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#1
10-20-2007, 06:31 PM
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Rescued an RCA UVU from the trash..!
Last night I was crusin' around a nearby neighborhood that was having a special bulk-trash "clean-up" trash pick-up this morning, and spotted an RCA UVU set. I have only seen *one* of these before, and that was at a Montgomery Wards store when these sets were still new. It was distinctive enough when I saw it next to all the look-alike sqaured-off black plastic boxes in the Monkey Wards audio/video department that I always remembered it and have actually been keeping an eye out for one since.
I've never seen much info about the RCA UVU anywhere, and a Google search doesn't turn up much. I suspect it was sort of a market "experiment" that didn't pan out, because I don't think it sold well at all (and the only time I even saw one in a store was at that M-W location). I always figured there was only one model of the UVU, but there's a small "2" next to the "UVU" logo on this set (is that UVU2..? or UVU^2..?), so evidently there was at least one other model. Or not. Anyone out there know more about this thing? The cabinet style might not really seem like a radical departure, but I think it was pretty distinctive for its time, especially since this was when large table-model black-plastic TVs still generally had roughly cube-shaped cabinets with sqaured-off corners. I would guess that the idea here was sort of a "neo-retro" appearance; almost a modern reinterpretation of the old Philco Predicta but not as ambitious. Relocating the speakers to those little "ears" on the sides of the CRT instead of their usual positions below the CRT does lend it sort of a Predicta-like appearance, as does the ovoid-looking curved back to the cabinet (that closely conforms to the bell of the CRT), and the narrow bottom of the cabinet (which now no longer needs to house the speakers) kinda looks like a dias or the top of a pedestal. Also as an obvious "retro" touch, note that it has the old round 'meatball' RCA logo. [Question: Has there ever been any other "official" RCA (including GE/Thompson) product that has gone back to the old logo as its primary identifier (i.e. not including 'hidden' logos on the back panel or some such) since RCA switched logos at the end of the 1960's?] I *think* the original remote for the UVU also had the old RCA logo on it, but unfortunately it wasn't to be found in the trash with this TV. Ah well. Note that despite being a premium-priced TV at the time, this is a 25" set (with rounded corners), and not a 27" (with square corners). It even has P-I-P, which seems to be perhaps an overly fancy feature for a 25" set. I'm sure the choice of the round-cornered CRT was intentional in order to better match the curves of the cabinet. However, I'm sure this impacted sales given that at the time you could probably have bought a nicer 27" set for less than the 25" UVU, and 25" sets were quickly becoming relegated to low-end lines for most manufacturers. One thing I have seen a passing mention of is that there apparently was a matching resin plastic stand for the UVU. Anyone ever seen one or have a picture of it? I'm curious to know if the design of the stand makes it seem like an extension of the pedestal "stub" at the bottom of the UVU. The chassis # on this set is CTC177AC, and the model # is F25190SE. It was made in December 1992. The label on the back doesn't seem to say where the set was made though, except that the label itself was printed in USA. It appears to be functional, though I haven't done more than power it up briefly and attach a piece of wire to the coax input to see if it could pick up anything. Anyway, perhaps you may not find this TV *that* exciting, but I figured it was worth saving from the trashman, especially since I've never seen one "in the wild" as it were..! 
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#3
10-20-2007, 07:10 PM
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The top view looks remarkably like the Predicta, perhaps too much so to be a coincidence?
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#4
10-20-2007, 07:49 PM
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Actually, it's not at all rare. It's in Sams 3221 - it's apparently a Special Edition set for some RCA anniversary, IIRC. (Hence the SE on the tail of the model number) I remember seeing one of those in the Langley AFB AAFESs exchange in the early 90's - and thinking, like most others "Dang, RCA's made themselves a Predicta!"
Stull wonder what the U<squared>VU is all about, though...  Cheers,
__________________
Brian USN RET 22YRS (Avionics/Cal) CET-Consumer Repair and Avionics ('88) "Capacitor Cosmetologist since '79" When fuses go to work, they quit!
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#5
10-20-2007, 08:39 PM
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__________________
Brian USN RET 22YRS (Avionics/Cal) CET-Consumer Repair and Avionics ('88) "Capacitor Cosmetologist since '79" When fuses go to work, they quit!
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#6
10-20-2007, 09:32 PM
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Cut off those side speakers and it looks exactly like my 25" GE CTC178 that I got in 1996. A plain-vanilla basic stripper mono set, a smidgen deeper front-to-back than your pic shown from above.
Tom
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Tom 
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#7
10-20-2007, 10:45 PM
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Quote:
 As for the "^2", I guess it's like TV "sqaured" because of the picture-in-picture feature. Or something.
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#8
10-20-2007, 11:02 PM
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I've seen lots of those....
We used to call those "The Ross Perot" because of the big ears, and back when they were new, everyone knew who Perot was.
My biggest gripe about those was that there wasn't anything to get a grip on......A real pain to wrestle into the back seat of someones car.
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#9
10-21-2007, 03:10 AM
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Take a close look at the corner of the screen in the picture of the UVU logo, you may notice the pixel pattern burned on the phosphor stripes... on a new CRT the stripes should be uniformly tinted all over their length
this set has extremely high hours and likely has much less than perfect colors and brightness, and that's probably why it was tossed... there's no way to rejuv the phosphors, so this set may need a new CRT...
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