Can Anyone ID my first TV?

[kx250rider]

Originally Posted by leadlike

We definitely don't have satellite yet, but I can tell that our 'tenna rotor is hooked up. Hopefully someone here can confirm what RCA model # this is.

That's not a rotator control; it's an ON-tv subscription box... I haven't thought about those since the 80s! You must have lived in Los Angeles, or someplace that had the over-the-air scrambled pay-TV.

The RCA TV Might be a CTC-97 or 108.

Charles

[leadlike]

I finally got around to asking my Dad what that subscription box was on top of that set. He said it was a single-channel service called "Spectrum" and that it broadcast out of Philadelphia. They mostly carried Philly sports. Given that one of Philadelphia's arenas was the Spectrum at the time, this makes sense that the box was primarily marketed for sports. Even with the tenna-rotor, which brought in all other affiliates crystal clear, Spectrum apparently came in pretty poorly. Dad said it only lasted a year or two at most, and the company folded. Not soon after that, he graduated to the satellite system that I remember. Does that sound about the same as "On-tv" you were talking about, Charles?

ps-I just checked-I thought the Spectrum arena had closed years ago, but it only closed in October of '09. The place opened in June of '66, so I can only imagine just what horrible shape it is in now.

[bgadow]

The service was offered out of DC and Baltimore-I know the Baltimore version was called "Super TV" and was broadcast over WNUV-54. They aired typical independent programming until 7pm and then went scrambled. I think the first hour was previews and then the movies started at 8. It always took a very good antenna setup to pull in the Baltimore UHF stations here, and 54 was tough. My parents had friends who subscribed and one night they had a party, everyone went over to watch some mob movie that was out at the time. The language was pretty rough so us kids had to hide in the back. The party ended up as a bust because the reception was so bad. I guess that was the only time I saw it descrambled. Their TV was a 70s Philco-Ford console, FWIW.

[leadlike]

That's interesting-I was thinking Spectrum was offered on it's own channel, but if Super tv was offered during certain hours on indy station 54 (which I remember watching lots of great stuff on) I would guess Spectrum did the same. I wonder which independent Philly station would have offered that?

[bandersen]

We had ON-TV in Chicago on channel 44 IIRC. I remember if you fiddled with the fine-tuning you could sometimes get a watchable picture for a little while without having the descrambler box.

[bgadow]

WNUV offered Super-TV from the time they went on the air, I guess they were owned by the company. (the station owner was Nu-Vision) In DC it was channel 50; never easy to get a clear signal from them around home. I suppose if the market were big enough they could have broadcast subscription services day and night.

[Findm-Keepm]

[QUOTE=leadlike;2960859]I found a picture of it! At last! Taken in december of '82, here I am, all of a year and a half old:

'tis a CTC-97, from 1979 - looks very similar to the set on the CTC-97 Service Data I have. LED display, Nipper Logo, and the ColorTrak text above the speaker (seen just above your head/shadow in the '82 picture).

17" models included ED 398WR, and ED 399WR. 19" models included FD 459WR, FD 466WR, FD 468WR and FD 469WR. As it was a remote, it had the R suffix. So there are 6 possible models here.

Hope this helps,

[Eric H]

I had a 12" or 13" remote model of that set, it had four buttons, Vol up/down turned it on and off.
It was built in 79 as I recall.
I see these at Thrifts from time to time, next time I'll check the model and chassis #'s

[leadlike]

I've been finding a lot of similar RCA's, but all with much smaller screen sizes. Now that I've been looking more closely at these "newer" tvs, I see that almost all of them date after 1984. What happened in '84? Is that when they stopped making ultrasonic remotes for new sets? Were tvs all cable-ready after this year?