My ex employer, Raytheon Power Tube Division, in Waltham, MA used to manufacturer electronics components including TV and Radio. The company started business in 1928 used the property of Stanley Steamer automotive. I was old enough to work in the old plants that production lines of Dumont TV that has raised floor with table for supervisor to watch the production workers.
There used to be a lot of electronics manufacturing in MA. Sad that it has all disappeared overseas and it's all been replaced with Dunkin Donuts, apartments, and office buildings. My grandfather worked at Raytheon back then, and he later moved and worked for AT&T on another manufacturing line, I believe that was in southern NH.
I like the design of that set! I wonder if the reason behind Motorola's offbeat implementation of a lot of the various circuits was to avoid paying a licence fee for some patented design? I can't remember anymore but I seem to recall a lot of early radio circuits had a licence fee on various designs (probably RCA) which led to many creative ways to create a different but similar circuit. Or more likely the bean counters were already hard at work by the 50s and Motorola found they could save some pennies
RCA dominated 1950s television parts and circuits patent control. And into the 1960s in color platform. Solid state components halted that imperial advantage. Ironically, the more televisions became solid state, the more RCA lost both its patent monopoly but its quality as well. They switched to competing on features and price points and made the worst televisions for longevity in late 1960s and 1970s.
It's a weird design and it feels cheap to me, as it places too much reliance on other subsystems. I am not necessarily upset by the use of selenium rectifiers - that would have been high tech in the 1950s and a TV is designed for a 20 year lifespan at best - but.... using the audio output tube as a voltage divider for the vertical? Hard to service even when the set was brand new. You don't go to the audio output tube when you have a vertical issue. I bet this decision cost Motorola a lot in warranty work. Remember that VHS started out as JVC's attempt to build a videocassette which broke Sony's patents. Betamax was better for picture quality than the first VHS machines. But in many ways, VHS proved itself to be superior - recording length, much more open platform allowed more competition, more competition allowed for ,more innovation within the confines of the specifications. And that resulted in VHS HQ and VHS HiFi with the depth multiplexing on the tape. And VHS allowed for more porn, which, as any astute observer of technology will have noted, results in faster adoption - just look at the Internet. Design matters.
I am almost related to that TV. I am 9 years younger than it, and my first place of residence when I was bought home from the hospital as a newborn was 2042 W. Augusta, about 3 miles straight down the street.We moved when I was about 6, and I was still close to electronics manufactures like B&K - Dynascan. That was back in the times when Chicago was still "Hog butcher to the world", now all they produce is bad sports teams and a record number of murders every year. I will be waiting with baited font for Part II.
@@michaelquinones-lx6ks I am almost 9 years younger/about 3 miles straight down the street. That was back when we moved I was about 6. I was still "Hog butcher to the world". All they produce is newborns and hospitals.
norwegian hospital that was,,,now no speaqui el norwegiano,, se habla po folks chi town had zenith motorola,electromotive diesel,ford motor,US steel,they & fifty others flew the coop RCA ib w dickens st too
I never seen the fiberboard steam bent like that. Tacky yes, but useful in it's utilization to cover the back correctly. Lots of Chicago based electrical engineers hired at the "batwing" maker to get TV's to perform better than most GE, RCA, and other TV set makers back then even if it meant doing things in an uncoventional way. Got away without any patent type infringements anyhow. Looking forward to a part 2 .
Motorola always did their own thing. Their design circuits, even tubes were different. So was their chassis in later years. They called it "Placir", and it was more difficult to work on than the average boards.
Yes, Motorola did it their way. In the 70s I fished a 19 inch M portable out of the trash. Cleaned it up, replaced 1 tube, adjusted everything readily do able, like rings on the crt, yoke, sound demod. I watched it for years, gave it away, they watched it for years, gave it away. Great crisp high contrast picture.
Man that looks a LOT like my first television. Dad finally broke down and got me my own TV after I began watching afternoon cartoons in the living room when I got home from school after we moved to town. It was a well used unit looking a LOT like that but with a light that went all around the picture tube. It appeared to be florescent it was that color and you could turn it off if you didn't like it, but I thought it was cool so I always ran it. Had it in my room upstairs so it didn't bother the folks and I could watch what ever I wanted to on NBC as that was the only channel I could get without a good antenna. When I wed and left home, my sister, who lived in a mobile home as a single parent of a young daughter got it because her TV was worse.
I am amazed that any of it works as well as it does, hats off to ancient technology, bet you none of that television was make in China, FYI my new computer is 2 months old and the ssd blew up
20HP4B Picture Tube on schematic. I was wanting to tell you it was on the schematic when you were saying it probably didn't say, around 10-15 minutes in. I haven't gotten to the end of the video to know if you discovered that or not but I'm leaving the comment now anyway.
These things are almost as indestructible as the same era Zeniths. Electrically anyway, cabinets are the soft vulnerable underbelly that acquires the most scars...
It's a pretty set to my British eye. Sturdy and not too flashy. Many uk sets had that protruding bezel around the CRT, usually made from Bakelite. We never had Motorola over here, other than car radios produced by a UK-based subsidiary. I'd love to see a picture on it, fingers crossed.
Another thing you may have missed on the schematic; this set yes an ELECTRODYNAMIC speaker-but now appears to have a permanent magnet replacement. Didn't see any connections to the speaker socket on the back of the chassis. As was the usual practice, the field coil is an integral part of the circuit and will need to be present to get the set to work.
Way Back in the early 1970's , I did service calls in the home. I would carry my Huge & Heavy Tube caddy's into the customers living room only to see a set of this vintage WITH a metal case color TV set on top of it . Then a 12" B7W TV on top of that ! 3 sets ! The customer always wanted the color set repaired ( naturally ) and most of the time they also wanted the TV antenna on the roof fixed. It was weird that they kept the 50's TV set as a table to put the newer color TV set on top. Some very good salesman would sell them an alliance tenna rotor for the roof antenna , and almost always the roof top motor was seized and needed to be replaced. ALWAYS when it was freezing cold with ice & snow on the roof. ( I hated that ) . Videos like this bring back a lot of memories , both good & bad ! Thanks Shango.
One like this was in parents bedroom when I was a kid in the mid 1960s. I remember the day it stopped working and made a stink, which I learned much later was the smell of a failing selenium rectifier.
Mr. Shango, when I was a very young kid my family had almost identical Motorola and I grew up with it, watching Huclkleberry Hound on Friday nights, etc. It was well worn and hard to persuade to tune in a show. The last I saw it run in 1964 the picture tube was so worn out you could only see a picture in totally dark room. In 1970 a friend and I used to junk pick and strip tubes out of TVs. One night I found one of these only older and told my friend I wanted to keep the whole thing. Got it home in my room and found the picture tube totally burned out. The set was in perfect condition otherwise. It was about a 1949 model although it had no date and I had no idea. It was probably one of the first large screen Motorola tvs and had the round flat screen metal cone picture tube. In later years I found a 1950 model ( it had a date ) and it was the same except my 49 had a 6H6 tube , which I believe was a diode tube and the 1950 had just some other diode instead of a whole tube. Another thing I remember about it was the huge transformer sounded almost like a refrigerator motor. The picture tube was burned out and I thought I would never find another weird tube like that but another friend in school said he had a TV for me to play with and it was really ugly hideous thing but I couldn't believe it had just the tube I needed. So I stripped it and at 14 years old with extremely limited electronic knowledge I managed to change the tube out one hot summer day. I actually got it to work and used it for a few years till one day the flyback or something underneath the chassis decided to start arcing real loud like the high voltage start on my tig welder and it scared the hell out of me so I quit running it. It was not a safety set as the whole metal cone of the picture tube was charged with absolutely no covers. I got into cars and girls and eventually tossed it back out. If I had known it went back into the 40s I might have hung on to it longer. It was in brand new cabinet condition. I looked for it online and so far the best I have found is an advertising picture.
Funny seeing the Litetronics traffic light bulb! We had a couple in table lamps years ago and they must have really lasted the 15,000 hours.. They lasted seemingly forever in that application. Before LED's and CFL's.
This set was a great choice for learning some weird engineering creativity. Love the "Ugmo"! Odd that the Y filament to the damper has one side to ground, and so does the power transformer secondary. I would have thought they would have fully floated that filament like the z winding. Never would have dawned on me that the audio output would have been used as a voltage divider to the other circuits. This video was super entertaining with all the weird squealing, and the camera even picked up the 15.75K high frequency of the horizontal sweep at times. (note: edit changed x to y)
That is an interesting schematic and design. That's real wood, if it had proper care it would look like new. The plastic and fake laminate wood on new products would deteriorate with age. Great video, thank you.
I had a RCA Victor black and white set that was basically the same design as far as the cabinet goes . I was in great shape , i started restoring it but lost it in a house fire. The one i had also featured a rca phono jack and was the only section of the tv that worked well.
Motorola's gimmick was that bezel and glass called "Glare Guard"! For that era Motorola also boasted "Eighteen Fashion Award Winning Styles". Unknown who gave them that award? It sure wasn't anyone from House Beautiful magazine. In later years they had Drexel furniture manufacturing designed and make cabinets for them. Drexel cabinets were so well done when the set was beyond saving you definitely re-purposed the cabinet because they were really good furniture. As for the electronics, they weren't horrible at all, just different. I've had a few of those over the years and don't remember a lot of issues. Last one was a save that was given no love on powerup. No DBT or nothing , plugged it in and it worked. Ran it for quite a few hours without an issue too. It went on to another collector and is probably still working.
If you really want some fun, go find a Muntz console of that same vintage, and let "Earl Madman Muntz" really drive you completely insane. That Motorola is space tech compared to the Muntz.
Astonishing, but humbling, that you take these on. And there's me worried that the wit had diminished (compared with one or two previous videos), especially local versus suburbs, fish, dogs, cats etc. Was expecting an upside-down tube gag.
Omg! My grandparents had this very set. I remember watching it for many hours when we visited in the 60s , in Los Angeles. It always seemed to work very well, and they used it till the early 70s. Eventually it wore out, and they got thier 1st color set . When my mom passed in 2009 , I was cleaning out the garage getting her parents house ready to sell when I found it covered under a blanket. I brought it to the front inside the garage, was going to take it to my home, unfortunatelyI left the garage door open, not remembering the city I was in...., I went down the street to get some lunch, when I got back, it WAS GONE!!! HUNTINGTON PARK, your not the city my grandparents moved to in 1932........oh well
Very restorable TV 📺. Cobwebs 🕸 on the outside. It’s a plus if this is a vacuum tube type set. This can be your living room TV 📺. Sounds like 👍 over 80% of these are smoker’s sets. Cobwebs 🕸 inside, too. Looks like 👍 a state of neglect. It will be up and running 🏃♀️ . Your friend, Jeff.
@23:07 - It's a Traffic bulb. "The percentage you're paying is too high priced while you're living beyond all your means. And the man in the suit has just bought a new car from the profit he's made on your dreams And today you just read that the man was shot dead by a gun that didn't make any noise... But it wasn't the bullet that laid him to rest - was the low spark of high-heeled boys." ~ Traffic.
This set is a great example of Motorolas advanced engineering. They were the first in the industry to add a diaper to the propaganda bulb to keep the political excrement from reaching the viewer. That’s forward thinking!
Hey the reason for putting the fly back and high voltage rectifier under the chassis is two-fold. One it keeps goofy consumers out of that area and two it's a cost-cutting measure. You don't have to shield it with a special cage and whatever that would cost to manufacture. Slide it under the chassis instant built-in cage.
I see in 28:07 when you try adjust the potentiometer, there is something arcing (like Corona discharge) under the chassis transformer. Greetings from Brazil!!!!
I like the video. I also like how you keep bad mouthing the set but continue with task but begin to get into it. Its always the same. I'm like "Don't quit now!" Then I remember how you are. The set isn't that bad for the era. A picture tube matched bezel for the speaker bezel/frame and grill would of been much better. Those sharp grill corners is what's distracting. Thanks for the technical discussion on the circuit layout.
*Me............ "Dang Shango, you got that TV squealing!" *Shango .... tweaks vacuum bulb "Talk to me daddy!" *TV............. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!" *Me....... Dies laughing~
These and your mining town explorations are always my favorite videos of yours Here is a question, when will we get to see you deliberately measure a do not measure point and fry a meter?
Only the two controls on the front Channel selector/fine tuning and volume/contrast. Brightness and hold control are on the back. NOT the most convenient location-and the controls are under the bend.
I have tried to explain to a guy who works at our local flea market not to plug these old radio's and TVs in until a person can bring them up slowly. He always tells me that he gets more money for working stuff, so there is no winning, lol.
When he plugs one into 125 vac, some day, with a new acquisition , then turns it on, and it goes boom, and Squad 51, Engine 51, Engine 75, ect responds to extinguish the fire storm he created, he will definitely listen to the next individual that tells him no no no, don't plug n play. LOL
The "bulb" term can be seen here and there, on old service info. It changed to "Tube" once they were made out of straight sided "tubular" glass, and got the "GT" designation at the end of the name. Eventually, they dropped the "GT" because they were all made from tubing.
