Lets see your hotel/hospital TV's.
Im curious if anyone has a wired remote control RCA tv. Ive never seen a wired remote control unit. What I do know, they were most popular for use in hospitals, the remote unit had a built in speaker and channel selector. I was talking to captianmoody and he was saying that the speaker/remote unit hung on the side of the hospital bed. Anyone have one they can post a picture of?
Another unique feature of the hotel/hospital sets is that they were built much better for the fact that they would be used much more. RCA sets used a higher quality circuit board. I believe they were fiberglass and were blue in color. These boards did not have as many heat related problems such as brittling like those sets using phenolic boards. Figure hotel/hosipital sets are among the rarest of all the older tvs left out there.

At the Tv shop I am cleaning out I set aside a CTC 50 Mural Tv. It is a portable color set with an AM/FM radio. I need to find a back for it. I think there is a Sylvania solid state hospital set in the mess. I do not remember if we tossed it or not. I will fish out the CTC 50 tomorrow. Then I will post pics of it.


polaraman

I've never seen a hospital or motel set before, but I once saw a tube set that was sold to schools. It was really neat - it was black and white, and very well made looking, a more industrial look to the cabinet, and a video input jack! Unfortunately, the set I found was totally trashed, it looked like it had been thrown from a moving vehicle. It was smashed and bent, the tube was broken, and the back knocked off. The chassis was bent on the side, and it looked like the power transformer had broken off partly. It looked to be line isolated - probably for the video input modification, and it also had a headphone or audio output jack.

Really too bad that it was so broken - I scavenged what intact tubes were left, but the thing was really beyond any hope of repair. Never seen another one, but I'm still hunting. The video input jack opens up all sorts of possibilites of usefulness. Not sure how the video input was wired, it had a switch, and I would assume that it was just patched in at the grid of the video amplifier tube, disconnecting the last I.F. stage and biasing the incoming signal properly. I've modified tube black and white sets to take composite video before, but the biggest problem is getting good isolation from the TV's chassis - the ground is fairly simple, a polarized or grounded cord or an isolation transformer - but depending on the set, the bias voltage is high enough to interfere with whatever is the source of your signal.

-Ian

If you go back a few pages you will find a post about my 1967 RCA Victor 19" hospital set. It works great but to complete the restoration I would like to find the original plug-in wired remote unit for it.

I once saw a tube set that was sold to schools. It was really neat - it was black and white, and very well made looking, a more industrial look to the cabinet


Look over at my TV web page (http://www.geocities.com/wa2ise/radios/tv.html) and about 3/4 the way down there's a picture of a TV set in a classroom in my old grammar school. Back in the early 60's each classroom received a B&W TV set for viewing the local educational TV channel (channel 13 of NYC). The teachers never used them. We were stuck grinding away at multiplication and long division and English grammar. Remember diagramming sentences? Yawn. We didn't get to write about anything, we just did grammatical test patterns.... As for the TV sets I never heard what ever happened to them.
http://www.geocities.com/wa2ise/radios/classtv.jpg

just junked one.
case was busted up and crt weak.
had a ctc 175 chassis with alarm loop and remote rj11 socket.
i kept the chassis.

I NEED to see pictures of that CTC-50, PLEASE post picture! Have been looking for an actual example for years!!

Here is the industrial RCA b/w tube type tv...Retro Hacker this is probably the type you are thinking of. It has video and audio inputs and outputs, headphone jacks, etc. It uses a regular series string chassis like those used in RCA portables but has an isolation transformer for safety on the powerline.

Here is the CTC 50 Mural TV. It is missing a few parts but I think it could be completed.

polaraman

back view.

polaraman

Here is a newer (Late 80s) Zenith Hotel TV. This TV is made specifically for Hotels, it has a built in radio (digital tuning), and I believe an alarm, there is a label on the back, talking about the warrenty, and how it is applied to sets made for hotels. This TV was in a hotel we stayed at in Quebec, Canada. I saw the exact same TV in another Canadian hotel.

polaraman, thats a unique set. Never seen anything like it. What is the ctc50 around 1970?

I have not really looked at the CTC 50. I will be bringing it home soon. I would say 1970 to 1972. I saved it from the junk pile. It has a 18" crt. This thing is a tank. Chad will flip when he sees it.

polaraman

Right around 2000 I saw a brand new Crosley in a hotel near Clear Lake, Iowa. When I got home I phoned them (Crosley) to inquire about finding a local dealer and was informed that they had just discontinued making them! Turns out that although these were US built, they were actually made by one of the private label TV suppliers.....never found out who. Does anyone know?

Anthony

There is a company in Tennessee called something like Falls River Electronics? can't remember exact name. They are the only American TV manufacturer left, and seem to make a variety of brand names...they may have made the Crosleys.

Thanks for pictures of CTC-50! I had seen that model in the RCA field service guide and always wanted to see an actual set.

(Edit: the company's name is Five Rivers Electronic innovations).

I like the way that -50 still proudly wears the "New Vista Color" badging. Nothing seemed 'new' about 'New Vista' by that time! Probably doesn't even use a nuvistor, does it?

Yes, the CTC 50 would use a nuvistor, it is almost identical to CTC-31...But the CTC-53 also calls itself "New Vista Color" but has a glass tube in the tuner R.F. (2HA5 or something).

Chad's post about the TN manufacturer got me to looking. Check these out, the last link may be the most informative:

http://www.ibew.org/stories/04daily/0405/040519_ITCruling.htm

http://www.ibew.com/stories/03journal/030708/p12.htm

http://www.ammagazine.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/news/news_item/0,2610,139536,00.html

Yes, that is the company I was thinking of, used to be the Magnavox plant. That's sad that it will probably be closing down. There was a public television story on Frontline last year about Walmart and part of the report was on TV makers, it showed how the Bloomington IN thomson plant closed down but Five Rivers at that time was still manufacturing.

I am helping to clean ANOTHER TV shop. I found this 1975 RCA XL 100 Mural TV in the pile. It has connections in the back for a hand held unit and an external speaker. I did not get the extra stuff with it. Two boards are missing to make this set operational. I will have to get the SAMS and post a wanted ad.


polaraman