Original 1956 RCA Film: Vintage Television Electronics & Vacuum Tube Production, TV technology 

Hi Warren C., sounds like we have some similar experiences here. Thanks very much for your sharing your thoughts. Sounds like you had quite a lengthy career too! ~ Victor

Dittos, OM, KR4HH

that is because companies still did tot now that a TV that lasts more than 5 years costs them money not make it. 5 years may be long enough to ensure you buy a new one from the same manufacturer. But not all tv's make it that long anymore yet they did sell you a tv so they made money off you in the long run.

Back when you had to take a morse code speed test and build a working component to learn soldering ect.

They're still rocking in my living room as well as I have an all original stereo receiver from 1961 with the same valves as when it came out of the factory. Most of them are mullard England and rca USA.

@@brianchisnell1548 You still have to do these tests in Canada to have a full license.

Very true!

Hi Eddie, thanks very much for the feedback. Glad you enjoyed the video. Hope it brought back some good memories. ~ Victor

Hi OldTooly, glad you enjoyed this look back. ~ Victor, CHAP

I used to work for 12 years with one of the top electronics company in MA, America,that care and put effort on quality organization under philphaphy "quality begin with fundamental" but in the 90's after the Gulf War America under the industry leadership of one guys name "Welsh" that raised the profits on top of quality and destroyed people with long terms by using term "you will good somewhere else" and shipped work to cheap labor country and don't care of quality! I was one of QC/QA who was let go to die on the street!

Hi @johnalexander7490, thank you for the great feedback. Yes, RCA was quite the king back then! People had lots of respect for RCA products. Wish they were still around...

me too, now america is worse

Hi Fred, good point! Thanks. Victor, CHAP

The testing equipment was more advanced than the TV's!

Your doubts are unfounded There are allot ot museums, some for instance in the national geographic museum in Victoria BC Canada , they have allot of historical TV tech on display. Based on that , I'm sure somewhere there is one of those on exhibit

Re "allot ot engineering went into ..."That's what they are trying to convey to would be competitors, luckily sony , samsung panasionic knew it was all bs, , in fact the 60" flip out RCA projection tv sets that cost $30k in the early late 70s early 80s had Toshiba manufacturing Japan written on the back panel 😂😁 I never bought another RCA after that. companies still do this, with amazingly simple products too. Philip's led lights in Canada say made by Signal Mfg right on them,!

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject I love watching these kinds of films for the nostalgic and to see the products, even though i know the publicity dept made these

Very true! ~ VK, at CHAP

Yeah because everything in the video is advertising lie, reality get these things out the door, 1000 per minute ! Ship ship ship , sell sell sell

Many of the circuits in those older receivers stressed the sweep tubes beyond their recommended ratings, and so those often failed. Rarely did tubes in video and audio circuits need replacement even after several years. After the last of those circuits went solid state, reliability was greatly improved. The CRT design was also improved, increasing its service lifetime considerably.

The tuner on board design, and ground issues.

10:40 Enough to provide the employees with gloves and safety goggles?

@@seankayll9017 they all got lawyers and sued the company so that the company outsourced jobs to slave labor in China. In China they don't have OSHA

Spraying lacquer wood cutting open blades factories where a toxic and unsafe place companies didn't care

@@ArumesYT RCA didn't hold a candle to Zenith.

It was an ad.

Shame there's no attention to detail in people's correct spelling these days! You still havve timme to editt yourr commment

Hi pneumatic00, that's a fascinating story! You were lucky to be able to visit the plant in action back then. I can imagine the sounds just as you described. Thank you for sharing this memory! ~ Vincent, at CHAP

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject I have been looking on YT for some footage of one those machines in operation, with no success. I've been able to find a few videos on tube construction, mostly gals with tweezers, but so far none of those incredible machines.

Hi Peter, thank you for your kind words and insight. Glad you liked it. Hope you will check out our other vintage videos too. ~ Victor, at CHAP

These needed service and new tubes every 6 months or so. I couldn't kill my flat screen if I wanted to, short of physical damage. Not all things are worse than they used to be. Hard to believe everything in this film is obsolete except the cabinet making people.

Yes, great quality from that time period. (I wonder if your 1958 radio has the "CD" on the dial for "Civil Defense" too : ) ~ Victor, at CHAP

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject Only if the radio was made for the US market.

German electronics standards are what it’s all based upon. Think Project Paperclip. Blaupunkt is indeed still a very high quality company.

@@RJDA.Dakota is it? it suffered too in the last decades well at least in the cheaper consumer category...

Thanks for your kind words. You are welcome to explore our other videos as well. ~ Victor, at CHAP

No PPE worn by anyone, but it was a very different world

No better way to check for microphonics than to bang on the tubes.

Gives a little kiss on their cheeks as they go out into the real world. They grow up so fast.

@@gavincurtis poor baby tubes getting spanked before leaving home for the real world.

Interesting observations, thanks very much. ~ Victor, CHAP

They really are not reliable now.

I have a 62 year old radio in my kitchen, use it every day. Will I still be able to power up this computer I'm now typing on in 60 years? Doubt it.

I have a 1959 Zenith 8 transistor Royal 500 that still works with all-original parts. I never got around to re-cap it. Put in batteries and it just works.

RCA invented the shadow mask colour tube.

We had boxes of extra vacuum tubes for our color set, and every drug store had a tube tester and sold vacuum tubes! If only I had bought a thousand black plate 12AX7s!!! haha

My grandmother bought the first color tv (RCA) in the family around '62. The thing lasted forever without major repairs. Never failed. Beautiful furniture as well. It was just thrown out after she died.

100% true

Glad you enjoyed it! - Victor, at CHAP

jkanclark : No it's NOT .

We are so vastly far beyond this in every conceivable way, I am wondering what you refer to. Do you pine for the awesomeness of the velocipede?

@MichaelKingsfordGray Wow grandpa! Do you have statuary of Reagan and Thatcher in your front yard? That is one of the most clueless comments I’ve ever read on RU-vid, and that’s saying something.

Not strange, but impractical. Because we are being forced as an entire species, to accept a global restructuring by the worlds most powerful individuals, families and corporations, who form an alliance. This is in accordance with a long term plan to establish a communist style world government which will place control of everything on earth into the hands of these people. Terror is their main tool, and sabotage, disease,the environment, and racial conflict, among others, the contextual mediums. _They_ will continue to live and work in a separate sphere, in the style to which they are accustomed. It means the destruction of middle and even upper classes, leaving only the very wealthiest and most privileged alone. The poor will die. Those opposed to it will die, as will any deemed unfit. The pandemic is only one deliberate means of doing this and the vaccines are the real reason for it, because they enable surveillance and tracking, and even in some cases, remote alteration of individual biometrics and credit through the imminent cashless system. Theres a big chance they will fail, and the world will become unlivable in (in my humble opinion). So this would be a rough patch we cannot return to normal from. If they succeed, the same applies, because the technocratic dystopia they want will have only one purpose, to keep them in power indefinitely, and to make them immortal through Transhumanism and space travel (okay, 2 or 3). 2021 is the year for implementation, so not much time, if any. Merry Christmas.

Will never happen.

Hi Dan, great comment. That must have been a fascinating career, thanks for sharing! ~ Victor, CHAP

Dan, I do remember those days and loved the "new" XL 100 and "ColorTrak" sets. One thing I enjoyed was having to travel to an RCA training center to learn some new chassis stuff. But as for tossing out the TVs today, some yes, but others can be repaired. The biggest problem these days is trying to get GOOD schematics, parts list and PARTS for some makes. Most are truly designed to be tossed, that's for sure. My favorite TV of "these days" is our Panasonic 3D Plasma TV. I've had to repair it twice in the (around) 12 years that we've had it. The first time I opened it up, I was surprised at how minimal the circuity was, especially for a 3D TV. The first repair was a few of the larger capacitors in the power supply. The 2nd was one of the several fans seized up and the TV went into protection mode. That was an easy fix too as all I had to do was take the fan apart and do a good cleaning on it and oil the shaft. LOL It's too bad that companies make tvs as throw aways now. I think that's part of the reason why some of the bigger companies have either stopped making TVs or have really cut down or only sell to certain countries now. Like you say, we just get garbage now, mostly coming from China. Even the wonderful RCAs of the past did not carry on the quality control. The crap tvs with the RCA name on them are not nothing more than the same trash sets that are out with other brand names on them.

Yep good times

DEVO's first Synth's were Heathkits they modified themselves.

Or "men" ... ;)

Drunk already.

Just give me the bottle

Hi Thomas, that is such a cool story. I think our town in Mass. had a thrift store with an "as is" TV/radio department too. I had forgotten all about it until reading your comment. Wow, that brings back memories! ~ VK

Hi Enigmo, Welcome, Welcome! We are so happy you found our unique and growing channel. Thank you for being a new viewer. Hope you will explore our many video offerings! ~ Victor, at CHAP

Corporate greed and political ambitions is what happens. While I am a believer in mankind coming together one day, we have mistakenly begun lowering the standards of living for the greatest of us, rather than elevating the standards of the lowest of us, all in the name of control over people. Don't just trust my word, look for yourself.

@@OldTooly Exactly.

Many thanks!

Yes, some people kept broken sets around for years, because it was such a nice cabinet, they didn't want to throw it out. :)

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject These days it's more about PICTURE QUALITY than CABINET QUALITY! Today's TVs are also attractive in their own right! Slender, with no bulky CRTs! I would also point out that cheap plastic cabinets were also used back in "the good old days of CRT", usually on smaller portables.

Yeah, now skilled asian kids assemble electronics

My grandfather would turn the wooden tv cabinets into beautiful pieces of furniture. They used very good wood.

... but I love old tech. : )

RCA = JAPAN VICTOR CORP

@@idolhanz9842 JVC was the original subsidiary of the Victor Talking Machine Company in the late 1920’s. RCA acquired Victor (and JVC) in 1929, however, JVC disconnected itself from RCA in World War II.

@@idolhanz9842 yes and my flip open RCA 60 inch projection TV said Toshiba of Japan on the back. These films are a deep fake publicity stunt. Like when in the early 90s walmarr was importing everything from China, but had massive signage saying buy American all over their stores

@@tomfinley6620 wrong! Wall street controls businesses not any one political party. Also even if parties did , think about this fact 1 party wants social programs, the other party like wall street wants bigger profits for businesses To run social programs you need revenue , the biggest payers of revenue tonight pre 1980 were big business taxed at up to 70 percent . To reduce the taxes you have to spend that money , in country . Wall street only cares about profits, they wanted lower costs. "The business party " controlled the USA from 1980 to 1992 that's when this shift happened and you had all these movies like Wall Street , Gung Ho, come out to reflect that . Of course many have already taken the red pill or the blue pill , so reality is tinted for those people , by the pill's marketing. Reality is businesses owned by wall street , don't care who's in power , they only care about every last cent of profit, that means lowering costs, largest costs in mfg are: 1) labour 2) a distant second is logistics aka shipping I'm so tired of everything needing to be attributed to politicians. Before that it was celebrities, exhausted from that too.

Thank you for the updated info on that location, quite fascinating info. ~ Victor, CHAP

If a two hour long film was made for a 2020 TV factory you'd hear it once if you were lucky.

and not one time did you hear the word "woman"

@@srtamplification Women were home raising the next generation of Americans and managing and maintaining the homes. Some women did work on the assembly lines as in this film, doing precision testing, assembly and checking, but the vast majority of engineering was done by men. And the word 'men' was the generic term for the staff, workforce, etc. That only changed in the 70's when the fireman became the 'fireperson' bullshit.

Google Translate says: "What beautiful memories I started in the field of television in the 70s and it was the best of my life Although now we have progress But everything is junk and disposable in the last decade it was manufactured with quality and love what we went through that decade and we are alive we have good memories." Hi @manuelrodriguez6102, thank you very much for your feedback! -- Victor, at CHAP

Heat cycling and materials of different coefficient of expansion. Worse today with lead free solder.

@@hawksights Heat causes boards to flex, causing bad solder joints. Also can crack the boards.

Heat from the tubes.

PCB's don't provide the heat dissipation of the old metal chassis... of course the power requires of the time where quite large! Made a few 1000 watt linear amps with horizontal fly back parts of the TV (other parts too).

Were they ever there ? Contact RCA oh wait you can't they are owned by Thompson Electronics of France and Zenith with its iconic Space Phone starship curved stereo TV set is owned by Samsung of South Korea

yes, unquestionably! : )

You are a bad man for wanting a better capacitor. Those are only for our global overlords.

Yes, tubes had their difficult issues as well. Good point! I know a lady who's tube console set (1960) caught fire just from bad tubes and/or transformers. ~ Vincent, at CHAP

The "fly back" transformer on a color TV created 27kv on its output. That voltage was still present when the set was off as well. B&W tvs were 13kv

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject What causes a fire.. The oils inside the (directly connected) Capacitors, "sour from age" & the part "shorts out" and the transformer overheats.. All electronics components, from back then...and today..are mainly Chemicals. Time is unkind to chemicals. That's why you see expiry dates.

A very interesting observation! Thanks. ~ Victor, CHAP

Its called a Lissajous pattern. Very common

Hi Dieter, good points.

Sad. Hopefully there is one or two in a museum or two

@@the_eminent_Joshua_E_Hrouda, There are collectors who have sets built around this time.

Lot of it is automated. And it is different. PCB are inspected by cameras and OCR systems. You can automatically check multiple boards by check pins. But anyway. In cheap electronics rarely tests are that elaborate. Especialy mechanical things. You not have lot of mechanical things on modern systems. You get what you pay for. Now TV is cheaper than my mortgage payment because manufacturing costs and ability of mass produce very elaborate parts is very cheap. Few decades ago color TV was expensive almost like used car. And lot of it was assembled by people and tuned manually. Now same circuits are able tell you - i am shitty component and tune itself into various frequencies. You can also do a bit of crappy work on VF part as majority of things moved toward software radio.

@@rybaluc This type of checking was the base of what the great manufacturers do today, namely build it with so much precision and confidence that there is no need for much human checking. What is needed is mostly done automated, except that final human eye.

Hi jlinkels, I think you make some very good points! Thanks! Perhaps the growing competition from non-US manufacturers were a factor in pushing quality control construction farther back in overall importance, than making a product that could get to market relatively fast, at a competitive price. Just wondering. ~ VK

It would have been a great historical site to tour!

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject Now I go see my doctor there, but it's mostly an empty lot.

Hi Michael, great question, here is some info we found to help answer: Haven't found specific reference to Medford, yet, but this may help. RCA was huge back in the day. They had buildings in Camden, NJ, and Harrison, NJ, and other locations. In 1930 R.C.A. bought the old Thomas Edison property, and began to manufacture radio tubes. R.C.A. was very successful, and expanded the plant to cover 9.5 acres, with 26 buildings. They made over 3 billion radio tubes at this location. The R.C.A. employee base consisted of more than 80% women. New technology was forcing the radio tube out of existence, and in 1976 the plant closed its doors and the site is presently occupied by the Harrison Plaza Shopping Center.

Hi Madness832, yes, that's quite a scene. And, watching it on a 30 inch screen, I think that "fella" is a lady. Glad you liked it. ~ Victor

Honestly, I wasn't 100% sure if it was a dude or not. But still worrisome!

Not to mention the guy putting a CRT into a cabinet by lifting it by the neck. A BIG no-no!

That is a female spray painter, she gets air blown in from behind her and the spray laden air then gets washed in that waterfall. Was pretty effective actually, you did not need a mask because of the fresh air feed from behind.