http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3638&item=6130983257&rd=1

While that predates them, some Heathkits had a similar feature. An Aunt of mine who worked for Sears in Chick-ogg-oh had a Sears brand set which featured a tilt out control panel (user adjustments, not repairman flavor). Don't recall much about it, but this was the first color set in the family.....musta been late 60's or so.

Anthony

Built one o' those Heathkits in the mid 70's. I think we referred to it as the free GI tv course. A GR-2000 with an ultrasonic remote control. Righthand door slid out slick for access. Looked a lot like the Ebay unit.

Never should have taken it out to the curbside. :no:

I've got a "Works in the Drawer" that's the same model as this set. Mine's in a "Drexel" mission style cabinet. Free for anyone who will come to Omaha and pick it up. Had a great picture, but the vertical went out. If interested shoot me a pm.

Built one o' those Heathkits in the mid 70's. I think we referred to it as the free GI tv course. A GR-2000 with an ultrasonic remote control. Righthand door slid out slick for access. Looked a lot like the Ebay unit.

Never should have taken it out to the curbside. :no:

Curbside!? :yikes: Well, in a Galaxy far far away I did the same thing and still hand my head in shame.....but hopefully I've made up for that old sin since. "Free GI TV course, LOL! Am lucky enough to have a brand spanking new unassembled Heath (without the cabinet though). The construction is what I call "ancient modern" :scratch2: :D Modular construction but huge discrete components. The real weak part of these sets was their high voltage supply and a diode bridge that occasionally goes out. There may be others, but those are the ones I'm familiar with.

I wonder how the repairmen liked those Motorolas....if this was really a good concept or if it was more of a sales gimmick. Wouldn't be the first time a company came up with a new spin on something that the consumer thought was an improvement but the techs ended up hating due to some half assed execution.

Anthony

I wonder how the repairmen liked those Motorolas....if this was really a good concept or if it was more of a sales gimmick. Wouldn't be the first time a company came up with a new spin on something that the consumer thought was an improvement but the techs ended up hating due to some half assed execution.

I would say gimmick is a pretty good description.
Motorolas intentions were good but as the saying goes the road to hell
is paved with them. These sets did have a pretty decent picture. But
keeping them in good working condition could be royal PITA. As far as
solid state chassis go I would have to give higher marks to the RCA XL100
and the Zenith Chromacolor II.

My take on Motorola's, of various vintages, is that they had a real eye for the serviceman, but always fell a little shy of the mark. One I can name is a '59 21" table model I have which overall is a decent set with several little favors to the repairman, but its all half-baked because to pull the chassis you have to take the cabinet completely apart. I have the console version of the same basic set and you can pull the chassis to it in a minute. Had a pair of '67 color sets and the mounting of the convergence board, complete with clear charts and even its own tool all behind the front mounted speaker-that was good thinking. But the chassis itself didn't seem like anything special, pretty crowded, and they didn't seem to work well at all.

When I serviced them in the late 70's early 80's they were already 10 or so years old. I would still see occasional calls on them even into the early nineties.
I liked how easy it was to service as far as house calls go. No pulling the set away from a wall and removing a back. Don't forget people usualy had a lot of stuff on top of their tv's that would also have to be moved as well.
I have some 16mm motorola wid television commercials I got a while back and will try to get them transferred to video to share with everyone here.

One thing was, though, that the HV and horizontal output tubes and damper were not in the tray, you had to remove the back to get to them.

I was talking about the solid state model that is up for auction, Not the Quasar II.
On the one pictured the only part that is not accessible is the power supply.

On the Motorola works-in-a-drawer set under discussion here, there is a button on the control panel with Motorola's stylized "M" on it. Was this button an automatic or preset color control? I've seen this on several Moto works-in-drawer sets besides this one, but have never been sure what its function was or is. :dunno: Any ideas?

BTW, I always liked the idea of the presets for UHF stations on the Moto works-in-drawer sets. I wonder why other manufacturers didn't pick up on this when that Moto was new? These days, most TV sets and cable boxes, not to mention audio systems, have presets for favorite channels, but Motorola's system, which looks similar to the old mechanical five-station presets on old car radios, seemed to be years ahead of its time.

No mystery, Just decoration. All my sets have that also.

Here is a pic of my moto with the pushbutton UHF

Heathkit, is this the sears you were talking about?

Here is the last model (late '74) Works In A Drawer Motorola made before selling out to panasonic.
This one actually has an early 1975 build date, it was assembled with the last (or leftover) parts from the american 1974 run.
Only difference is a couple of QC stickers on the back by the then new Quasar/Panasonic assembly line workers.
A lot of american employees of Motorola's tv division got the boot after Pana took over. Has anyone ever seen the PBS special on it?

I saw the message for Bryan (HeathkitTV) just now. The picture of the Sears color set with the tilt-out control panel reminded me of a similar design Admiral used on at least one of its color consoles for the 1966 model year. Did Sears get the idea for the tilt-out control panel from Admiral or was it the other way around? :dunno:

Let's see, I've been posting here for about a year now and sign the vast majority of my posts with my name (Anthony) yet am still confused with someone else? Bryan is bgadow....... :screwy: :wtf: :twak: :rant:

Hey Captain, that set is a distant memory but that pic does look very familiar....can't be sure at this late date although I do seem to recall the color and tint controls. Am pretty sure that the overall styling was that typical Spanish Mediterranean flavor.

Below is a photo of a 1965 Admiral with a tilt out that I swiped off the TVhistory site.

Anthony (not Bryan) :lmao:

[QUOTE=heathkit tv]Let's see, I've been posting here for about a year now and sign the vast majority of my posts with my name (Anthony) yet am still confused with someone else? Bryan is bgadow....... :screwy: :wtf: :twak: :rant:


Oooops! Sorry about the mixup. Sometimes I post my replies in a hurry and get things confused. I guess I'll have to read my posts and replies to others very carefully from now on, before I submit them.

Kind regards,

Jeff,
Zenith had their own version of the preset UHF, known as the "ultramatic UHF tuner". It was a very unique rather complex mechanical system, it was not controlled by buttons either. WHen the tuner was tuned to preset station 1, you would dial in the channel and that was it. Just continue that for all 6 presets and you were all set.
The way the tuner "memorized" the channels was by how much a set screw would pull/push a cam connected to the UHF tuning shaft. There were many return springs and loading springs. It was a cleaver system and looks pretty neat.
I have a space command 600 console with that tuner, and has a gear reduction for the UHF tuner as much torque is required to turn the mechanisem. When you change channels, you can watch the tuning knob spin fast 3 times while it advances to the next channel! Zenith introduced that tuner in 1968 for the 69 models and they lasted through around 1972. Some b/w zenith portables had the ultramatic but you dont ever see them. You dont see ultramatics on any zenith set. I immagine they failed as most of the mechanical components are plastic and broke. I had to fix the channel stopping lever on mine with epoxy when I first got it, the tuner didnt work. I assume the ultramatic TVs didnt last as long because of failures in the mechanics as the sets aged. Molded plastic mechanics insure failure. From the owners perspective, why keep a TV that you cant even tune! Figure most sets with the ultramatics didnt stay in homes as long as TV set with conventional tuning.

Anybody have an ultramatic tuning zenith?

Otherwise, I dont recall RCA having a mechanically preset UHF selector. Motorolas system works nice, just like a car radio. I think the ultramatic and the moto WID sets were the only preset UHF sets (that you could easily change the presets on. I know some sets you could get a UHF channel strip)

That's my aunt and uncle's TV. I remember how cool those were with all the buttons and stuff. Had a decent pic too. Thanks again for the memories.

The RCA CTC-48 and some others had a tilt-out drawer with slider controls for bright, contrast, color, tint, tone, and a sharpness I think.

There were several different styles of the RCA tilt-out drawer...there was one model that was an XL-100 from around 1973 that had a long narrow drawer with knob controls all in a single line...then the slide controls of the CTC-48, also the knob controls in the drawer of the CTC-39 and late model CTC-38.

Some of the Japanese sets such as Hitatchi and Sony had a UHF knob with 6 or seven detented positions and a slide rule tuning dial...to set up the presets you would click the knob to the desired preset and then turn the fine-tuning knob and observe the slide-rule dial to set the channel...it would then mechanically remember it.

I do have an Ultramatic Zenith set, haven't used it for a little while, it is a power-tuning but non-space command color set. It doesn't seem like the UHF portion of it worked quite right.

In the picture you can see the Sony UHF slide rule dial and preset setup, this set appears to be from around 1969.