Westinghouse 22" rectangular find - caught in Audiokarma limbo!
 

I just accidentally found a thread using Google with posts today where a new member has or had a Westinghouse with the 22EP22 rectangular crt. I can only access it through Google's cache of the page, a search on either Audiokarma or Videokarma for 22EP22 doesn't find it either. Here's the cached version:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...5Idiv1hoBHGslQ

It's the 6th post down by jr_tech http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/member.php?u=71340

He's apparently posted a picture of it (link above), but it's not accessible, nor is the link to the thread itself
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...zBcPwV-Z4egRiQ.

I just get the error message below, and my regular AK/VK password doesn't work.

More strangeness, the beginning of this thread can be found on Videokarma, but it cuts off before his post:
http://videokarma.org/showthread.php...%2C+moon+fans!

Anyhow, I'm sure there are some here (myself included), that see this as the Holy Grail of early color TV. Other than a few ads and articles, I've never seen one of these in the flesh.

Hopefully the administrators of AK/VK can free this up and give the light of day to one of the most exciting finds here in a long time.

Jim

That was a bummer, my first TV related posts on Audiokarma were wiped out in the transition to Videokarma. :tears:

Here it is again, I will try to get more pictures in the next day or so, I am just getting back into the hobby, and my "TV room" is still piled high with boxes that I need to clear out.

I just took another picture, which includes a Motorola with a 21" round tube, so the difference is quite visible.

jr

:eek:I'm in love.........

Finally the infamous Westinghouse...man! Its nicer than i thought it was going to be. Can we see pictures of the inside? You might want to contact the Early Television Museum so they can at least document this set for their records. This one is beyond rare!
-Tony

Is that set operational?? I'd love to see it in action, or better yet, in person!:D

oh my...

I too would love a screen shot. I caution anybody against over optimism about its performance though. Charles (KX-250) has posted to the effect that the one he owned wasn't an easy set to watch. From what I understand you can't get the convergence quite right no matter what you do. Aside from that it's a series-strung set with a hot chassis--as in 120V worth of hot, the chassis is connected directly the AC line.

None of that is to say it isn't about the coolest thing to turn up here all year! I might be pleasantly surprised by it's performance; I know I'd love to see it working as much as anybody.

JR TECH: OMG! You also have a 21CT2 in BLONDE! Holy Smokes! John Folsom and I each have one in the mahogany finish, and neither one of ours look near as good as your blonde set! Does the 21CT2 work? Can you also put up some photos of the Moto?

OMG! That Westy is THE RAREST OF THE RARE

I am aware of only one other example of this rare model.

IMHO this set ranks as more valuable than the rarest of preware sets, because to the best of my knowledge, that rare color crt was never used in any other set.

That set is truely the most collectable of all color tv's

PLease show us photos of other sets in your collection.

I hope you have it insured for a lot of bucks!

No offense, but that is a pretty plain set. Any of us could easily walk by one at a flea market or house sale and not realize what it was. At least now I know what to look for; this is the first picture of one I've ever seen. I thought CBS-Hytron built the CRT, but it was Westinghouse-made?

Thanks for the comments! Wow !

I got a few more pictures this afternoon...Right now NONE of my sets can be assumed to be in working condition, as I have been away from the hobby for several years, so no screenshots yet!

As you can see from the shot of the corner of the tube, it is not impressively rectangular, but it ain't round either!

According to Peter A. Keller "The Cathode-Ray Tube Technology, History, and Applications":

"The first commercially available rectangular color tube was the 22-inch, all-glass 22EP22 (fig 6.22) developed by Westinghouse Electric Company in their Elmira, New York, plant (1956) A 24-hour-long pump cycle combined with a high-temperature bake (400 degrees) resulted in a very good vacuum and long life. The 22EP22 was used in a television receiver manufactured by Westinghouse, but economics doomed it after only a year of limited production."

As I understand it, when the switch was made to a commercial 21" round tube, the 22" sets were sold off cheap to Westinghouse employees (100-200$) with the understanding that replacement crts would not be available! This one got hauled to Oregon, when the Westinghouse engineer changed jobs... I got it when he moved again in the mid 80s. Free! :D

jr

Interesting that they put the controls on top, even though the chassis is on the bottom.

Don't fret about not having it working yet. Sounds like there may be plenty of armchair quarterbacks willing to kibitz & offer advice whenever you find time to work on it :)

Phil Nelson

Oh my! Very cool... You want to sell it? J/K I never knew there was even a rectangular color CRT before the roundie!

Thank you for the pictures, I've wanted to see one of these for ages, talk about a Holy Grail of Color TV Collecting!

The tube doesn't appear to be radically different from the 21" roundies other than the screen which looks like Westinghouse kind of just squished into a semi rectangle.

Is the Gun the same as the 21 inch and do you know if yours is good?
At least there's a fighting chance with a glass tube.

And yes, you could easily walk right by it and assume it was a B&W set!
There doesn't appear to be anything like a "Color" logo or a Tri Color flag to mark it.

Thanks for the pics! It looks like there are some newer yellow tubular caps in there. Have you repaired or ever seen this one work? Sorry for all the questions but I've never actually seen one of these on the inside before. Very unique even though it isn't flashy. I like that, some go too far, like they do today with "HD" this and "HD" that on every logo and mentioned every two seconds by news reporters. Being the first and only rectangular tube at the time, it's interesting that they didn't make a bigger deal of it.

Right now, the tube is a big unknown. I do not intend to just plug it into a tube checker, because if it is gassy, the heaters will likely blow. I suspect that I will bring up the heater voltage slowly and monitor for excessive heater current... if I get up to 6.3V with normal current and a nice orange-red glow, I will then use a crt checker.

The pinout and voltages of the crt look about the same as a 21AXP22 so I suspect that the guns are very similar.

One thing that has me worried is that the tube does NOT appear to be fritted together... So how was the front panel attached to the funnel?. Indeed, quoting Peter Keller again:
"Corning Glass Works developed the frit-seal process which was first introduced in 1958 for the all-glass 21CY22 color picture tube." I hope that they did not use the same process that was used on the 15GP22s. :thumbsdn:

When I obtained the set, it produced a fair picture, somewhat dim, and convergence was always a problem. The previous owner left the side control cover off, and said that he often fiddled with the convergence, which changed during operation. Yikes! Hot chassis and all!

jr

Many of us have been waiting for this day! I can recall some false hopes when folks found Westinghouse sets that looked identical to this one but were B/W. Very strange that they didn't dress it up. Westinghouse seems to have always been an also-ran; perhaps had their promotional abilities been a little better they would have sold more. I wonder if they ever had Betty Furness selling these on TV?

But remember, at the time most color sets were very plain, my early RCA sets don't have *any* sort of color logo, although it is pretty obvious that they are not "normal monochrome" sets.

That is why I think the Motorola sets were so great... the gorgeous 19" just shouted COLOR! and even my 21" has that nice 3 color treatment of the tuning knob.

jr

My dad, his brother, and one of their sisters worked for Westinghouse transformer division. They were extremely loyal to Westinghouse products. Surprisingly they never owned a Westinghouse TV. I was never sure what to make of that.

John

Glad to see that one of these sets survives in
outstanding cosmetic condition. Check out the Westinghouse 22" color receiver pictured on my site from a Dec. 1956 Magazine ad.

-Steve D.

Steve, your link says HTTP 403 (forbidden) when I click on it :(

Thanks Charlie, I edited my previous post. The link isn't working. You can go to my site and scroll down to the Westinghouse ad.

-Steve D.

Okay... thanks :)

...

At first sight, I would've never guessed that was a color television.:scratch2:

There were two 22 inch tubes, one made by CBS and one by Westinghouse. I have had two Westinghouse and one CBS sets reported to me, but these are the first pictures I've seen.

http://www.earlytelevision.org/22_inch_color_tubes.html

My next-door neighbor in my old neighborhood had a Sears Silvertone b&w console TV that looked almost exactly like the one being discussed here. However, I can't imagine Westinghouse making TVs for Sears and Roebuck in the 1950s; most "Sears" branded color sets from the '50s-'60s were RCA CTC-12 through CTC-15 clones.

Steve D., on your site you show the same model number (22K161) for both the table model and full console. Does this number come from the same ad as the pictures? I notice that the model numbers on jr's set are different (H22T155/H22TU155).

Steve McVoy, did the individuals who reported sets to you give any indication of model number or cabinet type?

jr, many thanks for the wonderful photos - this is certainly among the rarest of the rare! Did you happen to notice if the tube map includes a model number, and if so does it match the one on the model number label?

Thanks again for the comments!

A few answers:

No, the tube layout does not show the model number, my Sams Photofact (#357-1) indicates that it is for "Models H-22T155 H-22T156, H222T157A (Ch.V-2293-11,-31)". Underneath the tube layout chart written on the cabinet is "6-56" ... cabinet mfg date?

Yes, some of the caps look newer... there are also several tubes with date codes in the mid 70s so it appears that some service work was performed before I got the set.

Interesting about the CBS-Hytron 22" crt... I have passed along this info to Peter Keller. Has anybody seen one?

jr

JR, I sent you a PM about getting your contact information for our database. Did you get it?

I wonder if collectors have simply overlooked this set when they have seen it? Couple of things to watch for...

1. The crt has the blueish color that is often observed on early color tubes... compare to the color of the 17" RCA shown to the right of the Westinghouse in the second post on this thread.

2. The set is quite large, and deep for the size of the picture. Not counting the bump in the back for the crt, it is an almost perfect 26" cube!

jr

I think the set is still somewhat unique looking (even if it were actually a b&w set). Seeing it in person might be different than seeing it in a photo. I believe a collector would see it, and then say, "Hmmm... there's something peculiar about this set," and then likely investigate a little closer... and once they realized what it actually is, they'd do that Fred G. Sanford routine of having "the big one"! :D

Hell, I had the big one and all I saw was the picture of it! :D

Fauxpaw: I was contacted by email by two of the collectors. They promised photos, but have yet to send them, despite several reminders. One claims to have a NIB 22 inch CBS CRT too. Until I see photos, I don't know if the sets actually exist.

One of the Westinghouse sets is owned by a very private collector who hasn't released any photos.

We have a CBS tube at the museum:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/color_crts.html

Yikes! so the CBS tube used a glass funnel with a metal flange and a panel with a metal flange, so that the flanges could be welded together after the shadow mask/ phosphor exposure deposition sequence was performed?

jr

Yep, kinda like the 15GP22 or 19VP22.

Jr, I have the Westinghouse service manual for the set (alas, no set to go with it!). I would be happy to make you a copy. Sen me an email with your address if you like.

jfolsomjr@cfl.rr.com

Slaps forehead...oops, I forgot those had glass funnels! but this welding must have been more difficult because of the shape ?

jr

That tube was won by a collector in or near Chicago. It has good emission on all three guns.

Pete

fauxpaw,

I did make a "fauxpaw" in the model # for the table model. It is 22T156. I have corrected my site. Both model #'s are listed in the ad. The console model #22K161 is pictured in a small insert in the corner. The ad is a large format two page spread. jr_tech says his set's mfg. date is 6-56. This ad is from Dec. 56. Perhaps Westinghouse changed the model #'s somewhere along the line. Although the SAMS photofact usually was released sometime after the receiver was made available to the public. So, it is a mystery. John Folsom, does your service manual give any model #'s for these 22" receivers?

-Steve D.