We took a trip some years ago to Hyde Park, NY where we visited the home of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In keeping with common tradition, let's refer to him as FDR.
We took an escorted tour along with a multitude of other visitors and it was fantastically interesting. In the course of that tour, we came to FDR's living room into which we could look from the doorway, but from which a movie-theater velvet rope barred entry. We could look, but we could not enter which suddenly became really frustrating.
Away from our viewing point at the far living room wall was FDR's television set which so far as I could tell, was the same kind of set which had been on display from RCA at the 1939 World's Fair in Flushing, NY.
I had once captured a screen shot of an RCA image of that television, but I wasn't able to find a present day URL for it:
Anyway, I wanted to take a really close look at that thing but the velvet rope was a very clear message of "No, you shall NOT."
I doubt if the set was in working order. NTSC television was just on its way out at the time in favor of HDTV and I doubt that anyone had turned FDR's set on in many years. Think of several decades of disuse of the electrolytic capacitors and perhaps several decades worth of accumulated dust in the high voltage section.
Still, the mirror was in view and the cabinet looked like it was well preserved.
I recommend the visit.
A very astute observation from the LinkedIn group "EDN's Design Network":
Jeffrey Sutherland 2nd degree connection 2nd Sr. Principal Electrical Engineer at USA Firmware, Inc.
Even if it was in working order it would have been on the 441 line standard in 1939, along with AM sound. NTSC didn't appear until after WWII, which was also when channel 1 disappeared.
If you care to look further into that standard, please see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/441-line_television_system
Posted by: John Dunn | July 17, 2021 at 08:19 PM