"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:

In message , Michael A.
Terrell writes:

wrote:
[]
Madman Muntz put a TV in houses that otherwise would have had none
and they worked in strong signal areas pretty well. They were tough to
fix but they usually lasted long enough that by the time they took a
**** there were better cheaper sets widely available. He was not a con
man, but he was certainly a self-promoter. The term "Muntzing"
survives today in analog design circles.

Is that the reflexing someone mentioned, or just a general term for
cheap circuit techniques? I'm not familiar with the name, but (a) I'm in
UK (b) I'm not in the trade.


A reflex circuit would use the same tube to amplify signals at
different frequencies, like an IF amp and an audio amp by using tuned
circuits to separate the signals. It worked, within reason, but was
touchy. Muntz's habit of removing bypass caps from working designs made
the layout of the point to point wiring quite critical.


In a similar vein (though OT for UTB), Amstrad put actually useful - as
opposed to just gaming - computing into many homes and small businesses
where there would not have been any otherwise, especially with his PCW
(personal computer Word processor) series that included a printer. The
machines were often derided by others but provided computing - with
printing, so therefore actually of some use - at a low price. (In UK, in
I think about the early '80s.)


I used some Commodore 64 equipment for video test generators &
character generators in CATV and while building a commercial TV
station. The baseband video was better than the $60,000 Metrodata
graphics system at the CATV headend, and the video test patterns allowed
me to repair and align the video stages in a 30 year old RCA 25 KW UHF
TV transmitter.


I saw some come through the shop in the early '70s. Even working,
they only gave grainy pictures in that area because the stations were
more than a few miles away. Other brands had no problem qith the
availible signals, even thought the closest transmitter was 30 miles
away.


Was it purely that they were deaf? If so, would they have been one of
the few cases where an external preamp (in the room, not masthead) was
actually useful (or were the noise figures of external preamps pretty
bad then)?


If they could have afforded a decent TV amp in the '50s or '60s, they
could have bought a better tv for less than the amp & the Muntz TV.


--
You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.