TV down south

[newhallone]

My friend is all the way south shooting some video and posted this pic on Facebook. Looks like he might not make it back before Christmas. Looks like they do not have Hi-def yet.

[bgadow]

That's some classy place he's staying at, if they are still using those! Are they charging him by the week? The last time I was in the Salvation Army store they had one very similiar.

[radiotvnut]

That looks like a Magnavox "Guest Matic" motel set from the early '80's. Probably uses the NAP designed 19C3 or the GTE designed E32 chassis. In the late '70's/early '80's, there were some GTE-Sylvania "Guest Matic" motel sets. NAP bought the Sylvania and Philco consumer electronics brands from GTE in '81 and, for a while, some Magnavox branded sets contained a Sylvania designed E3x or E5x series chassis.

If this set is still in a motel, I'm surprised to see a rotary tuned set still in motel use. The only exception might be in some low end "rent by the hour" motels. The last knob tuned sets that I saw in a motel was back in '97 when the local motel 6 was replacing them with remote controlled Magnavox sets. The old knob tuned sets were General Electric "PC" chassis TV's and I bought 20 of them for $5/each. I managed to fix 19 of them and I sold them for $50-$75/each.

[radiotvnut]

Oh, that wouldn't happen to be at the Relax Inn, Blanks Motel, or the Astro Motel here in Meridian, MS? I can imagine those places still having such TV's in use.

[newhallone]

South as in all the way. McMurdo is in Antarctica.

[RobtWB]

How fortunate your friend is - getting to visit Antarctica and getting to watch tv on a vintage Maggie.

at ~500mi distance from the S. American continent I assume they recieve no broadcast tv. how about satellite? anyone know?

[sampson159]

there is a hotel here in the southend of columbus that still has some sylvania d-19 portables and a few zenith chromacolor 17 inch sets.i repaired some of those until last year when the owner passed on.she was an eccentric and quite a character here in columbus.always went the cheapest route.in the long run,i think she was ahead on these.they rarely broke down.some of those have never been repaired.28 in all.i repaired 3 sets in 25 years.they do have cable with remote boxes.her accountant said that she got a letter from a bank in tennessee once.she had over a million dollars in an account and had forgotten about it.she drove a pinto wagon until 2007.she came from poverty and never forgot it.someone suggested new sets once and i think she almost fainted.last time i saw them,all were actually playing well

[DaveWM]

good for her, need more folks that think that way

[radiotvnut]

Isn't the D19 a tube/transistor hybrid chassis? I suspect that hers is the only motel still in operation with TV's that old. Back in the early '90's, there were some indians who owned a bunch of cheap motels around here. They wanted me to do their TV work and they were still using XL100 RCA's from the '70's. As cheap as those folks are, they are probably still using them.

[sampson159]

those d 10 s are hybrids with perma-lok color.those crts are still looking good.i ve got a 19 inch xl100 from 1975 with an inline tube.it looks reasonable but a little weak.i can get a decent grayscale.the foldown chassis.my buddy just gave it to me.the other 19 is much better.the delta gun crts seem to hold up much better.i will post pics side by side.

[mwplefty]

It's nice to see that they still have sets like these in motels. Even some of the old run-down hotels are switching to either high-definition flat-panel cable TV's or late-1990's/early-2000's CRT sets.