On Wed, 7 Nov 2007 17:22:07 -0600, "HeyBub" wrote:

wrote:
In 1950 or 51 my parents bought a 1950 Zenith tv console with record
player and am-fm radio. I know they paid a lot of money for it and
had to save for a long time. I watched this tv as a young boy and for
years. In later years they got a color tv and this one went into
their basement rec room. Eventually it quit working but was used as a
bench, and fortunately was not thrown away. When I was in my 20's my
father was going to toss it in the garbage but I was playing with a
lot of electronics at the time and I fixed it with some tubes and if I
recall, some new filter capacitors. It worked for several years after
that. Eventually I inherited it when I got my own place, and I
replaced some tubes and used it for a few years until I got a color
tv. However, I kept this set and intended to completely rebuild it.
Its been in my basement for years and I could never toss it. A few
years ago I plugged it in and the radio worked fine, record player
worked (but who uses records any more), but the tv had a noticable hi
voltage leak, so I shut it off. Since then I have planned to restore
it as an antique. It has lots of memories attached. I do believe the
tv portion needs something more than tubes by now, but I planned to
restore it anyhow. That was until recently when I found out they are
going to completely eliminate analog tv stations and switch everything
to digital. That's why I am ****ed off. Even if I restore this old
tv, there will no longer be anything to watch on it. I know there
will be converters for newer tvs, but I doubt it will work on an old
set like that, since there are no input jacks. It looks like anyone
that collects antique tvs will no longer be able to watch them. As
always, the government is screwing up our lives, but thats nothing
new. Hell, tv frequencies have been the same ever since the beginning
of tv itself, but now that we entered the 21st century everything is
changing so fast one can no longer keep up. This really does **** me
off. Maybe it's my age, but why cant they just leave things be.
Pretty soon anyone over the age of 12 will be obsolete and rendered
useless. New technology is great for those who want it, but why cant
they leave the old stuff alone. It's history and it's well
established and is part of our culture. Cant the government just
leave us alone for once and stop screwing up our world. I'll admit
that when color tv first came out I thought it was the greatest thing,
but now it's fun to see an old B&W tv still working.

As you said: "Who uses records anymore?"

Well, who uses black-and-white TV?

Donate the thing to the Smithsonian and take a tax deduction.


Actually I have lots of records, but I wont play them on this old
player because the needle was heavy and hard on them. I still play
records at times but use a modern player with light stylus.

Since all I watch are old westerns and other older stuff, much if not
most of its in B&W anyhow. It's just that I now watch on a dvd or
vcr.

The younger generation seems to think anything old is junk, however
being old myself, I appreciate the stuff, and it was quality made too.
Thats why this old set can still be usable with a few repairs after 60
years. You wont find any of todays stuff still working in 60 years.

Our younger generation seems to think everything needs to be replaced
every 2 to 5 years, and that's exactly what the manufacturers want.
But I'll leave all the debt to them, and many of them will never get
out of debt. Myself, everything is paid for except my last phone
bill.which I forgot to pay last week. I appreciate this old tv which
I watched as a child, as well as I still use my 8 year old computer
with Win98. I dont need to keep up with the Jonses to prove anything
to anyone.