Who Remembers when TV Remotes were noisy?

[cleanfresh]

In the mid 60's we had a black and white Zenith televison with a remote control. Don't remember any of my friends having one at the time. I thought it was so cool not having to get up to change the channel, but it was very noisy. Every time you changed the channel it made this dadadadunk sound!!! Laugh when I think about it. Glad they put a silencer on the remotes!

 

[sudsmaster]

In the early sixties I remember visiting a friends house, where they showed off their new TV with remote. The remote was about the size of shoe, and yes, the TV did make a big clunk when channels were changed. I understand this was because the remote technology operated a motor that stepped the traditional TV tuner from channel to channel. No doubt there there were heavy cams and springs involved so the motor didn't skip channels or land the tuner between channels.

 

[rinso]

We had a 1960 Zenith "Space Command" set in a lime oak cabinet. (Yuck) The remote control had two rods, each about the size of a cigarette. The rods were struck by a hammer when the remote button was pushed, emitting a sound wave that was detected and activated the motor driven tuner or step volume. Our chirping parakeet and one of our alarm clocks were also able to active the functions from time to time. Zenith should have used Motorola two-town sequential signalling and resonant reed relays. Would have been much less primitive. BTW, if Zenith was suppossed to represent quality, you couldn't have proved it by this set. It was a total lemon, having very poorly designed horizonal synchronization circuitry. My dad said the only way to watch it was to drink a couple of highballs so you could bob and weave right along with the picture.

 

[appnut]

We got a "portable" Zenith with space command around 1960 or 1961. Must have been a 15" or 17" and stood on a metal stand with rollers. That TV went to my parent's bedroom when the RCA color tv arrivwed. That tv was kept around a long time, I actually took it to college in 1974. It's mechanism was just like Rinso's description.

 

[cleanfresh]

It sure was called Space Command

I forgot all about that. Space was super exciting in the 60's. Two of my fav space tv shows from the era were "Star Trek" and "Lost in Space". I loved using my space command to tune into "Mission Impossible" (was there anything that genius Barney couldn't fix or figure out?)and "The Outer Limits". The intro of the show where they "took control" of your tv and changed the screen pattern used to scare me.

 

[eluxomarty]

TV Remote

We had a Quasar TV that a had a two button remote. One button was used to turn the TV on and off and the other changed the 13 channels. The sound it made was a bit louder than a stapler and the channels rolled to the next. We could also change the channels by jiggling the car keys real hard!

 

[perc-o-prince]

I don't remember the brand but we had a console tv that had one of the noisy remotes, as well. We still have the cabinet and use it as a radiator cover because it has 2 fantastic speakers that we still use with the stereo. It has a recessed area, on the side, with a magnet for the remote controll. I can remember my grandmother cursing this tv because the channels would change when she would sweep the floor near it!

 

[tolivac]

the early TV remotes "clickers" as they were often called-Remotes sometimes called "clickers" today-these operated in the "ultrasonic" frequency range-frequencies emitted by the control were beyond the range of human hearing-however devices in common use could emit these frequencies as well-causing the TV to change channels or turn off-adjust volume,etc.I was trying to rmember the frequencies the remote was tuned to-one frequency turned the set on or off-another changed the channels going up-another going down.Then another frequency range adjusted the volume.I remember a friend of mine had a poodel dog that you could "call" with a Zenith "space command" unit.He trained the dog to bark on one of the commands-come when another was pressed.It worked rather well.And that dog loved it.The dog could readly hear the frequencies emitted by the control-when you "clicked" the remote-a Piezoelectric crystal tuned to the frequency was excited-or a mechanical reed was excited.-Kinda like ringing a bell.

 

[Designgeek]

Plong! Plong! I recall a remote that made those noises when you pressed the buttons. Apparently the remote was mechanical, and the buttons activated spring-loaded hammers that struck tuned rods that emitted sounds only the TV itself could hear. (Or your poodle

The noises you heard from the TV set itself could also have been a stepping relay. That would be the logical way to design it if it had to operate in one direction only, though I suppose a two-coil version with two rachets could have been used to allow going in both directions. And I wonder if any of these handled UHF channels as well as the VHF dial?

When I was home sick from elementary school one day, I made my own "remote control" It consisted of a long cardboard tube from a roll of gift-wrapping paper, with a simple notch cut in the end to fit over the raised part of the channel selector. To use it, reach it up so it fits over the knob, and twist. Yes, it really worked. Simple & effective!

The early TV remotes should have used a multifrequency signaling method as per touchtone telephone. Each button controls two simultaneous tones, which minimizes the potential for false activation. In those days transistors were still expensive; the Bell System could afford to put one transistor in each touchtone dial, and used a complicated tank-coil circuit to make it produce two tones at once. But on a "luxury" product, the added cost could have been justified.

 

[tolivac]

From the few early remote TV's I worked on-the sound from the set was the small motor that rotated the tuner.I was trying to remember the brand-the motor could rotate in both directions-as called for on the remote.A relay coupled to the sets remote receiver would activate the tuner motor.
Steppers were used in early broadcast transmitter remote control system coupled to the studio by a phone line.Worked on these as well.Most of these remote controls were made by RCA.A telephone dial actiuvated the functions of the remote-like raise-lower power,plate on-off,filament on-off.,Overload reset.I have dealt with these on FM and AM transmitters.If the stepper got "out of sync" with the studio unit-all kinds of problems could occur.-the jock may think he is adjusted transmitter power---but instead he turned the plates off-knocking the station off air!!

 

[spinout]

Space Command systems debuted while DTMF (touch tone) was still in development. The problem with [simultaneous] dual tones was that the presence of intermodulation distortion made such schemes unreliable. It is worth noting that Bell went to great lengths to assure that the DTMF frequencies chosen would not be problematic for the filters/receivers no matter how badly they were distorted.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who has had the pleasure of working on the old broadcast transmitters. In the early days of my engineering practice, I worked with many of those things--and when the phone companies started going to T carrier and other virtual circuits and away from true "copper" connections it became very problematic, especially for those systems that required DC continuity. I put several remote controls on microwave systems as subcarriers, which used tones to represent voltage levels, etc.. When the links would get noisy, all sorts of weird things would happen to the telemetry....

...but then again, that technology got us to the moon.

 

[tolivac]

Spinout:At the present job I am at now-still working on them-these are 40 and 60 year old shortwave broadcast units.To these--50Kw is a driver.Its quite a task keeping these going-parts are long NLA.Have to be made up.Tubes are still available-but more expensive.I do love the "Chrome and Glass" on these and the glowing tubes.todays transmitters are like todays appliances-just boring boxes with meters on 'em.

 

[Designgeek]

DTMF frequencies were also chosen to minimize the risk of false voice actuation: frequency combinations that were unlikely for human voices to produce.

Somewhere between rotary dials with DC pulses (truly digital signaling: series of ons and offs, which are effectively 1s and 0s) and MF tones (the telcos used MF on the toll tandem network before they released DTMF to the public), came SF or single-frequency signalling. The notorious 2600 Hz tone in the us, modulated by rotary dials (or relays on trunk circuits) into pulses. (Yeah I also whistled around with those when I was in college.) These were also susceptible to false voice actuation, but it would take a sustained signal of over one second to reset a trunk for a new call.

Today, it's all digital and software-controlled... it would be boring except it's possible to engineer working functions and features far more easily than in the days of stepper relays and soldering irons, which is always good. Though, the decline of transmission quality in the era of cellular (what did you say?) and crappy VOIP compression algorithms (huh? I can't hear you) is truly embarrassing to the industry.