New TVs

I just got two TVs from forum member maxm from the TV Swap Board. One is a 1972 Zenith 4 tube hybrid B&W. The tubes are for the deflection and audio output circuits. It has 2 PCBs in it, one for IF section and the other for the video. The rest of the set is point to point wired. It has a slider volume control. This is my first Zenith set of this vintage, and I am really starting to like Zenith now TV gives excellent picture, very stable even when using a VHS source.

The other TV I got was this generic TV with the name Milovac on it. Top says "Milovac....by Milovac International." Anyone ever hear of this brand? It's an all tube portable, all on a PCB. Works pretty good. The sound is not actually HiFi, but it gets excellent bass response out of it's little 3.5" speaker, which surprised me. I like generic and store brand sets, which is why I enjoy this one.


The Zenith:

This picture was taken shortly after I redid vertical size and linearity.

[Jeffhs]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tv beta guy

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The other TV I got was this generic TV with the name Milovac on it. Top says "Milovac....by Milovac International." Anyone ever hear of this brand? It's an all tube portable, all on a PCB. Works pretty good. The sound is not actually HiFi, but it gets excellent bass response out of it's little 3.5" speaker, which surprised me. I like generic and store brand sets, which is why I enjoy this one.

I had a Milovac AM/FM stereo portable radio in the late '60s. I think Milovac was one of those obscure Japanese electronics companies which was only around for a few years, sort of like Electrobrand and other generic makes. The nameplate on top of your set which says "...Milovac International" leads me to believe the foregoing was the case with Milovac. My Milovac stereo radio wasn't junk; it was built fairly well, with two external speakers which attached to the back of the set for portability, two-way power (AC and batteries; I used mine on AC most of the time) and, as I remember, very good sound for a transistor portable, which is why I'm not surprised your Milovac TV's audio has such great bass response--the company really knew how to build good-sounding and operating equipment, not like the cheaper makes of the period.

BTW, your Zenith portable looks good as well. I like anything and everything the original Zenith Radio Corporation made (I have had several of their older b&w TVs and now have two of their older table radios), but am not too crazy at all about the current production sets which have the lightning-bolt "Z" below the CRT mask but are made by LG/Gold Star.

I've said this before and will say it again: Zenith really went downhill quickly in the '90s once Gold Star bought them out and moved the company from Chicago, Illinois, USA to some large city in Korea. I had a Zenith four-mode integrated stereo system in the early '80s which was made in Korea for the Zenith Radio Corporation, but that set worked fairly well and gave me excellent service for 17 years; hmmm. Was the fact that Zenith's audio division was already in Korea by the '80s a sign of big changes coming for the entire company?

[andy]

Speaking of the Zenith logo, I always wondered why they hid the lightning bolt logo for so long. From the 50's to the mid 80's they used the 'ZENITH' name plate on all their TVs and radios, and only used the lightning bolt on things like remotes, tubes, service manuals and chassis layout charts.

[drh4683]

In the 90's before zenith went out, they used "zenith" in lightning bolt letters on the front of their sets. When LG took over completely in 98-99, they used just a lightning bolt "Z" (which is the easiest way to spot an fake zenith TV or VCR). That lighting bolt Z just doesnt mean anything to me, as the real zenith never used a logo like that.

[Jeffhs]

Originally posted by drh4683
In the 90's before zenith went out, they used "zenith" in lightning bolt letters on the front of their sets. When LG took over completely in 98-99, they used just a lightning bolt "Z" (which is the easiest way to spot an fake zenith TV or VCR). That lighting bolt Z just doesnt mean anything to me, as the real zenith never used a logo like that.

Doug, I have a Zenith 19" Sentry 2 color set which was made in 1995. It has the name "Zenith" with the lightning-bolt Z on the control panel, just above the remote sensor. The set worked well when it was new and still works today (no CRT or chassis problems whatsoever), almost ten years later.

If you look at the back covers of Zenith TVs, radios and other equipment from the '50s and '60s, you will in fact see the lightning-bolt Z logo forming the "Z" in Zenith. I believe they used that as a trademark for years, even on their very old radios (my Zenith K731 has the words "Zenith Long Distance", with the lightning-bolt Z, on the back cover, and also on the tube layout diagram pasted to the bottom of the cabinet, but not on the front panel); the old tombstones and other Zenith home and farm radios, including the 6V27 farm battery set, also used the "Zenith Long Distance" trademark, with the lightning-bolt Z, on the circular tuning dials (and in some cases the knobs as well; I've seen photos of some old Zenith radios with wooden knobs bearing the lightning-bolt Z mark on the front of the knobs).

However, by the '60s or so, the company quit using the lightning-bolt emblem on the fronts of their radios and TVs, as you noted, but the trademark, complete with the lightning bolt, still appeared on the back covers of the sets (and probably on the tubes and tube layout diagram on the inside of the cabinet as well).

I heard somewhere (I think I read it in this forum) that GS no longer uses the lightning-bolt Z trademark on its televisions; as well, the notice at the bottom of the TV screen these days at the beginning of high-definition programs on CBS no longer makes any reference whatsoever to Zenith. I don't watch CBS that much, but I think I saw a show not long ago bearing a notice declaring that the program was "brought to you in LG/Gold Star High Definition where available." No mention of Zenith anywhere. Is this definitely the end of the line for Zenith, what very little (if anything[!])is left of it?

[bgadow]

I guess by the 60s the lightning bolt looked a little old fashioned. The logo they did use was pretty classy looking.

These zenith sets are good tv's. I own a similar hybrid model and also have no problems with sync when connecting a modern device to it (dvd,vcr) I use mine daily and it hasn't had any problems yet.

[Chad Hauris]

The really old Zenith stuff (like 30s and 40s) has a slightly different lightning-bolt logo than that used from 50's through the 90's...it is the same form, just an older-looking style.

Also the Zenith crest or "coat of arms" disappeared from sets for some reason around 1979 when the System 3 was developed...don't know why.

Another bit of trivia is that RCA returned to using the Nipper logo on electronics and records around 1980 after not using it since 1968 or so, but for some reason around 1982 or 1983 Nipper disappeared from electronics products but continued to be used on records, though I don't know exactly why.

[bgadow]

When was RCA Records split off from RCA? Maybe that explains it?