I still remember going with my mother to visit her uncle about 1950 & saw his 3 inch tv screen. I never dreamed 70 years ago I would have my own HD TV in full colour & be able to watch any film or programme I wanted!! Or have a remote control whereby I can pause the film & make a cup of tea!!
Thanks Randy! I'm fascinated by the ingenuity that went into any older technology and TV's is definitely one of the most innovative. Bringing the museum to people from all over the world who wouldn't be able to go in person is very very much appreciated! 😊
NOW I'm feeling old! Born in 1950, we always had TV. I think my parent's first was an Emerson, tiny screen. They bought it while I was an infant, it moved into our home in the Long Island suburbs, and entered into my young memory. It lasted a year or two, my guess is that it died when I was 3 or 4 years old. Next came the Dumont, much bigger screen, and centered in the living room. That had to have been around 1954 or 55. We were on good terms with the repair man, who visited us 2-3x a year to replace a tube or two. Parents went into minor heart failure once, when the picture tube went, and had to be replaced. In 1959, my father was in a National Science Foundation program in Portland Oregon, We bought a 19" portable TV to go with us for the summer, and it became our main TV as the big box in the living room gradually faded into oblivion. Obviously we wanted color (my brother and I) but at $400-$500. it was totally beyond my parent's reach. And programming was minimal, and color quality, despite what you might have been told, was absolutely awful. Red was more like a blushing orange, faces were always green, and everything always had a rainbow halo on it. Off to college in the 1970s, one of the first 12" SONY Trinitrons entered the house, and lasted forever. Color was excellent, picture quality was better than B&W, and it was affordable. I could go through the rest of my life viewed through the TV, but I won't. Suffice it to say that I have a fantastic, Korean made 65" 4K (color) flat screen hanging on the wall - a science fiction dream for a kid of the 1950s.
A wonderful presentation... What a marvelous collection...We got our 1st color TV in 1962, a Zenith 21 " - we were the 1st ones in our neighborhood to have one... Folks would come over on Sunday nights to watch Disney & the few color programs that were available.... It was a very big deal... The mighty Zenith was a tube eater.... Every 4-5 months you'd turn it on & then it it would start smoking.. The tv guy would come over w/his big box of tubes & tools, put a bunch of new stuff in, & then re-magnitize the screen w/his magnitizer. ... Very Buck Rogers tech back then...I was 10 yrs. old . I'd watch him do his thing, ask him a million questions & generally drive him nuts... Fun to be a kid. Great to see this.
This is such an amazing collection, thanks for going there and sharing it to the rest of us where the chances of actually going are slim. I'd always thought the US papered over Baird's mechanical system from the UK, and claimed that Farnsworth invented TV, but this place puts everything into context beautifully.
I entered the broadcast engineering field in the 1960s. Worked in radio engineering then transferred to television engineering. Boy, that RCA TK42 Camera took two “healthy, strong” engineers to put it back on the pedestal after repairs. Only senior “qualified” engineers were allowed to replace and set up the camera tubes. Good presentation. Hope many more will enjoy watching. Great to grow up and learn during those days. Thank you. Steve Molnar, W8ANJ.
@@paxhumana2015 Pretty sure the username is not to be taken at face value since the 08/15 is german slang used to describe drab, inferior and dated things.
Wonderful and interesting presentation..as a kid that grew up between 1955 & 1965 I have seen many of these in action, what a great collection I am happy to see someone preserved some of our TV history. Thank you so much for putting this together for us.
Wish it would have been a longer video with a little more time spent showing the models up close yes i know its museum but i will never make it there and the way the worold is might not ever get the chance please another video i really enjoy vintage
I lived in Dublin for a few years and never knew this place was existed! I may have to stop and visit this place when the weather breaks! Thanks for posting this video!
I admire these independent/private museums in America. My biggest wish is they have adequate fire prevention and suppression equipment. It would be a shame to lose any museum of americana. Thank you for this video.
Great museum and presentation. My grandfather built a TV in 1940 using a Allen B. Dumont tube. That set was huge. We used it until 1960. That year he got an RCA New Vista color set that had 40 vacuum tubes in it! To this day I still use a flat screen CRT TV (JVC) for looking at vintage DVDs & JVC tapes. I have a phonograph from 1898.
Excellent video! I would like to visit the museum someday, myself. The only thing missing from the museum is early television in Germany. The 1936 Olympics were broadcast. Hitler used TV for propaganda, and later those running the system used TV to strengthen the morale of wounded troops.
@@thecarl168 1936 in Berlin more often the "Zwischenbildverfahren" was used. In one go film was exposed, developt and scanned. The Iconoscope tube (patented 1923 by Vladimir Zworykin) was to weak in 1936.
Thanks for a great look at these! I had family members who worked in television from 1948 through the late '60s. TV sets and cameras of this era are like relatives to me. It was a fascinating era.
Sams photofact. I only heard that name twice in my life. The second time was here, and the first time was when I asked my dad to repair my tv. He said; "You'll have to by me a Sams Photofact for your tv before I'll even look at it". This was in the early 70's, so I found an electronics store that sold them, so I bought him one and he was able to repair the set. Thanks for bringing back the memories!
Thank you for taking me down somewhat of a memory lane because I‘m only 68 but in the very early 1960s we actually had two TVs in our house both black and white good sizes but the one in the rumpus room I don’t remember ever being fixed but the one in the living room which was absolutely huge in a cabinet with doors in front finally got that fixed and I remember coming home every day and watching Dark Shadows in black-and-white and it was my favorite show. Kids don’t realize how spoiled they are out today but I wouldn’t give up my childhood for anything. Thank you so much.
Wow, what a fascinating place. Ever since I was very little, i've loved learning about old TV's, my dad and grandfather were always tinkering with old sets when I was a kid.
Thanks for sharing this. In the mid-70s I was hired by a network to build a broadcast station. I remember driving to another state and I had one day to take and pass all the exams for my FCC Licenses. I don’t know how I did it. The station was filled with broken and destroyed equipment. It took 5 months to build the station working alone with very little funding. It got done. Retired now and it was fun going down memory lane.
@@leftylou6070 Well, Class 1, 2 and 3. A person that tested with me did all the tests. Plus he got his pilots license that morning. This was after he just graduated medical school and passed the boards. He was beyond brilliant and was planning to join Doctors Without Boarders. This was in 1976.
I believe this is the best informative TH-cam video I have ever seen! My family had a 1948 Black and white TV which I think I saw for a moment in the back ground! Neighbors would come over to watch! I was not born until 52, but have fond memories of this TV until it's total breakdown around 1960. It did electoce the repairman before he deemed it impossible to repair!
Great video. Was neat seeing all these different models and the way sets evolved over time. Thank you for sharing this, and also thanks to the folks maintaining the museum.
My Dad used to do T.V. repair work as a side line business. This really brought back a lot of memories. I recently sold my 1951 Hoffman cabinet model which hopefully will be restored. Great video and thank you for posting.
I've been here twice. It was way bigger than I was expecting. Incredibly cool to see all the different types of TVs over the years. It's an outstanding collection and highly recommend visiting even if you only have a mild interest in TV.
absolutely fascinating presentation , in australia we didnt see much in the way of home colour tv until the 1980's , we really were years behind the world, how quickly one forgets , i recall at age 4 watching on a huge black and white in our lounge room with my mum as armstrong walked on the moon ,our tv repair man neighbour lent us a colour set to watch the 1976 olympics , what an amazing guy he was ,he repaired everything ,now it seems nothing is repairable , thank you so much for taking the time to share , people like you that share like this restore my faith a little in this inet world that has developed
I grew up with post WW2 TV, my Dad got an RCA franchise about 1947, right after I was born. I heard my Dad telling stories about the late 40 assembling TVs, apparently the chassis and CRT came in a different box than the cabinet, I was too young to know about that personally. I remember when we got the first color TV in town and we took it home to watch, the earliest TV show I remember watching was The Wonderful World of Color, wow, a whole hour of color TV a week! LOL I remember the earliest color TVs actually had a hinged top like the hood on a car, with a prop to hold it up, to make it easier to service, that thing had a lot of tubes in it! I remember selling TVs when RCA was the only color TV on the market, customers would go look at other brands and they would say it wasn't perfected yet, so the best thing was when RCA started licensing color TV tech to other brands, we would tell people to look at the back of the competitors TV, they all had labels saying Made under license from RCA. On the moon flights when they got the buggy, RCA made the color camera mounted on the buggy, there was a big RCA right on the side. It was quite an interesting time in the TV business! Look at TVs now, they have changed so much in the last 30 years! Really interesting tour of that museum.
Wow that brought back memories. The wonderful world of color. I worked for Western Union in television operations to do satellite feeds for the local networks in California. I really enjoyed that job.
I love stuff like this. Got into broadcast engineering being the only one left. I love the stories from the engineers that have come before me. A dying breed it seems.
Thank you so much for this video. I also want to thank the people who run the museum. What an incredible journey it has been, from the earliest black-and-white TVs to being able to watch this video streaming on youtube (on your phone, if you like), all in less than 100 years! There are people still alive who have lived through this all.
Correct. I was born in 19 oh 44. First TV I ever saw was in a store display window in the early '50s. So much snow you could barely recognize the picture. We got our first TV in 1958. Could only get one channel and had to carry the antenna up the side of the hill to get a signal. I studied solid state physics in grad school (late 60s) and we speculated that in the future a TV would be a flat screen you could hang on the wall. We were right.
I've known about ETF online for nearly 20 years, if I ever go for a holiday to America one of these days, the ETF museum is certainly on top of my itinerary! Thanks for sharing this great video tour of the museum!
Absolutely fantastic tour through the years of television. I'm impressed that so much equipment actually survives and is still operational. It is amazing how far we have come satellite and flat screens just amazing.
My mother worked for Bendix Radio here in Baltimore and then Westinghouse Aerospace. It was before my time but she built her first television about 1950 when they had vacuum tubes. She told me she didn't even had a case around it . I was born in 55, This would had been right up her ally. I don't even have a picture of it. She was an electronics guru.
Fabulous little film, I so enjoyed watching it.. I was a TV engineer in the 1960's in the UK.. My aunt had one of the early TV's that was displayed in your museum, bought by her before the last war.. I have never seen another one... Still a radio Ham G7NIX though getting a bit long in the tooth now to be on air much... Been in electronics most of my life, and latterly worked for ICL computers before their demise.. Long retired now, but still enjoy a little tinkering....!
Wow ... thank you ... certainly a fun place ... really enjoyed that. Makes me want to get away from engineering demands, and finish an old '48 Admiral TV (now works, but want to preserve the look inside too - hide caps in the cardboard tubes, make it work better than it is). Thanks again ...
I was born in 1954 my dad and grand father were in the antenna business I am the 3rd generation in San Diego. I wish you could expand your museum to cover antennas and rotors. The test pattern was not only for broadcasters but mainly for antenna companies to make it easier to collect money from there customers after the antenna job was done, seeing how most TV programs didn't start broadcasting till 4 or 5 PM. Home owners didn't want to pay for an antenna until they could see a picture. My dad's company was Pacific Antenna and he hired all my aunts uncle's and my cousins for his antenna business. In San Diego most antennas were 40 feet above your roof top with a rotor a big combination UHF, VHF and FM antenna. The reason for the 40foot + height was to get 10 more channels from Las Angelis LA plus the 5 channels in San Diego. In 1962 my dad Leonard Schlick ordered a new 100 foot crane truck with a basket where he could replace or do maintain any of his customer needs. Dad sold Pacific Antenna in the 70's, all my relatives went there different ways but still doing antennas, such companies as Custom Antenna, Antenna Engineering, Franks Antenna, Goodrow Antenna and mine was Specific Antenna. In the 70's I started my company Specific Antenna, my aunt and uncles would send me the jobs they were not interested in like Ham Operators, CB'ers and military jobs and that was fine by me. I did towers, ships, military antennas and any job they didn't want and I had a blast! For many years I worked for my Aunt Betty Valdez at Custom Antenna, 2 men per truck. On any given day Jerry Valdez my cousin and I could install 5, 6 and 7 antennas a day. 40 foot of telescoping EMT, guyed wires, rotor, antenna connected to your TV in just over 1 hour. Love your museum wish there was more to the story. I want to also thank Wayne McKenna at Coast Antenna, Jay Goodwin at Mission Hills Radio &TV and my cousin Mark Valdez at Custom Antenna, Emmet and Josephine Tobin at Edge Water Cable TV my grandmother and grandfather, I am sure there are many more. These were the best years of my life! Look at where we are now 500 channels and nothing to watch. Years ago I thought the Indian Test Pattern was a TV show.
I remember as a teen in the 60's I told my school consular I wanted to find a job in a tv/radio repair shop. Howard's tv paid very well at the time their was lots of work putting up antennas and servicing the new color sets.
Thanks for this Randy! I've been really interested in historical television STUFF lately, and it's great to see there's a whole museum to this stuff. Definitely want to check it out for myself! The creativity and tech behind them is fascinating. Some day I'd love to play with a narrow band TV signal - do my own amateur mechanical TV (I doubt that museum would demonstrate any of those technological dinosaurs). Really shows how this stuff is taken for granted today!
Just amazing how fair electronics has came from those days of tubes to transistors to IC circuits reminds me of a course were at the end you had to build a 5 tube radio and pull all the parts and the teachers would make sure that bad parts were place along with good parts , so you had to check each part as well. You sound like one of those instructors who had it down when it came to teaching electronics. Thanks for your time and posting this video well done and I love the old TV & Radios of that time for they were all so works of art to me all hand build , Repairmen would come to the house and service any TV set or radio not working, I remember all most ever drug store had the big self serve tube checker as well Thanks
Hi Randy : as a ham ( w6cde) at about 1947 while in high school I helped Bill Sadler W6WCD build the first ham TV station in San Francisco. He got it on the air a week before Kpix channel 5 was up so was S.F. ‘ s first TV station. He later became chief engineer @ KRON TV S.F. I have some clippings if you are interested. Loved the old sets as a kid I worked for Hoffman Easyvision TV . Hal
Being a radio and TV technician (and later and instructor) employed by RCA beginning in 1952, much nostalgia was brought to me in this well done video. No disrespect, but I must say that there were 3 "color" systems (not just 2); as the government decided, which system would become standard. Of course RCA won, because it was all electronics; where as the CBS and Zenith systems required mechanical pictures. Imagine having motors in our TV's, to spin a huge red, blue and green colored wheel; at a high RPM. Wow! What about the noise and maintenance? Whoowee! Sadly, color TV's took years to produce good pictures. If my memory is correct, it wasn't until 1964, until RCA brought out a color picture TV; that was as good as B & W TV's. And it wasn't until HDTV came out that TV was better than the 1964 color TV. IE: the best fidelity they had was 480I (not 480P). There couldn't be 480P because it was an "Interlace" system; rather than a "Progressive" system. Of course HDTV came out with 1080P. And the rest is history. I am proud to say that I was with RCA for 33 yrs; and a part of this incredible advance in technology. I loved it like a child loves candy. I met the engineer that helped develop the "Tri-color" picture tube ("Kinescope"). I would have lasted longer with RCA, but GE bought RCA in 1988 and got rid of ALL of RCA's management; which I was one of them by then. Broke my heart. My sincere thanks for your making this video.
great fun seeing this. I watched president Eisenhower inauguration on my grandparents 1950 RCA. I completely rebuilt it and keep it safe in my storage shed.
Even though I've been into this hobby for many decades and researched much info, I still found this to be a very enjoyable video. Well done. It might surprise people of value of many of these sets. The early electronic pre-war sets are in the $10K to $15K+ range alone. To see them all contained in one area is a sight to behold. Not only for historical reasons, but aren't they really beautiful looking pieces? The 1939 RCA TRK-9 is my favorite. A John Vassos masterpiece of cabinet design.
It is quite a collection. I spend a few hours in there. I wished that some of the old televisions were running. They have a conference in May (I think) and they fire up more of the televisions.
This is one of the best videos ever! I started college in 1971 to study radio-tv production here in Florida. My first textbook had some good history and photos of 1960s? cameras and equipment. During my college internship I ran a studio camera, either a RCA 42 or 43 with a zoom lens. Really heavy camera to push around the studio when you are a thin college student!
Thank you for a wonderful video. I myself was a VTR technician in 1968, when I played the tape people thought it was magic. I will never make it to Ohio, so your video means a lot to me. I am somewhat lucky, I live in San Francisco, 25 miles from the Computer Museum, witch I visited many times.
Thank you for sharing!!! I didn't even know this place existed. It is hard to believe how far we've advanced in such a short time as I watch this on my cell phone!
My boss showed behind the scenes photos from 1957 when a TV station KVSO (now KXII) televised their 'sock hop', showing a camera and the outside of the TV van. One RCA camera is in an Ardmore (OK) museum and their studios are Denison (TX) now. Awesome video.
As a person that was born quite a while back, I find it fascinating that the people of my generation will be a. the last people that have known what a CRT television is like, b. the last people to have known was an analog television station is like, and c. the last people that will have had devices on their televisions that also included other built in devices, such as radios, VCR players, DVD players, and such. I wonder how televisions will be in the 2030s and 2040s, that is, if we do not blow each other to bits, or if televisions are not considered obsolete, by that point in human history? The consensus is that both scenarios are, unfortunately, equally likely.
Wow, Randy, I didn't know that this place existed......now I need to get myself out to Ohio!! Watching this wonderful video brought back a flood of memories from the 1950s - '60s, and the B&W behemoth with the 12" screen that I got to watch as a kid (I was born in '52). Since we lived at least 50 miles from the nearest TV station(s), we usually struggled to position an antenna so that a picture...any picture...could be seen through the 'snow.' ....and on and on the story goes! After a stint as a Navy ATR (Avionics tech/Radar specialist) I spent part of the early '70s repairing TVs for local folks, until getting into radio broadcasting then, eventually, commercial low voltage systems...which I did until retirement, last year. Thank you so much for a great video 'tour' of the museum. 73 KC1MGW
Fascinating. I did some production work in high school and at a public station in college. Used RCA TK-44s and TK-76s. I remember when they were so excited to get their new Grass Valley switcher! Thank you!
I lived in Columbus, OH for 32 years up until 2012 and I never knew this was in Hilliard! We have an absolutely identical broadcast museum here. It's in Kilgore, in East Texas, near Longview. It also has many radios featured. I have worked in radio, television and now video production for my entire 45+ year career and I love to visit places like these. Thanks for sharing this.
Never knew this place existed, I only live about 25-30 miles away from Hilliard. I wonder if they would be interested in seeing my late 1970s model Curtis Mathes 19" portable with the touch tuning and pop out drawer for setting individual stations. I bought it new in the late 1970s. Still works last time i used it.
I am so amazed, this is wonderful.. so we have sort of went backwards... our cell phones are the size of the first TV's. Thank you for the wonderful history lesson. Stay safe.
I really enjoy old time radio BUT I grew up with television through the 1950s. This tour video was wonderful. I hope to visit the Early Television museum in person some day. I am currently restoring my 1950 Magnavox CT-224 chassis. I have it all re-capped but there is something wrong. So far; I just cannot find that problem. I think I need help with this one. Thanks again. Gary W9TOF.
Very interesting stuff. Thank you for sharing. My dad was a radar technician back in the 50s and 60s, and from there he learned how to fix TVs. So we had all kinds of tubes and equipment at the house. I never understood it the way he did, but I find it very interesting.
Thank you for creating this. I live in florida so will most likely never visit this museum so it was really great to be able to enjoy it from home. Great job.
Tnx Randy. You explained why I didn't buy a color TV in the 1950s! You made a great presentation. I recall well KTLA in Los Ange;es doing remote broadcasts with their van built into a Semi Truck trailer videoing the atomic bomb tests in Nevada a d the "City at Night" programs where they went out to various businesses and videoed their work at night. Heady times watching on our 7" TV! - Ron, AC7AC
Hi from Scotland. Thank you so much for this excellent video. I have visited the site. of Baird's first tv transmissions in Hastings, England. I'm old enough to remember when people were really excited about having a TV. Something that amazed American visitors to the UK was the fact that many TVs in the UK were rented. The attraction was that for the cost of your monthly rental you were guaranteed a working set without having to pay for, sometimes, costly repairs. The more modern and attractive a set, the higher the rental. At the bottom of the market there was pay as you go TV. The TV was hooked up to a coin operated slot meter. When the coin ran out so did your TV show! These tended to be older sets and, in fact had a monthly charge. If the amount of coins deposited met the monthly cost all was well. If it didn't you were still expected to pay up. If the amount of coins exceeded the monthly charge, you were given a rebate. Improvements in UK living standards and the fall in the cost and the increasing reliability of TV sets, gradually eroded the rental market.
All though the technology is very impressive, I want to point out the work involved in finding the space and displaying all these finds/donations is a real feat. I see the "ham" call sign K7AGE which tells me a lot why it was done. The passion for the radio/ TV transmissions gets inside the mind of a radio hobbyist usually from an early age and then your hooked. I personally thank everyone that put time, money and sweat into this labor of love for the technology found here, plus the memories that are evoked from this museum. Thank you for having the foresight to make this possible and keeping all displayed from ending up in the landfills.
I still remember going with my mother to visit her uncle about 1950 & saw his 3 inch tv screen. I never dreamed 70 years ago I would have my own HD TV in full colour & be able to watch any film or programme I wanted!! Or have a remote control whereby I can pause the film & make a cup of tea!!
And now you can watch TV on your smartphone on a 5 inch screen. Wow, two more whole inches in only 70 years!
When smartphones came we began evolving... just backwards!
@@Metrofarquhar mostly 6 inch
@@maitrik334gd2 Thats what she said.
@@sayhitosteve2785 about deez
50s must have been such an exciting time for tv buyers
I believe our family got our first TV in 1958. I was around 4 years old.
My dad bought a color RCA back in 1959. He said he needed to watch Bonanza in COLOR!! This was a great presentation. Thanks for up-loading it.
There were almost no color programs on the air in 1959. For a few years only the commercials were in color.
Thanks Randy! I'm fascinated by the ingenuity that went into any older technology and TV's is definitely one of the most innovative. Bringing the museum to people from all over the world who wouldn't be able to go in person is very very much appreciated! 😊
They have a great collection
NOW I'm feeling old! Born in 1950, we always had TV. I think my parent's first was an Emerson, tiny screen. They bought it while I was an infant, it moved into our home in the Long Island suburbs, and entered into my young memory. It lasted a year or two, my guess is that it died when I was 3 or 4 years old. Next came the Dumont, much bigger screen, and centered in the living room. That had to have been around 1954 or 55. We were on good terms with the repair man, who visited us 2-3x a year to replace a tube or two. Parents went into minor heart failure once, when the picture tube went, and had to be replaced. In 1959, my father was in a National Science Foundation program in Portland Oregon, We bought a 19" portable TV to go with us for the summer, and it became our main TV as the big box in the living room gradually faded into oblivion. Obviously we wanted color (my brother and I) but at $400-$500. it was totally beyond my parent's reach. And programming was minimal, and color quality, despite what you might have been told, was absolutely awful. Red was more like a blushing orange, faces were always green, and everything always had a rainbow halo on it. Off to college in the 1970s, one of the first 12" SONY Trinitrons entered the house, and lasted forever. Color was excellent, picture quality was better than B&W, and it was affordable. I could go through the rest of my life viewed through the TV, but I won't. Suffice it to say that I have a fantastic, Korean made 65" 4K (color) flat screen hanging on the wall - a science fiction dream for a kid of the 1950s.
I remember how special it was on a vacation to stay in a motel that had color t.v.
We used to go to uncle's house from night's to watch wild wild west and hogan's heroes in color
@@rsprockets7846 Batman was advertised in colour.
@@mimicotom big thing back then to announce program in color
Born in 69, We had a 13inch BW, but do remember The Color Tv signs for Hotel rooms stays.
Yeah I forgot about the Color TV Motel signs! Lol. I grew up on B and W well into the 1970s.
A wonderful presentation... What a marvelous collection...We got our 1st color TV in 1962, a Zenith 21 " - we were the 1st ones in our neighborhood to have one... Folks would come over on Sunday nights to watch Disney & the few color programs that were available.... It was a very big deal... The mighty Zenith was a tube eater.... Every 4-5 months you'd turn it on & then it it would start smoking..
The tv guy would come over w/his big box of tubes & tools, put a bunch of new stuff in, & then re-magnitize the screen w/his magnitizer. ... Very Buck Rogers tech back then...I was 10 yrs. old . I'd watch him do his thing, ask him a million questions & generally drive him nuts... Fun to be a kid.
Great to see this.
Born in 1947 .one of my earliest memories was watching an RCA TV with about a 9 inch screen
We all thought that was amazing
This is such an amazing collection, thanks for going there and sharing it to the rest of us where the chances of actually going are slim. I'd always thought the US papered over Baird's mechanical system from the UK, and claimed that Farnsworth invented TV, but this place puts everything into context beautifully.
I entered the broadcast engineering field in the 1960s. Worked in radio engineering then transferred to television engineering. Boy, that RCA TK42 Camera took two “healthy, strong” engineers to put it back on
the pedestal after repairs. Only senior “qualified” engineers were allowed to replace and set up the camera
tubes. Good presentation. Hope many more will enjoy watching. Great to grow up and learn during those
days. Thank you. Steve Molnar, W8ANJ.
Thanks. Those were a beast. The video has become very popular.
Been in Columbus all my life and never knew this museum existed. After this COVID stuff is done, I definitely want to check it out.
After the great reset ?
@@Statist0815 , like you should be talking, given your username.
@@paxhumana2015 Pretty sure the username is not to be taken at face value since the 08/15 is german slang used to describe drab, inferior and dated things.
Dont bother hilliard sucks and its turning into the hilltop
Me either!
I was born in 1959, so old enough to experience TV in the 1960’s! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences!
A captivating video made more interesting by your additional commentary. Many thanks for taking the time to make this. 73's 2E0HSI
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Me laughing at the tiny picture tubes then realising I'mwatching this on my phone
👁👄👁
😲😂😂🤣🤣
I do that on my watch :o
What comes around - goes around!
Now a 50' set is considered tiny ,we've now got sets that can up to 85' oled and produce 8k resolution.
@@dantasticmania8728
Heh. Thinking back to the days of the JUMBOTRON made back in the early 1980s now ...
Wonderful and interesting presentation..as a kid that grew up between 1955 & 1965 I have seen many of these in action, what a great collection I am happy to see someone preserved some of our TV history. Thank you so much for putting this together for us.
Thanks Randy, that's a place I'll likely never see in person but so glad to see it through your camera and narration! de KI6ESH
Wish it would have been a longer video with a little more time spent showing the models up close yes i know its museum but i will never make it there and the way the worold is might not ever get the chance please another video i really enjoy vintage
I lived in Dublin for a few years and never knew this place was existed! I may have to stop and visit this place when the weather breaks! Thanks for posting this video!
I work at a modern TV station... it's nice to see the classics ! Thanks for the vid !
THANK YOU for making this video!!! Fascinating history from a museum I would never be able to visit in person. This was as good as being there.
Thanks for the facinating and well done tour, Randy! 😎👍
I admire these independent/private museums in America. My biggest wish is they have adequate fire prevention and suppression equipment. It would be a shame to lose any museum of americana. Thank you for this video.
that is an excellent point. pick your favorite and donate!
Totally awesome video! Thanks so much for the tour!
Great museum and presentation. My grandfather built a TV in 1940 using a Allen B. Dumont tube. That set was huge. We used it until 1960. That year he got an RCA New Vista color set that had 40 vacuum tubes in it! To this day I still use a flat screen CRT TV (JVC) for looking at vintage DVDs & JVC tapes. I have a phonograph from 1898.
Excellent video! I would like to visit the museum someday, myself. The only thing missing from the museum is early television in Germany. The 1936 Olympics were broadcast. Hitler used TV for propaganda, and later those running the system used TV to strengthen the morale of wounded troops.
the camera use at the olympique were based on Philo Fansworth design
@@thecarl168 1936 in Berlin more often the "Zwischenbildverfahren" was used. In one go film was exposed, developt and scanned.
The Iconoscope tube (patented 1923 by Vladimir Zworykin) was to weak in 1936.
I saw a picture of a camera it was use outside it was an electronic camera not a film , obviously because it was outside they had enough light
www.gaceta.unam.mx/guillermo-gonzalez-camarena-el-color-en-la-television/#:~:text=En%201939%20produjo%20el%20Sistema,Marcel%20Gonz%C3%A1lez%20Camarena%2C%20tambi%C3%A9n%20ingeniero.
@@XE1GXG I could read it, thanks to Google Translate. This is something not well known outside of Mexico. Thanks for sharing!
Excellent tour! Thank you.
Thanks for a great look at these! I had family members who worked in television from 1948 through the late '60s. TV sets and cameras of this era are like relatives to me. It was a fascinating era.
Sams photofact. I only heard that name twice in my life. The second time was here, and the first time was when I asked my dad to repair my tv. He said; "You'll have to by me a Sams Photofact for your tv before I'll even look at it". This was in the early 70's, so I found an electronics store that sold them, so I bought him one and he was able to repair the set.
Thanks for bringing back the memories!
Fantastic, my dad was a television technician in 50s,60s and 70s in the UK and then Australia loved the info you have shared. Thanks
Thanx for sharing. I've always loved how beautiful the wood is on older TV sets. This would be a great field trip for schools to take.
-KD2QCR
Thank you for taking me down somewhat of a memory lane because I‘m only 68 but in the very early 1960s we actually had two TVs in our house both black and white good sizes but the one in the rumpus room I don’t remember ever being fixed but the one in the living room which was absolutely huge in a cabinet with doors in front finally got that fixed and I remember coming home every day and watching Dark Shadows in black-and-white and it was my favorite show. Kids don’t realize how spoiled they are out today but I wouldn’t give up my childhood for anything. Thank you so much.
neat old sets
Wow, what a fascinating place. Ever since I was very little, i've loved learning about old TV's, my dad and grandfather were always tinkering with old sets when I was a kid.
Thanks for sharing this. In the mid-70s I was hired by a network to build a broadcast station. I remember driving to another state and I had one day to take and pass all the exams for my FCC Licenses. I don’t know how I did it. The station was filled with broken and destroyed equipment. It took 5 months to build the station working alone with very little funding. It got done. Retired now and it was fun going down memory lane.
Not just one but all of them, eh? I don't know how you did it either.
@@leftylou6070 Well, Class 1, 2 and 3. A person that tested with me did all the tests. Plus he got his pilots license that morning. This was after he just graduated medical school and passed the boards. He was beyond brilliant and was planning to join Doctors Without Boarders. This was in 1976.
@@davidlarson2534 Oh I get it they dropped the morse code part of the exam.
DJ's build radio stations, you still have skills?
@@lucasrem No. that was over 45 years ago. I’m retired now.
I believe this is the best informative TH-cam video I have ever seen! My family had a 1948 Black and white TV which I think I saw for a moment in the back ground! Neighbors would come over to watch! I was not born until 52, but have fond memories of this TV until it's total breakdown around 1960. It did electoce the repairman before he deemed it impossible to repair!
Great video. Was neat seeing all these different models and the way sets evolved over time. Thank you for sharing this, and also thanks to the folks maintaining the museum.
My Dad used to do T.V. repair work as a side line business. This really brought back a lot of memories. I recently sold my 1951 Hoffman cabinet model which hopefully will be restored. Great video and thank you for posting.
What a wonderful musuem. I'd love to visit, but I am in the U.K. I am with you in spirit!
I've been here twice. It was way bigger than I was expecting. Incredibly cool to see all the different types of TVs over the years. It's an outstanding collection and highly recommend visiting even if you only have a mild interest in TV.
Sadly, most kids today, even young adults ! Adults. Just don't CARE! COULDN'T CARE LESS😣😤😤😤😥😥😥SAD
Thansk for the tour! I’ll place this museum on my bucket list! :D
Amazing museum. Thanks for the tour of my childhood.
absolutely fascinating presentation , in australia we didnt see much in the way of home colour tv until the 1980's , we really were years behind the world, how quickly one forgets , i recall at age 4 watching on a huge black and white in our lounge room with my mum as armstrong walked on the moon ,our tv repair man neighbour lent us a colour set to watch the 1976 olympics , what an amazing guy he was ,he repaired everything ,now it seems nothing is repairable , thank you so much for taking the time to share , people like you that share like this restore my faith a little in this inet world that has developed
Thanks for making a night during the pandemic entertaining. 🙏🏼
It would be a dream come true to visit here!
Excellent documentary of the development of Television. Thank You for your efforts.
This was a real treat to watch, thank you.
thank you for a terrific tour loved every second
I grew up with post WW2 TV, my Dad got an RCA franchise about 1947, right after I was born. I heard my Dad telling stories about the late 40 assembling TVs, apparently the chassis and CRT came in a different box than the cabinet, I was too young to know about that personally. I remember when we got the first color TV in town and we took it home to watch, the earliest TV show I remember watching was The Wonderful World of Color, wow, a whole hour of color TV a week! LOL I remember the earliest color TVs actually had a hinged top like the hood on a car, with a prop to hold it up, to make it easier to service, that thing had a lot of tubes in it! I remember selling TVs when RCA was the only color TV on the market, customers would go look at other brands and they would say it wasn't perfected yet, so the best thing was when RCA started licensing color TV tech to other brands, we would tell people to look at the back of the competitors TV, they all had labels saying Made under license from RCA. On the moon flights when they got the buggy, RCA made the color camera mounted on the buggy, there was a big RCA right on the side. It was quite an interesting time in the TV business! Look at TVs now, they have changed so much in the last 30 years! Really interesting tour of that museum.
Wow that brought back memories. The wonderful world of color. I worked for Western Union in television operations to do satellite feeds for the local networks in California. I really enjoyed that job.
Absolutely fascinating!!! Thank you for putting this video together.
I love stuff like this. Got into broadcast engineering being the only one left. I love the stories from the engineers that have come before me. A dying breed it seems.
Thank you so much for this video. I also want to thank the people who run the museum. What an incredible journey it has been, from the earliest black-and-white TVs to being able to watch this video streaming on youtube (on your phone, if you like), all in less than 100 years! There are people still alive who have lived through this all.
Correct. I was born in 19 oh 44. First TV I ever saw was in a store display window in the early '50s. So much snow you could barely recognize the picture. We got our first TV in 1958. Could only get one channel and had to carry the antenna up the side of the hill to get a signal.
I studied solid state physics in grad school (late 60s) and we speculated that in the future a TV would be a flat screen you could hang on the wall. We were right.
A big thank you for this fascinating tour of the ETM from London, UK.
I've known about ETF online for nearly 20 years, if I ever go for a holiday to America one of these days, the ETF museum is certainly on top of my itinerary! Thanks for sharing this great video tour of the museum!
Thank you so very much for taking the time to film and share this. I really appreciate it. Absolutely fascinating.
Absolutely fantastic tour through the years of television. I'm impressed that so much equipment actually survives and is still operational. It is amazing how far we have come satellite and flat screens just amazing.
My mother worked for Bendix Radio here in Baltimore and then Westinghouse Aerospace. It was before my time but she built her first television about 1950 when they had vacuum tubes. She told me she didn't even had a case around it . I was born in 55, This would had been right up her ally. I don't even have a picture of it. She was an electronics guru.
This is terribly interesting. Thanks for taking the time to make something like this.
Fabulous little film, I so enjoyed watching it.. I was a TV engineer in the 1960's in the UK.. My aunt had one of the early TV's that was displayed in your museum, bought by her before the last war.. I have never seen another one... Still a radio Ham G7NIX though getting a bit long in the tooth now to be on air much... Been in electronics most of my life, and latterly worked for ICL computers before their demise.. Long retired now, but still enjoy a little tinkering....!
What a gem of a Video......thank you for preserving TV history.
Wow ... thank you ... certainly a fun place ... really enjoyed that. Makes me want to get away from engineering demands, and finish an old '48 Admiral TV (now works, but want to preserve the look inside too - hide caps in the cardboard tubes, make it work better than it is). Thanks again ...
I was born in 1954 my dad and grand father were in the antenna business I am the 3rd generation in San Diego. I wish you could expand your museum to cover antennas and rotors. The test pattern was not only for broadcasters but mainly for antenna companies to make it easier to collect money from there customers after the antenna job was done, seeing how most TV programs didn't start broadcasting till 4 or 5 PM. Home owners didn't want to pay for an antenna until they could see a picture. My dad's company was Pacific Antenna and he hired all my aunts uncle's and my cousins for his antenna business. In San Diego most antennas were 40 feet above your roof top with a rotor a big combination UHF, VHF and FM antenna. The reason for the 40foot + height was to get 10 more channels from Las Angelis LA plus the 5 channels in San Diego. In 1962 my dad Leonard Schlick ordered a new 100 foot crane truck with a basket where he could replace or do maintain any of his customer needs. Dad sold Pacific Antenna in the 70's, all my relatives went there different ways but still doing antennas, such companies as Custom Antenna, Antenna Engineering, Franks Antenna, Goodrow Antenna and mine was Specific Antenna. In the 70's I started my company Specific Antenna, my aunt and uncles would send me the jobs they were not interested in like Ham Operators, CB'ers and military jobs and that was fine by me. I did towers, ships, military antennas and any job they didn't want and I had a blast! For many years I worked for my Aunt Betty Valdez at Custom Antenna, 2 men per truck. On any given day Jerry Valdez my cousin and I could install 5, 6 and 7 antennas a day. 40 foot of telescoping EMT, guyed wires, rotor, antenna connected to your TV in just over 1 hour. Love your museum wish there was more to the story. I want to also thank Wayne McKenna at Coast Antenna, Jay Goodwin at Mission Hills Radio &TV and my cousin Mark Valdez at Custom Antenna, Emmet and Josephine Tobin at Edge Water Cable TV my grandmother and grandfather, I am sure there are many more. These were the best years of my life! Look at where we are now 500 channels and nothing to watch. Years ago I thought the Indian Test Pattern was a TV show.
I remember as a teen in the 60's I told my school consular I wanted to find a job in a tv/radio repair shop. Howard's tv paid very well at the time their was lots of work putting up antennas and servicing the new color sets.
i used to watch the indian test pattern when i was 5 or 6 years old
I like the double breath of the narrator for each sentence. Imagine talking nonstop each time someone pushes a button......Thank you for the tour!
Thanks for this Randy! I've been really interested in historical television STUFF lately, and it's great to see there's a whole museum to this stuff. Definitely want to check it out for myself! The creativity and tech behind them is fascinating. Some day I'd love to play with a narrow band TV signal - do my own amateur mechanical TV (I doubt that museum would demonstrate any of those technological dinosaurs). Really shows how this stuff is taken for granted today!
Thanks for the tour. I started studying television broadcasting in 1981. We had some of the equipment shown here,
Just amazing how fair electronics has came from those days of tubes to transistors to IC circuits reminds me of a course were at the end you had to build a 5 tube radio and pull all the parts and the teachers would make sure that bad parts were place along with good parts , so you had to check each part as well.
You sound like one of those instructors who had it down when it came to teaching electronics.
Thanks for your time and posting this video well done and I love the old TV & Radios of that time for they were all so works of art to me all hand build , Repairmen would come to the house and service any TV set or radio not working, I remember all most ever drug store had the big self serve tube checker as well
Thanks
Hi Randy : as a ham ( w6cde) at about 1947 while in high school I helped Bill Sadler W6WCD build the first ham TV station in San Francisco. He got it on the air a week before Kpix channel 5 was up so was S.F. ‘ s first TV station. He later became chief engineer @ KRON TV S.F. I have some clippings if you are interested. Loved the old sets as a kid I worked for Hoffman Easyvision TV . Hal
Being a radio and TV technician (and later and instructor) employed by RCA beginning in 1952, much nostalgia was brought to me in this well done video.
No disrespect, but I must say that there were 3 "color" systems (not just 2); as the government decided, which system would become standard. Of course RCA won, because it was all electronics; where as the CBS and Zenith systems required mechanical pictures. Imagine having motors in our TV's, to spin a huge red, blue and green colored wheel; at a high RPM. Wow! What about the noise and maintenance? Whoowee!
Sadly, color TV's took years to produce good pictures. If my memory is correct, it wasn't until 1964, until RCA brought out a color picture TV; that was as good as B & W TV's. And it wasn't until HDTV came out that TV was better than the 1964 color TV. IE: the best fidelity they had was 480I (not 480P). There couldn't be 480P because it was an "Interlace" system; rather than a "Progressive" system. Of course HDTV came out with 1080P. And the rest is history.
I am proud to say that I was with RCA for 33 yrs; and a part of this incredible advance in technology. I loved it like a child loves candy. I met the engineer that helped develop the "Tri-color" picture tube ("Kinescope"). I would have lasted longer with RCA, but GE bought RCA in 1988 and got rid of ALL of RCA's management; which I was one of them by then. Broke my heart.
My sincere thanks for your making this video.
Thanks
@@K7AGE You're welcome. I made a mistake in the comment. I started with RCA in 1954; NOT 1952. Sorry bout that.
Wow! Incredible piece of history. I learned a lot from this video. Keep them coming.
great fun seeing this. I watched president Eisenhower inauguration on my grandparents 1950 RCA. I completely rebuilt it and keep it safe in my storage shed.
Nicely done. Thank you. I started in commercial TV in 1971. Oh, the tales we could tell...
This is place is on my bucket list!
Even though I've been into this hobby for many decades and researched much info, I still found this to be a very enjoyable video. Well done. It might surprise people of value of many of these sets. The early electronic pre-war sets are in the $10K to $15K+ range alone. To see them all contained in one area is a sight to behold. Not only for historical reasons, but aren't they really beautiful looking pieces? The 1939 RCA TRK-9 is my favorite. A John Vassos masterpiece of cabinet design.
It is quite a collection. I spend a few hours in there. I wished that some of the old televisions were running. They have a conference in May (I think) and they fire up more of the televisions.
This is one of the best videos ever! I started college in 1971 to study radio-tv production here in Florida. My first textbook had some good history and photos of 1960s? cameras and equipment. During my college internship I ran a studio camera, either a RCA 42 or 43 with a zoom lens. Really heavy camera to push around the studio when you are a thin college student!
Thank you for a wonderful video. I myself was a VTR technician in 1968, when I played the tape people thought it was magic. I will never make it to Ohio, so your video means a lot to me. I am somewhat lucky, I live in San Francisco, 25 miles from the Computer Museum, witch I visited many times.
this documentary was very interesting... I never new i used to repair tube tvs back in the late 70s early 80s
Thank you for sharing!!! I didn't even know this place existed. It is hard to believe how far we've advanced in such a short time as I watch this on my cell phone!
My boss showed behind the scenes photos from 1957 when a TV station KVSO (now KXII) televised their 'sock hop', showing a camera and the outside of the TV van. One RCA camera is in an Ardmore (OK) museum and their studios are Denison (TX) now. Awesome video.
Thanks for sharing your visit. A great compilation.
What an amazing museum, there is so much priceless history in there. Thank you for the video
Nice Job Randy!!! I really enjoyed this walk down Memory Lane.
Thanks for taking the time to share this, fantastic.
Lovely display they have there, TV was such an art.
I can't wait to go back. I put a new picture tube in the telejuke set about 10 years ago. Time flies, hopefully we have a convention this year.
Thank you for the tour, greetings from germany!
Another excellent video. Would love to tour the museum! Thank You!
I was there in 2009. Looks like they got a lot more stuff over the last ten years. I will have to go back for another visit. Great video!
As a person that was born quite a while back, I find it fascinating that the people of my generation will be a. the last people that have known what a CRT television is like, b. the last people to have known was an analog television station is like, and c. the last people that will have had devices on their televisions that also included other built in devices, such as radios, VCR players, DVD players, and such. I wonder how televisions will be in the 2030s and 2040s, that is, if we do not blow each other to bits, or if televisions are not considered obsolete, by that point in human history? The consensus is that both scenarios are, unfortunately, equally likely.
Wow, Randy, I didn't know that this place existed......now I need to get myself out to Ohio!! Watching this wonderful video brought back a flood of memories from the 1950s - '60s, and the B&W behemoth with the 12" screen that I got to watch as a kid (I was born in '52). Since we lived at least 50 miles from the nearest TV station(s), we usually struggled to position an antenna so that a picture...any picture...could be seen through the 'snow.' ....and on and on the story goes! After a stint as a Navy ATR (Avionics tech/Radar specialist) I spent part of the early '70s repairing TVs for local folks, until getting into radio broadcasting then, eventually, commercial low voltage systems...which I did until retirement, last year. Thank you so much for a great video 'tour' of the museum. 73 KC1MGW
Fascinating. I did some production work in high school and at a public station in college. Used RCA TK-44s and TK-76s. I remember when they were so excited to get their new Grass Valley switcher! Thank you!
I worked 38 years with GVG
I lived in Columbus, OH for 32 years up until 2012 and I never knew this was in Hilliard! We have an absolutely identical broadcast museum here. It's in Kilgore, in East Texas, near Longview. It also has many radios featured. I have worked in radio, television and now video production for my entire 45+ year career and I love to visit places like these. Thanks for sharing this.
Never knew this place existed, I only live about 25-30 miles away from Hilliard.
I wonder if they would be interested in seeing my late 1970s model Curtis Mathes 19" portable with the touch tuning and pop out drawer for setting individual stations.
I bought it new in the late 1970s.
Still works last time i used it.
I am so amazed, this is wonderful.. so we have sort of went backwards... our cell phones are the size of the first TV's. Thank you for the wonderful history lesson. Stay safe.
I visited that museum in June of 2017! I loved it!
I really enjoy old time radio BUT I grew up with television through the 1950s. This tour video was wonderful. I hope to visit the Early Television museum in person some day. I am currently restoring my 1950 Magnavox CT-224 chassis. I have it all re-capped but there is something wrong. So far; I just cannot find that problem. I think I need help with this one. Thanks again. Gary W9TOF.
Very interesting stuff. Thank you for sharing. My dad was a radar technician back in the 50s and 60s, and from there he learned how to fix TVs. So we had all kinds of tubes and equipment at the house. I never understood it the way he did, but I find it very interesting.
Thank you for creating this. I live in florida so will most likely never visit this museum so it was really great to be able to enjoy it from home. Great job.
its awesome how we went from small black and white tvs to giant color tvs
Many thanks for very interesting video. What a museum 👍😎👍
I really hope young people will see this.
Glad you enjoyed it
So important that that young people learn how this old set works, the ground for all comming technics 👍😎👍
The best from Sweden.
Tnx Randy. You explained why I didn't buy a color TV in the 1950s! You made a great presentation. I recall well KTLA in Los Ange;es doing remote broadcasts with their van built into a Semi Truck trailer videoing the atomic bomb tests in Nevada a d the "City at Night" programs where they went out to various businesses and videoed their work at night. Heady times watching on our 7" TV! - Ron, AC7AC
Hi from Scotland. Thank you so much for this excellent video. I have visited the site. of Baird's first tv transmissions in Hastings, England. I'm old enough to remember when people were really excited about having a TV.
Something that amazed American visitors to the UK was the fact that many TVs in the UK were rented. The attraction was that for the cost of your monthly rental you were guaranteed a working set without having to pay for, sometimes, costly repairs. The more modern and attractive a set, the higher the rental. At the bottom of the market there was pay as you go TV. The TV was hooked up to a coin operated slot meter. When the coin ran out so did your TV show! These tended to be older sets and, in fact had a monthly charge. If the amount of coins deposited met the monthly cost all was well. If it didn't you were still expected to pay up. If the amount of coins exceeded the monthly charge, you were given a rebate.
Improvements in UK living standards and the fall in the cost and the increasing reliability of TV sets, gradually eroded the rental market.
All though the technology is very impressive, I want to point out the work involved in finding the space and displaying all these finds/donations is a real feat. I see the "ham" call sign K7AGE which tells me a lot why it was done. The passion for the radio/ TV transmissions gets inside the mind of a radio hobbyist usually from an early age and then your hooked. I personally thank everyone that put time, money and sweat into this labor of love for the technology found here, plus the memories that are evoked from this museum. Thank you for having the foresight to make this possible and keeping all displayed from ending up in the landfills.
It is an amazing place