In my lifetime I have witnessed many amazing things but not one of them compare to seeing a color television in the 50's! It was almost sirreal

I can't say that anything has even come close since then

and the kicker was for the most part, they got it right. witnesses by the fact that many of the early color sets restored produce a picture that rivals many of today's versions. (analog anyway)

...

Consumers traded out the early color TVs mainly due to reliability issues. Even the best ones burned through horizontal output tubes, dampers, rectifiers, circuit breakers, convergence board coils, flybacks and vertical components on a regular basis. People watched them several hours every day so things overheated and boards got brittle. Eventually it was fix the TV again or buy a bigger boat. Few could afford both.

Those unreliable components were engineered out one by one. Each generation improved until the current generation of solid state TVs is sufficiently reliable that it required FCC regulations to mandate a trade out. That's what HDTV is all about.

I wonder why more was not done to improve the tube type color sets. I know about the problems as we used an RCA CTC-39 for 10 hrs or more a day when I was in high school. Bad solder joints, horizontal output tubes burned out etc. Parents had to buy new TV's when I moved out as the "TV technician" (ME) was not there to take care of the sets anymore. They do take a LOT more maintenance that solid states when they are used a lot. RCA seemed to be the worst with heat destruction of parts. The Zenith hand wired chassis seemed to be the best with regards to heat related problems.

---

Manufacturing costs drove the migration to solid state. In consumer products, the driver is unit cost. Little else matters. Transistors enable simpler power supplies, no sockets, automatic insertation and low cost. Everything else follows. Cost! Cost! Cost!

In my lifetime I have witnessed many amazing things but not one of them compare to seeing a color television in the 50's! It was almost sirreal
I can't say that anything has even come close since then

Yes, this is absolutely true. I have witnessed the introducing of color television in my childhood. Our family had a b/w tv set, and we only knew television in back and white. When I saw the first color television set--it was in summer of 1969--in the house of an uncle, it was absolutely incredible. Bonanza was on the screen in full color. I only knew this tv show in black and white, and as a child, I thought it was originally in black and white. I could not image that it was in color. Later I saw Gunsmoke and Star Trek in color when school friends invited me to watch color television. But these were very rare moments. In 1977 we got our first color tv set at home. It was a Nordmende tube tv set with shunt regulator.
In total these late 1960s were very exciting times, it was the time of the moon landing, color television, The Beatles and so on. But with respect to media events, I think color television was the greatest revolution since introducing of television, and no other new media can keep up with it.

Eckhard

I can't remember the 1st time I saw color TV-I guess it might have been in my grandad's office, he had the Zenith roundie I have now- but I DO remember thinking as a kid that color TV was "the Berries"-as different from regular TV as lightning is from lightning bug. Eckhard, was "Bonanza" popular in Germany ?

Eckhard, was "Bonanza" popular in Germany ?
Yes! Very popular. It was a real "Strassenfeger", as we say in German (= blockbuster? street cleaner). And a bone of contention between kids and parents. The kids want to see Bonanza and the parents said, it is a bad thing for bad kids. Kids start to cry and could see Bonanza, and parents enjoyed too, but not demonstrating that they enjoyed it also.
As far as I remember, in my aerea Bonanza was a political thing too. We lived near the East German border, and we could receive West German television and the sovjet infiltrated East German television. For the East Germans, such capitalistic bullshit was strongly forbidden. But most of the East Germans watched the "black channel" (the name for West German television) and Bonanza too. In an East German television report, scenes of Bonanza were shown together with actual scenes of crime and murder from the West German police departments to demonstrate that people which watch Bonanza become criminals and murders. But this could not the East Germans keep from watching Bonanza.

http://www.mdr.de/damals-in-der-ddr/lexikon/1601259-hintergrund-1601149.html

BTW: color television was introduced in 1969 in East Germany. I have seen there the "Raduga" (= rainbow) color tv receiver, a sovjet brand with a shunt reguator. High voltage regulation was incorrectly, and reached more than 45,000 volts in case of failures. So many of these sets burned. Therefore they were usually called the "fire bombs".

Today I know that the first Raduga was a roundie too:

http://www.telesputnik.ru/archive/all/n09/54.html

Eckhard

---

That Soviet article is very interesting. Kinda ironic, too, because several of the "big Daddys" of TV's early development were ex-pat Russians- Vladimir Zworkin at RCA, David Sarnoff-who WAS RCA-Alexander Poniatoff-the guy behind Ampex, & William Paley, the big dog at CBS.

I'm too young to have ever not known color TV.
I have made a demonstration of tube b/w tv sets for teenage children. At first they became nervous because they had to wait more than a minute before the picture appeared on the screen. They said if they had to wait such a long time after switching on to see a picture they would probably loose the delight (lust?) of watching television.
Second they realized that the picture was in black and white. They watched their wellknow tv programme in black and white, and they could not understand why it is in black and white and not in color.
One of them found an explanation: "it must be an East German tv set". It was not an East German tv set, but his explanation depends on the fact, that East German programmes appeared in black and white on West German tv sets due to the different television norm.
In total they can't understand how it was to watch tv only in black and white and why it was possible that color broadcasts appear in black and white on a b/w tv set. I tried to explain it with the fact of compatibility, but they don't really understand.
I believe they keep me for an alien.

Eckhard

My parents bought a tube color set before I was born. I was just thinking, I don't recall ever seeing a great color picture on a GE tube set-but then, that old KE chassis I grew up with must have done okay. I guess I didn't have anything to compare it to. In the 70s I had one aunt with a similiar GE, an uncle with a late 60s Admiral-nobody I knew had a Zenith. Some friends of my parents had and early solid state RCA. To this kid, they all looked fine!

I can attest to the reliability issue. It seemed that the repairman was over to our house monthly. I recall once there was a giftwrapped package in the closet and I eagerly asked who it was for. My Mom told me "Bruce". Well, there was a (then) young guy working for my father by that name, but I thought it was for Bruce Meredith, the TV repairman. That I knew him by name, and was not surprised that he would be getting a gift from my parents, well, that speaks for how often he visited! When that set was retired for a solid state GE (post-modular chassis era) the visits stopped. I think they came by once when the set was very new and that was for something minor. In 1990 my grandfather bought a new 19" Sylvania (NAP/US built) and my father bought a new 19" GE (RCA, also US built). Both sets needed repair in their first year but have done fine since and are still going strong to this day.

If I can veer away from the issue of reliability and comment on the "impact," although I didn't arrive until a decade after color TV did, I remember asking as a kid about those early days of color and the very negative comments made about "green skin" and ISTR that either "terrible" or even "horrible" was the adjective which summed up an impression which was then about twenty years past.

This conversation was at a time when an aquaintance of my grandparents' still refused to buy a color TV, such was the impression left by early demonstrations.

On the other hand, I recall reading an article by critic John Crosby (not an easy man to please) which was published in one of the major magazines in January, 1955 in which he stated almost incidentally to the rest of the piece: "color television is already here and it is technically magnificent." There's no telling which set he was watching, though I guess going purely by the odds it was probably a CT-100. And he would be one who could afford--and would demand--meticulous setup of his receiver in every way with many, many more times the attention to every detail from antenna lead-in to convergence than would be given to the average set on the showroom floor.

So while beautiful living color was of course promised, and under the best circumstances was probably enjoyed, color TV's very slow acceptance can probably be attributed to its lack of impact upon many due to underwhelming results seen in many early demonstrations.

All my older family members tell me stories about how their TVs were constantly needing repair. They were amazed when TVs actually became reliable in the late 70's. Now people expect a new TV to work for its entire life without any repairs.

Their expectations are met - their life is now a year or two, and without repairs... cuz they cannot be fixed ; )

I remember things drifting out of whack on our early color set, like the convergence, and that annoying sound buzz when white lettering appeared on the screen. Things you would generally put up without calling for the service guy until it got horrible. I don't think our first color set was a roundie though, it might have been though... late 60's I think.

Today I know that the first Raduga was a roundie too:

http://www.telesputnik.ru/archive/all/n09/54.html

Eckhard

Be sure you have a good pop-up blocker if you are going to visit that site...

I only had one family member that had color tv before the mid 60's. It was always neat to watch at their house during christmas, and sometimes a few ballgames. They lived in Caruthersville Mo. and we lived in Memphis TN, so not much chance to watch. We got our first color set in 1966. It was a small screen set and set on top of our big Curtis Mathes console set. By the time we got color the thrill was gone. It was like everybody else has a color set can't we get one now? That set was not very reliable, and was dead by 1971. We didn't get another color set until 1976. It was a Philco roundie that I bought from one of the local tv shops for $10.00. I still have it and it still worked last time I powerfed it up. I bought a new Magnavox star system set in 1978. That was our first new reliable set, and by then everything was in color.
So I totally missed early color, but from the people that I have talked to it was a real thrill even with the reliability issues.
Bill R

as a little kid , I could have cared less about the reliability issue, the fact that during the otherwise bland 50's something so marvelous as color television even existed was almost more than I could imagine. Some of those memories still remain with me today.

as a footnote, back then you scoured the TV guide looking for any of those little boxes up in the left hand corner of the program for the word "COLOR"

as a footnote, back then you scoured the TV guide looking for any of those little boxes up in the left hand corner of the program for the word "COLOR"
Yes, it was the same with us. Here is a TV guide from 1968:
http://www.tvprogramme.net/60/1968/19680214.htm
and the (F) for "Farbe" ( = color) marked the broadcasts in color. As you can see there are only the Olympic games in color and a circus show. All other broadcasts were in black and white.
Here is a copy of an advertisement for one of the first color tv sets in Germany:
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/saba/img/SabaT2000ad.pps
On page 7 the color tv set was advertised with the words "News reports, actual magazines and crime thrillers will be in black and white forever. Therefore this set is able to receive black and white broadcasts..."

Eckhard

An example of our |COLOR| boxes, same era.

Does anybody know exactly when the switch occurred from designating color broadcasts to designating B&W? I was reading TV Guide by 1971 and it had already happened by then.

There is a good little contest there somewhere-post a page from TV Guide and have people try to guess what part of the country it is from!

Did Russia clone CRTs like they cloned most other components or did they import them?

I've seen some very strange (to me) Russian valves and semiconductors, but never a Russian CRT.

On another note I was reading an article in a recent issue of Silicon Chip magazine about the 50th anniversary of TV in Australia the other day. It seems there were at least a few round sets B&W sets in Australia. AWA built some experimental sets in 1948 with round CRTs. According to the article the CRTs were locally made based on RCA designs. I don't know if any of these experimental sets survived. Certainly by the time TV actually started in 1956 rectangular CRTs were in use (well, they weren't as square as modern CRTs, but I wouldn't describe them as round).

Off topic, but on a sad note: Today a silver piece of crap karaoke system came through here bearing the Normende brand name. I remember some of their interesting, but rare (at least around here) TVs and Radios. I can't remember the last time I saw one though.

Hello,

we had discussed this topic already in the thread "The impact of early color". I think it would be best to continue this older thread than starting a new one.

Color television was one of the greatest milestone in human communication technology, and the amazing and overwhelming feelings when watching color television the first time can only be compared with the emotions accompanied by the next coming milestone of this dimension. This would be levitating and beaming people from one place to another like Scotty did in Star trek - not in science fiction but in reality.

Eckhard

That would be Howdy Doody at the TV station in Jackson, MS on the 17"
RCA . The station had two of these sets in a viewing room that would seat about 30 people. I was hooked. My first Color TV was a used CTC-5 out of a bar in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Hi, this is my first color tv. My parents bought it in 1969. It was very uncommon seeing color televisions here in Italy until regular color broadcasting started in 1977. The interesting thing is this is a genuine handcrafted Zenith tv made for Pal B/G tv system (you may notice it completely lacks hue control). It still works quite well for its age!

Hi, this is my first color tv. My parents bought it in 1969. It was very uncommon seeing color televisions here in Italy until regular color broadcasting started in 1977. The interesting thing is this is a genuine handcrafted Zenith tv made for Pal B/G tv system (you may notice it completely lacks hue control). It still works quite well for its age!

Hi, this is really interesting! which channels do you watch in color before 1977?

Was this a commercial PAL set, U.S. export, or did somebody modified a NTSC set for PAL broadcasts?

Eckhard

Consumers traded out the early color TVs mainly due to reliability issues. Even the best ones burned through horizontal output tubes, dampers, rectifiers, circuit breakers, convergence board coils, flybacks and vertical components on a regular basis. People watched them several hours every day so things overheated and boards got brittle. Eventually it was fix the TV again or buy a bigger boat. Few could afford both.

Those unreliable components were engineered out one by one. Each generation improved until the current generation of solid state TVs is sufficiently reliable that it required FCC regulations to mandate a trade out. That's what HDTV is all about.

Early on people put up with the reliability issues as a trade-off for the magnificent color images beamed right into their living rooms. As color became more wide-spread I think we lost our love affair with the color set.

---

Hello everybody! Yes the Zenith I have is an almost all tubes set. Despite the fact that it does not have the common "chromacolor" logo on it,it is equipped with a black matrix tube. It also has the common handwired metal chassis. Not many color pograms to watch at the time. I think my parents bought it because at that time there were rumors of incoming color broadcast. I remember watching experimental color tests at that time as well as the olympic games but nothing more. It is not a modified set, it is all original as manufactured by Zenith. I will try to make photos of the inside. I had another Zenith color tv (chassis 24MC32). It was a round tube set modified to be used with our tv standard. I recall it was bought by my grandfather during the sixties. Zenith was a very popular brand here in Florence during sixties and early seventies as there was an importer who used to import them directly from the production line and then modify them. I remember not many years ago I contacted that man and he brought me to a warehouse where there were many round tube color tvs still in the box together with chasses of equally old sets pehaps used to pick up spare parts and many many other old bw and color Zenith tvs!!! All that has been trashed not more than two years ago...What a shame!!!

Hello everybody! Yes the Zenith I have is an almost all tubes set. Despite the fact that it does not have the common "chromacolor" logo on it,it is equipped with a black matrix tube. It also has the common handwired metal chassis. Not many color pograms to watch at the time. I think my parents bought it because at that time there were rumors of incoming color broadcast. I remember watching experimental color tests at that time as well as the olympic games but nothing more. It is not a modified set, it is all original as manufactured by Zenith. I will try to make photos of the inside. I had another Zenith color tv (chassis 24MC32). It was a round tube set modified to be used with our tv standard. I recall it was bought by my grandfather during the sixties. Zenith was a very popular brand here in Florence during sixties and early seventies as there was an importer who used to import them directly from the production line and then modify them. I remember not many years ago I contacted that man and he brought me to a warehouse where there were many round tube color tvs still in the box together with chasses of equally old sets pehaps used to pick up spare parts and many many other old bw and color Zenith tvs!!! All that has been trashed not more than two years ago...What a shame!!!


That is fascinating! Thanks for providing the "missing piece" of your story... I work with a guy from Rome, who came to America in the early 70s. (Off-topic... It's funny that we have so many Italians building the Viper, an American sports car, lol)

Anyways... His father used to make many trips back/forth between Italy and the US, and he loved big Fords, and fast cars, so a lot of cars went back/forth with him. One day I mentioned a guy in Florence had an old Zenith TV up in his attic, but neither one of us could figure out "why" since it cost a lot of $$$ when new, but wouldn't be much more than a paperweight in Italy.

Knowing that Zenith built PAL sets, it makes a lot more sence. The missing hue control on your set certainly appears "factory". Danged if ya don't learn something new everyday!

Hi there! As promised here are few pics of my "pal Zenith".

This is a picture of my most loved tv set...Too bad it doesn't work...very difficul to find a more vintage color tv set here in Italy!

The Sony set was bought in 1971. Since we could receive secam programs from the near Corsica (France) we bought this small Trinitron that only works in secam L. It has a perfect picture and never a repair in 35 years!!! The other is our first "modern" Pal tv set. It is a Loewe Opta sensotronic (it has an ultrasonic remote control and its keypad and tv controls board is entirely made by touch sensors.) and it was bought at the end of 1976! Useless to say it still works well!

This is a picture of my most loved tv set...Too bad it doesn't work...very difficul to find a more vintage color tv set here in Italy!

Wow you have a CT-100...how did it got there? It was originally in Italy, or did you have it shipped from the States?

A lot of folks here in Brazil who are vintage radio and TV set collectors are people from Italian ancestors. It seems that Italian people are very prone to preserve antique stuff.

I noticed that you have a little Donald Duck on top of your CT-100. From what I read, Disney characters are very popular in Italy...are they still? Here in Brazil we used to be one of the countries where Disney comic books were the most sold in the world, alongside with the US and some European countries. I can almost say that Donald Duck made me learn to read. Growing up during the 80's I enjoyed the "Golden Age" of Disney comic books here, which lasted from 1950 to the mid 90's. They sold by millions, and there were very different types of Disney comic books. Unfortunately, in the 90's the publishing company that has the Disney rights here went into a crisis, and their comic book section was one of the most affected. Things are sadly different today, you almost don't see this magazines on the newsstands, and they are very thin, with a small number of pages. I also believe that maybe these stories, and the reading of comic books in general, might be "outdated" for the young generation who are growing up using the Internet. In a few years, the printing of this magazines here might end. I hope they are having more success in Italy.

What a unique TV! I've never heard or seen anything like your zenith set. What makes it so interesting is that its a true zenith made TV for export. I noticed it uses a "9B23P70" chassis which was not a chassis number of anykind on the american market. The letter "B" would indicate its a 1971 model year set. Is this the exact tv your parents bought in 1969? Are there '69 date codes on the original tubes? Chassis layout looks similar to 1971 models using the 12B14C50 series.
Extremely similar to US market zeniths by exterior styling and chassis layout.
Can you take a picture of the tube layout diagram? Im very interested in learning more about this set.

Hello! The CT 100 is a gift from a friend of mine. Since he knows how much I do love old televisions he bought it for me several years ago from a shop in New York. It is an unmodified american tv set but it was alredy not working when i received it. The picture tube has the three filaments burned out. I'd need time to start to try and restore it. Yes,Donald Duck ,Uncle Scrooge and company are very popular here in Italy. The funny thing it is in my childhood I wasn't interested in Walt Disney comics (I wasn't interested in comics at all): I started read them as an adult. My father ever told me the Zenith was bought in 1969 but since he is not particularly interested in old stuff he could mistake the date. I was only 3 in 1969 so I can't be sure about the date. Nothing is shown on the back which can lead to know the exact manufacturing date. I tried to take a picture of the tubes diagram but the picture came out blurred. I will try to take another picture with daylight. It has eleven tubes, transistorized chroma and color drivers. The vhf tuner is tube type and the uhf one is transistorized.
It has a chrominance "dura module".

Hello! The CT 100 is a gift from a friend of mine. Since he knows how much I do love old televisions he bought it for me several years ago from a shop in New York. It is an unmodified american tv set but it was alredy not working when i received it. The picture tube has the three filaments burned out. I'd need time to start to try and restore it. There are five known CT-100s overseas. Two in Italy, one each in Germany, France, and England. Those in Germany and France are operational. The 15GP22 in the England-base set is good.

Hey Captain Video, thanks for the new signature line!!! LOL too funny! :thmbsp: I'm used to just being called a cheap SOB, but your way sounds much nicer!

Hey, you are welcome! That's funny, because I didn't thougt of this phrase as a joke, as a way to say that Italians are "cheap" . It was simply something that I observed during this almost-decade I spent collecting vintage stuff: a very good number of folks involved in the collecting and trading of antiquities are people of Italian origin. God bless them, because here in Brazil ( I believe that it is also true in America as well ) the majority of the population tends toward the mentality that everything new is good, and that the old things deserve nothing than go to the trash can. I know that a lot of people look at me like I am some kind of weirdo. Almost everybody I meet this days is drooling over the plasma sets that are on the stores...except me.

Hello Captain Video! Unfortunately most of italian people think that new is good, old it is something good for the trash only! Just because we have the chance to have lots of antique sites in every town (too many in my opinion...) it doesn't mean that people doesn't like and buy plasmas and (junk)lcds... Unfortunately the "flat fever" corrupted the majority of people here so shopping for a good "old" crt based television is quite difficult. I can't really understand how people with average vision capability can't recognise a bad picture. This applies to every lcd tv I saw! No one with decent picture! This "use and trash" mania applies to everything, from pcs and printers ( replacement of cartridges sometimes cost more than a new machine) to domestic appliances (I use to pick up and restore them too...). We'll soon find ourselves full up to the neck in a sea of rubbish!

More and more, we live in this kind of world, where everything looks like to have gone out of factory just to be discarded at the first opportunity. A few weeks ago, my DVD player, which is a very good player, a Panasonic that I bought in 2004, when these devices were still kind of expensive, appeared with a little problem. The plug was becoming extremely hot with just a couple of hours of use. I took the DVD player to be examined by an authorized Panasonic tech. When my mother new of this, she said: "Why don't you just throw it away, after all DVD players are just so cheap, you can buy a new one." I was shocked to hear this. I went to the repair shop anyway. As it turns out, it was just a bad plug, the replacement plug and cord cost me only US$ 4,00.

When my mother new of this, she said: "Why don't you just throw it away, after all DVD players are just so cheap, you can buy a new one."
that would have sent me on a tirade

Oh, my mom would smack the back of my head if I said I was throwing some piece of equipment out.

More and more, we live in this kind of world, where everything looks like to have gone out of factory just to be discarded at the first opportunity. A few weeks ago, my DVD player, which is a very good player, a Panasonic that I bought in 2004, when these devices were still kind of expensive, appeared with a little problem. The plug was becoming extremely hot with just a couple of hours of use. I took the DVD player to be examined by an authorized Panasonic tech. When my mother new of this, she said: "Why don't you just throw it away, after all DVD players are just so cheap, you can buy a new one." I was shocked to hear this. I went to the repair shop anyway. As it turns out, it was just a bad plug, the replacement plug and cord cost me only US$ 4,00.

Excellent! Myself, I scored a General Electric CD player, Model 3-7000A, made in May of 1984 (so it is a very early model CD player), designed for console stereos, last Sunday when I went over to my friend's condo complex. It was starting to drizzle a little bit as I picked it up and into the truck it went. I brought it home and plugged it in. I turned the power on, it got power no problem but the carriage to eject the disc and insert them didn't work. So I cracked open the top and assisted the carriage by hand. I noticed that the belt to the mechanism is overstretched and if I replaced that, most likely, it will be good as new. I did put a CD into it, and it started to spin and play as I watched it to my delight.

Shame it was going to get tossed out over a trival thing like a belt. Myself, if I really had to, I would use a gum band (what we call "rubber bands" here in Pittsburgh) until I got the right belt to run it.

Well, for some reason, I'm a magnet for old stuff, I have two 1970's vintage stereos so now I have a CD player along with a turntable for them.

I was about 10 years old, and the year was 1957. (I will save you the math calculations, I am 59) My dad was doing business with a cabinet maker near the Milwaukee airport. The cabinet maker's shop was in an old barn, and his home was also on the property. While my dad and the cabinet maker sat at the kitchen table I went into the cabinet makers living room where the tv was on. I was astounded to see TV in color. It was the local evening news on WTMJ NBC chanel 4. The set was probably a ctc7. It had the knobs on the side and the chanel indicator window on the front of the set. WTMJ was the 7th station in the country to receive their shipment of color broadcasting equipment from RCA. I believe the year was 1954.

I also remember watching Bonanza and Walt Disneys Wonderful World of Color in the early 1960's. On Sunday night, my brother and I would go to a neighbor's home 3 doors down, and watch on their Admiral 21 inch roundie. In my estimation, the 2 aforementioned shows on NBC did more to stimulate the purchase of color sets than anything else the television industry did.

In 1965 my parents bought a 21 inch Zenith roundie. We sat it next to our 21inch B&W Philco set and only watched the Zenith color set when a color show was on, so as not to weaken the tubes in the Zenith unnecessarily. That Zenith is still sitting in my late father's bedroom in my mom's home. It has a problem in the horizontal output circuit (the plates of the horizontal output tube glow red hot) I think there is a shorted capacitor.) I have not tested the crt but I think it is probably very good as we did not watch it much in the early years. When the set developed the problem with the horizontal output circuit, my parents bought a retangular Zenith set and retired the roundie. That was in the early 70's. As a result the roundie dosen't have a lot of hours on it. The crt has the cataract issue. I am going to dig into it sooner or later and get it up and running.

In 1967 I obtained a used CTC4 from a friend. It had a good 21axp22. I recaped the set with all new Sprague Orange Drops and did a lot of tweaking to the set. It had a beautiful picture. I watched it as my personal color tv until I got married in 1971. At that time I sold it to a friend and bought a "more modern retangular" color set that my wife wanted with a remote control so we could change chanels without getting out of bed. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish I still had the ctc4. (the first wife is history, and in retrospect I shoould have traded the wife and kept the ctc4) I have been looking for ctc4 for a long time but so far have not found one for sale.

I recently spoke to the fellow that bought the ctc4 from me. He said he watched it for about 3 years and then sold it to a local Milwaukee tv collector. So hopefully it may still be in the Milwaukee area.

If anyone knows of a Milwaukee area collector with a ctc4, have them get in touch with me. I would be curious to know if he has my old set.

Well that's my story, hope you enjoyed.

In 1965 my parents bought a 21 inch Zenith roundie. We sat it next to our 21inch B&W Philco set and only watched the Zenith color set when a color show was on, so as not to weaken the tubes in the Zenith unnecessarily. Your dad and I were on the same page back then. In '63 my first CT-100 sat next to a late '40s Farnsworth daily watcher, which got used unless there was a color show.

BTW: color television was introduced in 1969 in East Germany. I have seen there the "Raduga" (= rainbow) color tv receiver, a sovjet brand with a shunt reguator. High voltage regulation was incorrectly, and reached more than 45,000 volts in case of failures. So many of these sets burned. Therefore they were usually called the "fire bombs".

Here are some more informations about the Raduga color tv set:

The first Raduga was reported in 1954:

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/r/raduga/raduga_op.html

Chassis:

http://oldradio.qrz.ru/radios/149-app-2.gif
http://oldradio.qrz.ru/radios/149-disk.gif

Schematics:

http://oldradio.qrz.ru/radios/149-shem-gray.gif
http://oldradio.qrz.ru/radios/149-shem-bw.gif

The Sovjets experimented with serial encoded color signals and color wheel in these days.

The next one is from 1962, and it looks like an RCA CTC5:

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/r/raduga/raduga_tw62.html

Some hybrid sets were made in the 1960s and 1970s, perhaps I will get one of these sets in the next weeks. I already have a SECAM converter for it.

Here is one of 1973 with chassis photos:

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/r/raduga/raduga703_704.html

And this one is made in 1986:

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/r/raduga/raduga61tc342d.html

The one which I knew from my visits in East Germany was the Радуга 5. But I did not find a photo of it yet. The Радуга 5 was so faulty that tv servicemen were adviced not to repair them.

Kind regards,
Eckhard

Did the russians had color TV in 1954? They got color in the same year as the USA?

No doubt the communist regime failed ... producing consumer goods like those. That color TV from 1954 is so ugly-looking ( while the RCA CT-100 is very beautiful ), presenting such a small picture ... not to mention that it was a dangerous set!

And that color TV from 1986 (!) ... gee, it looks like a clone of the cheap black-and-white sets that were sold by millions here in Brazil during the 1970's!

In 1986 no B/W set here in Brazil looked like that TV, let alone color sets!

our first color set was a philco ford from 1965-66. delivered on a saturday evening and we enjoyed that roundie all night! didn t work on sunday though.horizontal output tube.generally a good set-once a year it broke down.picture was extremely good! crt weakened and a new sylvania d-16 was purchased. this set had the best picture ever and to this day still operates without a service issue. okay,i did do some adjustments and cleaned the tuner a couple times. picture is still very good. i think this is the best ever made or any old zenith. early xl 100s are also very good reliable sets. i currently have a 27 toshiba that is 13 years old and has played non stop in that time. it is in my sons room and he doesn t shut it off. i still like the early color picture. the reds seem more saturated and pleasing to the eye. like technocolor. as television gets bigger and better, i think some of the excitement is gone. 106 " dlp projector in hd is nice,but i think i might would rather watch a good roundie.

agreed

First color set in my home was also a Philco Ford ( a 1978 model ), when I was just 1 year old. Our first TV was also a Philco Ford, a big, 23 inch 1974 B/W model, that my father bought one year before he got married. Since he got color when I was only 1 year old, the big B/W set became my first bedroom TV ( I am a TV addicted ever since. Blame my parents ... only difference is that in those days there were good programs to watch ).

We still kept both Philcos until sometime around 1986. I now wish I still have them.

I remember watching Wonderful World Of Disney on my Grandparents Color Zenith Console TV in 65 or 66,when I was only 3 or 4,and thinking it was the most beautiful thing Id ever seen.My parents got a Zenith color console in 68,I think.My folks had to have a local guy who did tv repair on the side come and fix it at least once every few years,at $75 or more a pop.Ive had an RCA 27" since 89,and not one problem.
Jimmy

Did the russians had color TV in 1954? They got color in the same year as the USA?

As far as I know, public color television was introduced in the USSR in 1968 with SECAM standard. In 1954 the Sovjets used experimental color television with color wheel, similar to the CBS color wheel system.

No doubt the communist regime failed ... producing consumer goods like those. That color TV from 1954 is so ugly-looking ( while the RCA CT-100 is very beautiful ), presenting such a small picture ... not to mention that it was a dangerous set!

This small color tv set from 1954 was a modified black and white tv set with a color wheel in the housing and a magnifying glass in front. Some of these sets still survived, and the full manual and documentation is available here:

http://www.rw6ase.narod.ru/r/raduga/raduga_r54_11.djvu

For those which are able to read Cyrillic, here are some more informations and photos (see forum). Note that the words radio, television, televisor, apparat, and so on are the same in Russian:

http://www.radiomuseum.ru/index2.htm
http://www.tvmuseum.ru/
http://radio1.borda.ru/

Photo of an early Sovjet sets:

http://foto.mail.ru/mail/rostov-servise/569/570.html

- Eckhard

Kinda neat to see that there are "Nuts" like us who love old TVs & radios even in the ex-Soviet world...

Hi Sandy,

Kinda neat to see that there are "Nuts" like us who love old TVs & radios even in the ex-Soviet world...

Here are some more links to East Europe collectors:

http://langaitis.zenonas-old.radios.fotopic.net/
http://www.rkk-museum.ru/
http://www.telehor.c3.hu/
http://www.retrotexnica.ru/
http://museum.radioscanner.ru/
http://www.motorola.com/content.jsp?globalObjectId=1474-2695
http://forum.qrz.ru/forum120.html
http://oldradio.onego.ru/index_r.htm
http://www.radiostation.ru/home/museum.html
http://www.radiofokus.ru/

and there are many unnumbered sites as well.

For finding Russian web pages about radio and television you can search via Google for the words телевизор, Радио, Музей, Радуга for example.

Some more photos:

http://forum.qrz.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=8521&stc=1&d=1188851139
http://foto.radikal.ru/f.aspx?i=0afeeffc92f84283aad2f4b6439ba17c
http://ra.foto.radikal.ru/0708/7d/9692141aa607.jpg
http://foto.radikal.ru/f.aspx?i=39b4c247b53144df9247a05d36df4b8f
http://www.wlamp.narod.ru/rem_05.html
http://www.agors.ru/E1/Promyshlennye_Televizory.djvu
http://www.agors.ru/T2/babulchen1.jpg
http://www.agors.ru/UAE/innen_t_2.jpg
http://www.agors.ru/E1/znan.jpg

- Eckhard

Eckhard- WOW... Just WOW...(Grin)...

Eckhard- WOW... Just WOW...(Grin)...

Ditto! Plus, did you catch these Russian black beauties...

http://www.wlamp.narod.ru/pic/T2_29.jpg [click on this same url you'll see in the page that pops up]

Probably worth ten bumblebee bucks each on eBay:D

Would LOVE to have one of those "Zvezda-54" sets...

Hi folks!

I have got an East German SECAM color tv set and tested it with an old SECAM video recording from the 1980, recorded from East German Television. The attached screenshots show the SECAM performance like I found it also in live broadcastings in these old days.

The bright red and blue splashs in the picture are a common fault of the SECAM system. When I saw the first time SECAM color tv, I thought it depends on the tv set. But later I realized that every East German color tv set has this problem with the colors.

Another critical point was the fine tuning of the channel. With fine tuning the hue changed, and you have to adjust the fine tuning for best color reproducing.

I do not now whether French SECAM color television has the same problems.

Kind regards,
Eckhard

I remember going to my Grandparents house every weekend with my Dad to repair their TV's. He was a TV repairman.
I remember the Dumont with a metal tube, then they bought a 24" B&W Magnavox TV which they watched till about the late 1960's, they sold the Mag for $40 to a neighbor. They wanted a color TV. I remember my dad getting them a Sylvania with a few tubes in it. They loved to watch TV, they were retired. Every weekend we had to go over there to "visit". It was either a HOT, a shorted transistor, one time the power transformer opened up, the picture tube replaced, the sound quit, and the worst was the mechanical tuner, always needed cleaning, then it wore out from them changing the channel all the time. When it quit in 1977, they said they wanted a TV with remote because it was a lot of effort to get out of the chair all the time to change the channel and volume. They also wanted a cabinet that matched the furniture. By then Solid State was taking over, I was sold on the top of the line Magnavox Star TV. I bought them one as a gift, it cost $1000. The picture was great, it had remote, in a beautiful cabinet. They got sick when they found out the cost. They felt terrible that I spent that kind of money on them, they reimbursed me. I know the TV didn't act up for almost 9 years, the picture tube was replaced after 4 years, and some sensor in the front for the remote. They passed away, I was told to pick up the TV or it was getting thrown out. It sat in the living room for a year, it still worked, picture had a very slight jitter in it, sold it for $100 in 1989, that person sold it for $250.

Very interesting display of SECAM! I had read of the shortcomings but never seen them.

So SECAM wasn't really a great system, or what? I personally have no knowledge of anything except NTSC.

eberts, the Magnavox Star system TVs were always among my favorites from that era. They seem quite rare these days. Any pics? :scratch2:

So SECAM wasn't really a great system, or what? I personally have no knowledge of anything except NTSC.

eberts, the Magnavox Star system TVs were always among my favorites from that era. They seem quite rare these days. Any pics? :scratch2:

I don't know if I have a pic of that TV, except in my head.
I remember changing channels with the remote, no click or clack noise.
the picture would change in an instant, the channel numeral would be displayed on the screen, then shrink away. They thought it was so cool that the picture was so clear and vivid, they could see the pimples on the actors' faces.
I remember Magnavox evolved to newer chasis by the 80's with the inline 100 degree tubes 25VEUP22 made by Rauland. My Dad bought one of those for himself, it was $750. If the back of the main chassis was not soldered properly where the horizontal board plugged in, the picture tube neck would get a hole in it, and the neck would fall off. Self destructing TV's. I am going to throw that chassis and tube out, keeping the fancy white cabinet, put a flat panel TV into it.
Yea, someday, by then Mars will have been colonized.

I have a French PAL to SECAM converter. The color reproduction with it is as good as PAL with a modern tv set. No color splashs, no hue bias.

The bad color reproduction of the Eastern SECAM broadcasts might be depend on the studio equipment and cameras.

But for a final conclusion I have to see SECAM broadcasts of today like in France.

- Eckhard

I have a French PAL to SECAM converter. The color reproduction with it is as good as PAL with a modern tv set. No color splashs, no hue bias.

The bad color reproduction of the Eastern SECAM broadcasts might be depend on the studio equipment and cameras.

But for a final conclusion I have to see SECAM broadcasts of today like in France.

- Eckhard

So, the color splashes are only with VCR tape, not with the live/converter? That might be more understandable. I do not know how SECAM VCRs work for the color channel, but I can imagine the FM chroma signal-to-noise ratio might not always be good enough on tape.

Also, I am surprised to hear that fine tuning affected the hue - do you know the mechanism for this distortion? Is the effect gradual or abrupt? Is it worse on taped material or the same as with the converter?

Thanks for the interesting report!

Maybe the DDR transmitters were intentionally setup to transmit over a West German transmitter to prevent "cultural contamination from the opulent west" and the chroma artifact was a result?

During the Vancouver worlds fair back in '86 many nations who had pavilions ran videos from their countries in their native format.

Aside from the really nasty flicker from a 50Hz video being viewed under 60Hz lighting (many later changed their lighting to incandescent for this reason), I never saw any of the color artifacts in the previous pictures, and I distinctly remember seeing many running off of VHS or U-Matic.
The French pavilion ran all Secam TV's at their pavilion.

I'm one of the not so few that when I travel to countries with 50Hz video, I can't help but see flicker. Even after a couple of months, I still see the flicker.

I was under the impression that France discontinued SECAM broadcasts in the late '80's, and is now using a PAL system. Anyone know for sure?
Kevin

So, the color splashes are only with VCR tape, not with the live/converter? That might be more understandable. I do not know how SECAM VCRs work for the color channel, but I can imagine the FM chroma signal-to-noise ratio might not always be good enough on tape.
Also, I am surprised to hear that fine tuning affected the hue - do you know the mechanism for this distortion? Is the effect gradual or abrupt? Is it worse on taped material or the same as with the converter?
Thanks for the interesting report!

The hue fine tuning effect is gradual. The color splashes were visible in SECAM live transmissions in the 1980s also, not only on VHS. Perhaps the different video bandwidth in France and in East Germany might be the reason. France has a video bandwidth of 6 MHz, East Germany only 5 MHz. So, the FM chroma signal-to-noise ratio is worser for East Germany SECAM as for France SECAM. Russia and the Eastern block have 6 MHz video bandwidth. SECAM was designed for this.

East Germany has also 6 MHz video bandwidth in the early years. This results in no sound for East German TV in West Germany. With respect to communist propaganda for West Germany, the video bandwidth was changed to 5 MHz and the same audio IF like here, so we could listen to the communist's propaganda. All East German tv sets had to be readjusted to get sound again after the change of the video bandwidth. But the handicap was, that SECAM was running with limited video bandwidth and a worser FM chroma signal-to-noise ratio like in any other SECAM country.

- Eckhard

In other words, it sounds like Yoorup was a big nasty mess, TV-wise. PAL, Secam, NTSC on American bases, 50 vs 60 Hz juice, Commies 'n' The Decadent West playing "Can You Top This ?" W/each other...(grin)

Hi,

First color TV I ever saw was my grandmother's 1964 Zenith roundie. Superb picture and pretty reliable considering us kids. She later got an Admiral roundie which needed repairs very frequently. My first Color TV was a 1971 Sony Trinitron (15"). My parents got the Zenith roundie and used it to 1973, Dad got us a black and white which we watched until December 1977. My brother was home on leave from the Navy and didn't want to watch the football games in B&W. So, for an early Christmas gift, he bought us a 17" Sony Trinitron (The biggest Sony sold in the USA then).

Hi,

in the next days we will get a Sovjet Raduga color tv set, see attachment. This set was introduced in 1967 and was the first color tv set sold to the public in the USSR. This tv set is very rare, most of these tv sets got fire while watching television. More photos will follow.

Kind regards,
Eckhard

In the early days of colour here in Australia (in the mid 70s) I remember speaking with the tv repair man who had worked both in the US and France ... his comments about SECAM mirror the comments above about fine tuning and the colour could drift if the AFT or fine tuning was off.

My first view of color tv was the first Motorola set in 1955. My dad worked for Motorola as service tech and installed sets in Montgomery, Alabama. His boss received the first Motorola color set for a demo; the guy took it to his home first and invited the employees to come over for a viewing one evening; I'll never forget it was the presentation of "Heidi"; most of the commercials were in color as I remember, one of the car manufacturers was a big sponsor. As a 9 or 10 year old I remember the color as being great, what a change from dull b&w like most everything else was. Also went to their shop some afternoons where my dad let my brother and I watch Howdy Doody in color, what a treat that was. All this fostered my early interest in this stuff.

Just as a point of interest. The color special "Heidi" you watched on your presumably 19" Motorola color set was telecast on Oct. 1, 1955 on NBC. The show starred Natalie Wood and Wally Cox.

-Steve D.

Good day Gentlemen,

Answers to some of your questions concerning SECAM. I live in Paris, France and receive it daily.

Analogue SECAM over the air transmissions will continue until 2012, our planned cut-off date. Transmissions are all in the UHF Bands IV & V, positive video modulation, AM mono sound + NICAM 728 digital stereo audio. NICAM is the same as pioneered by the BBC, but with a subcarrier adapted to the French L transmission standard (5.85 MHz, from memory).

In the meantime, all OTH programs are being duplicated with the DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcast-Terrestrial) system which is a pan-European standard. The transmitters are co-sited with their analogue counterparts and use the adjacent UHF channel run at -10 -15dB below the analogue power output. SD 625 video uses MPEG-2 encoding and terrestrial HD (1080i/50), due to start in early 2009 uses MPEG-4. Currently in Paris for instance, there are 18 Free-to-Air SD programs + another 8 which are encrypted and need a subscription & smart-card.

There was much debate over the MPEG-2/MPEG-4 issue. French broadcasters & set top box manufacturers urged the government to delay DVB-T until dual-standard IC decoder chips were available. As the opening of service was already 2 years behind schedule, the government said "No" and went ahead with SD/MPEG-2 service in April of 2005. Currently, about 70% of the population can receive DVB-T.

SECAM VHS recording:
Few people know this, but JVC adopted 2 entirely different schemes to record SECAM. The standard known as ME (Middle-East) SECAM records the color signal like a PAL VHS machine i.e. heterodyning the subcarrier frequency down to 629 KHz then correcting the unstable playback subcarrier upon playback with the machine's mechanical error speed variations to achieve a stable subcarrier. In the 1970s, this was the only way to achieve the high precision required of the chroma frequency without having a very expensive digital time base corrector.

ME-SECAM is used in the Middle-East, French overseas territories (Tahiti, island of the Reunion, Antilles, Guadeloupe, etc.). all these locations use OTH SECAM with negative video modulation and FM sound and are therefore very close to PAL B/G transmission standards.

For France, JVC decided to simply divide by 4 the 4.43 SECAM subcarriers (4.43 being approx the average between the 4.406 and 4.25 MHz SECAM subcarriers). Upon playback, the off tape 1.1 MHz chroma is simply multiplied back to 4.4 MHz. The beauty of SECAM on a VCR is that being FM modulation, it couldn't care less about mechanical instabilities. This is why AMPEX had great success selling industrial grade VTRs to French TV in the late 70s, because the machines had enough bandwith to record the chroma subcarrier directly and did not require a TBC to achieve color.
By then, the first 1" broadcast machines were appearing (AMPEX VPR-1 type A, then type C Ampex VPR-2, Sony BVH-1100,...) with 100K$ price tags! you could get 4-5 industrial machines for the same price...

The pictures shown by Eckard are not typical of off tape VHS SECAM. I have recorded over 800 tapes since 1977, and would never have put up with this type of defect on my movies!
I would say that this defect can show up with 1) excessive input luminance on the recorded signal, b) no 75 Ohm termination on the recorded or output video, 3)worn-out heads. Off course, playing color bars from a test tape on a waveform monitor would tell us more...

SECAM or PAL:
Very early on (late 60s) the French discovered that SECAM was a real PIA in production, especially in switchers (Vision Mixers for our UK readers). If you want to do a simple fade-to-black, you can't simply reduce the signal's amplitude as the FM chroma subcarriers remain at constant level, so for instance, the anchorman's (woman) face will get redder & redder as the Y signal diminishes and the chroma content increases relatively.
So, you must decode the SECAM into Y, R-Y & B-Y and attenuate all 3 signals at the same time, then re-encode into composite SECAM. In a nutshell, this means a lot of additional circuitry + unacceptable degradations from cumulative encode/decode processing.
So, very early on, PAL switchers were used, along with PAL cameras and VTRs and SECAM was only used for transmission by transcoding from PAL to SECAM the production chain's output.

PAL was adopted in production by private production houses & networks, however French state TV lingered on with SECAM for a while for political reasons, as this was still the "official" system adopted by France.
*FYI private TV networks did not appear in France until 1984. Before that, all Radio/TV on French soil was government controlled.

Many people in the French production industry were not satisfied with PAL. Although much more convenient than SECAM, it had its own set of quirks, for instance very difficult editing without horizontal "picture hops" at the edit point. Inquiry into this matter revealed the necessity for high stability Sync-to-H in the PAL subcarrier which in those days meant buying à 40K$ Tektronix Master SPG.

France therefore pioneered work in component analogue video in the late 80s, and coaxed suppliers such as GVG & Ampex to bring out component video products. This was a particularly enticing proposition as Betacam, then Betacam-SP were component recording formats, so a full component chain could be maintained from camera to master tape. Then component digital came along and the rest is history.

I hope i haven't bored you too much with this long post,

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France

Thanks for the lengthy explanation!

Eckhard,
Were the fires caused by the flyback? I look forward to more details!

bgadow, the fires were caused by bad shunt regulator design. The shunt regulator control currents failed and with them the E.H.T. climbed up to 40 or 50 KV. This high voltage generated arcing, fire and even damage of the crt, which implodes. The tv technicians are advised to withhold the sets when they came into the repair shop in the 1980s, and not to return them to their owners. This is the reason why only a few of these sets survived.

- Eckhard

Hello all, thank you for the interesting information! Has anyone heard about the gimmick people used back "then" to make the BW TVs look like they had color? Mom recalls a cellophane (?) material with blue on top and green on the bottom that you could put on the screen to alter the picture color. I know that is lame but I think color tvs were still a "luxury" even if you could afford to buy one (here in the conservative midwest that is).

As kids (late 1960s), when we actually had our 3 color tv sets stacked on top of each other ("field testing" dad said) we would have alot of fun turning the picture from green to red to light to dark to verticle hold or not! The TVs were on "loan". I began to love electronics because we were allowed to play with the sets at a young age. Nothing ever broke so bad that it couldn't be fixed. Thanks Dad!!! I just wish I were better at math.

Here's one of those filter sheets at the Early Television Museum:
http://www.earlytelevision.org/color_filter.html

Hi, this is really interesting! which channels do you watch in color before 1977?

Was this a commercial PAL set, U.S. export, or did somebody modified a NTSC set for PAL broadcasts?

Eckhard

in Italy since 1974 could receive the broadcasts in color from Switzerland and Koper with dns PAL, by France and the Principality of Monaco in SECAM, and therefore easy to find equipment color system Multistandard. (PAL-SECAM) zenith, as I know, send the individual components in Italy to the Electronics Montagni Florence. Here were reassembled with the circuit suitable for receiving PAL programs. but I, in the Company Montagni (which inter alia provided to spread the TV signals of IST Switzerland Telecapodistria ANTENNE2 and TMC) I have seen some with SECAM system for the control signals ANTENNAS 2 and TMC.

<<Since the'70s the entrepreneur Mauro Montagni decided to put himself against the idea of monopoly, the occasion was for the World Cup played in Mexico, he captando from Mount Secchieta signal A2 from Corsica did other repeat that amplified through an apparatus autocostruito, the city of Florence. On 10 August 1970 could see some Florentine football matches of the World Organization for the first time in color, and for the first time ever not in connection with a broadcaster of State, the same place of Mauro Montagni company was transformed provisionally into a hall to watch the games in color. Only after the heavy defeat in the final 4 to 1 with Brazil the Judiciary intervened against contractor had infringed because a law of 1938 that forbade anyone to make radio without prior authorization from the Minister of Posts. The same Montagni recalls, with much regret, that to see the matches in color at his company were the Mayor of Florence, the Prefect and also the director of RAI Florence. <<Tutti To tifare as amiconi old data; pity that they finished the World Cup I denunciarono>>. A lawsuit that Mauro Montagni lost, but at a distance of more than thirty years can proudly claim to have won and quest'episodio gave way to long and arduous struggle for the spread of private television over the air in Italy.>>
<<In Italy are beginning to receive foreign television signals as: TV ITALIAN SWISS (IST) from the Canton Ticino, TELEMONTECARLO (TMC) from the Principality of Monaco that radiates the first transmission to Italy on 5 August 1974 by the 'Industrial Marcucci who install a repeater on Mount Pizzorne in Lucca, KOPER KOPER TV station upstream Nanos in Yugoslavia and ANTENNAS 2 (A2) from France. The latter, so that the signal was received well throughout the central and northern peninsula, demonstrating the superiority of television system colors French had stipulated by the company INTERSECAM, a costly maintenance contract with the Florentine businessman to Montagni which were provided all the equipment necessary radio frequency. The bridgehead from which captava signal A2 was the upstream Secchieta single point from which "saw" the transmitter French Bastia in Corsica. As a week to week, however, stretches the chain of repeaters installed by private captavano dall'etere signals audio-video foreign broadcasters and ritrasmettevano amplified to the towns.
The business was undoubtedly enormous because this will installavano on the roofs of several houses reception facilities of the Fifth banda (this banda frequency was one that had the largest number of channels available from 21 to 68) and incrementava the sale of television receivers polychrome since these TV stations sent by time, regular programmes in colour, otherwise not explain, for example, spending 200 million (1977) by the manager John Del Piano of the repetition of TV signals SWITZERLAND , KOPER KOPER and TELEMONTECARLO on Mount Guadagnolo at Palestrina near Rome. Note that the spread of signals in the south of Italy had life even more difficult for the clear opposition of the Mafia that inexorably destroyed the positions repeaters than anyone had passed.>>
Excerpt from thesis of Dr. Menichini Fernando

I made the transition from radio in the late '40's early '50's to black & white TV in the '50's. Now THAT was a REAL change. Radio with pictures!

Reece

Hi,

here are some photos from the Sovjet Rubin color tv set, introduced in 1967:

http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/sowjet/img/Rubin401BG_flyback.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/sowjet/img/Rubin401BG_vertical.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/sowjet/img/Rubin401BG_signal.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/sowjet/img/Rubin401BG_front.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/sowjet/img/Rubin401BG_back.jpg
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold/archiv/TV/sowjet/img/Rubin401BG_neckCRT.jpg

More will be reported on an extra web page about this set.

Kind regards.
Eckhard

BTW: color television was introduced in 1969 in East Germany. I have seen there the "Raduga" (= rainbow) color tv receiver, a sovjet brand with a shunt reguator. High voltage regulation was incorrectly, and reached more than 45,000 volts in case of failures. So many of these sets burned. Therefore they were usually called the "fire bombs". Today I know that the first Raduga was a roundie too: http://www.telesputnik.ru/archive/all/n09/54.htmlEckhard

The early Raduga pictured near the bottom of the article is a field sequential
color set from 1953. More about it on the ETF website here:
http://www.earlytelevision.org/raguda.html

jhalphen: do you have any pic with early French color tv sets? When the last hybrid tv sets where made in France?

yagosaga: from where did you get that old "Rubin" Soviet color tv set? I tryed to find hybrid (not necesearly Soviet made) color tv sets, and I always found about people who had them after those people dumped them :tears:The only color hybrid that I could find was an "Normende" ColorPrasident, but I couldn't radjust the color at the Delta tube.

Here, in Romania, they intended to introduce color television since the '70's. But due to pollitical reasons and the P.A.L. vs SECAM battle (all of the countryes in Eastern Europe, except former Yugoslavia used SECAM) we had color televison only in 1983. There where 2 reasons for introducing P.A.L. system in stad of SECAM:
1) Since SECAM was introduced by Soviet Union, by introducing P.A.L. Ceauşescu had one more reason to be anti-Soviet
2) West-Germany sayed that it'll reduce Romania forgein debt if we introduce P.A.L. (this may be true, since some one talled me that the 1st color televison cameras in Romania where "Bosch")

The 1st "Romanian" color tv set was Telecolor 3006 made by "Electronica" Plant from Bucharest. The 2nd was Telecolor 3007. Don't know what the difference between the 2 was. I sayed they where "Romanian" because most of the components where foreign made (most of the semiconductors where made in East-Germany, the picture tube where either: "Unitra" - Poland, "Videocolor" - Italy or "Toshiba" - Japan - these where 2nd qualty - special for Romania). The sets could work both in P.A.L. and SECAM. Since in the '80's from modnay to friday the Romanian televison broadcasted only 2 hours (later 3) - because of "comrades, make electricity economy!" + Ceauşescu alway apeared on tv - Romanaian watch forgein televisions. In Bucharest, people watch Bulgarian television; in Moldavia they watch even Soviet televison!
The price of an color tv was from 15,000 lei up to 17,000 lei (a sallary was then around 1,500-4,000 lei; bigger for other people, like those working for the secret police). Hoewer Romanians where mad to get them a color tv set
The "Telecolor" 3006 & 3007 wheren't the only color tv's salled on the Romanian market. Later version of Telecolor where made. For eg the 4.... had V.C.R. input via the same D.I.N. socket used for audio tape output (at the 3007 that socket was used only for audio output). Later camed the 5601, 5602 and 5603. This where the worsest Telecolors. They had an awfoul new programmer, the latest bad Romanian electronic components (in the '80's Romanian made electronic components becamed worser and worser)...
Other tv sets where the Cromatic (also asambled by "Electronica), and the Soviet "Elcrom" and "Alfa" (which where fitted by "Electonica" with P.A.L. - SECAM converter). With all the big prices of the color tv's, Romanians sometimes waited even 2-3 yrs. to get theyr hands on a color tv set. You couldn't test the tv before buying it. If it worked fine; if not, fine too. In 1989 about 10% of the Romanians got an color tv.
Some one talled me a story: Romanians tryed to manufacter color C.R.T'... The first one had an b & w image; the 2nd one just few colors; the 3rd one just blow up!