[DavGoodlin]

The generation 20 years later has easily picked up what we sometimes learned ONLY the hard way by having to make a living fixing other peoples TVs. Watching some of DRH4683's videos on U-toob I cant believe he's 20 years younger. I was positive this would fade by the late 80s and what I see on this forum, ARF and FB give eternal optimism.

Being fortunate to grow up with a tank-like Motorola BW ('63 like my avatar), a '46 Philco transitone AM in bakelite (my Dad's at age 12) then a 71 Zenith color TV at age 8, the smell of hot dust on tubes was irresistible. For the next 5 years, I had real modest stuff in my room and was not allowed a TV until age 13 when the old Motorola BW came back dead (just the line thermistor) from its travels. I also got a working '63 Zenith BW (16K20?) that my uncle left on their porch for summer ballgames.

I toasted my Fisher 610 receiver chassis' iron over the summer leaving it on overnight listening to any myriad of stations that thing pulled in with ease. I saved $27 from painting jobs and bought a GE C-4315 AM-FM clock radio just in time for 8th grade. The FM reception was poor, so I opened it up and ran an external antenna out and added external speakers. I later got the guts of a Motorola Stereophonic with 4x6BQ5 outputs and the rest is HiFi history.

MTV went on cable the same year I graduated HS and left for the big city of Allentown, moved into an apartment complex which was in a terrestrial dead-zone, cut off from the PHL and NYC, TV and FM. We had a series of Zenith, RCA, Magnavox and Admiral sets there hooked to cable with FM simulcast of MTV, HBO and some others. The Dynaco amp and speakers became our very own "pro-feel" system at least power and sound quality rivaled a new Sony then.