Seventy years ago, the state of the art in television service was provided by Appliance Distributors Inc. of Chicago using a fleet of vehicles that included three mobile service vans like the one shown here. Repairs were usually done the same day thanks to a very efficient operation. The company had begun by having servicemen in cars, and the system worked well, since most repairs could be done in the field with limited tools, and only about 10% of the jobs required bringing the chassis back to the shop. But with a large business, that ten percent amounted to a lot of work, and those sets would take a few days to finish.

To streamline the process, the shop purchased three vans like the one shown here. At the beginning of the day, the trucks, along with servicemen in cars, would be stationed strategically throughout the city, often at service stations. The men in cars would handle the calls, but if the job required time in the shop, the truck was dispatched right to the home in question. The chassis was brought outside and worked on in the truck. Power was provided by a shore power cord that could be plugged in to the customer’s house. In situations like an apartment building, where no outlet was available, the set could be taken to a nearby service station where the company made arrangments to use the power. Virtually all jobs could be finished the same day, meaning that customers could watch their programs.

The company also serviced radios and phonos, but time was less critical on these jobs, and they were handled back at the shop.

The photo and accompanying article appeared in the October 1951 issue of Radio-Electronics.

Seventy years ago this month, the July 1951 issue of Popular Mechanics gave some pointers on how to safely do some repairs to your television. The magazine noted that sets were much more complex than radios, but even inexperienced owners were often able to bring a radio set back to life by swapping tubes, and there was no reason that they couldn’t do the same thing with a television.

Of course, the first step was to make sure you knew which tube went in which socket, and the magazine provided sources for this information. The second issue was the high voltages, which could prove lethal, and the magazine noted how to make sure the capacitors were discharged before tackling the job.

If the picture tube had to be replaced, one important safety factor to keep in mind was that the tube could implode if dropped, sending chards of glass all over the room. As shown above, when doing this delicate job, it was important to wear gloves and safety goggles. To dispose of the old tube, it was put in the box in which the new one came. Then, it was taken to the back yard, and a crowbar was used to smash it to smithereens inside the box, so it didn’t risk implosion when the garbage man hauled it away.

Seventy years ago, these Philadelphia television technicians made the cover of the May 1951 issue of Radio Electronics by their ambitious service of converting small screen television to larger tubes. The magazine carried a feature penned by their boss, Larry Oebbecke of Philadelphia Television Service Corp., 19011 W. Cheltenham Ave, Philadelphia, who reported that the job could be profitable “if you know what you are doing.” He reported that his shop had been doing the work for about a year, and averaged 25-35 sets per week.

Some sets were simply not good candidates for conversion, and the author identified many. He stressed the importance of taking good notes when doing the jobs. The first conversion of a particular model might not be profitable, but armed with good notes, subsequent jobs would be much simpler. Also, the jobs required cutting a new front panel, so saving the templates was key to doing the job economically. Normally, the job would take one technician 6-10 hours to complete. In general, 7 inch sets weren’t worth the trouble to convert, since a new set would wind up being cheaper. But larger sets could be upgraded to 14, 16, 19, and 20 inch screens. Older sets with round tubes could get a more modern look with the newer rectangular tubes.

The shop provided a 90 day warranty on the conversion work, and a one year guarantee on the tube itself. The author noted that the guarantee did not extend to parts of the set on which no conversion work had been done.

There was a time when, if you wanted to change the channel on the television, you had to get up and turn the knob on the set. Attempts at overcoming this shortcoming date back to the early days of television. And in 1951, if the entrepreneurial TV serviceman wanted to sell a valuable service to his customers, he could offer a remote tuner such as the one shown here. The May 1951 issue of Service magazine explains everything that needs to be done, and it’s clear that it would be a lot of work.

All of the coils would need to be removed from one unused channel in the set, and replaced with a coaxial cable running to the output of the remote tuner. But it wasn’t quite that simple. The remote tuner would need an antenna input of its own, and it might require a separate preamp. And if the customer wanted to adjust the contrast or volume, that would require additional wiring.

But once done, the customer would be able to change channels from the comfort of his easy chair, a luxury unknown to most people.

There was a time when people dressed up to watch television, and 70 years ago was one of those times, as shown by this ad from the May 1951 issue of Radio & Television Retailing magazine. This viewer obviously lived in a fringe area, and the signal wasn’t quite strong enough to produce a good picture. This was solved with the addition of a Regency booster, a preamplifier that went in the line between the antenna and TV.

In particular, the booster appears to be Regency’s model DB-410A.

This gentleman, shown on the cover of the April 1951 issue of Popular Mechanics, is a lot braver than I am, but he was a critical part of the radio-TV industry.

Since TV and FM signals require line of sight propagation, antennas need to be up high, and steeplejacks were the men who made sure they were up there. According to the magazine, some of the employees were old timers used to working jobs up high, but some were young men. There were few accidents, because the one thing all workers had in common was that they could have only one accident.

In New York, the 1250 foot Empire State Building had just grown 222 feet with the installation of the antennas for five New York TV stations. The idea was to eliminate ghosts and extend the range 50 miles.

The magazine pointed out that the building came with a “spike” originally designed as a mooring spot for Transatlantic dirigibles. It came in handy providing a solid base for the antennas.