Dish Bankruptcy - Business as Usual

[dishstaller]

Back in the day I owned a Radio Shack and I remember we sold a cable box. Seems like you had to rent one from your cable company so buying one was the better option in the long run. Most people are short-sighted however and I didn't sell but a handful.

 

[Juan]

Back in the day I owned a Radio Shack and I remember we sold a cable box. Seems like you had to rent one from your cable company so buying one was the better option in the long run. Most people are short-sighted however and I didn't sell but a handful.

Were they the good ones or just a standard box?

 

[dishdude]

Were they the good ones or just a standard box?

Standard. You had to get the good ones out of the back of Popular Mechanics

Most people had a cable ready TV or VCR they could use, so there weren't many that needed a basic cable box.

 

[dishstaller]

Were they the good ones or just a standard box?

Standard, pretty crappy too. Seems like it had pots that you could use to fine tune the channel with. Heck, I remember selling TVs that had fine tuners for all the UHF channels...real pain in the butt, especially if someone who had no idea what they were doing messed with them.

 

[Strega]

We had a TV that didn't need fine tuning of UHF because the UHF dial had no steps.

 

[dishstaller]

We had a TV that didn't need fine tuning of UHF because the UHF dial had no steps.

Oh you don't know what you missed. After I thought about it I remembered that a lot of the TVs, when it came to the UHF channels, had letters...A, B, C, etc. Think there were around 8 or 10 of them, each letter had a rolling pot assigned to it. What fun.

 

[dishstaller]

I was able to take a pic of what I was talking about

 

[Strega]

I remember having a VCR (or two?) where there was a row of push-button channels, but each channel was set by a little pot under an access door on the top. It came with a sheet of film, with all the numbers from 2 to 83 so you could poke out the numbers that corresponded to what you set the pots for and then slide them into the little windows.

 

[navychop]

Anyone own a degausser, for CRTs or tapes?

 

[Bobby]

Anyone own a degausser, for CRTs or tapes?

I used to, a million years ago. I have no idea what happened to it. No use for one today.

 

[telstar_1]

We had a TV that didn't need fine tuning of UHF because the UHF dial had no steps.

For whatever reasons (maybe someone on here knows), the VHF tuners had detents for the numbered ch's 2-13, with a fine-tuning ring surrounding the clicker knob, whilst the separate UHF tuners mostly had no fine-tuning ring but rather used "continuous tuning" wherein there were no detents and the knob would rotate multiple times in going through the UHF ch's. Thus somewhat slower in getting between ch's. There was a ch# indication that let you know what general area you were in, and typically you'd slightly overshoot your target and then need to go "back and forth" by small increments until it was fine-tuned. Thus UHF did have fine tuning- it was all fine tuning, without the quick steps to immediately get you in the neighborhood.

Some later sets attempted to solve the "problem" of UHF knob twisting by offering a slew of adjustable pots to pre-tune to available UHF ch's, such that a single keypress would result in a locked-in, fine-tuned UHF ch, but they were just more overcomplicated and fussy. I do think some also made a UHF knob with a whole bunch of detents for all of the ch's 14-73, but these were much less common

 

[telstar_1]

I used to, a million years ago. I have no idea what happened to it. No use for one today.

For tape heads

 

[navychop]

Yep. Brain cells kicked in a little slow. Came back to correct, but you beat me to it.

 

[Bobby]

For tape heads

I guess I should have been clearer. I have no use for one today.

 

[navychop]

Sigh. ANTI-LUDDITE!

 

[Strega]

That reminds me - the belts on my cassette deck turned to mush and I need to replace them.

 

[Strega]

For whatever reasons (maybe someone on here knows),

One thing I recall is that the step-less UHF tuner TV did seem quite a bit faster for getting from, say, channel 14 to channel 47. On the stepped TV, it took longer and felt like you would eventually wear it out. And radios were normally step-less so I suppose it didn't seem that strange.

 

[n0qcu]

I do think some also made a UHF knob with a whole bunch of detents for all of the ch's 14-73, but these were much less common

Yes they did and you can "blame" the FCC for this improvement.

 

[ERSanders]

Anyone own a degausser, for CRTs or tapes?

I used my Weller soldering gun from 1957 to degauss TVs. Just run the iron in increasing circles around the item while moving it slowly away.

 

[mphca]

Anyone own a degausser, for CRTs or tapes?

yup. 1967-68. I would adjust the neighborhood for a few $$. Also had a portable tube tester. As a kid we would go to Thrifty Drugs about 2x / year to test and buy replacement tubes.