THE SET- Pete's 1964 Screen Shots

The Set: Pete Deksnis's Site about the CT-100

Restoring a Vintage Color Television Set

E njoy! with me a bit of early color nostalgia.
I mages here are from the early years of live color television. Check out Pete's experiments photographing color television early in 1964 -- over 38 years ago.
A ll images are from an RCA model 211-CB-822U black, metal, table model color television with a CTC-10A chassis and 21CYP22A kinescope.

This is WRCV channel 3 in Philadelphia, PA.
Contrast the hand-drawn weather graphic
with todays computer-generated flybys.
In one year, ownership of this station
would revert back to Westinghouse,
who would change its call letters to
KYW, which remain to this day.

I typically shot my off-air exposures at 1/15
of a second. Notice talent's right hand
blurred at this requsite exposure.
Kodachrome transparency processed
February 1964. Frame 3 from a roll of 36.

Kodachrome transparency processed by
Kodak February 1964. Frame 4 on a roll of 36.
Camera used throughout was a Miranda model D.
My already owned-for-a-year CT-100 was in Cheltenham
in the basement of my favorite aunt's home where I
watched occasional CBS and ABC network color
and local chrome on channels 3 and 6.

By contrast, this is WCBS channel 2, New York.
It's four months later. As you can see, and for some
time to come, CBS-owned channel-2 live local shows
would remain just as you see here, in glorious luminance.
All the pictures on this page were taken at a summer home:
Waretown, NJ Zip 08758. I had a JFD Log Periodic antenna
(forgot how many elements) on a rotor. The New York channel 2
haul was about 90 miles, nearly twice that of channel 3 from Philly.

Kodachrome transparency processed
June 1964. Frame 21 on a roll of 36.

Kodachrome transparency processed
June 1964. Frame 22 on a roll of 36.

Sure, I did once work for RCA,
but I don't mean to lean on CBS,
b&w CBS, all that hard. About this
time, I actually had a job lined up at
CBS labs in Connecticut. One reason
I got along with the personnel department
was my knowledge of CBS color from 1951.
Here now is my only record of an NTSC color
broadcast by CBS. I would photograph the channel
selector along with the picture. These showed channel 2.

Kodachrome transparency processed
June 1964. Frame 23 on a roll of 36.

There is a fifth transparency in this
set showing the same actress in a
different scene, but not in focus.
Kodachrome transparency processed
June 1964. Frame 24 on a roll of 36.
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