What's so great about RCA?
 

I recently made a couple of posts in regards to my latest addition which happened to be a Zenith 5111 metal cabinet "roundie" and it didn't take me long to notice that RCA is the most talked about TV on the color TV forum. It's just sort of an odd disappointment to be honest because I haven't messed with any color television in quite a while and I hoped that there would be plenty of posts relating to my set. While I have been on the black and while forum for a number of years I have enjoyed all of the stories of sets made by various interesting, if not downright odd manufacturers. People don't really ever seem to hung up on one thing except maybe, you guessed it, it's an early RCA. I believe it is a model 630-TS or something.

The only real complaint I have with the real old school crowd is the fact that they do sort of keep what is deemed "collectable" or valuable boxed into the forties "roundie" sets. Well, there just isn't enough of that stuff floating around for us all to enjoy. I get aggravated because I have had great looking 50s sets that you can't even give away, much less make a few bucks on. I am glad that the stuff is not sky high, but 50's sets should be more appreciated I think. They look great, often perform well, and the typical 21" crt is plenty of viewing area. The mid fifties Philcos' are bulletproof in my book with a simple and lightweight chassis; they make a nice daily user. Zeniths are supposed to be bulletproof as well, but the only one that I have, a 1958 Space Command, has some weird short that I cant seem to find, something in the vertical output circuit I think.

I will say that I have searched the Color Television forum for Zenith posts and there are some people who seem to think that Zenith sets are desirable and perform well. It seems like I had at least one as a kid when people would often give them (older round tube color sets) to you because they had updated to a rectangular solid state set. I don't remember it being any better or worse than other brands from that era; nothing I owned anyway.

I think it boils down to the fact that RCA just sold more than anyone else.
Zenith didn't even sell a color set until 1962, RCA basically invented them.

RCA had several firsts, The 630 621 were 1946 sets so they are as old as you can go in post war collecting, the CT-100 was the first Color set and is a legend, not to mention scarce.

There are other early color sets far more rare than the CT-100 but there are so few of them they don't get much attention.

I think Eric hit the nail on the head. I have three RCA roundies because that's the only brand I have run across. I'd love to find some other brand of early color set, but it's hard to buy something that nobody's selling.

I agree it's kind of a shame that many 1950s B/W sets are unappreciated. I see them all the time on craigslist, but I don't have a vacant warehouse to fill with unwanted TVs, and I would never live long enough to restore them all, anyway.

Phil

I know exactly what you mean, and I have thought the same thing. I have noticed that when it comes to early color sets, it's always a RCA CT-something-or-another. Given that RCA dominated the field from the very beginning, the earliest of which are still next-to-impossible to find, they just naturally reign supreme with most enthusiasts. I can only imagine how frustrating that might be when you're looking for advice on something that's outside of the RCA circle. I personally haven't ran across an early color set, and I doubt I'll find one anytime soon. But, I have noticed similar trends with b&w sets.

For instance, the RCA 630-TS you mentioned, has brought nearly $3,000 in some recent auctions. Those early post-war tabletop sets really command some premium prices and I'm always interested in learning more about them. However, would I personally pay $3,000 for such a television? Not on your life! When I set out to acquire an vintage set, the idea of a television from the 1940's didn't so much as cross my mind. I was hooked on anything 1950's. I'm just a 50's junkie, whether it be music, clothes, cars, I'm there. Now some are calling things from this decadent era "mid-century" which not only makes it seem way longer ago than it actually was, but it's a word that's typically in use in your average Ebay auction/consignment shop atmosphere. In other words, people who stand to make a lot of money off something they found at a yard sale.

The set I finally found ( and believe me, in this neck of the woods I won't likely find another ) was a '53 Zenith for $25. It's a modest set, even by 1953 standards, and for the vision I had in mind, it fits perfectly. But, if I was to put up my Zenith for sale tomorrow, even as it sits with $150 worth of new parts in it, I probably couldn't come close to a quarter of that figure. Honestly, since I love sets of this vintage, I'm not complaining in the least that they don't command the same interest as the earlier sets. That just keeps the prices down, but of course, since I already scored mine for $25 it's not like I'm out shopping for another.

Still, I understand exactly what you mean. It does seem like there's a lot more vintage sets out there that would be "more interesting" to some of us than what seems to be hot in the hobby at the moment. Just as with car collectors, the rare gems will naturally be first priorities. I think that with time, some of the lesser-appreciated sets will get their due.

After-all, at one time, 4-door '57 Bel-Air's got the cold shoulder, too... just because they had a couple extra doors.

rca sets were plentiful.with there association with nbc,they had much advertisement,etc.they were on display everywhere as rca flooded the market.i can remember going to the big box stores back in the 60s and the televisions on display would be 75-80 percent rca.this is in columbus,ohio.the zeniths came along when the rectangular screen became popular.i think it depended on the region you lived in.here we had rca and later on sylvania sets were sold in droves.not too many zeniths available here.when we had them come in the shop,they were at least 5-6 years old.they didnt break down much.many people here are still watching those "g" chassis zenith chromacolor sets.as far as roundies go,the ctc 15 and 16 are among the easiest to find and may be the best roundies.the zenith roundies did produce the best picture and to have another one of those would be a dream.not interested in any other roundie.okay,maybe a magnavox combo.they have dynamite stereos.i have an airline combo right now.i havent touched it since we carried this monster home.sitting in storage gathering dust.it came form pittsburgh originally.as i said,here in columbus,ohio,rca dominated the roundie market.then around 1966-67,sun tv came along and they pushed sylvanias exclusively.we saw many of these in for repair.

I love my old sets. I dont really like being referred to as 'old school.' Since when is 'new school' so much better? I have a feeling that I learned alot more in school than some did.

I worked for a shop back in the day that made a fortune on flyback replacements on RCA sets, along with lots of Magnavox sets. One of my jobs was flyback replacements, along with cleaning the shop, etc. I was having a ball, and learning.

Funny, we rarely saw a Zenith. Saw lots of Sylvania and Philco sets.

I've had my CTC-10C roundie since 1975, and its biggest problem was bad ground points on the PCB's, and cracks in the solder under tube sockets. I re-flowed the solder on the vertical PCB, and the horizontal oscillator PCB and cured all that was acting up on my set.

Other than a new 6AQ5 audio output about 5 years ago, and a new CRT in the mid '80's, maintenance has been minimal.

If I find one, I sure won't turn down a roundie set.

Rca layed the ground work
 

I think it all boils down to the fact that Gen David Sarnoff was a visionary and wasn't going to let anything stand in the way of his dreams. The battle for early color and the personnalities involved was lengendary. Gen. Sarnoff attacked the color issue the same way he would have attacked any battle in the war. The fact that Rca owned both a tv network and a tv manufacturing facility didn't hurt their cause also.

Don't get me wrong Zenith is an outstanding company, but they also saw the fact that Rca was going to spend whatever it took to get color tv off the ground, meanwhile Zenith engineers were busy perfecting their own circuit designs and finally in 1962 released the 29jc20 chassis to the public.

I still say the battle for color television would make a great mini series on tv. Here you have William S. Palley vs Gen Sarnoff facing off in the initial battle just like Patton va Rommel. The fact that there were more early Rca color sets produced leads back directly back to the fact that most companies took a wait and see approach to color.

I will be moving my stuff to a new location soon.- I have a NUMBER of things I do NOT want to move. one is a CTC-15 or 16 RCA combo, with a hybrid stereo. All there--condition unknown.

Come and get it. I might even let go of the other ctc-16 set i have that DID produce a raster some years ago.And I will throw in the ctc-15 philco set , bad cabinet--but all there--too.

Look at all the clone sets that were produced based on the RCA design plus all the patents that were held by them. Yes, there was a dominance for better or worse and you can't ignore that. Even today, finding vintage RCA sets and parts still dominate..that's just the way it is.

Tubejunke, while your post comes off as a bit of a rant (and I mean this nicely) you do have some valid observations. But I hope you notice though our posts that there is a deep appreciation for all sets vintage and some here may have their preferences but that doesn't diminish from others' desires.

I do like sets that were produced during the fifties and not only are they cheaper (and yes maybe under-appreciated as Phil stated) than most others of vintage, I see them as an excellant starting point for anyone to get involved with and to learn on.

Now about that "old school" comment.....

I think around Chicago you might find more Zenith, Admiral, Magnavox and Motorola because that was their home base. Same as finding Packard Bell and Hoffman on the west coast and Sylvania, Westinghouse, Emerson, DuMont and Philco in the northeast. But RCA (along with GE) had huge national distribution.

Personally, it doesn't bother me that the collecting community finds certain sets more desirable than others. I'm in this for my own personal enjoyment. I have many radios, turntables, televisions and a couple of old cars with more money sunk into them than I'll ever recover in a sale.

RCA was a big company, and had resources to develop and market NTSC color TV. And Sarnoff had enough pull to keep at it for 15 or more years before color TV finally became popular. Having the NBC TV network didn't hurt either.

RCA had that R&D lab in Princeton NJ, where they did many patents on TV. I used to work there until RCA ceased to exist as a real company (that's when GE raped and pillaged it). :sigh: :thumbsdn: :dammit::cry::grumpy::puke::rant::tears::nono:

From an ethical standpoint, RCA should be shunned, as David Sarnoff was basically Russian mafia man, who stole most of RCA's technology from others, and he was responsible for the suicide of Edwin H. Armstrong, and would crush any smaller company who might have had a better idea than his.

Zenith was among the crushed, after Sarnoff just about sued them out of business in the early 50s over a Zenith color TV prototype. That's one reason why Zenith was unable to put out a color TV for nearly 10 years after RCA, and the other companies who sold relabeled RCA color sets.

Charles

Let me know I can drive over from South bend and pick up a set.

These were the reasons why my late Father In Law always had a preference for Zeniths...
He used to joke that RCA Engineers were so well staffed based on all the components they designed into the circuitry to justify thier existance!!

RCA (Thomson) had its share of problems with its sets from the '90s (CTC-177 to CTC-202), but every once in a while a trouble-free set would appear. My CTC-185 19" table model is a case in point. I purchased this set new in late 1999, and have had only one repair on it -- the antenna/cable connector snapped off the tuner PC board, probably due to poor soldering at the factory. But once that was repaired (and the ground points resoldered around the tuner), the set never gave me five minutes worth of trouble, and it gets used around here quite a bit in the evenings.

RCA/Thomson finally got it right when, beginning with the CTC-203, they started mounting the tuner remotely from the chassis. The onboard tuners were giving them no end of problems, especially when the grounds gave way and noise got into the jungle IC -- corrupting the tuner programming and causing other problems as well. (I have been told my set would have had problems like this and would not have lasted as long as it has, had I not had the tuner grounds resoldered properly.)

RCA's reputation as "the most automatic television in America" (as their 1960s-'70s ads proclaimed) remains spotless, even in the present Thomson/TTE era. I have not had to readjust the on-screen picture controls on my set for quite a long while -- as a rule, all I do is turn on the set, select the channel I want to watch, and forget the rest; the TV's excellent control circuits keep the picture rock-stable and the colors beautiful. Sound is not an issue for me because my hearing isn't that good; my set only has one small speaker in the left baffle (the right one is empty -- the cabinet in which my set is housed must have also been used for certain MTS stereo RCA TVs made within roughly the same time frame as mine was).

BTW, does anyone have any info on the "ON" Corporation, as applied to today's RCA televisions? I have noticed this corporation being mentioned in recent RCA literature online, and I'm curious to know what connections or associations this firm has with today's RCA. Is it a division of (or a successor to) Thomson? If not, is the ON Corporation a separate entity that is now using the current RCA block logo under license, but is not associated in any way with RCA or Thomson? :scratch2:

I worked for a small, neighborhood TV dealer / repair shop in the late sixties several days a week after school. They sold Zenith (and later also Andrea) and were very proud of the fact that Zenith and Andrea sets still featured a "hand wired" chassis. That was supposed to be the mark of the upper echelon of quality at the time. Not sure if the hand wired circuits of the day were more or less reliable than a printed circuit, but I do recall that the sets cost more!

Well, I am pleased to have tuned in today to see that my "rant" evolved into a well worded and educational reasoning behind some of my observations, and/or complaints. I feel better about my Zenith "roundie" which I had began to think might be another boat anchor. I, like at least one other member that posted, do not have the room to rescue every unwanted vintage TV that I find. Just the 8 or 10 that I do have keep my place so cluttered that I can't hardly work on them without moving a whole room around. As I mentioned, and more than once, I have tried to give away sets just to make room and to make sure that they go to a good home. The sad reality is that if a person can't find a home for a set, then it's either stripped of re-usable parts and the cabinet broken apart, or off to the Goodwill store where it will likely end up in a dumpster as a whole unit. So the former destructive idea at least saves a few parts. Mt 59 Space Command, that nearly everyone has probably heard about by now, is a great example of how a potentially wonderful "save" can end up as garbage because I couldn't and can't find a home. Maybe it is fate because the set is really a good looking set with a large 24" CRT that would be a GREAT candidate for a daily viewer if I ever find the short in the vertical circuitry that causes little or no sweep and a constant volume adjustable hum in the sound. The longer I look at it, the more value I see in it's beauty, AND the large CRT to me makes it a bit odd as typical sets then were 21".

If any of you 40's lovers are reading this, I have an RCA 8T-243 sitting on top of the Space Command that I am tired of looking at. Frankly, it's not even half as nice looing as it's wothless companion. It needs a home, but since they are "collectable" it will not be a freebie. Really the Space Command shouldn't be, but as we have mentioned, sets of that era simply are hard to get rid of unless you live in close proximity to a well to do collector with a lot of space (no pun).

Don't know about TVs, but the "hand wired" pitch was a flop in the radio world. Zenith touted their "hand wired" chassis when they introduced the Royal 7000 TransOceanic radio in the late 1960s. This was ten-year old technology and a huge marketing blunder. Competing radios with printed-circuit technology performed better, cost less, and weighed less. Zenith threw away the market for high-end multiband portables, a market they had single-handedly created in the 1940s and dominated for decades.

Phil

I was originally looking for an RCA roundie, ended up with Magnavox,Zenith and Philco long before I located a good RCA. They were either picked over or rarely sold in my area. I did end up with 4 of them but it took a year of looking. As i have experienced it all my brands of roundies seem to work equally and were one brand has a quirk/problem the other doesn't seem to and back and forth between them.

Story I heard had it that Sarnoff, at the time friendly with Armstrong, asked him to develop a noise free radio receiver. Armstrong came up with FM, not what Sarnoff had in mind, as FM would require all new transmitters in a new radio band. Sarnoff wanted a noise free AM receiver (he was the CEO, not an engineer...). And Sarnoff saw this new FM radio system as a competitor to has baby: Television. Maybe if Armstrong mentioned to Sarnoff that if television used FM for the sound, Sarnoff and RCA would have a killer app. But this is Monday morning quarterbacking... Anyway, Sarnoff was mad when the FCC mandated FM for TV sound, as he didn't want to pay patent licensing to Armstrong. Armstrong's widow eventually prevailed in the lawsuit, but Armstrong suicided before then. Not a high point in RCA corporate history...

Posted by Jeff: "BTW, does anyone have any info on the "ON" Corporation, as applied to today's RCA televisions? I have noticed this corporation being mentioned in recent RCA literature online, and I'm curious to know what connections or associations this firm has with today's RCA. Is it a division of (or a successor to) Thomson? If not, is the ON Corporation a separate entity that is now using the current RCA block logo under license, but is not associated in any way with RCA or Thomson?
__________________
Jeff, WB8NHV"

The RCA TV brand name has been kicked from piller to post ever since the RCA brand was bought by GE. If you need warrenty work on your RCA here is a list of who did and who currently owns the RCA TV brand. And who will and will not repair them anymore. This does not include Audiovox who owns the rights to RCA's other consumer electronics products.

RCA TELEVISION SUPPORT
Address:http://voxrightnow.custhelp.com/app/...vision-support

-Steve D.

Sarnoff was reputedly a megalomaniac who hounded his underlings unmercifully. One of his supposed quotes was "I don't GET ulcers, I GIVE them..." After he got his general's comission for RCA's defense work in WW2-which he'd lobbied hard for, BTW, he insisted his minions at RCA start referring to him as "General Sarnoff".

I personnally found the Rca color sets much easier to repair than the Zenith brand. The only real advantage hand wiring had over pc boards were the fact that cold solder joints weren't an issue, but the pc boards made component identification much easier. As for quality both Rca and Zenith ran head to head for many years and now neither exist.

That sort of sums it all up unfortunately. Sort of a lesson in the fact that whether it be the Roman Empire or The Radio Corporation of America, all things must and will pass. We spend so many stressed out days in the business world thinking that life itself hinges on the bottom line or our profit and loss statements are the former and not the latter. A few decades later it is often as if none of it ever even happened or is relevant. I sure am glad I wasn't a direct subordinate of "General" Sarinoff! LOL! :yes:

Now back to Bob Dylan- "The Bootleg Tapes" :smoke:

I like the color better. The colors are richer and warmer. Also other sets seem to have more noise in the picture. The way they did some things may not have been as robust as say Zenith but the performance is there.
My dad was loyal to rca sets while i was growing up and if I could take only one it would be my ctc16 combo.

Reckon we know where Gates gets HIS "business decorum" from.

This is in reference to kx250rider's post.

Funny you should mention industrial espionage and RCA's development of NTSC color. My late uncle was a design engineer at Raytheon Corporation while all the fur was flying.
Apparently some key ideas for chroma mod/demod that the General did not yet possess had been hashed out an brought to fruition in Uncle 'Red's' design team. They had taken it from 'breadboarded' to commercially reproducible at a rather fast clip.Some skullduggery allowed that information to be presented to Sarnoff's camp. :(
His Dad,my Grand Dad got to be the "first 'kid' on his block" to have a color set {In the Pittsburgh area.} when Uncle Red presented him with a long legged 20 inch Raytheon color set some time after I was born in the mid Fifties.Sadly that set vanished shortly after 'Pap's' death in the mid Seventies.
Things turned out better for Raytheon as concerns another idea in development at the same time. The microwave oven. :) Red got to come back to Pittsburgh from Chicago for its first demonstration here.

Hand wired vs printed circuit
 

I worked at an independent TV shop in the late 60's and a Magnavox dealer in the early 70's so I've seen a lot of almost everything there was. RCA sets were good, relatively east to fix (bad solder joints and the under chassis cooking itself to failure), and put a lot of bread on the table. Zeniths were bullet proof (well, almost) in my book. I much preferred the Zenith picture, but to each his own. Don't even get me started on Motorola. An RCA infested with dead cockroaches or a mouse was usually a real mess. Zeniths seemed to fare better after the clean up. I've had Zeniths fire right up and look good after removing the dead from inside.

While many may think working on old sets back then would have been romantic (or however you would like to think), it was often very nasty work. We had an exterminator who was a regular (for those times when the cockroaches would scramble out of the set when opened). And to stick your hand in a set and have whatever kind of bug(s) scramble all over your arm. I won't even mention the dust. Yech. Sorry I got sidetracked.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

it was fun,wasnt it?

I must admit I have had more little offenders to fight off since I started collecting (and bringing into the house) old TV's..... can't let my wife read this....

I do a major clean up and spray before bringing in from the garage, but they are out there. I need to bring in more of the little lizards that live outside, they are great bug hunters.


Of course central FL is well know for its Palmetto bugs...mega yuck

Interesting-and kinda sad that the address for "ON" isn't Indianapolis.

I noticed how the ON website quickly has nothing to do with Thompson built products and refers the visitor to their local television repair shop (if there are any left).

Not to mention that being the CEO of RCA meant that Sarnoff was also in control of NBC, and the introduction of FM had the potential of reducing the domination of radio that NBC held at the time.

RCA (whose hold on radio was so strong that business people referred to the company simply as "Radio") got in on the ground floor of a huge business, and its NBC had the lion's share of the clear-channel AM stations as its affiliates, squeezing out would-be new networks (such as ABS). The introduction of FM, on which every new station would be allowed full-time operation, could have born new competition for NBC's Blue and Red on what was then radio's prime time - evenings, unless NBC were to go the exhausting effort of starting several radio networks and affiliating all of the new FM stations with them. Quash FM, and NBC's hold would be secure.

Another what if: maybe if Sarnoff offered Armstrong generous FM patent royalties for every TV sold (for FM TV sound) in exchange for Armstrong abandoning FM radio broadcasting. Sarnoff would avoid FM radio competition, and Armstrong would get a nice income. And the public would have good sound to go with the pictures. But these guys egos were too big for that to happen.

Anyone old enough to be on this forum probably has owned something that said RCA on it. Those of us who grew up in the 40's-60's had a different kind of relationship with their RCA than more recent models. Turning on the AA5 phonograph to play a Dennis Day 78 :music: or the T-1-JE to hear Bob Hardwick speak was something that was part of a bond between the craftspeople who produced the set and the owner. An owner who would cherish and maintain their very own RCA. I simply cannot imagine my world without RCA in those days. :no:
Or now.

FDR once described a dictator by saying "he's an S.O.B., but he's our S.O.B." Well, in a way, so was Sarnoff.

I thought Audiovox owned the RCA brand now.

---

i sold rca from 1980 until 2001 and i will have to tell ya. i made a darn good living off of rca. they were always it seems ahead of the competitors. i sold and installed hundreds and hundreds of the dss satelite systems. most of the rca product is still out there working now. steve

i ve several rca products throught the years and was never unhappy with them.i did seem to buy middle or high end items,when i could.didnt care for the "legend of sarnoff",but i am a fan of u s made rca products

It's confusing. Audiovox purchased from Thompson the RCA brand to manufacture and market RCA branded small consumer home electonics and RCA's accessory line of cables and connectors. Thompson then sold the RCA name brand to TTE-China and they took over production of RCA branded TV's. TTE last spring then sold the RCA brand name to ON Corp. who now manufacturers RCA branded flat panel TV's. The RCA name was also used under license by Phillips to produce communications receivers with the RCA name. Now the Technicolor Corp. is the legal owner of the RCA name and is where companies go to purchase the RCA brand name to stick on their toasters, buggywhips or what ever comes to mind. Technicolor is also a subsidiary of another corp. You guessed it, Thomson. Which has now changed their corporate name to Technicolor S.A. I think Nipper is in some dog pound somewhere.

-Steve D.