Early Prewar TV, 1939 Television by RCA Victor, working TV Part 2

[ortafunk]

They should have had television In 1860 and colour television In 1880 and organic led television In 1910 and governments with No king In 1918 and Playstation 4 with a 28 GHz processor In 1958 and a Rife machine In 1934 or sooner don't You hate living In the dark ages when cars still use gasoline?

[priyamvadha123]

the final voice in the ad feels like morgan freeman... :)

[fromthesidelines]

In 1939, "W2XBS", NBC's experimental station through July 1941 [when it became WNBT], could be seen on "channel 1". They didn't shift to "channel 4" until around the time World War II ended.

[OlegKostoglatov]

I remember reading that the TRK -5 is the rarest of RCA's pre war production console TVs, the TRK-12 had the highest production while the TRK-9 fell somewhere in between. Did this set have the tuner updated in 1940 to fit the newer broadcast standards of that time?

[NP4Mayans]

@OlegKostoglatov == The original 5-channel tuner is still intact and it is still labeled 1 - 5. It was probably re-tuned (the 5 slugs inside it) a few times, the last time being in 1946 or 7 to get today's channels 2 - 6. The main thing now is to have channel 3 or 4 working properly so you can play a VCR, cable box or digital tuner into it. There are not many analog stations left in the US. And yes, it is the rarest of the 4 commercially made RCA prewar TVs.

[hydrolito]

@NP4Mayans If you live near the Mexican border you might be able to pick up signals from there. I had worse luck at picking up digital with rabbit ears than analog so why did they change were they presured to by the Satelite or Cable industry?

[kirbyyasha]

@hydrolito Neither. FCC mandated it to "clear up" the wasted analog spectrum. In Cable TV, an analog channel consumes a 6 MHz (So from 55 MHz to 61 MHz) would contain 1 single channel. That same 1 6 MHz space, you can fit about 6-12 Digital Channels (Depending on compression).Cable companies would have no reason to lobby for digital broadcast, since they used a sealed system anyway with cable wires. However, many cable companies are going all digital now due to it being more efficient

[grizzleybearz282004]

@kirbyyasha yes tour right about that but there a box you can buy at walmart and target i seen them it so you can still get local channels without cable ot digital network it works almost like the old rabbit ears but more efficiant then the 12 or 13 channle rabbir ears tunner i donr awholw lot about them other them why they were made for people who dont want or cant have cable in there area but i here alot of people buying them just to save money they run from $40 to $60 per box and irs yours

[way2muchsense]

@OlegKostoglatov That must explain the odd sized opening on this set. There must be room for a nine inch tube if the owner wanted to upgrade.

Or it could just be to make the five inch tube look bigger. YMMV.

[OlegKostoglatov]

@way2muchsense I beleive that the cabinet may be slightly different but I am guessing that the TV chassis used was likely similar in the TRK 5 and the TRK 9, both used electrostaticaly deflected tubes similar to an oscilloscope. One of the post war RCA models, the 623 TS for example, is erroneously believed by some people to be a pre war set or of a pre war design because of the cabinet design. However the 623 TS used an electromagnetic deflected CRT and FM sound.

[frugola92]

interesting if the video show the complete televison (front , control , connection)

[NP4Mayans]

I somehow lost or deleated a comment posted by BSJTV who also has a collection of TVs and a 1939 12-inch RCA TRK-12. Please visit his sight to see them.

[NP4Mayans]

Here was his original comment: "This is the 1939 RCA TRK-12 Console TV one of the rarest of the RCA 1939 Televisions. And to have it working as well is SENSATIONAL!!!! The TV has a High Fidelity Radio as well and the RCA Magic Voice Sound System with 12 inch woofer and Hemholtz Resonator Pipes."

[NP4Mayans]

Actually it's the TRK-5, but the rest is correct. The TV posted on your site BSJTV is the TRK-12, which in 1939 sold for $600 and had a mirrored lid to reflect the 12-inch picture. The TRK-5 shown here is direct view and uses a 5-inch tube.

[NP4Mayans]

This is actually the second video. The first one (with a similar title) gives a better view of the cabinet, as does the version that demonstrates the "working radio."