Tried to save a buck....didn't work out....

[mwilson]

So spent all day yesterday changing TV sets around, wife brought home a free 48" Vizio with one dead HDMI port. Checked it out and that's all I could find wrong. The other three ports worked just fine.....had an old Sony projection style down in the family room so grunted that up the stairs and out into the back of the Yukon. Took the Den TV down to the family room. Had to install a new wall bracket and some other fooling around to get that back up and running.

Put the Vizio in the Den, already had a wall mount for that but had to try three different height settings before I got it where it needed to be. Took my Google Chromecast stick out of the desk drawer and got that working, subscribed to Netflix, loaded up a gazillion apps on phones, got it working with both phones and my laptop....watched three episodes of Mad Men, went to bed patting myself on the back for being all thrifty and s*it....

Got up this morning and kicked the news on.....couple minutes later there is silence coming from the Den....walk in and the second HDMI was done for.."No Signal"...Damn....so figured I would take this golden opportunity to take the cable box with me to work and get an updated one....that box was the only one that had not been upgraded over the years.....and I still had another working HDMI port in addition to the one that was occupied by the Google sick...

Proudly arrive home tonight with the new Cable Box under my arm..hooked it up. Hit "Power" on the Vizio and.......nothing......dead as a hammer......did my basic checks, hard reboot, etc. and condemned the Main Board....

So just spent an hour on the "Best Buy" website buying a "Green Monday" special 50" Smart TV......shoulda' just done that in the first place.....

 

[mwilson]

And the old Sony......we paid $50.00 for it 4 years ago so wife posted it on a local for sale site as "Free TV", come get it....one guy wanted to know if we would take it 50 miles and deliver it...some people....

So we get another live one that will at least come get it, wife says "Bring a big vehicle and a helper, that TV is big!" I suggested that she meet them down on Route 2 so there were people around if it went South and the TV picker-uppers would not be privy to the location of our house...

I would not be home in time for the 5.00 pm gifting....

They show up with an old Cadillac, drop the poor TV a couple times getting it out of the Yukon and then proceed to get it into the trunk of the Caddy on it's back...No way to shut the lid, they have no rope or anything so off they go with the trunk lid bouncing off of the TV....wife gave me the blow by blow.....still laughing...

 

[TFucili]

You've got the luck of the Irish, Mike.

 

[DavidC]

Sounds like they were they from Farmington ?

Dave

 

[mwilson]

Lady that was the lucky recipient of the TV messaged the wife.....it works great!! She is delighted...

I hope in the grand scheme of things that she really needed a TV and could not afford to get one.....someone was watching over the Sony if it survived that ride...

 

[mwilson]

Patten, but kinda' the same difference....

 

[GCroyle]

Need this next time

 

[DavidC]

A blast from the past. Use to go to the pharmacy with a box of tubes testing them.

Dave

 

[jgillott]

We have an old Panasonic tube TV in our family room that we received as a wedding present 150 years ago or so. Anyway, It is the last tube TV we have and I think I am going to cry when it finally dies. I know that the picture is so much better on these modern TV's but there is just something about watching an old set that I enjoy.

Of our flat panels that we have in the bedrooms, I like a little Sanyo we have the best. Incredible picture for what we paid for it.

 

[Wayne M.]

Tv’s sure have come a long way!
I’m kinda in the Ewaste stream- see loads of tvs and the guys clamor over them. Most wind up being duds, some need TLC and go back to a home. It’s a real crap shoot!
Fond memory of the TV repair man- as a pre schooler- watching a dude older than my Dad with a loaded tool belt kneeling down behind the TV console pushing in on that Yankee nut driver, taking off the rear cover. That thing was awesome!

 

[TFucili]

Just think, we are officially dinosaurs for having fond memories of vacuum tubes, b&w television, rabbit ears, rotary phones, party lines, hand chokes, foot dimmers, wing vents, manual steering, manual brakes, radio deletes...

 

[Wayne M.]

<—————- Look at my avatar.
Manual steering? Check!
Manual Brakes? Check!
Radio delete? Check!
Foot Dimmer (and foot pump windshield washer)? Check!
Hand Choke? HA. How about NO choke (or heat riser)
Wing vent? Not on this model BUT Floor vents? CHECK!!
Not a memory.
All that other stuff? Yup. Memory.

 

[PBJ2500CTD]

Just think, we are officially dinosaurs for having fond memories of vacuum tubes, b&w television, rabbit ears, rotary phones, party lines, hand chokes, foot dimmers, wing vents, manual steering, manual brakes, radio deletes...

Oil bath air cleaners...
Vacuum wipers...going uphill...in the rain

 

[mwilson]

A few more...

Compression Release on Cummins NH Diesels
Positive Ground Electrical Systems in both 6V and 12V
Generators instead of Alternators
Drum Brakes Front and Rear
Nylon Tires
Propane Lights instead of electric
Propane Refrigerators....still some Servel models kicking around up here in camps...
Outhouses
Wood Heat without any backup.....no fire, no heat
Furnaces using Coal for fuel.....still a few around up here
Wood Fired Kitchen Cookstoves....try to make biscuits and not burn them in that thing...that's where the cook had to select the proper species of wood to get the desired heat range...an art I wish that I had learned....

 

[DavidC]

Well at least I am in the right place with the senior citizens. Thought maybe with my memory loss I would get lost. When the TV was turned off at night we would sit and stare at the white dot in the center of the screen waiting for it to go out. Didn't take much to amuse us back then.

Dave

 

[jgillott]

A few more...

Compression Release on Cummins NH Diesels
Positive Ground Electrical Systems in both 6V and 12V
Generators instead of Alternators
Drum Brakes Front and Rear
Nylon Tires
Propane Lights instead of electric
Propane Refrigerators....still some Servel models kicking around up here in camps...
Outhouses
Wood Heat without any backup.....no fire, no heat
Furnaces using Coal for fuel.....still a few around up here
Wood Fired Kitchen Cookstoves....try to make biscuits and not burn them in that thing...that's where the cook had to select the proper species of wood to get the desired heat range...an art I wish that I had learned....

Funny you should mention outhouses. We still have one just above our barn. You can see it in this picture.

It is about 200 feet from the house. Awful long trip, especially this time of the year. My dad said that they got inside plumming sometime in the early 50's. But he said that you really learned to hold it when it was cold out.

 

[jhenderson]

Nice looking privy. It should have some lilacs planted beside it to provide a pleasant fragrance. I know they only bloom for a couple of weeks but that’s what was planted next to my Grandmothers outback. I’m just sentimental.

 

[GCroyle]

Best laughs I've had all day!

My Dad was in on building our house in the early 50's the street didn't even have power while building.

He had an idea, a built in the wall cabinet that the BW TV was in. Doors closed, TV outa sight. Doors open, TV time.

Well, I lost count as a kid how many times he pulled the tubes, put 'em in a shoe box went to the drug store and tested them one by one, maybe one was bad maybe none. Then he'd have to call the TV guy. he'd come out and poke and prod and almost always he'd have to take the whole TV out and take it back to the shop. Stare at the closed doors for a week or so until it came back and maybe worked. And guess who was the remote? yours truly and a whopping THREE channels.

Fast slowly forward to about 1975 I had my first big shirt and tie job at Euclid making some real money. Bought mom and dad their first color TV for over $400 in 1975 which if I Google'd that correctly is over $1800 today.

Who had a milk chute in the garage for the milk man to deliver the milk into?

When was the last time you wrapped a starter pull cord around the pulley on a Briggs & Stratton, pulled the choke and popped it off?

 

[DavidC]

No milk chute, he would leave them on the porch in a metal crate (plastic was not invented yet). My 2 brothers and I were also the remotes. If the antenna was pointed in one direction we got Philly channels and another we could get New York so yes we doubled as tenna rotors with a pipe wrench. Someone would stay inside with the window open and yell which way to turn and when to stop. In the winter we would often have to take a hot tea kettle to melt the ice on the antenna pole so we could turn it with the pipe wrench. Ahhh automation was so grand in those days.

Dave

 

[jgillott]

Fast slowly forward to about 1975 I had my first big shirt and tie job at Euclid making some real money. Bought mom and dad their first color TV for over $400 in 1975 which if I Google'd that correctly is over $1800 today.

I can still remember the first color TV we got and exactly what I watched for the first time in color. We got our 1st color TV in the fall of 1980. It was a 19" GE with a brown wooden cabinet and rotary tuners. My dad and I brought it home and the only room we could get reception in was the dining room on just the rabbit ears. First show that came on was "That's Incredible". Best though was that Friday night when the "Dukes of Hazzard" came on at 8:00. We watched that and Dallas in color that night. It was amazing.