What year was the UHF-mandatory rule?

[kx250rider]

I had always thought it was '63 when UHF was required on all TVs in the USA. But I am hoping someone might have a factual reference to confirm. This Zenith 21" color set that I just picked up last week is non-UHF, and I was thinking it is about a '65.

Charles

[rca2000]

Our 25lc20 sets were the LAST Zenith roundies not to have UHF. I have a 24mc32, and a 25mc33,(both roundies) and a 25mc36(rectangular-- Zenith's first) all from 1965, and they all have UHF. My 25lc20 does NOT, as it was still an option then, and most people did NOT get it.

In that popular Mechanics (or science) magazine, it hearlds "many more new channels for everybody!", like UHF would be the greatest thing on Earth. it never was, around here, at least.

[OvenMaster]

"...the All-Channel Receiver Act of 1962 rescued the failing video technology of its day, UHF-TV. This legislation, mandating that TV sets sold after Jan. 1, 1964, be equipped with an 82-channel tuner, "made UHF broadcasting a viable business," a trade journal dutifully reported following the FCC's digital tuner mandate. "
Source: http://www.slate.com/id/2071935/
Money for Nothing
The FCC is forcing you to buy digital TV tuners that may not even work.
By Thomas Hazlett
Posted Monday, Oct. 7, 2002, at 11:07 AM ET

Tom

[Chad Hauris]

There was also a law passed in late 1974 or early 1975 that UHF tuning had to be as "easy" to operate as VHF...thus requiring a UHF tuner that clicks to individual channels. (which is just a detent mechanism of course on top of the same continuous variable capacitor tuner.) Some of the RCA's like the CTC-68 do this very well...there is a readout for UHF showing every channel and the knob travel for each channel was the same as for VHF...most of course just used the knob which does the micro-clicks and displayed every other channel in tiny print.

Actually I don't know if UHF broadcasting ever really cought up to VHF in popularity...most TV's with varactor tuners that I see often do not have the UHF numbers installed in the dial or buttons and do not have them programmed...sometimes there is one UHF on the U1 position but often none.

[peverett]

Thanks to LBJ, it did catch on in Austin, Texas. There is only one VHF station, the one the his family owned in the 1960s. Today it is the FOX channel.

NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS and a couple of independent channels are all UHF.

[old_tv_nut]

I have a Zenith 9" color set that met the tuning parity rule by using continuous tuning for both VHF and UHF, with a rocker switch to switch between V and U. I think this is the only model they made this way. I don't know of any others like it, except imported tiny TVs. Has anyone seen others like this?

[nasadowsk]

Ok, even better - were there any UHF only sets made for the US market?

[Adam]

That RCA portable I put up on the swap board has no uhf, and it looks to be early 70's. Now first I thought someone removed the tuner, there is a hole in which one should go, but upon closer examination I could find no evidence that one was removed. I had assumed someone just removed it really cleanly, but then I noticed a sticker that said something like RCA - Canada on the bottom of the set, and I wondered if it was just that they didn't have to have the uhf in Canada like they did here, and they made sets there without the uhf tuners even that late. I don't really know, but it is an interesting thought.

[andy]

...

[NowhereMan 1966]

I know in my case, my (circa) 1966 Sony B&W TV/video monitor has a countinuous UHF tuner as does my 1970 Zenith Chromocolor. I have a 1975 RCA B&W TV with the detented UHF tuner. My 1982 Zenith System 3 as well as the 1998 Zenith 19 incher I have are digital tuning, the latter is on screen.

I remember my grandmother had a 1962 RCA B&W 17 or 19 inch TV with no UHF tuner as was the same with the 1959 Philco we had prior to the Chromocolor.