CT-100 Color Receiver (CTC-2 Chassis, 1954) Starting March 25, 1954, 5,000 CT-100's were manufactured in RCA's Bloomington, Indiana plant. The set was named, "The Merrill". By mid-April of 1954, the sets were available at dealers. In my younger days I worked for RCA industrial division engineering for TV broadcast. I was also working in their consumer TV division for a while. These older TV sets were not easy to troubleshoot and service.
Oh, sure, tease us with the cliff hanger! We'll done in true Hollywood fashion. 🤣 Glad you were able to facilitate the transfer of one if the rarest color televisions. There is a Sylvania set that also used the 15GP22 CRT that is the rarest. There are two of the RCA CT100 in working condition in Washington State, one in Seattle and one in Bellingham at the Spark Museum. That wood cabinet with the parts in it is awesome. Heck with the caps, I want the Cabinet!! 😍
It’s really interesting to see how TVs from this era borrowed some of their design from radios from around the same period as well,since the TV was the successor to radio,and both appliances served as gathering places for families
My very well off bachelor engineer uncle bought one of these when they first came out. I was about 6 of 7 at the time and I clearly recall my parents timing their visits to his Boston apartment to coinside with the scheduled color broadcasts. I don't recall the specific programs but Judge Roy Bean kinda stands out in my mind. It was a fascinating time.
Woww! So much cabinet and mechanism for such a small picture tube, but that was the technology of the fledgling days of television, especially with the first color sets...
Shango - legendary voice, wit & knowledge. Thank you so much man for sharing your experiences with us all. This is THE best channel for old school CRT/Radio repair education.
My uncles mother in law had this same RCA color TV back in the 50s. She and her husband waited until color was introduced to purchase their first TV and purchased their RCA CT-100 in September of 1954 and kept it as their main TV until it’s picture tube blew out in 1968. The first color programs she remembered seeing on it were the special color episode of What's My Line? that aired on September 19, 1954, as well as episodes of the early color series Producers Showcase. Their example might be the only case of someone going straight from radio to color TV.
*BEAUTIFUL* set! When I was a kid, my whole family obeyed the 4-foot rule back when we had sets like this, protecting us from injury. The CRT glass in this model did not contain any protective lead and there was likely insufficient shielding around the HV rectifier circuit, resulting in unhealthful doses of ionizing X-radiation if one got too close to the set. This came off the assembly line long before enactment of any protective DHEW federal regulations.
So that's why my great grandfather told me never to sit that close to the TV when I was like 4. But their TV was from the 60s and black and white. I always thought it was because being that close would hurt my eyes. I never listened and it was closest to the knobs and cable converter and made the picture look huge compared to how tiny it looked from the sofa.
@@NickDalzell The plates of the tubes in the HV circuit of an old black-and-white TV emit minuscule amounts of X-radiation, but it's not enough to escape their glass envelopes. I don't think that being so close, looking at all the CRT image flickering would necessarily be helpful for one's good eyesight, though.
@@chetpomeroy1399 I'd argue that being so close to a tiny smartphone screen would likely be worse. I remember getting tons of headaches and eye strain when I used one. Not so much from a TV of any kind, CRT or LCD.
So very looking forward to part two the first RCA I ever worked on was a CTC 25 I then this is in my late teens went to the library and researched all the early issues of Consumer Reports from the 1950s to see how color TV was accepted and in particular of course this set. Of course at that time and we're talking the late seventies to read that this TV was marketed for $1,200 was unbelievable I can only think the ones remaining to this day must be in the low hundreds
The 25AP22A CRT in a CTC 25 had a life expectancy of about 2-3 years in a family with heavy use. I was installing CRTs as a kid working in a TV store in 1969 and the sets were 3 years old or less. The flybacks also loved to burn up, the 6GH8A tubes shorted and screwed up the color and the plastic cog for the fine-tuning always broke. At about $700 they cost a month's salary. No sympathy for RCA being pushed out by the Japanese then the Chinese, they were making sets in the mid to late 60s like the CTC25 that were designed to fail within 5 years. Planned obsolescence at its finest.
Every once in a while, one of these CT 100s turns up with a usable 15GP22 still under vacuum! Anyone's guess as to how long it will stay sealed, but still amazing. I have had the personal experience in the past 10 years, to test two of these 15GP22's as found, and the two that I tested were both good tubes with very good emission on all three guns.
I've been wanting to make a new parts cabinet out of wood and was thinking I'd have to make like 100 drawers, but I just saw how the old timer did it, he just made drawers that pull out with compartments in them, i'll have to copy that thank you!
I had a rich uncle that had one and remember watching "The Cisco Kid" on it. We, as kids, were absolutely forbidden to go near it and God forbid if it got banged into by a vacuum cleaner. Any anomaly and it necessitated a call to the TV repairman. We didn't get a color set until about 1967. It wasn't cheap but nowhere as expensive as that set.
A friend that I hung out with in 1960s family had an old 55 RCA that was from his uncles car dealership showroom. By late 60s it was pretty tired and I remember the convergence was way off. It used to look like a black and white with color ghosts. I remember being over at his house when his dad was checking the tubes and had the back off. It had circuitry all around the case. I remember looking at the watt requirement on the tag and it said it took 400 watts to run. Also remember I was at his house when Neil and Buzz were on the moon and getting ready to step out. You want to talk about a messed up picture. After they walked down the ladder we went down to my house and watched on my dad's new crystal clear black and white portable TV. Then we could actually tell what it was. Also had an aunt that wasn't rich but dealt in real estate and had a 59 Cadillac and a very nice color TV from about early 60s. She kept it in perfect order and I remember it had most beautiful picture. Those old CRTs had fabulous pictures, they just didn't last very long.
If you watched "The Cisco Kid" it was a DuMont system (Pal System) TV! DuMont championed the PAL system the BBC adopted and UHF channels. The picture was MUCH sharper,clearer, the screens were square edged and DuMont had 46" TV's in 1952 and they weren't "blue and grey" they were really "Black and White". Our best friends had a DuMont when I was about 4 years-old and I loved watching it and the SOUND was incredible too! Almost like stereo!
@@directcurrent5751 Oh, yes the old colour antenna. My Dad refused to by a colour set , too expensive and too many green faces , he bought one in 74 a Hitachi with remote control and then monthly cable.
GRRR "To Be Continued". Hopefully the new owner shares the restoration on TH-cam. Its interesting how complex these sets are and how various engineering challenges were solved using 1950s parts. This was by far the most complicated electronic device a consumer could purchase during the time period. It certainly wasn't cheap either.
My father was also a n1950’s TV repairman. He also sold a few TV’s He had one of these to sell but it didn’t move so it ended up in our living room Sports, Bonanza, Disney was about it for color programming until NBC, owned by RCA dictated all color line up in 64 or so
I had the opportunity a while ago to meet some of the people who worked at the RCA factory in Lancaster PA while tubes like these were being produced. Really cool stuff
Shango, the camera pickup tube is a vidicon tube, successor or little brother to the Image Orth tube. Three vidicons were used in the Phillips/Norelco PC-60 and PC-70 color cameras, which were in wide use through the mid 60's and 1970s. They shot some of the iconic network video taped shows during that era: Carol Burnett, All in the Family, etc. We had two of them at the NBC affiliate in Port Arthur, Texas, KJAC, where I worked in the mid-70s.
In the mid 90's I had a meeting that took place in a Community Room in a building owned by the City. They had a late 60's early 70's TUBE color tv - big one. The meeting was Monday nights so the people who showed up early would watch Monday Night Football. We would turn that sucka on and it was amazing how rich and saturated the colors were. Of course it was about 25 degrees warmer behind the set than in front of it due to the heat from what seemed like 40-50 tubes.BUT THAT PICTURE was just so analog!! Like pretty artsy and nothing cold or sterile at all...
Learned so much from this guy. Wish I could share a beer and talk about my unsolved collection of trashed CRT's & old radios to bring ever MORE back to life!
I remember when my family’s television, which was black and white, had a pretty small screen when I was very little. That television that I’m talking about had doors on the front too. I was born with very low vision and I remember having to sit very, very close to see the picture.
My dad told me he won a color television in a contest, in the mis 50’s. He said he gave the television to his parents. In the 60’s, and early 70’s, my grandparents were the people I knew who had a color t.v. In about 1976, my parents bought their first color set. It was a Quasar. I was the only one home when it was delivered. I didn’t know what to watch, so I turned on “The Price is Right”. I remember thinking how tacky the sets and games looked in their neon colors, LOL. One of the the reasons my folks wanted the color set was the following year was the Bi Centennial, and they wanted to see all the ceremonies, and specials in color. Does anyone remember the “Bi Centennial Minute”?
Very interesting, thanks. I have watched this antique thing go from a niche market to what it is. I was offered a chance to forego college and start a business in it and I didn't see it. That's one reason why I am a broke working stiff, I missed that one
I was 6 in 1954, and friends of my parents bought one. The color's bled all over the place, but at that age I didn't notice or care. I asked my parents if they would buy one, they didn't.
It took a huge passion for Early Adoption in 1954 to spend a retirement fortune on a color TV and the big aerial needed to load it so that family could watch one or two all-color shows per week.
A lot of people bought early home computers that were quite expensive when they started coming out. About the same, only color television in 1954 was way more magical.
Wow I had no idea color TV even existed in 1954, this must have been a technological marvel that seemed like science fiction at the time, because my great grandparents paid around 500 dollars for their first B&W TV, in 1949 or '50, and were among the first family on the block to have a TV, her brother thought they were out of their mind spending that kind of money lol. They invited the neighborhood kids to come over after school and introduce them to the future lol. They got the first color set around 1971, just in time for watching the Watergate investigation lol.
A getter was used only once, to consume any remaining oxygen, after a vacuum tube was made. They were inductively heated. After that, they were never used again, and would have no effect on any air that leaked in later. I grew up in the days when most electronic devices used vacuum tubes and transistors were just becoming popular in consumer devices. My family's first TV was a B&W 21" RCA Townsman (IIRC), which I believe was bought in 1957 and one of my uncles was a TV repair man. He gave me a stack of repair manuals for a variety of sets. I also obtained dead TVs from friends or elsewhere, to see what I could do with them.
Can't imagine there were very many shows broadcast in color in 1954. I don't think we had a color TV until around 1967. And I was watching my little black and white portable TV until at least the early '80s.
My dad told me this ~ When the TV first came out my grandpa bought the very first one in WNY. He had it set up for delivery for when he got home from work. Before it got delivered, another family bought one and became the first family in WNY to have "purchased" a TV because they took it home. My grandpa heard this and was upset because he had technically purchased the first one. So my grandpa did what my grandpa does, he went out and bought a 2nd TV and my dads family became the first family to own 2 tvs in NY. When another family purchased a 2nd tv, my grandpa bought a 3rd one. He would also trade his car in every time the ashtray got full and he smoked cigars. When asked why he just doesn't empty the tray he replied he would be taking a job away from a detailer.
We need to go back to a date and time that these TV’s 📺 existed. TV’s and houses were styled about as elegantly as each other in the late ⏰ 1800’s and mid 1900’s. I can just imagine sitting 🪑 down and watching a program on a wooden roundie TV 📺. They really beat the garbage 🗑 sets we buy at Walmart. 2 years, tops. A roundie would probably last 72. The picture could be somewhat small, but I can take this any day. Color or black and white is fine. CRT rebuilding is impossible to come by, unless just the right person comes up with a very intelligent idea 💡. Happy Halloween 🎃👻. Your friend, Jeff.
@@KameraShy I would say it's a contributor. It's what we eat, how often we eat as well, and of course the sedentary types of work many people are now employed doing.
Superbe vidéo ^^ quel magnifique téléviseur rca :) et le tout premier en couleur en plus, sa doit être difficile à trouver ? Et incroyable l’atelier avec tout les composants :)
NBC started broadcasting color in 54. NBC was owned by (or subsidiary of) RCA, so they created their own market. Disney's Wonderful World of Color was broadcast in color on sundays. I don't know what other programs were in color. By that time time there were a lot of color movies to broadcast.
Even if a network committed to color broadcasting (NBC was RCA, so it was useful to their developing the platform and subsequent gear sales), it was not until middle 1960s that almost every show was in color. The god voice even told you "in living color" it was so special.
@@Iconoclasher In the '50s, it was usually big budget variety shows and specials with celebrity headliners that got the color treatment, plus special events, like New Years and the Rose Bowl parade
@@directcurrent5751 NBC began broadcasting completely in color beginning fall, 1965. ABC & CBS did not switch to all color until 1966. Prior to 1965, NBC committed to a certain percentage of color broadcasting to promote their RCA television sets. "Bonanza", which premiered in 1959 was shot in color from the beginning. The wonderful world of Disney on Sunday nights was broadcast in color, though not all segments were in color. But over on ABC, Disney's Mickey Mouse club was shot in standard monochrome from 1955-59. On CBS, the Lucy Show was broadcast in black and white from 1962 to 1965, although Lucy filmed the show in color starting in fall 1963.
Remember early on; Transmission of color images using mechanical scanners had been conceived as early as the 1880s. A demonstration of mechanically scanned color television was given by John Logie Baird in 1928. Mechanically scanned color television was also demonstrated by Bell Laboratories in June 1929 using three complete systems of photoelectric cells, amplifiers, glow-tubes, and color filters, with a series of mirrors to superimpose the red, green, and blue images into one full-color image. This even pre-date commercials. How did they achieve this?
it was an amazing feat of technology at the time. It was not practical at all. Like someone said get a vacuum cleaner near it it would scramble colors. You had to call a technician to restore the purity of color, If you moved it same thing need technician to return color purity, By the mid 60's they had solved that issue with addition of demagnetization circuits upon startup.All early Branded color TV's all had RCA electronics they had the patents. The exception was Zenith which had their own design about 1962. By mid 60's color tv was OK but broadcasting was still an issue as color and tint (face color) was different from the commercial to programing color and faces could be green or red. (tint).you constantly had to adjust controls for true color. The broadcasters solved the issue in the 70's an d TV's from then had little issues of changing colors.And you know the rest
Absolutely wonderful, and TVs like radiograms they were a piece of furniture, and didn't dominant family life, we had TVs similar to this one to present day crap
Because of the small screens people sat much closer to the set than they do today. Consequently changing the channel was not such an inconvenience as it would be today without remote.
I remember when they sold these plastic films that put on the screen of your black and white tv to make it color tv. It was great if you liked blue people and green skies.
I'm pretty interested in the life of Howard Hughes. I just watched the aviator for the 13th time and some other documentaries. He's one of the first American victims of fake news and cancel culture. Its like people like him are rising from the grave, Preston Tucker is another example but not as cool and Howard was. Good stuff
Absolutely beautiful, what an amazing time capsule, are you going to be the one who recommissions this for your friend? Thanks for sharing, imagine buying it brand new back in the day, you get it all set up and all the program you start to watch are filmed in black and white to begin with so I wonder how long it took for them to be able to see and appreciate the colour, I'd imagine that it would be advertising that they would have seen in colour first?
I never knew they had color TVs in 1954. At that time we had a new Stomberge Carlson black and white. It was tube, it took probably 20 seconds to warm up first. The antenna was on top of the house.
I recall reading online, a story from a fellow who back on New Year's Day, 1954, was given a big surprise by his pop at a downtown store, to watch the big parade on what must have been one of these TVs, and the kids at school couldn't believe he had watched the parade in color.
I had a more rare ct-100 model 5 prototype discovered in a home from the 1950s in Elmont NY. The prototype model 5 had the different design wooden grill base on front. Grill design was criss cross pattern then the normal square design .
That chair looks like the one used as a prop on Bewitched. It was purchased at a flea market and brought home and would fold up when Darren sat down on it and it ended up being some sort of nerdy kid.
Hi! I have a old cbs-columbia 1956. I need to fix the flyback transfo. Its a Stancor A-8231. its impossible to find this part. is it something you can fix? thanks! :D
Awesome looking Television; Really made & treated like a "Piece of Furniture", fits well with those on porch. That 'Settee'\ Couch is very close to Chairs i have. Feather cushions & Horsehair padded frame. _fade to ... black_ Part II {{{sigh}}} Thanks shango & New owner. glad you're 'Jazzed'
Good find! Just a couple of comments... Picture tubes should not be shipped face down. Any foreign material inside the tube could fall down on the shadow mask and cause a blocked aperture. At 10:30 in the video, the camera tube is a vidicon. Studio cameras used an image orthicon tube which is much larger. Vidicons were typically used in the "film chain" as the pickup tube for motion picture film and slide projectors. Yeah, the 2C39 is a transmitting tube useful in the UHF frequency range.
Interesting about the CRT's. Every reman. CRT I ever got was shipped face down. Probably because the bracing required to ship them face up or sideways would have been expensive and unwieldy.
@@AF9A They certainly did. I repaired TV’s part time from the early 80’s through the 90’s and here in NJ there was a small mom and pop CRT rebuilder called Superior Picture Tube that regunned both mono and color tubes. They worked quite well too.
PCBs were not a thing yet when this TV was designed. In fact, they had only begun being used in consumer electronics less than two years after these were sold, and only in Motorola radios. And if you think this TV set doesn't have many components... ohhh you just wait, you'll see...
like you, drove to La Mirada, to take it back home to Oakland, before I was shot 30 ft. from my front door, that was 2001. Bob Tuck ran my datsun 610 that I'd fitted with an SX-5 speed, was angled a bit, but with a custom shifter did not care that the tranny pan was centered
This 1954 model uses the CT prefix designation whereas the later ones use the CTC prefix designation. I'm guessing that CTC stands for Color Tv Chassis.
Part 2 th-cam.com/video/aROoOEfGHV0/w-d-xo.html
I truly hope this TV finds it's way to a museum one day and can be preserved forever.
I’m sure the collector he’s helping out is going to give it a good home and restore,preserve and enjoy it.
Really I was hoping it will find its way to the dump.
Nothing lasts forever. That is why we are not reading Babylonian joke books.
@@Suddenlyits1960 this is a great tv
@@Suddenlyits1960
This is a great tv and must preserve these
CT-100 Color Receiver (CTC-2 Chassis, 1954) Starting March 25, 1954, 5,000 CT-100's were manufactured in RCA's Bloomington, Indiana plant. The set was named, "The Merrill". By mid-April of 1954, the sets were available at dealers.
In my younger days I worked for RCA industrial division engineering for TV broadcast. I was also working in their consumer TV division for a while.
These older TV sets were not easy to troubleshoot and service.
Yes, finally. One of the few devices I'd sit through an entire recapping video of.
That 2C39A Eimac is a transmitting triode. as far as I know, Eimac only made tubes for transmitters and other high power applications.
WoW! It's great to see Shango inspecting one of these sets!
Beautiful!
In 1954 the ink was barely dry on the ntsc standards for transmitting a color signal.
so cool! can't wait for Part 2. one of the most important sets in TV history.
Was Howdy Doody even in color yet?
@@michaelszczys8316 HD was color starting in 1956. RCA (who owned NBC,) used HD as a promotion for color television.
Yes. The engineering complexity necessary to make color TV commercially feasible spurred many other electronics technological advancements.
old tvs were GREAT!
Just proves how ahead of the game this TV is Vs TH-cam
Oh, sure, tease us with the cliff hanger! We'll done in true Hollywood fashion. 🤣 Glad you were able to facilitate the transfer of one if the rarest color televisions. There is a Sylvania set that also used the 15GP22 CRT that is the rarest. There are two of the RCA CT100 in working condition in Washington State, one in Seattle and one in Bellingham at the Spark Museum. That wood cabinet with the parts in it is awesome. Heck with the caps, I want the Cabinet!! 😍
'SpatsBear' on TH-cam did a ten part series for restore / recap / repair on a CT100. I believe it is still working.
@@LakeNipissing Phil's Old Radios also did a long article with pictures about a CT100 restoration.
CORRECTION. It could have been Westinghouse that had the other set. Someone else also said Admiral had an early color set
Looking forward to part 2 !
It’s really interesting to see how TVs from this era borrowed some of their design from radios from around the same period as well,since the TV was the successor to radio,and both appliances served as gathering places for families
What a beautiful set! It must have been a marvel for its time!
When i was a kid i was the remote control for the TV back in the 60's and early 70's, lol.
1954 is insane, that's just one year newer than the first black and white television in czechoslovakia
My very well off bachelor engineer uncle bought one of these when they first came out. I was about 6 of 7 at the time and I clearly recall my parents timing their visits to his Boston apartment to coinside with the scheduled color broadcasts. I don't recall the specific programs but Judge Roy Bean kinda stands out in my mind. It was a fascinating time.
It's a pity it's not your showpiece. I would love to see its restoration in your way.
Woww! So much cabinet and mechanism for such a small picture tube, but that was the technology of the fledgling days of television, especially with the first color sets...
Shango - legendary voice, wit & knowledge. Thank you so much man for sharing your experiences with us all. This is THE best channel for old school CRT/Radio repair education.
My uncles mother in law had this same RCA color TV back in the 50s. She and her husband waited until color was introduced to purchase their first TV and purchased their RCA CT-100 in September of 1954 and kept it as their main TV until it’s picture tube blew out in 1968. The first color programs she remembered seeing on it were the special color episode of What's My Line? that aired on September 19, 1954, as well as episodes of the early color series Producers Showcase. Their example might be the only case of someone going straight from radio to color TV.
*BEAUTIFUL* set! When I was a kid, my whole family obeyed the 4-foot rule back when we had sets like this, protecting us from injury. The CRT glass in this model did not contain any protective lead and there was likely insufficient shielding around the HV rectifier circuit, resulting in unhealthful doses of ionizing X-radiation if one got too close to the set. This came off the assembly line long before enactment of any protective DHEW federal regulations.
So that's why my great grandfather told me never to sit that close to the TV when I was like 4. But their TV was from the 60s and black and white. I always thought it was because being that close would hurt my eyes. I never listened and it was closest to the knobs and cable converter and made the picture look huge compared to how tiny it looked from the sofa.
@@NickDalzell The plates of the tubes in the HV circuit of an old black-and-white TV emit minuscule amounts of X-radiation, but it's not enough to escape their glass envelopes. I don't think that being so close, looking at all the CRT image flickering would necessarily be helpful for one's good eyesight, though.
@@chetpomeroy1399 I'd argue that being so close to a tiny smartphone screen would likely be worse. I remember getting tons of headaches and eye strain when I used one. Not so much from a TV of any kind, CRT or LCD.
@@NickDalzell I'd have to agree. Don't like dealing with smartphones, either. They *are* kind of tough on the eyes, especially at my advanced age.
Shango; my favourite dude & channel for sure. Please never change your style! Love you man.
So very looking forward to part two the first RCA I ever worked on was a CTC 25 I then this is in my late teens went to the library and researched all the early issues of Consumer Reports from the 1950s to see how color TV was accepted and in particular of course this set. Of course at that time and we're talking the late seventies to read that this TV was marketed for $1,200 was unbelievable I can only think the ones remaining to this day must be in the low hundreds
The 25AP22A CRT in a CTC 25 had a life expectancy of about 2-3 years in a family with heavy use. I was installing CRTs as a kid working in a TV store in 1969 and the sets were 3 years old or less. The flybacks also loved to burn up, the 6GH8A tubes shorted and screwed up the color and the plastic cog for the fine-tuning always broke. At about $700 they cost a month's salary. No sympathy for RCA being pushed out by the Japanese then the Chinese, they were making sets in the mid to late 60s like the CTC25 that were designed to fail within 5 years. Planned obsolescence at its finest.
That's Awesome, glad to see it's going to a good home.
Every once in a while, one of these CT 100s turns up with a usable 15GP22 still under vacuum! Anyone's guess as to how long it will stay sealed, but still amazing. I have had the personal experience in the past 10 years, to test two of these 15GP22's as found, and the two that I tested were both good tubes with very good emission on all three guns.
I've been wanting to make a new parts cabinet out of wood and was thinking I'd have to make like 100 drawers, but I just saw how the old timer did it, he just made drawers that pull out with compartments in them, i'll have to copy that thank you!
That's a great find, hope the new owner has many happy hours getting a squeak out of it, and that the irreplaceable tube is ok.
I had a rich uncle that had one and remember watching "The Cisco Kid" on it. We, as kids, were absolutely forbidden to go near it and God forbid if it got banged into by a vacuum cleaner. Any anomaly and it necessitated a call to the TV repairman. We didn't get a color set until about 1967. It wasn't cheap but nowhere as expensive as that set.
Required about twice the antenna elements to load a decent signal strength in vintage color sets. Uncle had some investment!
Turning on the vacuum in front of them was the killer, the magnetic field would screw up the purity and convergence. A running vacuum was usually OK.
A friend that I hung out with in 1960s family had an old 55 RCA that was from his uncles car dealership showroom.
By late 60s it was pretty tired and I remember the convergence was way off. It used to look like a black and white with color ghosts.
I remember being over at his house when his dad was checking the tubes and had the back off. It had circuitry all around the case. I remember looking at the watt requirement on the tag and it said it took 400 watts to run.
Also remember I was at his house when Neil and Buzz were on the moon and getting ready to step out. You want to talk about a messed up picture. After they walked down the ladder we went down to my house and watched on my dad's new crystal clear black and white portable TV. Then we could actually tell what it was.
Also had an aunt that wasn't rich but dealt in real estate and had a 59 Cadillac and a very nice color TV from about early 60s. She kept it in perfect order and I remember it had most beautiful picture.
Those old CRTs had fabulous pictures, they just didn't last very long.
If you watched "The Cisco Kid" it was a DuMont system (Pal System) TV! DuMont championed the PAL system the BBC adopted and UHF channels. The picture was MUCH sharper,clearer, the screens were square edged and DuMont had 46" TV's in 1952 and they weren't "blue and grey" they were really "Black and White". Our best friends had a DuMont when I was about 4 years-old and I loved watching it and the SOUND was incredible too! Almost like stereo!
@@directcurrent5751 Oh, yes the old colour antenna. My Dad refused to by a colour set , too expensive and too many green faces , he bought one in 74 a Hitachi with remote control and then monthly cable.
GRRR "To Be Continued".
Hopefully the new owner shares the restoration on TH-cam. Its interesting how complex these sets are and how various engineering challenges were solved using 1950s parts. This was by far the most complicated electronic device a consumer could purchase during the time period. It certainly wasn't cheap either.
Always shocks me thinking about the engineering and experimentation around color TV development in the 1950s.
Must be an incredibly rare piece
What a cliffhanger!!!!! BTW. I dismissed the couch until you zoomed in. Great video once again.
My father was also a n1950’s TV repairman. He also sold a few TV’s He had one of these to sell but it didn’t move so it ended up in our living room Sports, Bonanza, Disney was about it for color programming until NBC, owned by RCA dictated all color line up in 64 or so
I had the opportunity a while ago to meet some of the people who worked at the RCA factory in Lancaster PA while tubes like these were being produced. Really cool stuff
Pretty much a "Grail Moment"; so happy it'll be well loved once again!
Shango, the camera pickup tube is a vidicon tube, successor or little brother to the Image Orth tube. Three vidicons were used in the Phillips/Norelco PC-60 and PC-70 color cameras, which were in wide use through the mid 60's and 1970s. They shot some of the iconic network video taped shows during that era: Carol Burnett, All in the Family, etc. We had two of them at the NBC affiliate in Port Arthur, Texas, KJAC, where I worked in the mid-70s.
In the mid 90's I had a meeting that took place in a Community Room in a building owned by the City. They had a late 60's early 70's TUBE color tv - big one. The meeting was Monday nights so the people who showed up early would watch Monday Night Football. We would turn that sucka on and it was amazing how rich and saturated the colors were. Of course it was about 25 degrees warmer behind the set than in front of it due to the heat from what seemed like 40-50 tubes.BUT THAT PICTURE was just so analog!! Like pretty artsy and nothing cold or sterile at all...
Learned so much from this guy. Wish I could share a beer and talk about my unsolved collection of trashed CRT's & old radios to bring ever MORE back to life!
I love this old fashioned electronic circuitry.
I can feel your anticipation as these drawers opened, right down your alley I'm sure,, what an interesting show this one is.. ..
I'm just shocked, his name isn't Shango. ;)
I remember when my family’s television, which was black and white, had a pretty small screen when I was very little. That television that I’m talking about had doors on the front too.
I was born with very low vision and I remember having to sit very, very close to see the picture.
My dad told me he won a color television in a contest, in the mis 50’s. He said he gave the television to his parents. In the 60’s, and early 70’s, my grandparents were the people I knew who had a color t.v. In about 1976, my parents bought their first color set. It was a Quasar. I was the only one home when it was delivered. I didn’t know what to watch, so I turned on “The Price is Right”. I remember thinking how tacky the sets and games looked in their neon colors, LOL. One of the the reasons my folks wanted the color set was the following year was the Bi Centennial, and they wanted to see all the ceremonies, and specials in color. Does anyone remember the “Bi Centennial Minute”?
I remember the Bicentennial Minute bits broadcast on CBS at the time. I was 15.😊
Very interesting, thanks. I have watched this antique thing go from a niche market to what it is. I was offered a chance to forego college and start a business in it and I didn't see it. That's one reason why I am a broke working stiff, I missed that one
I'm certainly looking forward to Part 2 as evidently are many others here. Hope it's a good long one for this beauty! Thanks.
Perhaps I have already seen this. I guess there was something that needed editing out. I'll watch again.
I love this Television Shango, the picture tube is so small and it looks really nice with the cabinet design. it looks like a quality built unit.
Good to see that set landed a good home with someone who appreciates it.
I was 6 in 1954, and friends of my parents bought one. The color's bled all over the place, but at that age I didn't notice or care. I asked my parents if they would buy one, they didn't.
It took a huge passion for Early Adoption in 1954 to spend a retirement fortune on a color TV and the big aerial needed to load it so that family could watch one or two all-color shows per week.
A lot of people bought early home computers that were quite expensive when they started coming out.
About the same, only color television in 1954 was way more magical.
Wow I had no idea color TV even existed in 1954, this must have been a technological marvel that seemed like science fiction at the time, because my great grandparents paid around 500 dollars for their first B&W TV, in 1949 or '50, and were among the first family on the block to have a TV, her brother thought they were out of their mind spending that kind of money lol. They invited the neighborhood kids to come over after school and introduce them to the future lol. They got the first color set around 1971, just in time for watching the Watergate investigation lol.
Wow Nice! I almost had it for myself and had it shipped back to Atlanta but Jeffrey got to it first.
Jack, everyone loves Shango!
@@radiorexandy Oh I know, me included haha
A getter was used only once, to consume any remaining oxygen, after a vacuum tube was made. They were inductively heated. After that, they were never used again, and would have no effect on any air that leaked in later. I grew up in the days when most electronic devices used vacuum tubes and transistors were just becoming popular in consumer devices. My family's first TV was a B&W 21" RCA Townsman (IIRC), which I believe was bought in 1957 and one of my uncles was a TV repair man. He gave me a stack of repair manuals for a variety of sets. I also obtained dead TVs from friends or elsewhere, to see what I could do with them.
Can't imagine there were very many shows broadcast in color in 1954. I don't think we had a color TV until around 1967. And I was watching my little black and white portable TV until at least the early '80s.
I had an uncle who worked for Hughes and lived in Torrance in the 50s - 80s.
My dad told me this ~
When the TV first came out my grandpa bought the very first one in WNY.
He had it set up for delivery for when he got home from work.
Before it got delivered, another family bought one and became the first family in WNY to have "purchased" a TV because they took it home.
My grandpa heard this and was upset because he had technically purchased the first one.
So my grandpa did what my grandpa does, he went out and bought a 2nd TV and my dads family became the first family to own 2 tvs in NY.
When another family purchased a 2nd tv, my grandpa bought a 3rd one.
He would also trade his car in every time the ashtray got full and he smoked cigars.
When asked why he just doesn't empty the tray he replied he would be taking a job away from a detailer.
We need to go back to a date and time that these TV’s 📺 existed. TV’s and houses were styled about as elegantly as each other in the late ⏰ 1800’s and mid 1900’s. I can just imagine sitting 🪑 down and watching a program on a wooden roundie TV 📺. They really beat the garbage 🗑 sets we buy at Walmart. 2 years, tops. A roundie would probably last 72. The picture could be somewhat small, but I can take this any day. Color or black and white is fine. CRT rebuilding is impossible to come by, unless just the right person comes up with a very intelligent idea 💡. Happy Halloween 🎃👻. Your friend, Jeff.
My dad picked up a Sony Trinitron in about 1972, and we had it at least 25 years later. I don’t think it ever broke.
Wow, you even have the user manuals?!?! This is so cool thank you for sharing!!
OMG! A TV where you had to get up off your @rse to change the channel or the volume. What cavemen we were back then!
Was exercise. Remote controls are the cause of epidemic obesity today.
@@KameraShy I would say it's a contributor. It's what we eat, how often we eat as well, and of course the sedentary types of work many people are now employed doing.
Superbe vidéo ^^ quel magnifique téléviseur rca :) et le tout premier en couleur en plus, sa doit être difficile à trouver ? Et incroyable l’atelier avec tout les composants :)
Super cool! I wonder what was on in 1954 that was in color? There must have been something or else a color tv would be useless.
NBC started broadcasting color in 54. NBC was owned by (or subsidiary of) RCA, so they created their own market. Disney's Wonderful World of Color was broadcast in color on sundays. I don't know what other programs were in color. By that time time there were a lot of color movies to broadcast.
Even if a network committed to color broadcasting (NBC was RCA, so it was useful to their developing the platform and subsequent gear sales), it was not until middle 1960s that almost every show was in color. The god voice even told you "in living color" it was so special.
@@Iconoclasher In the '50s, it was usually big budget variety shows and specials with celebrity headliners that got the color treatment, plus special events, like New Years and the Rose Bowl parade
@@directcurrent5751 NBC began broadcasting completely in color beginning fall, 1965. ABC & CBS did not switch to all color until 1966. Prior to 1965, NBC committed to a certain percentage of color broadcasting to promote their RCA television sets. "Bonanza", which premiered in 1959 was shot in color from the beginning. The wonderful world of Disney on Sunday nights was broadcast in color, though not all segments were in color. But over on ABC, Disney's Mickey Mouse club was shot in standard monochrome from 1955-59. On CBS, the Lucy Show was broadcast in black and white from 1962 to 1965, although Lucy filmed the show in color starting in fall 1963.
@@Nikes62 yep, it took someone highly committed to Early Adoption to invest in the nascent color television and massive aerial prior to 1961.
Wow. I knew the color TVs weren't common until the 60s. But I never saw one of the original ones before.
Remember early on; Transmission of color images using mechanical scanners had been conceived as early as the 1880s. A demonstration of mechanically scanned color television was given by John Logie Baird in 1928. Mechanically scanned color television was also demonstrated by Bell Laboratories in June 1929 using three complete systems of photoelectric cells, amplifiers, glow-tubes, and color filters, with a series of mirrors to superimpose the red, green, and blue images into one full-color image. This even pre-date commercials. How did they achieve this?
Was the "leftovers" available for sale ? Did you make a deal on them ?
Oh man. Left us on a cliff hanger on the tube life test. 🙂
it was an amazing feat of technology at the time. It was not practical at all. Like someone said get a vacuum cleaner near it it would scramble colors. You had to call a technician to restore the purity of color, If you moved it same thing need technician to return color purity, By the mid 60's they had solved that issue with addition of demagnetization circuits upon startup.All early Branded color TV's all had RCA electronics they had the patents. The exception was Zenith which had their own design about 1962. By mid 60's color tv was OK but broadcasting was still an issue as color and tint (face color) was different from the commercial to programing color and faces could be green or red. (tint).you constantly had to adjust controls for true color. The broadcasters solved the issue in the 70's an d TV's from then had little issues of changing colors.And you know the rest
Absolutely wonderful, and TVs like radiograms they were a piece of furniture, and didn't dominant family life, we had TVs similar to this one to present day crap
Closely resembles the Zenith b&w floor model we had back in the 50' s.
Because of the small screens people sat much closer to the set than they do today. Consequently changing the channel was not such an inconvenience as it would be today without remote.
Very interested in Part 2.
The eimac tube is a transmitting triode. Definitely an aerospace piece too.
I remember when they sold these plastic films that put on the screen of your black and white tv to make it color tv. It was great if you liked blue people and green skies.
My family did not get our first Color TV until about 1967. I recall watching our first Moon landing in July of 1969. I just turned 15.
I'm pretty interested in the life of Howard Hughes. I just watched the aviator for the 13th time and some other documentaries. He's one of the first American victims of fake news and cancel culture. Its like people like him are rising from the grave, Preston Tucker is another example but not as cool and Howard was. Good stuff
Next it looks like Elon Musk is in those footsteps
I love "The Aviator" great movie!! , "Tucker: The Man and His Dream" is one I've seen a few times also,
Absolutely beautiful, what an amazing time capsule, are you going to be the one who recommissions this for your friend? Thanks for sharing, imagine buying it brand new back in the day, you get it all set up and all the program you start to watch are filmed in black and white to begin with so I wonder how long it took for them to be able to see and appreciate the colour, I'd imagine that it would be advertising that they would have seen in colour first?
I never knew they had color TVs in 1954. At that time we had a new Stomberge Carlson black and white. It was tube, it took probably 20 seconds to warm up first. The antenna was on top of the house.
I recall reading online, a story from a fellow who back on New Year's Day, 1954, was given a big surprise by his pop at a downtown store, to watch the big parade on what must have been one of these TVs, and the kids at school couldn't believe he had watched the parade in color.
I had a more rare ct-100 model 5 prototype discovered in a home from the 1950s in Elmont NY. The prototype model 5 had the different design wooden grill base on front. Grill design was criss cross pattern then the normal square design .
That chair looks like the one used as a prop on Bewitched. It was purchased at a flea market and brought home and would fold up when Darren sat down on it and it ended up being some sort of nerdy kid.
5:00 What an absolute hodgepodge it's miraculous that it actually works😲
Hi! I have a old cbs-columbia 1956. I need to fix the flyback transfo. Its a Stancor A-8231. its impossible to find this part. is it something you can fix? thanks! :D
Bummer. Shango rerun.
Not quite sure if it's the first color TV... The CBS system also sold color sets - although limited - earlier. THis may be the first NTSC color set.
Nice episodic teaser at the end.
Will the hero escape the clutches of the villian? Stay tuned for part 2....
Awesome looking Television; Really made & treated like a "Piece of Furniture", fits well with those on porch.
That 'Settee'\ Couch is very close to Chairs i have. Feather cushions & Horsehair padded frame.
_fade to ... black_ Part II {{{sigh}}} Thanks shango & New owner. glad you're 'Jazzed'
I new someone that had one in there living room and thats the tv they watched everyday
Good find! Just a couple of comments... Picture tubes should not be shipped face down. Any foreign material inside the tube could fall down on the shadow mask and cause a blocked aperture. At 10:30 in the video, the camera tube is a vidicon. Studio cameras used an image orthicon tube which is much larger. Vidicons were typically used in the "film chain" as the pickup tube for motion picture film and slide projectors. Yeah, the 2C39 is a transmitting tube useful in the UHF frequency range.
Interesting about the CRT's. Every reman. CRT I ever got was shipped face down. Probably because the bracing required to ship them face up or sideways would have been expensive and unwieldy.
@@patricknesbitt4003 I know they remanufactured B&W CRTs. Did they do color tubes also? My comment was for color CRTs.
@@AF9A They certainly did. I repaired TV’s part time from the early 80’s through the 90’s and here in NJ there was a small mom and pop CRT rebuilder called Superior Picture Tube that regunned both mono and color tubes. They worked quite well too.
Vidicon was camera tube used in space.
I passed a working one up at a TV shop auction maybe 35 or so years ago
Do you remember if it sold and for how much money? Any comments you recall from people there at the time? Thanks
@@johnnytacokleinschmidt515 if I remember correctly it sold for $100, don't recall anyone commenting about it, that sale was in the Salem,Ohio area.
It was odd seeing your naked hands. I am so use of seeing you in the blue gloves lol. Beautiful TV 📺
Extraordinary find! It's a pity you couldn't get it functional. I would've liked to see what the picture was like.
The circuits seems very scarce for a color tv at that time, i remember a German tv of the 70s which was filled with pcb in every directions
RCA. If you don't need it, drop it.
PCBs were not a thing yet when this TV was designed. In fact, they had only begun being used in consumer electronics less than two years after these were sold, and only in Motorola radios. And if you think this TV set doesn't have many components... ohhh you just wait, you'll see...
man I would so love to see the restore video on this thing
Piece of history there for sure, be careful with her shango, shes an old lady
Thats one old color TV set. All my days fixing TVs I never had one like this one. really its collector one ! not many around like that one.
I have the "same year of production" and I still work well :-) so try to bring back to life and this peer hi hi... greetings + paw 👍🦉👨🦳
Back in 54, a color t.v cost 1000 dollars which were pretty high at the time. Hardly any color programing and before video tape.
like you, drove to La Mirada, to take it back home to Oakland, before I was shot 30 ft. from my front door, that was 2001. Bob Tuck ran my datsun 610 that I'd fitted with an SX-5 speed, was angled a bit, but with a custom shifter did not care that the tranny pan was centered
Start of a novel.
That’s just awesome Shango066 ❤
shango time!
spats-bear restored one of these
This 1954 model uses the CT prefix designation whereas the later ones use the CTC prefix designation. I'm guessing that CTC stands for Color Tv Chassis.