Hi to all,

@59 Chevy: nice TV, beautiful picture!

On the topic of Europium-doped color CRT Red phosphor, snapshot of a Sylvania advert found browsing through old issues of Electronics magazine, Dec 1964.
The entire library is on World Radio History.com

From memory, the "definitive" Red phosphor was Yttrium Vanadate, Europium-doped and was used until the end of color CRTs.

Best Regards
jhalphen
Paris/France

I believe the vanadate was the earlier rare earth red, and within a short time the industry settled on yttrium oxysulfide, europium doped.

Motorola had their own design, as well. Love it or hate it! :scratch2:

RCA stopped building color chassis for other makes in 1963...Once that happened and other makers were forced to build color sets in house gradually the companies with good engineering staff switched to their own designs. I think Admiral and Packard Bell were among the first. Philco waited until the later half of the 60s, but had a great product once they did.

The badge engineered store brands typically stayed RCA clone till the Asian imports took over.

I don’t think anyone loved Motorola’s color TVs, given how few I’ve seen…

(Were they really that bad?)

My first color set was a Motorola ETS908. The only modern design set that had 28 tubes!
We used it for 10 years, until the 23EGP22 got too feeble. I put a brightner on it the last year we used it. It still was running on the original two 6JM6's.
It definitely was more reliable than the RCA's and the clones.

A beautiful 1964 Magnavox Roundie. Built when I was a baby. In Greenville, Tennessee (an hour and a half from my home). Plant #1. Last of these I repaired as a grunt technician in Oak Ridge, Tennessee growing up, was in 1984 (second job which I did as part of school hours). That set got a new Sylvania CRT like yours, lots of defective electrolytic caps, and 3 tubes. Made a nice picture once serviced, and excellent sound (which Magnavox excelled at). That beautiful cabinet (same as that last one I repaired, was built in Jefferson City, Tennessee at Magnavox's cabinet plant). That set's in gorgeous condition, and that picture is one of the best out of a Roundie.

That's a sweet Mag roundie for sure. I have a T940 Astro Sonic rectangular that was my daily driver but it's in need of a real overhaul, lots of Looney Tunes and ATARI Defender on that screen growing up. It still has the remote chassis and control, I replaced the CRT in the mid-80's with a then new Motorola clear front. At some point I'm going to replace all of the 1/2w carbons with carbon films as most have become unstable, I sub'd in some lytics and isolated the old cans over the years sometime in the 90's but I'm sure they're bad now as well. The only other non original additions are the MTS decoder and Heathkit tube amp that replaced the dead OE unit. Turntable still works and the AM/FM stereo sounds great... on a non-iHeart station anyway. A retirement project that will get a full restoration inside and out.

No but they had their challenges. I had a 21" drawer hybrid that never quite worked right, they were far better at making 2-way radios until google screwed that (and my pension) up too.

Motorola also made great stereos and record players, I had for many years a 1962 Motorola 3-Channel Suitcase Record Player that was still working on all of its original components yet (minus 2 replacement 6BM8 tubes that I had to install because the originals were microphonic.) I also have a Motorola AM/FM Stereo Radio from 1967 (solid state unit) that works like brand new yet and is an excellent performer (its a model TT22CW.)

Motorola was quite good at overbuilding with quality parts but engineering was quite good at playing musical chairs never stayed on one product for long. They also made some nice roundies and early rectangulars but the works in the drawer was a definite step back.

In the case of Admiral Overseas Corp, I wonder if those sets were engineered in the US or where they were produced. :scratch2:

I got the cataract fixed on my Maggie roundy. Turns out mine has a Sylvania CRT with a cataract that was half way between RCA and Zenith in terms of look and material consistency.

I've always been a fan of WID sets. When I was a kid in the early 90s we had one of the last hybrid WID sets. Picture quality was as good as a Zenith Chromacolor and it was a reasonably long lived set.

I believe they were built in Taiwan. AOC corp survived Rockwell closing down American Admiral. It's possible Admiral initially was more involved in engineering, but I'd imagine that tapered off a ways before Admiral ended otherwise AOC would have had a hard time building up an engineering staff to continue producing new models when American Admiral shut down.

I had a 1964 Magnavox Stereo Theatre with that same Sylvania CRT. It produced a great color picture. Excellent reds!