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TeleTales #8…Remember These?
Back before everything became “disposable” (meaning there was no one to fix it if it broke), there were men that would come to your house to fix your TV set. These little cases were full of tools and tubes, and if you had a pro…he had a mirror too. Click Like if you know why.
Old times gone, but not forgotten. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
As a kid, I remember the TV repairman coming to the house.
The OZ4 was always going out
I had a roommate for a while, in Chicago, who was one of those RCA service guys. Once in a while, I’d go out on calls with him.
The mirror was for setting the screens and convergence from the back of the set. I worked for RCA Service company many years ago. 10 service calls a day, and they expected us to sell service contracts. The oldest set I ever worked on was an RCA CT5 Color chassis. This elderly lady had been paying for the service contract for 20 years. She could have bought several new sets for the price she paid, but she insisted on keeping that one. What a bitch it was to set up. Had to move magnets around the CRT to adjust purity. I sure am glad I switched over to production!
At one time between TV jobs, I worked at a local Radio Shack. If a customer bought a new tube from RS and later it failed, if you brought it in with the receipt, it was free.
Our repairman Harold Hazzard (real name!) used a big mirror! He also had the best collection of early TVs in his shop on the North Side of the Twilight Zone!
I worked in a drug store that had a tube tester. I got very good at identify what tube was needed to correct a problem. People would come to the store and tell me their problem. I would tell them what tube to pull or go to their house and pull it. The store sold tubes and I got some much needed tips from happy customers.
And a degaussing coil.
I remember seeing the tube tester in the local drug store when I was a child. And I remember swapping out tubes when I was a bit older.
I got a tube caddy at a house sale, sadly mostly filled with auto radio tubes and vibrators (the old way to get B+ for tube plates)/
Fun thing was that that box had all the needed parts to fix 80% of the common problems. AS far as brands of tubes, major manufacturers were proably RCA, GE, Sylvanaia, CBS-HYTRON, Westinghouse, Later Philco-Landsdale, Before 1950 National-Union, before WWII Kenrad (bought out by GE) Philips (as Amperex) BUT they ALL sold tubes to each other from time to time. Some types were only made by one or two companies, and so that is what you got no matter what the name on the box. (here in Canada the majors were proably GE, RVC (Marconi) and Rogers)
I (like my father) just smacked the top of the tv and voila it was fixed!
Have a large tube caddy in the attic still full of new tubes.
I used to go down to the Thrifty drug store to test tubes. I’d get a 10 cent ice cream while I was there.
I am still watching tv’s of the 50’s. Self taught on repair.
Doing Static Convergence on a 21 inch color set was a PIA, you HAD to have a mirror 🙂
The RCA Service man visits The Jetsons!
And if you couldn’t afford color TV, there was always the trusty blue/red/green plastic sheet you put over the screen to simulate “color”. What a scam that was. But they sold MANY of them. A friend of mine actually had one!
we had a 1961 RCA 21″ round color set and remember my dae degaussing the tube with a home made degausser. Also getting those booster things to put on the rear of the neck of the picture tube to get more life out of it. We had that set into the 70s when we got a SOny 13″ Trinitron
RCA vs CBS tubes, along with the ads by entertainers like Arthur Godfrey in the magazines endorsing them.
“I’ll have to take it in to the shop.”
I remember my dad pulling tubes from our old B&W set and going with him to check them in the tube checker at the store.
Pep boys had a tube tester for the do-it-yourselfers.
6BQ6…
The mirror was to watch the television screen, while switching out vacuum tubes and making other adjustments in the rear.
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