Color adaptable Admiral goes in 14 hours

[smoker76]

I think this would be a great set to preserve.
eBay:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1

[jpdylon]

Nice lookin set. Too far from me though.

[Dave S]

Butler is just a hoot and a holler up the road. Anyone wants to bid on it, I could pick it up for you and hold it until next year's Early Television Convention.

--Dave Sica

[frenchy]

So what is meant by 'color adaptable' on this set?

[TV Engineer]

Originally Posted by frenchy

So what is meant by 'color adaptable' on this set?

The sync, video, and power connections required to operate a color wheel appeared on a socket at the rear of the chassis where you would plug in your color adaptor.

[Pete Deksnis]

Won the Admiral for a few bucks. Back in '51 a family member bought a Sears table model that had that magic 'color' word next to a socket on the rear panel. Couldn't pass on this one. Thanks for the heads up.

Pete

[smoker76]

That crt frame looks like the only one like it. I guess it works with the color wheel.
Does anybody have a factory made color wheel?

[jstout66]

I don't altho I do have a Westinghouse table-top set with the same option. I have seen a CBS color wheel set in operation and the picture was FANTASTIC. So much better than one could imagine.

[Sandy G]

I was just gonna ask if anyone had ever seen a color wheel in operation.I would think it would be one of those gizmos that can be made to work in a lab, but not so well in the "real world".

[David Roper]

A color wheel running on the CBS standard, such as this set was intended to adapt to, works very well, with "imperceptible" flicker--that is, most people's persistence of vision is such that the rate of 72 color fields per second making 24 complete color frames is too rapid to flicker. I can see the flicker in a CBS color picture. To my eyes, it's almost subliminal . . . but not quite. NTSC-to-field sequential color wheels from ca. 1956, like the Colortel, can work well and reliably, but they flicker like a motherf***er due to the low frame rate. Whereas an ordinary color receiver displays 30 complete color frames per second, with a color wheel displaying NTSC, the color signal has to be chopped up into 30 fields per second. 10 fps for any type of motion-picture is going to flicker like mad. If you don't mind that, then they work fine.

[smoker76]

a man bought a beautiful handmade color wheel system and I think he spoke of using a 10" Tv with it. I wonder if he ever did it. There is a thread on it here somewhere.
Apparently there were never factory made color wheel systems sold to the public?

[Einar72]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

I was just gonna ask if anyone had ever seen a color wheel in operation.I would think it would be one of those gizmos that can be made to work in a lab, but not so well in the "real world".

About 10 years ago, I witnessed a home-brew color-wheel adapter demo at my local antique radio club meet. I think it was built from plans in a magazine. It consisted of a chassis in an open-back box, a motor and a color wheel, with a plunger on a cable / motor brake as a coarse sync adjustment. It was set up with the motor and tri-gel-wheel perched on top of a small RCA B&W (think it was a 721TS). The operator tuned in a channel with rabbit ears, cranked up the motor and started pushing the plunger until it was roughly in sync. Then he'd adjust a few controls on the extra chassis - which kept him fiddling as the sync was sorta drifty, but in a way like a motion-picture framing adjustment. Ironically, I recignized the project had been built on a sawed-down-to-fit CTC-11 chassis.

It was actually an exciting experience, and the color gamut was really not too shabby, just somehow different. I don't remember who he was, or if the eldely gentleman is still alive.

[bgadow]

I have an Admiral that looks very similiar but with a plain bakelite front where this one is colored. Mine has a metal crt but this one looks like glass. I had never noticed anything about color on the back, now I'll have to go double check. I don't think I would have missed something like that, though! It is a good performer.

[Pete Deksnis]

either reproduce or restore one of the kits originally designed for these 'color' ready '51 sets. Not the color wheel. Just the modification that was to allow b&w sets to receive CBS color broadcasts in b&w. Who knows. Ya gotta wonder if it was ever actually done back in '51 for other than engineering purposes.

[smoker76]

I wonder if the builders knew they would never use the color wheel system but knew it would be a real cheap extra to sell the consumer at a high profit. If there was never a color wheel system available for the consumer I think that would support such a scenario.