It's 1956 and you want a color TV

[passatdoc]

Yep, I remember the star of the program, such as Elizabeth Montgomery, asking you to stay tuned (i.e. don't change the channel) to watch "(name of CBS program), next, in color." Montgomery had spent part of childhood in New York and it showed in that recording, it sounded like "next, in cuh-luh" to my ear.

 

[passatdoc]

I don't remember the black and white peacock turning to color, only the version that began with a color kaleidoscope coalescing to a peacock.

I have seen the old NBC chimes clip on documentaries, but it was out of use long before I can remember. There was a color version of it, each of the chimes was a primary tv color of red, green, or blue.

 

[whirlcool]

Actually, it was ABC that had the star announcing the show. But I am sure it was just a slip of the fingers for you ->!
ABC also had another color logo too.... but it wasn't seen too often, I think it was used mainly for special presentations and sporting events.

 

[whirlcool]

I've mentioned this before...

does anyone remember when Color TV first came out up until about 1967 or so larger television dealers had those separate rooms that were separated from the main sales floors that contained the color TV's? Usually they were very dark and when you opened the door to go inside of one you were bowled over by the smell of ozone from the electronics of the sets. All the sets would be on so you could compare the pictures.
My parents mostly had Zenith sets, we got our first one in 1964 right after Zenith began making the rectangular screen. But before they bought that one they looked at Admiral (almost bought one), Sylvania, RCA, and Magnavox. The dealer also had Motorola sets too. The reason my parents didn't go with Admiral was the controls were on a tilt out panel. It tilted out to change the channel and adjust the picture then it would tilt back into the set for a nice clean look on the front. The salesman told my Dad that those sets often had problems with the tuners because of all the movement and kids slamming the panel back into the set.

My crazy family. We had an aunt that bought a 1962 Zenith color fishbowl set. It had a nice picture on it too. On top of that set she had a 19 inch B&W set. She only used the color set for color shows and watched the B&W shows on the smaller set. I asked her why she did that, and she told me she didn't want to use up all the color in the Zenith set.

When my parents first got their first Zenith set they thought something was wrong with it. The picture was ghosty and snowy.
They had connected it up to the outdoor antenna mounted on the chimney. That antenna had probably been up there since 1955 or so. After multiple service calls the repairman told them that they have to invest in a new antenna. It would have been around $90.00 installed. They thought that was exhorbarant. So they just put up with the bad picture. About a year later I went out and bought a Winegard Color TV antenna and some 75 Ohn cable to replace the rooftop antenna. The picture miraculously improved. But since we lived north of O'hare airport we'd get a picture flutter whenever an airplane flew nearby.

 

[j2400]

"We had an aunt that bought a 1962 Zenith color fishbowl set. It had a nice picture on it too. On top of that set she had a 19 inch B&W set. She only used the color set for color shows and watched the B&W shows on the smaller set. I asked her why she did that, and she told me she didn't want to use up all the color in the Zenith set."

In a way, this makes sense--prolong the life of the picture tube. And I suppose (in the tube era) there were probably more regular tubes in a color TV set, too.

Many years ago, The New Yorker had a cartoon showing one couple with a color TV, and a black and white set they used when watching colorized movies.

 

[j2400]

"We had an aunt that bought a 1962 Zenith color fishbowl set. It had a nice picture on it too. On top of that set she had a 19 inch B&W set. She only used the color set for color shows and watched the B&W shows on the smaller set. I asked her why she did that, and she told me she didn't want to use up all the color in the Zenith set."

In a way, this makes sense--prolong the life of the picture tube. And I suppose (in the tube era) there were probably more regular tubes in a color TV set, too.

Many years ago, The New Yorker had a cartoon showing one couple with a color TV, and a black and white set they used when watching colorized movies.

 

[whirlaway]

Color Peacock

I remember always in the 50s the NBC peacock before the price is right.It was always live in color and saved on bw film.The Red Skelton show was broadcast in color in 1956,but again saved in bw,some of the dvds now of shows in that era are bw because of that.The Supermans filmed from 1955to1957 or the end of the run where all filmed in color,as well as the Lone Ranger.The color picture of the NBC tone instrument was pre 1956.If you notice the T,V. shows from the 60s,the color is so pretty and bright,they really used good film and color processing so they looked really nice for broadcasting.

 

[passatdoc]

Whirlcool, I remember the color tv rooms in the store

The chief place I used to see color tv's on display was in the tv section of the cavernous White Front Department Store (really more like an early K Mart, but a bit higher end) in San Diego, because the store was close to our house. They did have the color sets in back with dimmer lighting. However, because the room was not walled off and was part of a huge warehouse store, I never smelled the ozone. Most of the sets were about $500 except for a few small portables like the GE Portacolor which broke the price barrier at $200. While the price was reasonable, it was too small for a family room. As a result, my parents held off and wound up getting the first tv in a raffle. I doubt however if they would have waited until 1973, the year they BOUGHT their first color set as a replacement to the GE, which died.

My parents weren't all that behind the times. They had a 19 inch B&W Zenith with Space Command remote control in their bedroom, from the early 60s when this was high end technology. THey also subscribed to cable tv c. 1965, when cable was basically a master antenna to pull in far away stations. When they remodelled the living room c. 1966, they put in a high end stereo (McIntosh receiver and amp) and upgraded the rooftop antenna to a rotor unit so they could get the best possible FM reception.

Cable tv allowed us to receive all of the San Diego and LA area stations, but with one catch. The cable company was required to block the three major network signals from LA if the SD station was showing the same programming, to require you to watch the local advertisers. Talk about freedom of the airwaves! Also, I believe later there was a cap on the maximum number of nonlocal stations they could pull in at any one time (this cap was upheld in the courts).

THe problem was, sometimes they left the blocks on by accident outside of prime time, and if the LA station was showing a non-network show that you wanted to watch and it was blocked, you were shit out of luck UNLESS you had a rotor antenna on top of your roof!

We had both the antenna and the cable hooked up to the color tv by an A/B switch, so when cable blocked a station, usually we could pull it in after adjusting the rotor antenna control for the best signal.

 

[whirlcool]

How did we ever get on without cable or satellite TV?

It seems like so distant a memory when one only had 3 or 4 television stations to choose from. Now even with basic cable or satellite you get at least 35.

The older NBC Peacock I linked to was from 1959, I think it came out in 1958 or so. The newer peacock that we are all familiar with debuted in 1961. The music was not as dramatic as the previous one was.

 

[passatdoc]

I don't remember the old peacock

as I was only four when the new peacock came online.

Depending on where you lived in San Diego, you could pull in all the LA channels (2-CBS, 4-NBC, 7-ABC, plus independents 5, 9, 11, and 13) and the three San Diego network channels: 6-ABC, 8-CBS, and 10-NBC. Also channel 12 in Spanish from Tijuana and educational channel 15 (before PBS). We had an independent UHF channel 39 which later became the NBC affiliate when 10 switched to ABC.

That is, if you lived on a mesa area. We lived in such an area until I was five, then we moved to the Point Loma area by the airport. The problem was that Mount Soledad in La Jolla blocked the channels from LA by topography and by interference, because all of the local stations had their transmitter towers on Soledad. So we went from 10 channels down to four when we moved.

Cable tv came to the rescue in 1965, and there was no original or cable-only programming, it was simply a high quality master antenna to pull in the distant stations. With rabbit ears only, you could pull in maybe two stations. With a rooftop antenna, all the local stations. With a rotor antenna, sometimes the LA stations, depending on weather conditions. We used the rotor mainly for FM reception, but also as a backup if the LA channel we wanted was blacked out by the cable company.

When I moved to south Orange County in 1988, the local cable operator carried several local San Diego channels along with the LA stations. However, they only carried two SD channels and I was told there was some sort of legal limit as to how many over the air channels they could import from the next market area. Of course this was well into the cable age and the company provided lots of cable-only channels, but apparently the court rulings against importing stations from the next market (when they were showing content identical to the network station in your own market) still were in force.

PS: My high school had a Spanish style red tile roof until the 1970s, when the c. 1925 building was razed, because it failed to meet modern earthquake standards. When it still existed, the roof was a major landmark for pilots taking off from San Diego's Lindbergh Field.

 

[mattl]

Washers, TVs and Teamsters

Growing up we had 3 TVs. The first was a big boxy Motorola in a mahogany cabinet. It had doors on it with big square filigreed pulls. I can't honestly say I ever saw it working. It was from I guess 1950, a "deal" my uncle got. He was high up in the Teamsters, worked with Jimmy H.. He also got a 'deal" on the first washer my folks had, supposedly "fell off a truck".

About 1958, I was 4, we got a Zenith Portable, 19". it was powder blue and massive with a handle on the top. We got it through the same uncle who had just established the first cable system in upper Michigan. It lasted quite a few years, but in 1968 we went color. We got the TOL Zenith 21" in a massive colonial cabinet this time from a store. Motorized tuning, only two buttons on the top for channel up and channel down. Interestingly they used this same set on Bewitched for a season or two. It was a good set lasted quite a while. In 1970 I got a big 25" Heathkit TV and built it, it too had motorized tuning and it was solid state where the Zenith was tube.

I still have the Heathkit stuck up in an attic, it worked the last time I tried it a decade ago, now it's just a souvenir.

As a side note my mother had lots of interesting story's regarding the Teamsters, she actually was one of Jimmy H's secretaries for a few years before I was born.

 

[paulg]

Admiral woes.

Be glad you didn't buy an early Admiral color vintage 1963 or thereabouts.
They manufactured the flyback using wax that easily melted coupled with paper insulation. The wax melted and oozed out of the TV's bottom. The windings then arced causing some sets to go up in flames - even when turned off!

 

[tolivac]

Flaming Flybacks

Its not really the BRAND of TV that causes the fire-but the insulation used in the deflection yoke and flyback transformer windings.In early flyback transformers and yokes-wax was commonly used for insulation-and it was flammable.I have had an RCA CTC-5 color TV flame up on me-the set was lost from the flame-the flyback caught fire-fortunately it was close to an outside door so I could drag it outside before any damage done.and the pic tube went---BOOM!For a little while I was fixing TV's and when I put in replacement deflection yokes and flyback transformers-made sure the replacements used flameproofed insulation.All new ones did-Thordarson was the most common replacement brand.the cases of TV's going up in flames when shut off were those with remote controls or "instant on" tubed chassis that kept the tube filaments running on reduced voltage when the set was off.A voltasge dropping resistor in the filament voltage line kept the fil voltage down when the set was off-when you turned it on a relay shunted out the resistor and turned on the chassis voltages.The fil resistors sometimes overheated-and caught fire or other components on fire.Again looked for "flameproofed" resistors that didn't catch fire if they overheated.They had a strong enough ceramic coating that contained arcs or didn't burn if the resistor failed.

 

[tolivac]

Worked on TV transmittrers from that era-beautiful devices-veiwing windows in the cabinets so you can see the glowing tubes and mercury vapor rectifier tubes-and the mercury tubes glowed brighter when the station was transmitting a dark picture.Oh those "Chrome and Glass" transmitter days!!Now that display would show wide screen plasma,LCD widescreen sets-and mounted on the wall.And the digital transmitter is a boring looking box with a few meters on the front-and a few dials and switches-no windows-the few tubes it has are inside and you can't see them-since modern transmitting tubes are ceramic-you really can't see the fil glow anymore.

 

[whirlcool]

We had a Zenith 27" color set we bought in 1993 catch fire during the middle of the night. Every few years the set had to have something in the power supply replaced. Then one night our yellow lab woke us up barking her head off. We woke up to find smile half way up the walls from the ceiling down. I ran into the den and saw the set smoldering. I unplugged it and it stopped, but called the fire department as a precaution. They put the set out in the backyard. Funny, it sat there for a few days before I disposed of it and that dog would give it a wide berth when walking around and would occasionally woof at it.
The only damage we had was a scorched wall where the set was.

 

[tolivac]

SCARY-glad your dog saved your life-dogs are more sensitive to smoke-and instinct tells them DANGER!!In later TV-s 90s models-the chassis were no longer tubed-except the pix tube.Usually the power supply was still energized and a component in it failed-causing the set to burn.Pix tubes for sets in that era had Quick heat filaments-that gave you a picture a few seconds after the set was turned on-and sometimes the filament was still on when the set was turned off.Thats why some energy conservation folks were onto TV set builders-the filaments and power supplies drawing power when the TV was "off"glad no serious damage to you or your family-and of course your dog from the smoldering TV.wonder if it was a resistor in the power supply that had to be replaced that would catch fire.In earlier days replaced several of those.In some TV's the resistor served as a fuse--Fusistors they were called.sometimes things got to hot before they blew.and on other early TV's remember the little red button type circuit breaker on the back?on some of those breakers TV repairman or somewhat knowlegeable owners would turn an adjustment on them to reduce the sensitivity.Replacement breakers had fixed values-you couldn't adjust them.this caused set fires too.Had to replace these as well.In those days --TV were fixable-nowadays you look into the back of that LCD or Plasma set and you see a huge circuit board soldered to the sets display device-plasma tube or the LCD screen.These are now difficult to repair.-the set has to go to the factory.Or in some cases the failed set is discarded and the customer is given a new one(under warranty)

 

[whirlcool]

That Zenith set was from the first year after Zenith was sold to Samsung. From day one that thing had power supply problems. They'd fix it and two years later it would shut down again. I thought the set was a lemon. We gave it every chance we could, but after the fire, we'd never buy a Zenith again.
You don't even really see Zenith televisions anymore. The only Zenith products I have seen are the DTV cable boxes.
We once had a Zenith PC from Zenith Data Systems. It was OK. I think it's still around here somewhere.....

 

[petek]

Can't remember if I ever told this story here before or not,, probably, but in regards to Zenith tv's.
Many years back in the 60's or 70's when my dad was still alive and working for Fiberglas he told me of a visit to the Zenith tv factory I think it may have been in Texas? Not sure but anyhoo he came back aghast because all along the assembly line the workers were sitting there assembling the tv components and sets while munching away on chips and snacks and soda pop etc at their stations. Salty fingers and electronic components. He only bought Japanese after that.

 

[whirlcool]

I think the original Zenith television sets were built in Chicago, maybe Franklin Park or Northbrook.
Even though I haven't seen any Zenith televisions in the stores according to their website they are still making televisions under the Zenith name. I think that they are probably just rebadged Samsungs.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

Zenith is LG (Lucky Goldstar) now.

Ken

 

[j2400]

I think I remember Zemith being bought by Goldstar. I remember the articles--the last American TV company going, etc, etc, etc.

It's sad about the loss of quality. Zenith may not have been the zenith...but they were apparently made some very good products once. I read a TV collector who loves the early Zenith sets because they were so well made.

 

[whirlcool]

I can attest to the fact that Zenith did make some great and leading edge products back in the 60's-80's (anyone remember the built in speaker phones and the ZOOM feature?). My parents and a lot of family members swore by Zenith. I thought they had the best pictures until Sony came along. The older sets had nice sold wood cabinets and they were very reliable.

 

[cadman]

Zenith was one of the last, if not the last, companies to build their TV sets with point-to-point wiring. Dead reliable and easy to work on but a lot of assembly labor involved compared to RCA's late 50's printed circuits (which are hell to work on). When Zenith stepped up with their new solid state sets they put a lot of thought (and cost) into it and hit a home run with reliability and picture. Pre-wired bus bars, for lack of a better term, are mounted to steel braces on the rear of the set. Each section (vertical output, audio amp, "zoom" and so forth) are on individual cards that plug into the bus bars along their edges. Should the set ever have a problem, not only can a card be swapped out (and actually repaired if deemed worth the time) but you now have numbered test points in the form of the contacts at all the cards' edges to work from. This at a time when manufacturers were moving to everything on one large board buried under the CRT, and soldered to a perimeter "chassis" which meant dismantling half the thing to get it out to access it (and you'd better have jumpers if you wanted to run the set with the chassis out).

 

[neptunebob]

I once knew an older man who was a volunteer firefighter, who said that in the 60s some Sears TVs would also catch on fire, usually on a Sunday evening. The reason: They had the paper capicitors, and on Sunday, "Gunsmoke" would come on and the first sound was a gun firing. When the gun went off, the TV would instantly catch on fire!

Now, I have to wonder, did any TVs catch on fire when Dr. Smith would start whining, or when Lucy would go "aawwwwwwww"?

 

[tolivac]

Do have recollections opf the quality of Zenith televisions-esp those older tubed ones.they also ran their tubes more conserevitily than other makers-the Zenith TV tubes lasted longer.My mom had a Zemith table model TV-it gave a beautiful monochrome picture.Only time I had to work on it was a noisey tuner.simply opened the machine up-removed and cleaned the tuner and the set was back in operation again.My Mom told me the set still worked when she gave it away after getting an RCA color TV..It was a treat to us kids to watch a show on the Zenith set-our tv was the green screen Hoffman Dad bought second hand-It lurked in the basement for us kids to watch cartoons and such on.Yes the point wiring in the Zeniths was unparralled-early PC boards-esp used with heat producing tubes and their high voltages caused the PC boards to break down-and burn on occasions.I didn't get real familair with Zenith TVs-those were like some of the early Maytag washers-the Zeniths didn't break much.also those early PC board trace cement wasn't very good-the traces lifted easily from soldering-or around tubes from their heat.PC boards worked best with SS parts.they just didn't work well with tubes.And on point wiring the wires can serve as socket "heat sinks" for the tubes-PC traces don't do that well-and they conduct the heat to other parts.
You know-NEVER had a case of a TV breaking down from gunshots,screams and such.with the Horror and Sci-fi movies I used to and still do watch-would the screams from these do it?so far-no.If you keep the volume moderate-screams and shots shouldn't be a problem.If they were imagine the blown speakers in movier theaters!-some theaters did complain of blown subwoofers from a recent Horror movie.Oh yes Maganavox TV-tubed ones like their hi-fi console systems did pretty well.
Well,when TVs went to SS and one or two large PC boards loaded with "house number" transistors and IC's made TV fixing impossible and not worth it.At that point gave up-knew other guys that did as well.One fellow I know instead of fixing TV's is now repairing helicopter and airplane turbine engines.
I can vaguely remember a Zenith plant in Soux Falls SD-they made radios and TV components there.It closed in the late 70's I beleive.