Bought eww telly.

[PA5COR]

The old plasma is 5 years old, HD ready, and still has a good piccie, but since my cable and satellite bos have full hd it was time to get something new.
Went for the Philips 43PUS6501 UHD and must say piccie is quite good, as is sound, even when i can't find the bloody speakers, just a small bezel around the fron, must be inside and directed to the back.

Smart tv, you won't get a manual, just online, but beeing the clever git i found most settings following my 2 braincells left...

No need for a rudy big screen, hate the big things, and i'm just 12 feet from the screen ans no neeed to keep moving my head left to righ to follow the motion...

Even SD quality improved, or maybe the old plasma had enough hours on the clock...
My son picked up the plasma to use with his computer...

Discovering netflix in 5,4,3,2, ....

Just my rambling...:yummy:

[KG4CGC]

:bbh::giggity:

[suddenseer]

i just bought an uhd 4k 50" screen and sound system. i watch over the air, and streaming.sure looks purdeee.

[N8YX]

I still watch TV over the air with an IC-R7000, TV-7000 and a digital converter box.

Receives 75 and 23cm amateur-band fast-scan TV by bypassing the converter and dialing the appropriate memory frequency. Also works good on the numerous 900MHz video baby monitors and surveillance systems scattered around the area.

When the last analog color set in the house finally gives up the ghost I'll look into a flat-panel unit.

[WZ7U]

Welcome to the next level of boob tubery Cor. Didn't the plasma play hell with your rigs? Hopefully Mrs. Cor will enjoy it as well.

I use a 32" flat screen for reading this and everything else interwebs so I don't need to use my glasses, between 18-24" away. Mom would tell me to get back or I would go blind; too late - for many reasons!

[PA5COR]

The old plasma i first bought started after a year to buss on 160 - 40, since we have 2 year full arranty here, Panasonic replaced it with a newer type that didn't give a buzz or peep in all the 5 years it was here.

It was power hungry using 300 watts per hour, the new Philips UHD 4K ambilight uses max 77 watts... my contribution to lower our energy use :)

It's the 43PUS6501/12 type http://www.displayspecifications.com/en/model/9245442 cost 639 Euro including 3 meter HDMI cable i needed extra.
Connected it to internet through build in wifi.
Did the software update and it worked nice.
It is not a top range screen it's a good middle of the road screen, and affordable.
A gazillion settings possible gamma each colour calibrating etc etc etc...
Just did the basic settings i prefer and the rest comes later.
What i didn't expect to say is the picture is better as the plasma, no artifacts, no blurring in fast scenes with HD input.

No microphone, no camera build in :)
Handy remote control one side the usual telly buttons, the other side a complete keyboard.
I divorced 4 years back, so it's ALL Mine to play with ;)
Cable has all HD channels, the VU sat receiver is full HD as well, so enough to watch in full HD, netflix button on the remote, and the cable company has free movies on demand as well.
Telly and sat receiver run on Android /Linux for the sat receiver.
So, enough to play with, though i mostly watch 100 pre programmed channels, many are news channels from AL Jazeera to BBC German N24 etc etc.
Ambilight needs to get used to, but isn't really annoying and can be regulated in intensity or put off.

Next spending 4 new tyres for the car, since it is 13 inch wheels very good tyres are less as 200 Euro ;)
( Hyundai Atoz 175/70 R13 ;)) it's from 06-2000 and has 55 K miles on thee meter, so just run in after 17 years.

[suddenseer]

Welcome to the next level of boob tubery Cor. Didn't the plasma play hell with your rigs? Hopefully Mrs. Cor will enjoy it as well.

I use a 32" flat screen for reading this and everything else interwebs so I don't need to use my glasses, between 18-24" away. Mom would tell me to get back or I would go blind; too late - for many reasons!I quit when the need for glasses became apparent.

[suddenseer]

I still watch TV over the air with an IC-R7000, TV-7000 and a digital converter box.

Receives 75 and 23cm amateur-band fast-scan TV by bypassing the converter and dialing the appropriate memory frequency. Also works good on the numerous 900MHz video baby monitors and surveillance systems scattered around the area.

When the last analog color set in the house finally gives up the ghost I'll look into a flat-panel unit.I remember us bitching about the spark gap ban.

[KG4CGC]

I remember us bitching about the spark gap ban.

Dang old hadooken spark I tell ya what.

[PA5COR]

Well, that buy was 2 years back, decided to get a 50" UHD telly from LG LG8500/ LG9000/ LG85/ LG90 as it is named around the world.

Good piccie after installing and calibrating today, has a decent audio inbuild system with 20 Watt bass and 2 x 10 Watt middle/high range speakers.
Still use the 2.1 system connected to it though, internal sound is good forevery day use, not so for more dedicated movie watching.

My son using the old philips as monitor now.....43" is decent enough..

[koØm]

The old plasma is 5 years old, HD ready, and still has a good piccie, but since my cable and satellite bos have full hd it was time to get something new.
Went for the Philips 43PUS6501 UHD and must say piccie is quite good, as is sound, even when i can't find the bloody speakers, just a small bezel around the fron, must be inside and directed to the back.

Smart tv, you won't get a manual, just online, but beeing the clever git i found most settings following my 2 braincells left...

No need for a rudy big screen, hate the big things, and i'm just 12 feet from the screen ans no neeed to keep moving my head left to righ to follow the motion...

Even SD quality improved, or maybe the old plasma had enough hours on the clock...
My son picked up the plasma to use with his computer...

Discovering netflix in 5,4,3,2, ....

Just my rambling...:yummy:

How do you know when it's time for a new Television?

I purchased a Hi-Def television in 2007, not as energy efficient as a newer model but, still works great.

I also have a 32 inch TV that triples as a Monitor/OTA Television/ Firestick Host, maybe 4 years old, picture and sound play great.

Both share a similar problem, the remote controls for them don't work; one is so old (Olevia) that it's no longer supported by any Universal remotes and, after purchasing a factory replacement remote for the bottom-shelf Best-Buy "Insignia" brand, I find that, it is the receiver in the TV not reading the signal from the remote control.

Everything about the televisions are accessed / controlled by the remotes. Yes, I know that there are little buttons on the side that active menus and control the devices but, it would involve "Prehistoric" efforts to change channels, volumes or, heavens forbid a different video input.

BTW: I am not lazy, overweight, blind, suffer from carpal tunnel or, for that matter, "Stuck-on-stupid" for TV, my point is that most of the ease of operation is tied up in the remotes; without them, big hassles.

ETA: Friend purchased a returned "Smart" Big screen TV, all was grand but, it had someone else's Netflix account attached; because they didn't have user code to Netflix, they could not disable it so, they did a Factory reset on the TV. Huge mistake! Without the proper firmware, it will not recognize ANY remote. It comes on, asks for a code and sits there blank. Every effort to contact "Element" end up in frustration.

"Designed obsolescence".

[PA5COR]

In the old time we kept telly's till they rally were worn out/irreparable, tube worn out etc.
Now my Panasonic Plasma served me 5 years, HD ready, so needed to be replaced since my cable provider gives HD, and now switches over to UHD on cable, my satellite reciever is UHD, and the several other sources,netflix youtube etc all serve UHD as well.
My philips UHD is now just over 2 years old 43" and was a too small choice for UHD, so here is the LG 50".
Newer technology,more supported UHD versions, Dolby Atmos etc.
No edge lit panel, but full backlight with local dimming etc.
And it shows.
And NO my old panasonic plasma was quiet as a mouse after they switched the first one for a new one....:mrgreen:

[kb2vxa]

"How do you know when it's time for a new Television?"
When it's dead.
"Everything about the televisions are accessed / controlled by the remotes."
Everything but the subbasement basics controlled by a few slide switches. For that reason make sure you don't ever lose the remote that came with the TV, I've yet to find a universal remote that can access all the functions of the OEM unit. Then on the other hand all these newfangled settings confuse the hell out of me, once I find a picture that fills the screen and looks normal it's HANDS OFF everything but power and channel.

"In the old time we kept telly's till they rally were worn out/irreparable, tube worn out etc."
That's what kept me and the rest of us in sales and service in business, then when throwaways came along after 65 years of serving my home town H&H Radio & TV closed its door for the last time. I had a side business in my basement that specialized in selling cheap, refurbished radios and TVs I picked up at the curb when towns had Cleanup Day. Then patrolling the streets in "rich man's land" on garbage days really paid off, in their keeping up with the Kardashians they tossed lots of new stuff that barely needed a little cleaning. TV repairmen were often called crooks just because like everybody else we had to put bread on the table, but not I when I sold barely a year old TVs for $50, $100 if it needed a picture tube and other electronics subject to availability. That BTW was my standard price for replacing a color picture tube based on the replacement cost of $50 with dud for a 25" color tube at a local refurbishing plant. The beauty of refurbishing is only the glass was reused, everything else was replaced, so it was as good as new at a fraction of the cost.

At least that's the way it was until my best friend who has my vitals in storage since I got stuck in a rehab facility brought the basics of my computing system here. Then TV time was reduced to meal times because the BS programs are boring as watching paint dry. The drawback to satellite TV or satellite anything is it goes POOF... bye bye when it rains or snows thanks to microwave dispersion and a shitty little dish with insufficient gain to make up for the loss. Then I got this strange bird filling the other bed 24/7 in this two bed per room facility, when I put my TV on he put his on at loud volume so all I heard was jumbled noise and turned mine off, shortly after he turned his off and went to sleep. WTF? No biggie if it's a half hour of BS or nothing, nothing is fine with me since I watch the movies I want with no hated dumber than dog shit commercials on my computer. Well, like Joe Walsh said in song, life's been good to me so far.

[PA5COR]

Did the same, but then buying up 10 color telly's from trade in Amsterdam, sold them after repairing them to here in the rural area, made a bundle doing that.
Later repair became module changing, and stopped doing that.
For satellite i have a motorised dish, advised size is 45 to 60 cm i have an 1.2 meter triax dish, and good low noise LNB.
If I have a short breakup in reception once a year due to bad weather it is much, i keep the dish in car wax so snow just falls off the dish ( offset dish).
With 33 satellites and a gaggle of channels all my radio and tv channels are set up.
45 east to 45 West is 90 degrees i can reach.
That means Turkish, Russian etc channels up to USA channels beaming to the EU.
Just the Astra satellite has 1200 TV channels and more radio channels...
Lots of them Free to air as well.
I spend 3 to 5 hours a day watching, themed channels news from different sources and movies or nature programs, BBC etc.

[W3WN]

For me, it wasn’t TV’s, it was computers.

Had a nice little side business going for a few years. I’d help someone setup their new PC, including data transfer. “What do you want to do with the old one?” I’d ask. 9 times out of 10, I was asked to dispose of it. A few parts, or maybe a new drive or video card, a little elbow grease to clean the case, a reinstall of the OS, and a “refurbished” computer for the next hamfest.

Then PC’s got cheaper, laptops and now tablets more plentiful, less user repairable and more disposable. When it reached the point that the value of my time was significantly more (like triple) what I could expect to get for the machine, let alone parts etc... sold off most of my spare parts and dropped the whole thing. Pity, the $$ paid for a lot of little things, be it rigs & accessories in the shack, to a new kitchen stove when the old one unexpectedly died on us.

Anyway, getting back to TV’s...

When the older basement TV died a few years ago, I got a cheap replacement at Worst Buy, on sale. If memory serves, it’s a 28” or so. About the same physical size as the old CRT unit that crapped out, so it fit in the display cabinet just fine. And when the time comes that we do another “round robin”... newest TV in the living room, next one to the master bedroom, and final one to the basement... that TV will get converted into a computer monitor, courtesy of the VGA and DVI input ports on the back.

[PA5COR]

My son now has a 43" Phiilps UHD 4K :mrgreen: monitor....

[kb2vxa]

COR, you're a man after my own heart, but please don't rip it out and eat it raw like macho deer hunters do. (Oh that was sick because it's not a joke.) The exception is satellite radio and TV I never could get into thanks to living in rental property. When cable came to to town OTA antennas came down and The War Of Tiny Dish vs. Cable was on and has never ended. I crack up whenever I see a Dish TV (the company name) commercial, for every friend you sign up you get a reward. Yeah right, while you're gaining rewards you're losing friends when the first good storm comes along. Sat radio & TV really came into its own about 1995 in rural areas with the BUD, big ugly dish, and an 8ft (24M approx) steerable dish usually made of brown steel mesh with a block converter at the focal point. From what I understand, on the other end of the hard line was a 900MHz receiver, and most everything on the birds was in the clear, however subscription and encryption all but killed the BUD.

"My son now has a 43" Phiilps UHD 4K monitor.... "
4K is a sick joke designed to sell product. The best you can get in a standard 5MHz wide channel is HD, if 4K were real the sidebands would spill over into adjacent channels. Maybe that's why you have that grinning greenie that didn't copy and paste?

From WN: "that TV will get converted into a computer monitor, courtesy of the VGA and DVI input ports on the back."
A free computer monitor, not bad! Maybe I'm stating the obvious, DVI-D direct digital is far superior to VGA that the video card converts digital to analog and the monitor converts it back to digital, a rather lossy process. I could see it on my dual monitor setup, because of the dual output DVI-D/VGA video card output and the secondary monitor being VGA, side by side the difference was night and day. Presently due to space constraints I'm down to a single DVI-D monitor, but that is subject to change.

[PA5COR]

Build my first dish 1.8 meter here 20+ years back when there were 3 satellites up there from 45 east to 45 west... all unencrypted.
Then had to build my first satellite receiver as well, there were ones out there for cable head stations costing 25 K, a bit above my paygrade...
Made the first LNB horn, lnb antenna probe, and H/V circular polariser and got from a Philips friend the block down converter and actuator arm.

Took me all winter to build the stuff, with some aid on the job making the dish spokes bending them in the machine at work.
As T.I.G. welder i had good access to machines, and tools myself here.
Build the stereo receiver that had an 470 MHZ input from the LNB converter in the dish, and could then watch telly through satellite.

When the stuff became available for the consumer and prices went down installed lots of the stuff for consumers, buying in in bulk.
Good times though, but my normal work stopped that.
I rent my house for the last 32 years, cheap and cheerful, low rent, and no problem setting up antenna's or dishes.
Rent is 500 Euro's for a 2800 square feet 4 bedroom house large back and front garden.
Not complaining, it will do here as long i live.

[N7YA]

I got excited for a minute...I thought you bought an old Tele.

16255

[n6hcm]

what sucks is that you pretty much can't buy a "non-smart" TV anymore. i don't want alexa or chromecast or ...

[PA5COR]

No need to use all the functions if you don't need them...
As soon you get above 32" screens the smart tv is all you can get though, and if you really get the latest new fangled telly it is all you can get.
With all the channels available here i don't use the gadgets on it much, sometimes a you tube video or a 4 K UHD thingy.
Quality on satellite is better as cable, i think they use higher compression, so most my watching is HD or UHD channels on satellite.
Just watched an UHD HDR trailer on Astra satellite, really impressive.

[kb2vxa]

I miss the oldfangled TVs with two tuners, the normal turret tuner that went click click click and the tunable UFO tuner under it you also needed a UFO antenna to use. Color sets had additional color (saturation) and huge controls specifically for the UFO channels if you were lucky enough to have at least one in your area. The huge control was a must, some UFO people are blue and others are green with the occasional Earther tossed in who could be black, white, red or yellow. The yellow ones were particularly difficult when pixels were round with red, blue, and green dots, then Panasonic got pissed off and produced tubes with square pixels having red, blue, green, and YELLOW squares. NOW you get Japanese people right or DIE Yankee dog, chop chop!

FYI, I borrowed from the 43 Chinese languages there, chop means fast as in chop suey meaning fast food. It has its origins from when Chinese Coolies were the prime labor force building the Western railroads, the cooks needing to feed a large number and didn't have all day to do it so they tossed whatever they had on hand into the wok and called it chop suey, fast food. Ah so, now you know what you thought was Chinese food is as American as apple pie. Why chop chop meaning fast fast? There is no equivalent of "very" in any Asian language, so to emphasize a word they say it twice. Reality check: Most Asian people are white, that "yellow" golden skin is rare and highly prized among them. The next time you watch a Hong Kong Kung Fu movie or a Japanese kaiju (giant monster) movie look closer at your newfangled hang on the wall TV with a screen the size of Texas that always gets the picture details right. Smart TV? That depends on your definition of "smart".

[KG4CGC]

The old UFO tuner. Home of the old, analog cellphone band.

[koØm]

The old UFO tuner. Home of the old, analog cellphone band.

Do you remember the 49 Mhz cordless phones? Talk about "Car-Phones"........I would drive around in my car with the Handset of my home phone system 'scanning' for a phone system on the same channel as mine, when I got lucky, I would make a call "because I could".

[kb2vxa]

Hmmm, I called it the UFO tuner because as I was demonstrating TVs for a possible sale to a sweet elderly lady she pointed to the U on the VHF dial and asked what the UFO channel was for. No, I didn't say it was for watching space aliens. I remember it could be used for converting analog, 800MHz cell phones IIRC to a frequency on a scanner, but what nobody mentioned for some odd reason was the FCC in their infinite wisdom assigned cell channels interleaved with trunked police channels. Eventually they wised up and "rebanded" 800MHz with cell channels at one end and police channels on the other. That's when I had to update the firmware in my Uniden scanner.

Speaking of my Uniden scanner, yes, I remember the 49MHz cordless phones. Incidentally, originally the handset transmitted on 49MHz and the base transmitted between 1600 and 1800KHz FM. That's when anybody could tweak an AM radio and using slope tuning listen in on the neighbors. I found one up the block in Elizabeth but it was all French, a Haitian numbers racket. Then I found them split between 46 and 49MHz, listening on the base frequencies there were phones jammed together to the point where they'd come and go and at peak times they were all jumbled together. I soon got tired of hearing who had eyes for who and who got lucky last night and reprogrammed those channels, I'd rather listen to the cops bust the Haitians after I turned the detectives on to the case and a new car parked in the neighborhood. Like I always say, ain't I a stinkah? Bugs Bunny had a little Crusader Rabbit in him. (;->)

In my early daze on CB my first mobile was a white 1959 Chevy cool as hell with those wings and cat's eye tail lights I made even cooler with a 102" whip on a ball mount on that wide area surrounding the trunk lid. Under the dash was a Halicrafters CB3A with a little modification. I changed the carbon element for a crystal one in a surplus Army field phone PTT handset. I'd go cruising around talking on my "mobile phone" like the king of the hill.

16259

[KG4CGC]

Do you remember the 49 Mhz cordless phones? Talk about "Car-Phones"........I would drive around in my car with the Handset of my home phone system 'scanning' for a phone system on the same channel as mine, when I got lucky, I would make a call "because I could".

I had an used old cordless office phone made for said environment. Under the battery cover was a rotary switch to choose between 10 channels to prevent interference between office cubicles. Unplug the base unit while the phone was off the "hook" and I could scan around via the rotary switch.
I once tested the range between my handset and base unit. The result was staggering! 180 feet!

[koØm]

Remember this one?, my associate at work had one. I had the messenger 123.

16260

"I changed the carbon element for a crystal one in a surplus Army field phone PTT handset. I'd go cruising around talking on my "mobile phone" like the king of the hill."

[WZ7U]

I do remember E.F. Johnson. Had a 123A & B. Great rigs for what they were. Remember 22A, the channel switch position? :lol:

[PA5COR]

In 1977 in spring i was licensed, put a Kenwood TR7200 in my car and a 1/4 wave whip on the roof, mind you the 27 MHz was not allowed here so i kept beeing stopped by police thinking i had an illegal transmitter in the car, though i always carried the license and there were just 2000 licensed hams around then, it needed some sleek talking to stop them from taking the equipment from the car....
All that changed when 27 MHz became legal here in the 1980's though.

That took off big here, but by now it almost died out again.

[kb2vxa]

As I recall the range of those 49MHz cordless phones WAS nearly 200ft, but WHY the tremendous overkill I don't know. My guess is to add to the base number of as I recall 4 frequencies, to step on the neighbors if they couldn't find a clear channel. Sitting at the apex of an umbrella so to speak on the second floor and the neighborhood being jammed up with kiddie phones (no adults) I heard them doing exactly that. My scanner having been tuned and tested with a sensitivity of <.1uV@20dB down (full quieting) I'm sure gave me a distinct advantage.

"Car Phones" is an interesting description, in the 1950s RCA's line of VHF 2 way radios was branded Car Fone. I acquired 2 40W Hi Band mobiles and a 2 channel 60W Hi Band base in trade for some other junk, it was a bitch converting to 2M but I managed. At the time Motorola mics had a 1 transistor preamp and dynamic element in the standard size capsule that replaced earlier carbon elements that the RCA units used. I built a Shure "Radar O'Riley" or Green Hornet Phase II mic around it and used it on the RCA base unit bristling with tubes and an interesting push-pull 6146 final. The Shure body being a desk mic and the transmitter having plenty of gain it was operated at a comfortable arm's length and "Studio A" being anechoic I got many unsolicited "great audio" reports. It only goes to show the old saying "90% of the shack is on the roof" is only half of it, the other half is "90% of the rig is in your hand". It goes for CW too, a glass fist is awfully hard to copy.

I remember most of the Johnson Messenger line rather well including the one made to look like a mobile phone that came about because I didn't patent my handset concept. What I remember better is their line of 1950s Vikings that found their way to CB, with 11M on the band switch they needed no modification. My motley crew (not Motley Crue) became the AM Gangstas of CB thanks to my modifications to the speech amp. The beauty of the beast was/is by replacing the 47k first audio grid resistor that was also the mic load resistor to 10-12m an Astatic D-104 flattened out and extended the frequency response to a surprisingly close match to some recording/broadcast mics.

"Remember 22A, the channel switch position?"
I remember it well, first on the Lafayette Comstat that later had 22A and 22B. Then the Feral Cookie Company caught wind of it, later models had a slot cut out of the selector switch. No problem, with some brass shim stock and careful soldering the gap was bridged. The evolution of the PL9 PLL chip led me to replacing the channel selector rotary switch with a 3 position lever switch (some techs used thumb wheels) and opened it up to 250 up and 250 down centered on channel 14. Of course the rigs didn't have sufficient bandwidth for 500 channels, but freeband above and below the legal 40 channels was born.

CB holds an important position in my radio life that began in 1957 with an All American 5 table radio at night and unfortunately ended when I found myself in a no antennas situation. It was an experimenter band for me and my friends who went on to Amateur Radio. It was also the most fun band, we did "AM Gangsta shit" you just cant do on Amateur Radio unless you want a Rileygram like the WA1HLR testicling letter that went down in INFAMY........