RCA Model 2000 TV on Craigslist in S.F. Bay Area

[freakaftr8]

Oh man.. Im thinking road trip....

[Bill R]

This set wil work fine on cable here. Search tuning and all.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by RCAkid

Well Jeffhs....you confuse the crap out of me. NOTHING prior to the year 2000 will work over the air. The will require a converter box.

My sincere apologies for confusing you.

I just saw a post from another VK member (don't recall whom offhand), in which he stated that the G2000 will in fact work with a cable hookup -- and everything on the set, including the search tuning and remote functions, will work perfectly without the box.

Yes, I agree, the set will not, however, work on analog OTA signals because there are few if any such channels remaining--the few remaining analog stations are either LP (low power) stations or translators. Soon, even these channels will disappear, going to cable or going off the air entirely. Translators, however, may well remain for some years, as these are used in rural areas too far away (read literally hundreds of miles) from local TV stations, even for cable.

The other problem with cable TV in sparsely populated areas is that it often is not practical to string miles of cable between utility poles, many of which may be literally tens of miles or more apart from each other; the only other alternative for viewers in these areas is satellite. Even that has limitations as far as signal strength and possibly other problems go (such as mountains or other signal obstructions); it wouldn't surprise me if, in this age of digital TV, some folks way out in the boondocks who cannot afford or cannot get cable or satellite will give up on broadcast TV altogether, getting almost all of their TV entertainment from DVDs or streaming video.

There are some small cities, towns and rural areas, for example, for which there are no listings on the TV Guide website, even for antenna [OTA] reception; these are the areas in which translators will continue to operate.

My own TV has been exclusively on cable (Time Warner expanded basic), no box, since I bought the set almost 12 years ago. Granted, I do not get channels above 99 with my current hookup, but that is beside the point. The point is that I get just about everything I want to watch without a converter; for other programming such as classic TV shows and movies that TV Land, Nick at Nite, etc. no longer offer and are now only available on digital cable, I watch DVDs from my own collection or from Netflix.

Cable subscribers will have to use a converter box even to receive local channels if and when (for cable systems other than Time Warner, which is already digital, the question is when rather than if) your local cable company drops analog cable altogether, which may well happen sooner rather than later. Several expanded-basic channels on Time Warner Cable have already been moved to the digital tier, with others soon to follow. I can see a day coming when even TW will drop analog cable (including x-basic, basic and other services for which a converter box is not currently required) in favor of digital; that day may not be far off, considering that almost everything else in TW's cable systems is digital. I suppose when most everyone has flat-panel, HD televisions, all of which are equipped with tuners designed to receive all present and future HD television programming (about 70 percent of American homes currently have at least one FP set), analog cable will disappear, never to be seen again; same with today's cable converter boxes.


I'm not one to do things simply to "keep up with the Joneses", but if programming keeps disappearing on my analog cable, I may eventually have to give in and get the digital box after all -- if I don't get a flat-panel TV with a digital tuner first, which I just might do if I can find a good deal at HH Gregg or Best Buy. I certainly won't have a choice if it gets to the point where everything, including the local channels, disappears and is moved exclusively to digital, which I can see happening in the not-too-distant future.

[Bill R]

I think I have at least one more year of analog cable. I have a back burner plan to use the over the air signal with some video servers to make my own cable system for the house. I hve 6 converter boxes that could cover the local programming, and then the video servers could provide programing from the internet, or DVD collection. I figure when all the cable system goes digital I should be able to get a good deal on modulators and combiners.

[matt_s78mn]

What confuses me is why on earth this issue keeps getting brought up time after time every other thread. The analog transition happened quite a while ago and I would think that everyone on here should understand by now what exactly that means! Whether or not we like it, it is the way it is.

As for the RCA 2000. It was a wonderful set with a lot of features way ahead of its time. It certainly IS a set worth collecting, no matter what you use as a signal source!!!!!!! I bought one at an auction a few years ago, enjoyed it, then sold it. Unfortunately the market was down and I didn't get a lot of money, but it went on to a good home and all is well!

[andy]

...

[freakaftr8]

Agreed, especially given the relaibility of the RCA 2000 with it's early rudimentary circuitry, should be as reliable as some of thone mid 70's CNC machines with layers and layers of stacked control boards fitted with IC's. I fix those quite a bit.

Still cool as heck to have! I believe it would sit well next to my other rarity Sony KV-3000R! Both are rare and an engineering marvel, all I need of course is a CT-100...

Originally Posted by andy

It's rather like going on a classic car site and cautioning that a model T doesn't have A/C, so it might not be good as a daily driver in Florida. It's safe to say that few, if any, TVs this old are still in use as primary TVs by people with no interest in collecting, or restoring vintage TVs.

[bgadow]

A couple Saturdays ago I was at the flea market looking at a portable TV from the 80s. The seller, who seemed to know a little about electronics (guy in his 60s with lots of radios/TV's for sale) kept telling me he couldn't figure out why he couldn't get reception to demonstrate this set. Must be a bad antenna, he said. I kept trying to explain the whole digital/analog thing but I might as well have been talking to a wall. If I was sneaky I guess I could have used it to my advantage. "Heck, this set doesn't even work, why, the tuner is shot! I'll give you a dollar for it..."

[Sandy G]

You Eeville, Eeville man, Bryan ! (grin)

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by bgadow

A couple Saturdays ago I was at the flea market looking at a portable TV from the 80s. The seller, who seemed to know a little about electronics (guy in his 60s with lots of radios/TV's for sale) kept telling me he couldn't figure out why he couldn't get reception to demonstrate this set. Must be a bad antenna, he said. I kept trying to explain the whole digital/analog thing but I might as well have been talking to a wall. If I was sneaky I guess I could have used it to my advantage. "Heck, this set doesn't even work, why, the tuner is shot! I'll give you a dollar for it..."

His problem is not the TV antenna he is using, or that the sets may have tuner problems (in fact, the tuners may be working perfectly); rather, he hasn't heard of the DTV transition. That is exactly why his unmodified TVs will not work with only an antenna; as one other person (DaveWM in Orlando, IIRC) recently mentioned here (in response to one of my posts regarding the RCA G-2000 TV from 1969), any TV made ten years or more ago simply will not work with OTA television signals unless a converter box is used. Has anyone told this person at the flea market, in simple language (no technical stuff involving aspect ratios, subchannels, etc.), that unmodified television sets made prior to 1999 absolutely will not work with OTA DTV signals, unless a converter box is installed between the set and the antenna?

I cannot believe that, this late in the game (over two years after the transition), he hasn't heard that there is no more full-power analog TV. That or else, one, he doesn't believe that such a transition took place over 2 years ago, or two, he cannot grasp the idea of DTV and/or why the transition was made in the first place. How on earth he could not have heard about the DTV transition (it was all over TV, newspapers, etc. for some time before the actual transition took place), however, is beyond me. A person would have had to be living under a rock the last couple of years before the DTV transition not to know that such a transition was coming, and in fact would take place on June 12, 2009. Apparently, the person to whom you spoke at the flea market must have been in that category.

[bgadow]

I guess he must have nothing but cable or sat at home so is oblivious to it, or something. Hard to believe. I should have bought that set, anyway. It was an Emerson with about a 2" screen, bw, with am/fm radio, tiny little bugger. He wanted $30, which was all I had in my pocket. I was in a rush so I just kept walking. I have a feeling I could have sold it to someone here on VK with no trouble. Oh, well.

[freakaftr8]

Hey did anyone get a chance to email the guy? I missed the listing and have no email address. I want to go get it.

[ChrisW6ATV]

It is back yet again, now even cheaper! Go get it!

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/atq/2533301619.html

[vintagecollect]

I REALLY think this ad is bunk!! Ad has showed up several times and seller does not respond. Seller is very knowledgable of item-yet- "has not even tried to plug it in". Even if it does exists, may have a bad crt failure or other.

[50scraze]

Originally Posted by vintagecollect

I REALLY think this ad is bunk!! Ad has showed up several times and seller does not respond. Seller is very knowledgable of item-yet- "has not even tried to plug it in". Even if it does exists, may have a bad crt failure or other.

Agreed. Thats usually code speak for "so i plugged it in but it doesn't work, oh well i'll just say i never tried it"