I have a color TV
 

Has anyone been gotten caught in a conversation about TV's with their co-workers? My co-workers were talking about their big screen LCD's and everything, and then one of them asked me, what do I have?

My response was simply: "I have a color TV."

My co-workers were confused, and said "Of course it's in color, but what do you have, LED backlight, multi HDMI imports, 3D?"

Then I responded: "I have a cathode ray tube that's 19" and has dual RF inputs, one VHF and one UHF."

This of course severely confused them, because they are so ignorant about TV tech that they themselves probably used 20 years ago. I had to basically pull out a picture of the wood-grained 80's TV that I use with it's 300 ohm twinlead inputs.

My boss asked if I needed help buying a new TV. I told him: "Nope, this is the TV I want."

They just couldn't get it.

I run into the same thing. Some people just don't understand how I can watch anything less than a 60" flat screen. I was raised on various color and B&W TV's that ranged in screen sizes between 9" and 25". For the longest time, our main TV was a 19" set and we didn't get anything bigger until we got my Uncle's 25" Zenith console when he died in '94. I don't feel like I missed any information by watching such small TV's and I don't feel like I'm missing anything now. The main TV I currently watch is an '02 20" Sony wega trinitron. I also have no problem with watching a B&W TV. When I was about six, my parents stuck a 9" GE B&W in my room and I was very happy to get it. Now, kids have big HDTV's in their room and wouldn't be caught dead with a B&W TV.

I've owned (in order of when I owned it):
1980's 19" Sears TV with electronic tuning (with a knob).
13" RCA from the early 90's - XL100
19" Philips Magnavox from 1998 -- This TV's RF jack snapped off in 2001 just before 9/11.
13" Sears LXI Series TV from mid 80's with digital tuning via LED's on the bottom of the set. We had this TV in the family since I was born, but I used it to replace the above TV for a while. This was the FIRST TV I ever owned that had something other than RF. It had composite input.
20" Apex Digital from 2001 (This was the permanent replacement for the 19" Philips Magnavox) - This TV sucked. It wasn't rotated right, it's OSD menu "shook" after it warmed up, it's AGC was just terrible. But, it was the first TV I had that had S-Video, and for DVD's I LOVED it.

All the above TV's were given to me or bought by my parents. I never bought those.

Then, I bought my own TV with high school graduation money -- AGAINST my fathers wishes. I don't think he still ever forgave me for doing this.

27" Prima from 2006. It was a 4:3 CRT, but was HD, and supported native scan rates of 540p and 1080i. It did the following scaling mapping:
480i to 540p
480p to 540p
540p to 540p (Scaler shuts down. Though the OSD says 1080i which is strange.)
720p to 540p (Yes, a DOWN grade)
1080i to 1080i (Scaler shuts down)
1080p to 540p (Gah! Another DOWN grade.)

That was an odd TV, and I gave it to my mom. She complained it kept loosing vertical deflection down to a line. Turns out it was a cold soldering joint, of which I fixed, but the damage was done-burned phosphors. TV still works though, but I won't use it though, why use a TV with damaged phosphors? It's a Samsung CRT.

Then, my first LCD.

40" LCD, Samsung, full 1080p in 2008. This TV had capacitor problems. After a while though, I got "home sick". I missed CRT's, and oddly, I missed old CRT's with woodgrain..........just like my FIRST TV from when I was a child.

That's when I went literally, from a 40" LCD, directly to:
13" Hitachi from 1980 that I had when I joined this forum, and swapped it with an earlier Hitachi chassis that was a hybrid. I just loved the tube/SS combo chassis better, far different color demodulation.

And then now, the 19" that I have in my sig, that to this day still don't know it's DOB because the TV never had the DOB stamped on it, internally or externally.

It's funny, because I literally went from 40" LCD with 3 HDMI ports, etc, and went right back to the woodgrain RF TV's that are severely old.

No one understands this. Now I never owned a black and white TV, and while I personally have no problem with it, the phosphors they use, appear too blue to my eyes and give me headaches. If they were more "warm" I'd have no issue with it.

The newest set I've ever had is a '91, the newest TV I have now is an '80, and it's b/w!

Every tv I ever owned (I probably left out a few):

46 rca 630 ts 10"
46 rca 630 ts 10"
47 dumont ra103 doghouse 12"
47 hallicrafters 10"
**47 rca 721ts 10"
47 rca 730tv 10"
48 admiral 10" console
48 admiral 10" combo
48 emerson 7"
48 emerson 10"
48 hallicrafters 12"
48 ge 10"
**48 motorola 7" ts4j
48 motorola 7" ts4j
48 motorola 7" ts4j
48 motorola 7" ts4j
48 pacific-mercury (silvertone chassis) 12"
48 rca 8t244 10"
**49 admiral 12" console
49 hoffman 10"
**49 motorola 7" suitcase
49 motorola 8"
49 motorola 8"
49 rca t100 10"
*49 zenith 12" porthole console
**50 airline 7" porthole
50 dumont 19" ra112
*50 rca 6t65 16" console
50 rca 19" console
51 motorola 14" bakelite
51 teletone 11" bakelite
52 motorola 16" bakelite
52 rca 17" console
**54 westinghouse 21" 'the capri'
56 bendix 17"
56 ge 14" metal white/red
*56 rca 8" 8PT... metal red
**56 rca 8" 8PT... metal white
56 zenith 21"
57 ge 17" metal brown uhf
57 emerson 21" console
57 philco 21" metal
*57 rca 14" metal white
58 philco 17" 'predicta'
*58 rca 17" metal blue
58 rca 21" console
58 sylvania 17" metal brown
59 magnavox 24" combo
59 magnavox 24" combo
59 setchell-carlson 21" console
59 olympic 21" combo
**59 rca 17" metal black
**59 rca CTC 9 'the kenbridge' remote uhf
59 zenith 21" console
60 rca CTC 10 'the wynnewood' remote
**60 zenith 21" console
**60 zenith 17" metal SC300
**61 zenith 23" console
**61 zenith 23" console SC300
**61 zenith 19 metal
63 airline 23" combo
63 philco color combo (ctc15 chassis)
**64 zenith 19" metal SC300
65 magnavox color combo remote
65 rca CTC 15 combo
65 sony 5" portable
*65 zenith 19" metal
**65 zenith color 25MC33 SC400 'the orientale'
**66 zenith 19" metal SC300
67 magnavox 12" plastic
67 magnavox color 23" console
**67 zenith 19" metal
67 zenith color 25" console
68 ge portacolor
68 emerson 12" plastic
68 motorola 12" plastic
68 viking (panasonic) color 19" plastic
68 zenith color 21" metal
69 rca 12" plastic vhf only
7? rca 21" plastic tube
7? rca 21" plastic tube
70 zenith color 25" console hybrid
71 curtis mathes color 21" plastic remote tube
71 zenith color 19" plastic hybrid
**71 zenith 23" metal tube
71 zenith 19" plastic SC100 tube
72 ge portaclor
7? zenith 16" plastic tube
74 ge 12" plastic tube green
**74 zenith color 25EC58 ss SC600 'the avanti'
*75 rca 5" white plastic with clock radio
75 rca color 25" metal
75 rca color 19" plastic
76 hitachi color 25" wood table
76 sharp color 19" plastic
76 supremacy color 13" plastic remote
76 zenith color 19" 'the avanti' SC600
76 zenith color 19" plastic SC600
77 zenith color 19"
78 jvc 3" portable
78 sony color 19" plastic
78 rca color CTC92 25" remote console
78 zenith 9" plastic white
**78 zenith 9" plastic red
79 zenith color 19" plastic
8? hitachi 12" plastic
80 rca 12" plastic
**80 zenith 16" plastic
81 rca 13" remote plastic color
82 zenith 12" plastic
82 zenith color 25" console
83 zenith color 25" metal remote
84 rca color plastic 20"
84 zenith color console 25" remote
85 motgomery-ward 5" portable
86 zenith color plastic 19"
86 zenith color plastic 19" remote
87 hitachi 9" plastic
88 admiral 12" plastic
88 goldstar color 20" remote plastic
88 goldstar color 20" remote plastic
88 sony color 20" remote plastic
88 toshiba color 13" plastic remote
89 casio 2" color portable
91 rca color 20" plastic remote

All TVs B&W unless otherwise specified.
* = a set I have now
** = a set I have now that is actually all put together and working

My "what do you have" question always gets the "I don't really watch TV...but I have like seventy sets", and then walk off.

I do have a big beautiful Samsung 55" "touch of color" LED set from like four years ago now, and it IS pretty much my main set. Also have a 23" version of the same "touch of color" set in the bedroom. I have to admit that I typically DO watch these two sets. The big one during the day...and the bedroom one on it's timer at night.

I do find that when I'm doing something on the coffeetable (my workbench), I tend to turn OFF the big LED set and watch whatever I have sitting on the table (Right now a little 5" color Maggie CRT set). I do have the "BORING" 12" GE b/w set in the kitchen that does come on anytime I'm in the kitchen.

I then have three areas where the "crazyness" is. One corner of the front room with about 25 micro/small sets that I can turn on all at once with an X10 controller (powerstrips). Then I have the credenza thing with like 20 of the "Coby" sets....all the same except all different colored cabinets. The bedroom has like 40 sets ranging from the tiny Panasonics to the big "briefcase" boombox things, including a color JVC 500U. These also can ALL come on via an X10 controller.

I don't really watch all the "collection" sets all the time...but they do all see about an hours worth of action about once a week just for fun, and to see if any of them are sick (The Travelvision TR1030 suddenly has a focus/brightness problem).

I don't really watch much TV. I turn on the news...might watch that "Big Bang theory" thing that comes on after the news.....and then I just find something "not annoying"...which usually is something on Discovery/TLC/History that does NOT involve pawn shops, storage lockers, motorcycles or hot rods.

i get this all the time.when someone stops by the garage,they see my projects and my watchers."those are vintage" they say."those are video excellence" is my reply.they chuckle and watch the screen.commenting on how good the pictures are,etc.occasionally they will say that the picture is better than their home set.even had a neighbor or two come over and watch football on my zenith chromacolor.

Yep! :thmbsp:

All I get is "wtf?" looks from neighbors....because I have no garage. They will come by to see what I'm doing to one of the cars I have in the driveway, and will IMMEDIATELY notice I am watching an old Outer Limits episode on the Sony S8-301. I choose to bring THAT set downstairs JUST for the shock value. I wish the CRT had a bit more life to it so it would be a brighter picture. I think they are amazed it's working at all....and not aware of the whole "inhouse transmitter" thing upstairs, so curious WHY the Outer Limits is on :-P

There's no need to justify anything to anyone... Just do what you want to, it's your time and your money, spend them however makes you happy - I usually don't bother saying I listen to LP records, let alone watch black and white tvs!

That's a pretty impressive collection Adam!

Way too many here. Love my little Motorola's! They get plenty of odd looks, especially out of the cabinet.
The superbowl is generally the Zenith MC roundie. A good deal of use every weekend is a KCS166 RCA portable that was adopted about 8 or more years ago. (new deflection yoke and some horizontal capacitors and resistors). Great picture and some odd looks too!
Kitchen TV is a JVC 3 inch "3050" that has a million hours on it!
And of course, an LG 42" plasma living in a closet because my girlfriend literally hates it. (the one that eats it's sustain modules).
Wait till the 8 inch Motorola is up and running.......

I am lucky to run a full HD stadium with scoreboards, control room and 750 HD tv's on my own cable plant. And who do they come to when something analog jumps up? I give them the evil eye and then fix it. Trying to find a place to display our 1999 Sony plasma. Stuck for now on one project. Gotta find a Hi8 deck to rescue a 1994 tape. Gotta go. Pizza is done and the Cotton Bowl is on in the kitchen GE 10".

My sentiments exactly. I had CRT TVs all my life until I bought a flat screen almost two years ago, but no one forced me to do so "just to keep up with the times" or because most people I know have flat TVs. (It all worked out for the best, as I like the sharper, more finely detailed pictures HDTV offers much better than the TV pictures I watched for decades on my old NTSC sets.)

I still have my Aiwa bookshelf stereo which I bought in 1999 (still works except for the dual cassette decks, which quit about seven years ago; replaced them with a 1977-vintage Radio Shack stereo cassette -- 36 years old and still works), several 1960s-vintage tube radios, several '60s-'70s vintage transistor sets, and even used Windows 98/98SE on my computer until two years ago (I have an XP system now, an old computer given to me by an accountant friend of mine when he upgraded his office to Windows 7, and will probably use XP the next ten years because I don't want the problems associated with upgrading to Win7 or 8, and a story I am presently writing -- and have been writing the last 25(!) years -- is formatted so it can only be read by my 13-year-old Lotus word processor and a qvp32 standalone file viewer).

No one has ever (yet) questioned my preferences in radios, TVs or computers (or anything else for that matter), given me funny or downright nasty looks, or anything like that. If anyone ever does wonder out loud why I still have and use '90s and earlier (much earlier) technology, I will simply ignore them.

Those of you with 19''or20'' sets.any trouble with losing sports info on the screen with a 4x3 picture. Also if you can change the aspect to 16x9 do you find the picture too small?

I watched all the Packer games on my 14" Toshiba flat screen CRT set or my Sony Wega 27". Both are Thrift shop specials.
I'm using DTV convertors. One Digital Stream and one Zenith.
Excellent picture on both. :thmbsp:

I'm the same way, we only buy when we need it. I have a 1982 Zenith that we used since we got in new in early 1983 and a 1999 Sony 36 inch my aunt gave us. When I hooked a Blue Ray to the Zenith through an RF modular, my friends think I'm weird, but hey, I feel I'm not missing anything. If the program is good, I can watch it just as well in 405 line British as I can with 1080 HDTV.

I was lucky to have a 12 inch B&W in my room too. I remember watching everything form the Six Million Dollar Man to Evil Kenievel.

I'm glad to see that your Zenith System 3 console still works, over thirty years since it was new. Just goes to show how good Zenith TVs were back in the day, before the company left Chicago. Hopefully, that Zenith you have (and the Sony 36-incher) serve you well for many more years; I wouldn't be surprised if your console goes another five years, anyway, considering all the work you've put into it. It has been said you cannot kill a Zenith, and your console is tangible proof of that.

Your sets, both of them, should work well with Blu-ray players if you use RF modulators with them, unless your Sony TV already has A/V input jacks. I used one with my RCA TV and two DVD players, and they worked quite well. Then I got a flat screen in August 2011, and a Blu-ray player shortly after. Very good picture even with an RF mod, although now with my flat screen I can connect my DVD directly to the set via an HDMI cable. However, I don't notice much difference in the picture between composite cables and HDMI. One difference I did notice was that I no longer need to set my TV on channel 4 to watch DVDs; all I do now is put in a DVD, select a direct video input on my flat screen's input menu, push the play button on my universal remote, and I'm good to go.

Last but not least, I was sorry to read at the bottom of your post of the passing of another of your cats. You had him or her for eleven years, though, so he or she left you with lots of nice memories. I've lost a dog and two cats myself since 1987, and miss them -- especially my dog and my second white cat.

My third cat, Kiki, has been with me four years now. She was three when I got her, and now, she is one of the most affectionate animals it has ever been my pleasure to own. She is now seven years old, or will turn seven some time this year (I'm not sure, as I don't know exactly when she was born, having gotten her at a shelter), and is doing quite well. I'll attach a picture of her at the end of this post.

Kiki - seven years old and soooooooooo affectionate! (Click on the photo to see a larger view, as the small thumbnail doesn't do her justice; she's just that cute, IMO).

I used the little 9" B&W from '82 to around '90. At that time, someone gave me a broken early '60's 17" (could have been 19", don't remember) RCA B&W with no UHF tuner. I fixed that one up and used it for a year or so. Then, I found an early '70's 19" Philco-Ford tube B&W with UHF and I replaced the RCA with the Philco. I sold the RCA for $25 to a young married couple who simply wanted a TV that worked. Most of today's young married couples would not be caught dead with such a set and think they must have the latest HDTV. I used the Philco until around '94, when someone gave me an '80 model 19" Magnavox color ex-motel TV. It was the model that used the upright modular chassis that used the failure-prone 4-lead safety cap. I repaired the power supply module in this set and it had a good picture; but, several times over the next few years, I had to repair the power supply. Around '99, I got tired of fixing it and junked it. It was replaced by an '89 19" remote Quasar and I soon sold that set when I replaced it with an early '90's RCA 27" Colortrak 2000. After a year or two, I decided that I didn't need a TV that big and I sold it. It was replaced by a mid '80's 19" Sony Trinitron, that I watched for a few years until someone wanted to buy it. Then, I used a patched up early '80's 19" Philco for a few months and then I replaced it with a 19" Zenith CCII motel set. The Zenith eventually developed loose connections inside the tuner module that I have yet to fix. When the Zenith started acting up, I replaced it with an '87 GE (CTC136) knob tuned 19" set. Then, I found my current TV, an '02 20" Sony Wega. I still have the GE, the Zenith that I still need to fix, as well as many other spare TV's. As you can tell, I've used quite a few TV's over the past 30 years; but, I've never had to buy a new one and I probably won't ever have to.

Wow, such eclectic tastes! That's like listening to everything from Andy Williams to Tony Bennett! :D

j/k

When you watch sports on FOX network and the grapihics are cut off,can you switch to a 16x9 picture and see them? Does that make a 19''tv too small? Thanks for any info

Yes, it makes it so you can see them. It does make the picture a bit smaller but if you sit 3 feet closer to the set, it negates the effect:D

I do the same thing, when watching the Packers. I watch my 14" Toshiba, about two feet away. I don't miss anything. :thmbsp:

Yea mine cuts off the scores on some channels. 16:9 works.

I prefer it in 4:3 though, my vision isn't as good as I'd like it to be.

I don't use 4:3 as a rule. My flat screen (19" Insignia) is natively 16:9, 720p, and makes an excellent picture from any signal the set receives (cable, DVD or VCR). The few shows I watch that do not fill my screen by virtue of incorrect aspect ratio (say 4:3 on my 16:9 screen) I can get to do so by using the zoom button on the remote. USA network on cable is notorious for this; I almost always have to zoom in to get a full picture when watching their shows (I like the Law and Order series, most of which are on USA in the afternoons, and yes, I have to zoom in on every one of them to get a full screen image). I do not have trouble with image size, score panel being cut off, etc. when watching football, as most games telecast over the major networks are broadcast in 16:9 HD.

BTW, I don't think I would want to go back to a CRT TV, unless I were using a cable box ahead of it with a zoom button on the remote. I've had my flat screen for over 18 months now, haven't had a bit of trouble with it, and I am sold on HDTV. I wasn't too crazy about it at first, but a few months with my new flat screen changed all that. :yes: :thmbsp:

jeff,how far back do you sit from your 19''? Thanks

About ten feet.

Two of my friends have ridiculously large LCD units that are around 52"-65" in size.
Both sets are way too big for their rooms. You don't "look" at the pic as much as "look around" at the pic (if you know what I mean).
I have an old JVC 27" CRT stereo TV and am happy as a clam with it...plus, it has excellent audio!
"Why are you still using that old thing?" they say.
My response is "Why do you have to have a screen so large that you can count the boogers in peoples noses?"

That "look around" at the picture gets REAL old REAL fast.

I remember shelling out big bucks to get an electric Draper 110" screen on one side of the front room....and a real nice BenQ DLP projector with the intention of watching movies and TV on this setup. Problem is....the front room is only like 20x20. Was REAL cool to watch movies on because it was like two hours and then that was it.

TV.....TOTALLY different story. I found my eyes would be "effed!" in a few hours of watching TV on something like that. Was even worse trying to do something like play Microsoft FlightSim on something like that. Couldn't figure out what was so bad about it...because OF COURSE it looked COOL!!

Turns out that I was doing exactly this "moving all around to watch the picture"...and was likely refocusing on every corner. Worse if not sitting right in front of all this.

I now find that the only thing this setup is good for is watching a single movie.....and sitting back WAY against the other wall. This obviously stopped me from using this to watch regular TV.

I do have a 55" Sammy in that same room......and yes...GREAT picture, and doesn't bother me to watch something on this all day if I'm so inclined. I feel anything bigger than this 55" would just become too much work. My little couch futon thing is like 12" from that.

I remember when giant RPTV's were the "in" thing and we knew some people who had TV's that were literally almost as big as the room. And, we all know how horrible the pictures were on those older RPTV's, especially when one was sitting too close to them; which, would have been the case in a room that was too small for the TV. I don't think these people were too concerned with the picture quality. They just wanted to say that they had a big TV.

The Sony Videoscope tvs from the late 90s have a good picture when all the optics are clean. Look terrible when convergence is off, or when in an smoker's residence, but can't blame the tv for that

Last but not least, I was sorry to read at the bottom of your post of the passing of another of your cats. You had him or her for eleven years, though, so he or she left you with lots of nice memories. I've lost a dog and two cats myself since 1987, and miss them -- especially my dog and my second white cat.

My third cat, Kiki, has been with me four years now. She was three when I got her, and now, she is one of the most affectionate animals it has ever been my pleasure to own. She is now seven years old, or will turn seven some time this year (I'm not sure, as I don't know exactly when she was born, having gotten her at a shelter), and is doing quite well. I'll attach a picture of her at the end of this post.

Kiki - seven years old and soooooooooo affectionate! (Click on the photo to see a larger view, as the small thumbnail doesn't do her justice; she's just that cute, IMO).[/QUOTE]
As I said before, collecting vintage electronics and pet ownership goes hand and hand, especially cats.
My oldest is going on fifteen years old. I have three black cats. :yes:

Kiki is very cute, looks like my Spunky. BTW, I still have Spunky and Rascal. Spunky is 13, she was the mother to three kittens when we found her. We lost the first kitten at the age of 5 in 2006, Greystone, he had kidney problems. The second one we lost in 2011, G.W., my avatar, he was Greystone's and Whitey's brother and now Whitey, the half-Snowshoe. We just have the mother left from the family. It hurts losing them.

BTW, the Sony does have A/V inputs and I'd use those. Zenith does show the age al ittle, I have an almost half inch gap at the bottom of the screen, but it is not very noticeable after warming up for 5 minutes or so. I just got a new job and if everything pans out I'll go looking for parts for it. Come to think of it, I think ti is easier getting parts for a 30 year old set than a new TV today.

I still have the set too!

As I said before, collecting vintage electronics and pet ownership goes hand and hand, especially cats.
My oldest is going on fifteen years old. I have three black cats. :yes:[/QUOTE]

I had three black cats at one tome also, a male half-Siamese, a Burmese cat and a regular black cat.