it would be MacGiveresque! The tv repairman would be tied up and instruct the bad lady how to fix the tv.:yes:

Thanks so much!:banana:

Most sets of that time had a metal chassis (even the early ones that used circuit boards then had a chassis) and the chassis would be grounded. On most sets that had metal cabinets(portables, and cheaper table model sets) the cabinet would also be grounded.

Another potentially lethal scenario that is more possible is the series string power supply type sets which tied chassis ground to one side of the non-polarized plugs of the day. Chassis ground and actual ground could be at lethally different potentials back then, and on series string sets(the series string design dates back to radios of the 1930's BTW) if one pluged the set in backwards (very for easy anyone to do back then) the chassis could be at full power line voltage, and despite (often inadaquite) precautions the user could still get in contact with that voltage (a few B/W portables were notorious for having the precautions fail and the metal cabinet being connected to the hot lead of the powerline. On carpet, lenolium, wood floors or when a person is standing rubber in shoes this is not a serious danger, but bare foot on tile, cement, or out side the juice from a messed up series string set can be lethal!

Few people had color sets between 1955 , and 1960, becaues color was new (the "modern" NTSC standard was only created in 53' or 54'), and sets were expensive ( we are talking between new luxury car and a really good used one expensive). So if someone has a color set they either have good money, are technically skilled and pieced one together from junkers, paid a lot for a used one, or stole it.

If your technician is old then he probably started out as a radio repair man, and then transitioned to TV 10-20 years before the story is set. Some techs got mega confused by color (there was a primitive half mechanical standard that was dumped shortly after inception and there were many competeing and evolving experimental standards that were all swirriling around to confuse and daunt techs prior to the standardization), and simply got fedup deciding to refuse to work on color sets untill the survival of their bussiness hinged on it.

Techs of the day varied from the "replace the tubes and hope it works" hap-hazard loonies, to those who were good at finding and fixing any fault and had decent knowledge of the circuits, to retired or working engineers trying to earn some side money who not only could fix a set, but could design a TV or someting much more complex. Many techs in busy/profitable shops also hired an errand/house call boy to handle simple work at the shop and do the "so simple and manotenous I could train a monkey to do it" house calls (when what they were trained or knew how to do did not fix the problem they would take the set or the chassis back to the shop for the more experienced tech to deal with).

Current kills not voltage and for current to flow through one, one must touch two points at different voltages that can supply a large current. For example birds can stand on a power line and not get killed because they are not touching anything else but the line. But if a larger bird was to stand on the line and flap it's wings into the wood pole or an adjacent wire it would fry like a christmas goose. For current to be most lethal it must flow through the heart, and the most commonly occuring paths that facilitate that are current flowing between the two arms, or between the arm(s) and leg(s).

A non-electrocution way that one can be killed working on TVs is exploding metal can type electrolytic capacitors. They explode when connected backwards or to a voltage sutably beyond their rating. A friend of a friend had one explode in his face and was injured so bad that he had to give up this hobby. The older can type lytics were as big as tubes. When lytics explode the metal can usually stays intact and shoots off of the base terminals like a rocket due to steam pressure from mineral oil that boils when the cap over heats from the above mentioned circuit conditions (the insides of the cap can catch fire after the can goes flying).

I know from experience that electrolytic caps can be verry dangerous when allowed to explode. I used to (in my teen years) take caps I had scrounged from 70's stereo equip., and blow them up under safe controlled circumstances outside to entertain myself and my friends. Some of the larger ones that I fired (about 1/8 to 1/32 the size of what are found in tube TVs) could shoot across the street (a total distance of as much as three street widths), and the distance traveled seemed to be proportional to size so I can only immagine what the damage the type found in tube TVs could cause.....maybe enough to punch a hole cabinet and keep going.

Tom C.

Tom, that's some great information you've given me. Of course, I'll have to look up some of the terms you've provided in my old manuals to have clue as to what you're saying! Ha! You've given me fodder for not only the plot but how to build the main character. Thanks so much!:thmbsp::banana:

I would think it much more likely that someone would get killed while working on a tv by getting cut from a big shard of flying glass from an imploding CRT(cathode-ray tube = picture tube), than from any kind of electrocution. The picture tubes are under vacuum, so there are something like thousands of pounds of air pressure pushing in on a picture tube (and the bigger the tube the greater the pressure), so if one breaks, the tube will actually implode under all that force, and send the bits of broken glass flying.

Some of the really early (built before WWII) tvs used a different kind of HV(high voltage) supply that produced large amounts of current as well as high voltage, one of those could possibly electrocute a person. But on most tvs the HV will give you a good jolt, but wouldn't really kill somebody.

You are welcome. I used to write a bit in my high school creative writing class so I have an idea of what parts of my electronics knowledge are relavant to this kind of thing. My teacher in that class was disapointed once because my group did not pick my story to go against others in the class for the final one to compete with the other class' best believe it was my Sci Fi assignment.

Best of luck.

Tom C.

I dunno about gettin' electrocuted by TVs, but trust me on this one, NEVER, EVER, Pee on an Electric Fence...ESPECIALLY a "Bull Dozer"....Still hurts to think about it after nearly 50 years....

Ouch!...Glad I'm not brave or stupid enough to try that.

I was a 4, 5, 6 yr old kid...Something you gotta learn the Hard Way...Another Hard Way lesson was learning that no, you CAN'T outrun the things that live in that basketball sized grey thing that hangs from that low branch on the tree 10' from the door of the house...After you've whacked said Grey Thing w/a Tobacco Stick....Mbwahahahahahaha...

I out ran all but one (the son of a gun got my ear), but then I was tossing rocks from about 25' away and had a head start. Me and a friend went at it for nearly an hour before the bugger got me. Only time I ever got stung.

Adam,
I like the imploding tv and glass. Pretty gory but effective. And since my story will be set in 1960, it's not entirely impossible there could be a pre-WWII tv in there. I'll keep these in mind. Thanks!

Sandy,
Those are great stories! Shoot, did they have electric fences in 1960? That'd be great to put in my story.

Well, hon, they had 'em in '63 or '64...That's when my, Erm, "Encounter" happened...

I've seen electric fence ads in 30's magizines so I'd immagine they were still used and avalable in the 50's and 60's.

I would explore the earlier sets with the high-current high voltage circuit. DuMont was a famous user of this design, and that brand name has a sort of fifties sound to it, right? They were very high end sets in their day.

If the character you want to kill has a weak heart they would be more likely to be done in by a typical low-current high voltage supply.

I'm not sure about the implosion route. If your repairman is tied up, he wants to come up with a surefire way of killing this person. Being close to an imploding crt would likely injure someone but death would certainly be far from guaranteed.

So, he is tied up in that chair across the room and directs his captor as such: "that wire coming out of the little cage on the right, the fat red wire, don't tell me it is connected to the side of the picture tube? Oh, that is ALL wrong. Pull it out! Now, shove it in one of those holes on the side of the tuner. Got it? Good! Now, come on around and turn the set on...ZZZAPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!

An old story (probably dating from the fifties) and a very sad one, involved a young girl who was killed by a TV set. Seems that the repairman had lost one of the screws that held the chassis in place, so he just grabbed something he had on hand. The replacment was too long and touched a live wire up inside the chassis, thus putting a high voltage on the metal cabinet.

There is a group out there on the net (bet you would have to look hard) which believes that some sort of cold fusion style power source (or some such) is being hidden by the government and big corporations. The secret, some of them feel, is in a small news story from the mid-60s detailing how a young child was killed by an exploding GE color TV. There was quite an interesting thread about this on VK several years back. I don't know that you want to follow this angle as it is much more sci-fi than what you are after, but I thought I would mention it, if just to keep the legend alive!

Sandy,
Great! I can use peeing on an electric fence in my story. I LOVE it! BTW, did you get a bad shock? Get knocked down? What happened? (Sorry to ask you to relive it.)

Thanks, Bryan. Cool stuff. I do like the Dumont brand if only for the name! I'm not clever enough to handle sci-fi but I like the govt secret angle. Maybe the implosion wouldn't work. I'd rather see her electrocuted. But actually, I haven't even plotted out the story. I'm seeing what I have to work with before I do that. I'll probably be bugging you smart folks for the next year!

hummm well you gunna have it a murder, or accidental death?? I guess this old goober is gunna have a character, maybe a few flaws, maybe he eats while he works on sets.... maybe he's got a weird kinda food he likes.... one that eats away at his finger tips and leaves them especially susceptible to extra current flow..... always wet or moist from eating pickles while working fixing tvs...... slopping the cabinets up with pickle juice, maybe customers know him around town as the pickle guy that fixes tv's, maybe he already has bad health, heart problems...... Likable guy as a tv repairman but customers know they have to clean the cabinet when they get their set back. He always talks about intricate circuits to his board unhappy wife, who recounts those stories to her secret lover until the day when her lover can't take it anymore and electrocutes her husband at work with a rigged tv he brings to the shop with a particular fault exasperated by a story the tv repairman himself complained to his wife about as one of the most dangerous designs ever to be let loose on the public! you really can make up yer own details.... Hell you can use that design from Zenith with the 4 wire white capacitor that doubles the HV and cuts the neck off crt's who cares the zenith 4 wire cap only makes sense to a few people on the planet anyway..... Look at Seinfeld remember that episode with Jerry's car and Puddy was not going to work on it and they were talking in Jerry's apartment about what the guy tells you is really wrong with it... "Hey it needs a new Johnson rod" Does it matter that cars, even SAAB's made not from jets don't have Johnson Rods.... Nope it was still funny.... The less real details the better...... Its better if you let the tv repairman complain to his wife about the thing that will later kill him, that way the character explains why it kills him, and validates the story... Now to make up for this I'm going to misspell a lot of words and use google as a verb in several future posts.... Hey let the guy get killed by the VU tuning meter on his vintage 1948 GE color tv he took in to have repaired..... No one off this board is going to know what's wrong with that...... Make it a good Columbo kinda killing.... My favorite was the murder with the turntable and the umbrella up the chimney with the fire crackers in it to cover up the murder that had taken place earlier.... It was the best!

Thanks, Squirrel Boy. I'm not sure I follow all you're saying, since I'm not a teevee hobbyist (just someone picking your brains), but what you wrote sounds good. I'm actually trying to get a feel for what I can do with an old teevee before I commit to a plot. I have a working plot now. The guy is sixty but not sloppy. Looks like Paul Newman, in fact. Not married. There'll be a love interest in there. I've decided to go romantic in this book. There is someone I want killed off. She'll have a gun on my guy, who'll be tied up. He's instructing her how to fix the teevee reception in the underground bomb shelter and meet her maker there. It's just a matter now of using the correct terminology to get her zapped. That would be the tidiest death, I think.

One thing I'm not sure about when it comes to electrocution. She gets electrocuted but how does she get unelectrocuted? Does she get zapped and the current goes away and she falls? Or does she sizzles until...until what happens?

If she is to be killed by the electric:
-she could be on a ladder, chair, whatever, and when she dies she could fall backward
-there is a good chance that a fuse would blow in the TV (or in the bunkers fuse box). If it is a battery powered set, it would be the fuse in the TV. Also, with a battery set, most of the voltages are pretty low but the high voltage would still be rather sharp. Probably still too low to kill a healthy person. You will read plenty of old stories (on here and elsewhere) about hapless TV repairmen (and wannabe TV repairmen) getting zapped by the high voltage. Most will describe being thrown back, away from the set. The typical injuries in that case are not from the shock but from what they physically hit. So, she is up on the ladder that leads out of the fallout shelter, balancing that TV with one hand, he has her reach in with a pocket knife to "make an adjustment" and gets zapped by 10,000 volts. Doesn't kill her, but certainly would knock her off that ladder, backwards 10' onto that cement floor.

No, it's very easy, the sink up stairs starts to leak, so the person goes into the basement , on bare feet to check out how much water is on the cement floor. The TV in the basement spare room was still on,, so-oooo the guy walks over to turn the TV off that has a broken knob, actually it just has the steel shaft, were the knob was.
So being on bare feet on the wet cement floor and the bare steel shaft, and lets hope that the TV has a live chassis, the person get electrocuted.:thmbsp:

Very simple and realistic, I think.

I'm sure that scenereo has claimed a life at some point.

One other one that would be real wild is that most electrolytics were mounted such that if they blew they would hit the CRT. You could have a lytic blowup and cause the CRT to implode a large shard severing the jugular of the lady who would probably be close enough for the chances of that hapening to be good. It would also be a means of escape for the repair guy as he could slink up to a sizeable shard grab it and use it to cut the ropes.

Vivian-

Your plot proposal reminds me of (I think) an Alfred Hitchcock or Ellery Queen short story I read years ago about a man who was murdered by tinkering with his shortwave radio. The murderer knew the victim used his radio with one hand on the volume or RF gain knob and one hand on the tuning knob, so the killer replaced the two knobs with all-metal knobs from the curtain rod in the same room and then ran high voltage wires to each of the two knobs. As soon as the victim did his hold-the-knobs routine, he was dead.

I like that "get zapped, get thrown, and get dead" idea. That could work quite nicely. Thanks!
If she is to be killed by the electric:
-she could be on a ladder, chair, whatever, and when she dies she could fall backward
-there is a good chance that a fuse would blow in the TV (or in the bunkers fuse box). If it is a battery powered set, it would be the fuse in the TV. Also, with a battery set, most of the voltages are pretty low but the high voltage would still be rather sharp. Probably still too low to kill a healthy person. You will read plenty of old stories (on here and elsewhere) about hapless TV repairmen (and wannabe TV repairmen) getting zapped by the high voltage. Most will describe being thrown back, away from the set. The typical injuries in that case are not from the shock but from what they physically hit. So, she is up on the ladder that leads out of the fallout shelter, balancing that TV with one hand, he has her reach in with a pocket knife to "make an adjustment" and gets zapped by 10,000 volts. Doesn't kill her, but certainly would knock her off that ladder, backwards 10' onto that cement floor.

What a cool story!

Vivian-

Your plot proposal reminds me of (I think) an Alfred Hitchcock or Ellery Queen short story I read years ago about a man who was murdered by tinkering with his shortwave radio. The murderer knew the victim used his radio with one hand on the volume or RF gain knob and one hand on the tuning knob, so the killer replaced the two knobs with all-metal knobs from the curtain rod in the same room and then ran high voltage wires to each of the two knobs. As soon as the victim did his hold-the-knobs routine, he was dead.