Are there any American-made converter boxes?

[Thyratron]

I can't seem to find this information anywhere. Are any of the long list of converter boxes made in America, or at least not in China? Nothing like filtering the signal to your vintage TV through a cheap, plastic box (sometimes with one of the bought-off names of one of our former great American manufacturers) that feels and looks like it has all the quality of a dollar-store radio! There must be some kind of option!

[MRX37]

Sure: take the guts out of a high quality converter box, and machine a vintage looking case for it. Perhaps add a nameplate with a 1950's manufacturer's logo on it.

Far as I know, there are no vacuum tube powered converter boxes...

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by Thyratron

I can't seem to find this information anywhere. Are any of the long list of converter boxes made in America, or at least not in China? Nothing like filtering the signal to your vintage TV through a cheap, plastic box (sometimes with one of the bought-off names of one of our former great American manufacturers) that feels and looks like it has all the quality of a dollar-store radio! There must be some kind of option!

Not made in USA, but I have seen one converter box that is Made in Bulgaria in Europe than in China sold at Fry's Electronics. Perhaps the Made in Bulgaria is the closest to Made in USA, since Bulgaria and USA population are mostly European descent. I do not remember the brand, but it was white color. I may know the brand. Just reply back if interested, and I may take some of my time off to identify the brand.

[Adam]

I went to go buy ink for my printer at one of those big stores that has nearly something of everything at about midnight last night. I looked at the converter boxes and the ones they had were so small, plastic, and cheap looking, that I just couldn't bring myself to buy one. I went and got a box set of dvds of the Andy Griffith show to watch on tv instead. It would be nice to find a real high quality unit, otherwise I'll just keep watching dvds and Canadian tv and wait until I can find a used one for free or at least really cheap.

[Eric H]

I doubt anyone's going to invest in building a high quality box for something that's pretty much a transitional item that won't be needed (by most people) in a few years.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by waltchan

Not made in USA, but I have seen one converter box that is Made in Bulgaria in Europe than in China sold at Fry's Electronics.

That's the Channel master CM7000. It's a good box, and it also offers S video. Fry's has them on sale for about $50 every few weeks.

I modified mine to allow me to turn off the chroma subcarreir so it can produce a pre-color TV B&W only TV signal, like that before 1953 (that's when NTSC color was approved by the FCC). Thus I can feed my late 40's early 50's B&W TVs and have nice sharp pictures without chroma checkerboard crawling thru it.


Looking at the picture, look for the cap arrowed. Near the STV6433 chip (this chip filters and merges luma and chroma to create the composite video output (yellow RCA jack, and also a special composite signal designed to be modulated (group delay pre-distortion and a notch to make room for the sound IF carrier at 4.5MHz) onto a TV channel, which is why I wanted to use this box's intermal TV modulator instead of an external one). What we are going to do is intercept the chroma before this chip, with a switch that will either pass it to this chip, or switch away from the chroma source and switch to ground. I placed this switch before the coupling cap, as the STV6433 has an internal video clamp that charges this cap during the horizontal interval (between scan lines) to give the internal amps inside the chips proper DC biasing. Switching away from the chroma source to ground still gives this charging circuit something to work against.

To do the mod: remove but keep the cap arrowed in the picture. Now stand it upright and solder it to the solder pad it was soldered to closest to the STV6433 chip (see drawing at the bottom of the picture. On the now top end of this cap solder a wire that will go to the center pole of a switch. Another wire soldered to the now unoccupied solder pad goes to one side of this switch, and the other side of the switch goes to ground. Label the switch "color" and "B&W" accordingly.

[Sandy G]

Originally Posted by Thyratron

I can't seem to find this information anywhere. Are any of the long list of converter boxes made in America, or at least not in China? Nothing like filtering the signal to your vintage TV through a cheap, plastic box (sometimes with one of the bought-off names of one of our former great American manufacturers) that feels and looks like it has all the quality of a dollar-store radio! There must be some kind of option!

Surely you jest...Quality ? What the hell's "Quality" ? Can't have that...Might cut down on the 1200% markup we have on thease thaings...

[PioneerGuy75]

Is ANY electronic item these days American made??

[Dr Tinear]

Audio by Van Alstine still builds all of its electronics in Minnesota. A number of other high-end audio manufacturers including Krell, Audio Research and McIntosh also build equipment in the States.

[peverett]

The final product may be made overseas, but there are many companies still fabricating integrated circuits in the US. These include Intel, Freescale, Spansion, Samsung, IBM, TI, AMD, and others.

With the exception of Intel, and IBM(and it's partners), this seems to also be changing with fabs in Taiwan gaining market share.

[kx250rider]

If that were made in the USA, it would cost at least $500 with the unions, medical insurance, employee practices insurance, taxes, fees, environmental licenses, city business certificates, state bureau of electronics registrations, product liability defense retainers, legal engineering, $25/hr manual labor, mandatory coffee breaks, factory-paid workboots & goggles, EPA lead solder fines, ventilation permits and HEPA filters for soldering stations, fire permits for the wave solder machine, ISO inspection fees & membership, rent or lease for USA industrial building, environmental impact fees & fines, ridiculously expensive, less-functional chemicals (as opposed to the good ones allowed in Asia), former employee lawsuit payouts, inflated retirement plans, (I'll stop now, because the paint is wearing off my keyboard and I don't have a permit to repaint it).

Charles

[JonL]

Originally Posted by kx250rider

If that were made in the USA, it would cost at least $500 with the unions, medical insurance, employee practices insurance, taxes, fees, environmental licenses, city business certificates, state bureau of electronics registrations, product liability defense retainers, legal engineering, $25/hr manual labor, mandatory coffee breaks, factory-paid workboots & goggles, EPA lead solder fines, ventilation permits and HEPA filters for soldering stations, fire permits for the wave solder machine, ISO inspection fees & membership, rent or lease for USA industrial building, environmental impact fees & fines, ridiculously expensive, less-functional chemicals (as opposed to the good ones allowed in Asia), former employee lawsuit payouts, inflated retirement plans, (I'll stop now, because the paint is wearing off my keyboard and I don't have a permit to repaint it).

Charles

Thank heavens for China, where human life and the environment have almost no value.

[ranch 22b]

Though made in China, the best one I could find at a reasonable price (I needed several) was the Zenith DTT901. It has decent picture, plenty of audio (

[colorfixer]

I think what's important here is that China stands to gain a whole lot from the DTV changeover.

[Thyratron]

Thanks for the information; I'll be looking out for the Channel Master, it seems (it's got a "vintage" brand name, too, which doesn't hurt, although wasn't Channel Master Japanese originally? At least I recall seeing Japan-built 1960s Channel Master radios; maybe it was a different Channel Master). And MRX37, I was actually thinking of doing that vintage case idea on whatever box I might end up with. Then I wouldn't need to try to hide the nasty thing!