Am I the only one who...

[radiotvnut]

Back in the '90's, I could often fix those older TV's without a schematic. It might have taken me a little longer; but, I could do it. On a modern set, unless it's a blown fuse or shorted rectifier, you will almost always need service information.

[zenith2134]

And it rarely is! Damn ICs always fail...hard to remove surfacemount stuff too....

MRX37, I always wonder about that kind of thing when I get used stuff. For instance, I recently got a new turntable, and the fist album played on it was The Mason Williams Phonograph Record.

But who the hell knows what the first song my Fisher 500-c played?! I'm the third owner AFAIK.

And the TVs....well, when you come across a busted-up 1950s tv, you wonder what the LAST thing it displayed was before it broke.

[radiotvnut]

I've got some radio station turntables and I'd love to hear (or own) all the records that were played on those TT's back in the day.

[zenith2134]

Another thing I've wondered is how the gear feels with me as its new owner

When I bought my Kenwood stuff, the lady I found through craigslist said it was her late husband's stuff. She offered me a collection of big band and folk records (which he played on it I assume) but I declined as I don't listen to that stuff much.

Now I use it to play 80s alternative and metal. Talk about a change of pace!!

[Sandy G]

Hehehehehe...Yeah, an' my R-390s & EK-07...Defending the Free World against Godless Communism one day, then DXing fleapower redneck backwoods preacher stations outta Kentucky the next...(grin)

[bgadow]

One of the most prized sets in my collection is a 15" roundtube BW RCA; it was bought new by my great-grandparents. I got one super story out of my aunt: she was visiting her grandmother the day we landed on the moon; they watched it on that set. My great-grandmother's comment: "I thought heaven was there, but I guess I was wrong." Thing is, without that story attached to it, without that background, it's just another old TV set, right?

[drh4683]

I really enjoy finding information on the people who owned my sets. Most sets being from local estate sales, I can find peoples names somewhere in the house if I look good enough like on a suit case or bowling ball bag. Sometimes you find a box of bills and paperwork from 1963 in the basement......
If I find some of that stuff, I take a peice of it and keep it with the set. I was very fortunate to find photos taken of a motorola color TV I found last year in Chicago. It was the only way I could get an idea what the TV was like new and what the environment was like.
When I find a set, I write down in my notebook the make model etc. and where it came from, and the owners name. Sometimes you can't find a clue as to the owners name in the house. In that case you just go to whitepages.com and type in the address and most of the time you are givin a name. Also, Im interested in what kind of life the owners had. By looking around at an estate sale, you'll sometimes find all kinds of books and paperwork especially interesting to me if the man was an engineer of some kind. I love looking at old hand made mechanical drawings. I also enjoy looking at all the WWII photos as you see those in almost every sale which is sad.... Anyway, I like to know how old they were too. Most of the time the original owners have passed on when you go to their estate. Ive found most owners of the sets Ive found were born between 1913-1920, even to this day, which I find very interesting. For me, going to estate sales is a good way of seeing what the past generations were about, even if there is a TV or not.

[bgadow]

I would agree-I've been to a couple sales where the owner had been in engineering, in one case with Ashland Oil, another with DuPont. I really wished I could have met these gentlemen-at least I was able to save some of their cherished possessions.

[N9ZQA]

I, too, often wonder what news broadcasts passed through the tuners of my sets, or what shows were watched on them and by whom. I remember the family TV growing up and watching cartoons on it in the morning before school - or everybody making a big bowl of popcorn and settling in to watch "Attack of the Mushroom People" with the lights out. I've got a few sets in my collection that I have knowledge of their history, and that knowledge makes using those sets more of an experience.

I had the good fortune of meeting the owner of both of my Admiral sets; the older one (in the avatar) originally belonged to his mother and was her first color television, and the other one was his first color set. He told me of replacing the flyback in his set back in the early 80's and had all of the literature to go along with it. When I got his mother's set working I sent an email with a picture; he was very pleased to see the set running again all these years later.

The GE AA-chassis set that I have was my grandparents' kitchen TV for a long time, and I can remember it always on before Saturday dinner. It's in my living room now, plugged into a DTV converter, and gets watched almost every day. Dad gave it back to me after it quit working on him and I told him I remembered it growing up.

-Jim

[AnalogDigit]

I wonder too who owned the equipment before me, what radio stations they listened to, why did they part with the set.

[radiotvnut]

The only TV I have with known history is a 25" Wells-Gardner built Truetone color console from the early '70's. There's a thread about that set on here somewhere. The people that owned it kept me during the day when I was 2-4 years old. The only thing I wanted to play with was that old TV. I didn't wan't anything to do with the other kids, the toys, or anything. I just wanted to mess with the TV. The lady's hubby would often get upset when he'd come home from work and turn on the TV, just to have to re-adjust all the controls behind me. That was 26+ years ago and that couple finally gave me that TV earlier this year. They said they started to throw it away 20 years ago; but, decided to save it and give it back to me. I guess you might say that TV sparked my interest in electronics. I hope to get it going one day. Even if I can't fix it, it's not going anywhere.

I've also got a '59 or '60 Magnavox console stereo that was given to me by an elderly couple that never had children and were very nice to me when I was growing up. I think they looked at me like the child they never had. They were married 73 years (many marriages today would be doing good to last 73 months) and her husband recently passed away. I don't think they would have given that stereo to just anyone. They gave it to me because they thought a lot of me and knew I'd appreciate it. It currently sits in my bedroom and it's not going anywhere, either.

There's also a late '60's beat up Zenith AM/FM solid state radio that sat on top of my deceased Uncle's refrigerator for years. You guessed it. It stays here as well.

Now, had there not been personal history involved with these three items, they would have probably gotten parted out, sold, or given away a long time ago. Owning these vintage pieces that we collect is great; but, it's even more special when you have history to go along with it.

[Kiwick]

I once found a 1964 Uher 4000 Report-S tape recorder in a junkyard, it was inside a suitcase along with its power supply, a microphone, and several tapes...

The tapes were packed with pop/rock/country songs recorded off a Swedish radio station in late 1972... a real time capsule... i was 12 yrs old back then and this was so fascinating to me... now i'm 29 but everytime i listen to those tapes again i still enjoy it like the first time!

This also got me started on 70s country-rock

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by MRX37

When i find an old TV, I wonder about what it's displayed in its lifetime. What great or awful images have graced its screen? What news events did it display? It's one of life's mysteries.

I know I wonder about things like that too. I even think about the 1982 Zenith I have where it displayed everything from Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" Speech, The A-Team to the fall of the Berlin Wall, 9-11, to the political conventions now. Olympics, I watched the Olympics on it from the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Games to the recent 2008 Beijing Summer games. Heck, it seems like a different world when we got the Zenith. I was 16 when we got it, I'm 42 now.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by Kiwick

I once found a 1964 Uher 4000 Report-S tape recorder in a junkyard, it was inside a suitcase along with its power supply, a microphone, and several tapes...

The tapes were packed with pop/rock/country songs recorded off a Swedish radio station in late 1972... a real time capsule... i was 12 yrs old back then and this was so fascinating to me... now i'm 29 but everytime i listen to those tapes again i still enjoy it like the first time!

This also got me started on 70s country-rock

I've heard lots of stories like that where people come across tapes that were going to be thrown out only that there is a lot of history on them. Myself, I have a Sony Tapecorder 600 of similar vintage and my parents taped off the TV shows like the old CBS "This is Barbra" (Streisand) show in 1965 and one Frank Sinatra Special from November of 1968. Once I clean up some things I might dub them to disc.

BTW, noticed you are a slave to your pets, your 3 horses, as you can see my tagline, I'm a slave to 5 cats. I had 4 cats with my on my bed, tough to sleep, plus a few times, Pixie, my 16 year old black cat wakes me up and likes to lay on top of me, then my 1 year old cat, Rascal, he wakes me up and so on. My 16 year old and 1 year old like to chase each other.

[Kiwick]

actually, i'm slave to 2 horses and a mule... it's sometimes tough to sleep with them in the backyard right out of my window too! especially when the mule goes hee-haw in the middle of the night