I’m blind myself and I wish manugacturers always involve a blind person in the design proces of any piece of equipment. Even washingmachines and radio’s are now less blindfriendly than in the 90’s. Please give us knobs
My friend who is blind has such limited options because so many appliances have gone to digital readouts. I have gone shopping with her, and I remember a talking microwave that was supposed to be a big thing. The voice worked, but the appliance itself was a piece of junk: badly made, very small and underpowered. She realized that and didn't buy it.
It's the government role to force manufacturers to make this happen for blind people, It's actually not that hard to implement such control on appliances for blind people, All the commands are programmed at the chip level, All what the manufacturer needs to do is make an access port or a wireless connection such as RF for an external control box with knobs to be connected to the appliance that can be purchased separately and subsidized by a federal program.
For those not old enough, "TV radio" was a pretty common feature on a lot of portable radios. At least for the VHF bands. The "F" on the connection stands for "feed", "feeder", or "feed line".
I remember listing to tv radio in the mid 2010's on my mom's sony walkman I remember listening to gumball since I was a big Cartoon Network fan boy they blew my mind and I was able to enjoy my favorite TV such an old device in my backyard... But at last it was mostly a novelty from you since I would just go to the living room and watch it anyways very cool memory definitely sparked my love older electronics and old media!
Interesting video! I’m completely blind myself, with no light perception. I’m only 28 years old but have always been interested in vintage electronics. I collect 70s 80s radio cassette recorders (boomboxes). Even though I’m blind I can replace belts, clean switches, remove belt goo etc.
That’s awesome, I’m completely blind, too. Wish I could do all that stuff. Like you, I collect cassette tapes and players, but cannot fix it to save my life.
My dad had one of these. He lost his sight in the early 70's. He used it all the time for TV plus it was the only FM radio in the house. They were quite well made and pretty thoughtful in design.
An uncle of mine told that, in his college time, he had to complete the phrase in a class exercise: "It would be nice if ..." and he said "A TV for blind people exists". And there we have it!
There is a simpler reason for it not having a video output. A full television set has to tune to the TV channel and then demodulate (extract) the audio signal from it. But if you don't need the video signal, you can just tune to the audio subcarrier, and do away with the separation circuit. As the audio from a TV station is frequency modulation-encoded, this means that this receiver probably is little more than a AM/FM receiver with two extra tuners for the VHF and UHF bands. In fact, if designed correctly (i.e., using the same intermediate circuitry), the same FM decoder could be used to decode both FM, VHF and UHF channels. This is the most cost effective to implement this device, so I'd bet it's how it's build. It would also mean that at no point inside it there is anything remotely similar to a video signal.
Have fun with receiving two signals 21.4 MHz (2x10.7 MHz, the De facto standard FM radio IF) apart. Many cheap shortwave radios, that use the same 455 KHz IF suffer from mirror frequency problems. So many times a STANAG signal 910 KHz above has caused me issues on these radios.
@@fungo6631 As you say, this can happen in cheap radios. In a radio without SW, like this one, it can be solved easily with a high-pass filter tuned just bellow the low end of the VHF band. Also, if you only have to tune to the audio carrier, you don't need the full IF bandwidth for a TV channel, which would mean greater selectivity and less interference.
It’s a cost effective route for sure, unless they already had the circuitry and parts for a TV tuner and wanted to use that. Then that would be cheaper
@@onyourjackjones There are about five main parts to what you might call a TV tuner: the tuner proper, the video IF, video detector, the sound IF, and the sound detector. The video IF has several high frequency amplifiers and carefully tuned circuits. These IF stages are often on a main board so it's not something that would be a separate part.
My parents had an old fan where one of the prongs actually came off of the plug and was left in the outlet after unplugging the fan because of this. I have enough knowledge where I cut the power to the house at the fuse box, took a pair of pliers, removed the errant prong from the outlet, turned the power back on and took care of that part of the problem. As for the fan, the cord itself was fine so I replaced the plug on the cord with a replacement made for that purpose and my parents had their fan back in working order.
My friend who is totally blind, does miss the radios that had the TV band. She never bought the specific radio for the blind, but she used to listen to TV band on a radio before going to bed on a timer. I am a sighted retired teacher of people with visual impairments and I read Braille by sight, so I could see what frequencies you were tuning to better on the Braille than on the dial. On the white case above the dial and the reading area are VHF and UHF on the white plastic, too. BTW, my friend does have a TV because her children and grandchildren can see and enjoy it. When my mom lost her central vision I suggested a smaller TV for her because the pixels are smaller and closer together (improved visual resolution). She would set it on the table and sit in front of it to watch. She didn't like all the stats and crawl lines on baseball games and because they were (and still are) there, the broadcasters wouldn't describe anything. So, I suggested she turn on the radio and turn down the sound on the TV. She liked that. Except the 7 second delay! I'd heard that someone made a radio that would sync with the TV, but I don't think it went over well. Mom passed before that was an option. Hope these suggestions can help someone else. Yes, the Sportsync radio still exists! Sportsyncradio.com. There is also an app that does it? I know the radio worked (never had one though) but my search did show an app.
@@joesshows6793 blind people use computers and listen to youtube all the time. Also blind doesn't mean they can't see anything blindness is a spectrum.
@@joesshows6793 I use my hearing. I have an iPhone and use the built-in screen reader called VoiceOver. I don't have any useable vission, but I can still follow along because of the spoken dialogue. I'm sure I'm not the only blind person subscribed to this channel.
My brother and I used to stick a tape recorder in front of the TV while a movie played so that we’d have an audio copy of the movie we could listen to in bed. I’ve listened to Hudson Hawk and LA Story so many times!
I recorded many hours of audio only TV with a shoebox tape recorder (it was a hobby). Much of that stuff was eventually released on videotape and now DVD. Thankfully I scanned my tapes years ago for video game commercials which until UA-cam became ubiquitous, audio was all I had. Evil family member stole most of that and I no longer have it.
@@volvo09 Oh, how I used to spend hours sitting in front of the radio with the finger hovered over the "record" button on the tape deck, ready to record a song that I really loved. I think I still have some of those tapes.
Thank god they slapped an AM/FM in it. I need Christopher cross in my life more. As a legally blind guy I love that you cover cool stuff like this. Nobody else does and it’s neat as hell. They say you gain a sense and i definitely have an ear for radio, I’ll always thank the way my life turned out for the reasons why I love what I love. And this is just an after thought but the amount I’m learning about broadcast television also is so awesome thank you.
I'm blind so videos without vision are common for me. I never knew these existed. I always had TVs as a child and can't say I ever noticed any inconvenience in terms of their use, size or anything else when only using them to 'listen' to the TV, and had a device like this existed when I was a kid in the early 2000s I probably wouldn't have wanted one. But it's cool nonetheless, thanks for sharing.
@@KanawhaCountyWX I started with a hand me down CRT, then got my own CRT with a built in VCR. When that broke a CRT with NICAM stereo. Around that time the UK had started switching off the analogue channels, so a digital 'freeview' box was also required. Then on to a couple of LCDs with built in digital tuners, and now none at all because streaming is more convenient.
To think the good this did back in the day. It gave a blind person not only a form of entertainment, but it gave them back some of the independence they had lost when they lost there vision, (or gave them some if they were born blind). It meant that they’d have something to talk about with other people because they heard the latest hot show, Like the Odd Couple, All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, and UFO. Or listen to a baseball or basketball game. I’m sure that little box gave people their dignity back and made life a little better for them since they had been handed a bad card in the game of life.
I remember these when I was a kid in the '70s. I went to a school for the blind and Nebraska and they had a whole bunch of these. I remember them fondly. Matter of fact an old acquaintance of mine passed away about 6 years ago and him and his wife had one of these. The radio would work but you wouldn't get anything on the TV anymore.
As a kid, I would have loved something like this for a reasonable price. Today everyone falls asleep to Netflix or other streaming services, but TVs never had a way to turn off the CRT while keeping the speaker working. There were many times when I’d want to lie in bed in the dark but still listen to television (especially late night interview shows which were rarely very visual).
@@Intelwinsbigly ended up throwing a blanket over it which is the same idea but far less elegant than a radio that can also pick up TV stations. You’d think it’d be trivial to add TV audio carriers to a clock radio.
It's kind of worse now, there are various audio only stations available on digital TV, and modern smart TV's also do spotify etc. so the actual screen does nothing, yet there is no screen off button.
My father was blind (nervus opticus "died" out). He had a computer, that could speak, a flatbed scanner. It ran DOS or something like that, had card in it for the "box" that was reading up what the scanner scanned. Also fun part - it was a 386 computer.. The box you could alter voice speed and pitch. Could read from a book or a newspaper, there were also something called "Daisy readers", basically a CD/DVD that could read "books" stored digitally.
Reminds me of the Kurzweil Reader, except that was a standalone device. A deconstructed reader! An uncle of mine is also blind and used screen readers with DOS. Not sure if he ever had one of those scanner things though. He mostly listens to music and spoken word. (And will tear you a new one if you say you like vinyl..!)
Greetings. My name is Dr. Bob. I am totally blind, and I've been listening to your great videos and content for many years now. I'm fascinated with radio and TV, and I hope to work in the business one day. Thank you for bringing me some great content about radios, cassettes, record players, and now a TV for the blind. That's pretty cool. I also like to collect CDs. Thank you for all that you do sir. Take care.
I really don't need one of these, and I've never heard of it before as a blind person, largely because I was born in 2004, but now I really want one. Edit: just purchased one on eBay, and it's only coming from Pennsylvania so it should be here pretty soon.
Also useful for those who have impairments where print is challenging. As Dyslexia, fine motor control issues, etc. Useful for those who want to listen to TV for the reasons you cite. Awesome video VWestLife. One of your best.videos ever.
If analog TV was still a thing, I wouldn’t mind having one of those hooked up to my stereo for those times I want to passively listen (and not watch) TV in the background. Of course everybody already does that with a TV on but not being watched, but you can’t ignore the warm and fuzzy wood grain charm that comes with using a system like this. Your proposition that the repurposing of non-indented tuning dials in this was a way to recycle them sounds like a very plausible possibility. I didn’t even know that the FCC were the ones behind the changeover back in the day. Also, I’ve seen traces of that green residue on older, usually non-polarized power cords in the past. I always incorrectly assumed it was oxidation and corrosion caused by the copper prongs. This video was filled with some excellent value-added info!
"Floating" UHF tuners persisted until at least 1973. Another reason why these were abandoned was to keep UHF stations that were close to one another from "bleeding" into each other's channel. A common problem with those non-stop UHF tuners.
40+ years later, I still do this. Except I am no longer leaning my ghetto blaster up to the tv to record Eddie Murphy's Delirious. Which got me a 5 day detention in school for playing it at recess. But now i can just record out of the phone, tablet, or whatever into the computer and eventually have a 320k mp3 on my phone. So i now have upgraded from movies to youtube videos. That way i can pass out while having Techmoan playing all night long. Pretty sure i got over 60 of his videos on this phone now. Its that "extended stereo" one i got to watch out for. That ship that blows its horn always wakes me up.
something like this would be useful today so when it's late, you can go to bed, but still finish a sports game, show, or movie (audio only) without annoying flickering blue light
Another possibility to why these didn't catch on is that while they might work great for a single blind person, they don't entertain their friends and family who may visit or live with them.
My blind friend always had both a radio with a TV receiver and a regular TV for her spouse (who used to sit close as he had some sight) and her children.
Рік тому+2
I am impaired and I love this. USA is amazing.We had FM almost in 1980 and digital broascast of any kind no exist. Gracias. Patagonia Argentina
as noted, until the late 1980s, no consumer tv's had composite inputs. as an early videographer, this was extremely frustrating. professional monitors cost thousands! the company videotek used to sell modified sony consumer tv's with composite inputs for a more reasonable price. they also upgraded the video circuitry and added features like underscan. i'd love to see you review one of those units.
Wow! That power cord upgrade was dramatic. It sounded better in every way; soundstage, bass slam, vocal clarity, and the treble seemed much more refined than before. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
There was also an explosion of affordable AM/FM radios that had a TV band on them (even if it was only VHF) that were marketed throughout the 70's. Mostly by GE.
My CD Walkman from around 2004 has a radio that includes VHF and the weird thing is that I can still hear audio broadcasts not just on channel 6, which I know was the crossover frequency with the low end of the FM band on most radios, but also on 4 and 5.
Alright, blind guy here. I personally don't modify my vocabulary like one comment on the video did. I watched the movie. I saw you yesterday. We have the exact same interactions, just different. It makes us look weird and brings more attention than we'd like in most cases.
this was a wonderful invention. I had a friend who was not blind, but he had a portable radio that would pick up the sound from radio stations. it reminded me of hearing about the old days before TV, when people would sit together in the living room and stare at the speaker, and they had to use their their minds eye, to picture what they heard. I remember when AFC first came out, sure made it easier to listen to the radio without all the fuzz of drifting radio signals. and AGC on televisions . thank you for a great video 😀
Regarding the terminals - I've found people online saying F is for FM when referencing similar labeling on an FM radio (where A would be the AM terminal and G is ground). It seems a little out of place on a device like this, but the TV sound would still be FM. Terminals aside, that is a very good looking radio.
That’s cool, I remember there was an audio only TV tuner by RCA that was more like a portable radio for VHF/UHF broadcasts. I was tuning to ABC 7 or NBC 4, for game shows or Saturday morning cartoons. There was also a time when TV networks rebroadcasted on AM radio due to the same affiliates ownership.
analog tv is still broadcast in some parts of the us to create an additional fm radio station at 87.75mhz. in nyc, you can listen to korean programming on the audio portion as wwru fm while they broadcast silent films on the video portion on wnyz channel 6. wikipedia has a whole entry about it.
I initially thought it was a device to translate subtitles into a braille setup for people to read subtitles such as audio description notes (like when there's no speech, just people doing something, a panoramic shot of mountains, a couple getting down to business, etc.), and as for the goo, the same issue is happening with modern Lenovo (and possibly other manufacturer) laptop power cables, I've replaced several of my own PSU's cables because they stiffened up and started oozing goo out the DC plug, you'd think they'd have fixed it by now...
At 7:15 the early generation of European VCRs had the ouput RF on channels 36 and 37. The VCRs made in the late 90s, early 2000s allowed you to select the output RF between channels 21 to 69 or 470 - 858 MHz the default channel was 36 but you could select other channel. The European UHF band uses channels 21 to 69 since the beginng of television. No need for RF modulator, unless you have a DVD Player, satellite receiver or gaming console. If you have a VCR you could connect the DVD Player or satellite receiver using RCA or SCART connection, sellect the desired output RF channel on UHF band and create your own private channel. In my case I connected my PC to my VCR I used an RCA cable and for audio I used a jack 3.5 mm to RCA stereo, and the RCA to SCART adapter. Since I had cable TV channels 21 to 60 were used for analog TV so I used channel 62 to broadcast to all my 3 TVs.
I believe many Americans used composite inputs on a VCR to use the VCR's own RF modulator, but of course SCART was definitely more convenient. I used to have a games console running through the pass-through SCART on a DVD player, which fed into the pass-through SCART of the VCR, and then the VCR SCART into my tiny little Philips TV. (Which was also useful for bootlegging DVDs I'd borrowed from friends...)
Yea And needed to tune the converter box with a separate tv or only be stuck on one channel Because I have never seen a digital converter box that would allow channel and subchannel selection from front controls
@@Veso266 Most converter boxes have channel up and down buttons on the front. Even without those it's trivial to enter channel numbers using the remote.
@@eDoc2020 realy, arent the buttons on the front usualy for saved channels (at least here in Europe u always need a remote to enter manual tune menu (if u are lucky and the converter box even has one))
@@Veso266 The ones I have seen you do a channel scan when you set up the unit (which can be done by someone else if needed) and then by default all the channels are in the up/down list. DVB might be different but ATSC uses channel remapping (for example channel 2.1 is actually transmitted on RF channel 5) so a channel scan is basically _required_ even if you always enter numbers using the remote. Once the scan is complete a totally blind person can pick up the remote and use it normally. Modern remotes tend to have a bump on the 5 key to make blind usage easier without memorizing the entire layout. Some brands (including Samsung and Toshiba) even have Braille next to the Power, Channel, and Volume buttons on their TV remotes.
Blind person here. No matter what the reason for this device's manufacture, it's still a cool piece of tech. In some areas, we're struggling to use normal household appliances because of modern touch screens, which means, een with the ADA being in existence, we're still discriminated against.
Thank you for covering this, VWestlife. I'm blind myself, grew up in the 90s so heard about things like this but never had one. I sometimes think about running a digibox into some speakers to achieve the same ends, but I'm all iPhone these days so get all my media through there. It's also great to see so many other blind people or friends / allies coming out in the comments to share their knowledge. Thanks.
That's a device I had never seen, it's an interesting concept and execution. I always liked that style of rocker switch. They have a very satisfying action and sound. I had one as the power switch on my first new reel-to-reel deck, a Sony TC-255 in the late 1960s.
I remember when I first stumbled upon an FM TV broadcast as a kid, Since I was only allowed to watch a few hours a week, it was like discovering a numbers station
I got caught by the green goo a little while ago. I was clearing out some storage boxes and discovered some old shoes with crumbling rubber soles and I shoved into a box with some other stuff. After clearing them out and vacuuming up residue, wearing gloves to prevent the black rubber particles from getting on my hands, I started going to the rest of the box sans gloves, only to pick up a thing and discover there was a sticky goo underneath. Turns out the power cord from an old cable modem had started leaking the green goo, so that went in the bin and I had a lot more cleaning to do.
I remember the summer of '82. My family and I went to Maine on vacation, but we forgot to pack our portable TV. Instead, we listened to television on the radio while we played cards. You haven't lived until you heard Diff'rent Strokes and Facts of Life at the bottom of the FM dial!! Back then, some tv stations also owned sister radio stations where content could be simulcast on. Luckily for us, Portland's NBC affiliate had such a station.
I’ve never seen this radio before. This was the first AM/FM radio with a built-in TV audio tuner. This was popular for those of you who don’t watched TV all day just listening to TV audio. I used to have a Sony Walkman AM/FM/TV radio where you can listen to TV stations in analog format until June 12th 2009 when the FCC pulled the plug on all analog TV stations across the country to go digital, so they allow to use an RF modulator to broadcast stations with using an Amazon Fire TV stick to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix, Disney+, Max, UA-cam and others where it broadcast on analog TV stations.
Thanks for the look back, at this audio only TV. When I was a client at the Addie McBride's Rehabilitation Center for the blind, back in the early 80s, they had one of these for the clients to listen to. Sadly, these will only work with those stations which still transmit analog, and AM/FM. :)
There was a really common model that had a vertical tuning dial which tuned AM, CB, and about 75 to 175MHz. I could pick up both TV sound and radio Amateurs using mine, although you had to be very precise with the tuning.
10:03 "Channel 6 is just below the edge of the FM band" I found this out in the 90s, when I tuned all the way down to hear The Simpsons TV show starting theme song from Fox 6 Milwaukee on my CD boombox.
If only this existed when I was a child back in the 80s, I'd surely wanted one. :-) Unfortunately, here in Europe I never heard of such a device. The closest I ever got was when I could recieve one of our public tv stations on my clock radio somewhere at 102 FM (if I'm not mistaken :-) ); I used that opportunity to record some tv shows to cassette at that time (which was all I needed being blind).
That's strange. Because as mentioned in the video, radios that could tune in TV stations' audio were relatively common in the US, at least in the late 80s. You could buy one in most major shops that sold Walkman and other radio equipment. In the US, most FM radios could tune in the audio for Channel 6.
@@christo930 if the local retailer didn't have it, then it basically didn't exist to an 80s child! Not to mention you'd have to know such a thing existed Somewhere to even ask if the shop had it or could order it in. A lot of the trouble in finding useful tech in the 80s and 90s was just _knowing what to look for_ in the first place!
I'm sightless since birth. I've tried every gimmick, new age tech, scam, speaker, attenuator u can imagine. The best I've seen unfortunately is my braille printer as well as my braille generator. This device doesn't seem to break any boundaries. Everybody wants to rule the world....good tune....I use my camera app to aim at what i need to see and it dies a decent job saying what its looking at. Helpful with cash
Thanks for another informative post. I remember when I was young we had portable radios that also picked up telly frequencies which I thought was neat.
They watched black 'n white not caring about the fact it was not color. In fact one year I gave a friend of mine who is totally blind an old black 'n white TV I used in my dorm.
I'm glad you addressed the green slime issue, because it's something I'd seen before but didn't know the cause of. I've got an old Westclox electric clock, with a split-flap display for the day and date, probably from the late 60s. The cord developed that issue, and eventually the clock itself began making strange clicking noises, to the point where I retired it and put it in a cabinet. So I wonder if the two are connected somehow? Also, I have that exact same Sears TV you showed at the end. I picked it up at an estate sale awhile ago for pretty cheap, and it's one of my favorite things to just mess around with, hooking up different devices and seeing how they look on it.
Another interesting find and video. For the the power cord replacement and a built-in restraint, check out what's known as the UL knot. There are diagrams online for how to twist the two strands to make this.
I can smell the inside of that thing from here. I recently fixed an early 1980s Yamaha receiver and cleaned it out with isopropyl, and the smell that came out was quite potent.
@VWestlife - The BBC have always demanded blind people pay a reduced rate TV license to listen to TV. That's effectively charging them an annual radio licence fee. In 2007 UHF TV frequencies were abolished in favour of digital reception. The best way to tune into free TV channels nowadays, is with a USB RTL SDR dongle (software defined receiver), that can be used on android and Windows OS, using the FREE open source SDR-Sharp tuner software. Hope this helps bring people up to date on how one can listen to most digital TV broadcasts. An appropriate antenna is crucial for a good digital reception.
Somewhere in a room at the FCC headquarters a red light is blinking on a map of New Jersey and they are zeroing in on the coordinates of your video distribution system. They come with tanks, they mean serious business. My 7-year-old neighbor accidentally got on his dad's ham radio and was saying hi to people without a license and now he's doing 50 to life at Riker's.
haha. the scary part is that riker's is just supposed to hold people awaiting trial, but some do seem to get lost there for years. your neighbor's dad should get "sent up the river" to sing sing (ossining) after conviction!
I know you're joking, but the FCC typically only bothers you if you interfere with safety services or a licensed broadcaster complains. VWestlife is well under any interference limits anyway. Your 7-year old neighbor would earn her dad an official complaint from other hams at worst.
ב''ה, usually by the time they'd throw a UHF tuner in they'd throw in a CRT since it's basically twice as much radio components cost wise. Small clock radio or boombox TVs were around and predated the handheld TVs being Radio Shack common by a few years, probably.
The mechanical detent channel knob tuners with the radio-dial style, smooth turning fine-tune dials (yes, for the VHF channels as well) stayed around on TVs until the early 80s. There were a few high-end models that came out in the late 70s, but digital, solid state, touch-screen style push button channel selectors didn't become mainstream until the 80s. Ironically, right about that same time they became obsolete because everybody then got a cable box! But it was these electronic TV tuners that also allowed TV remote controls to become standard on all TVs. Growing up in the 70s only millionaires had a TV with a remote control (or a VCR!) I do remember that in the late 70s UHF channel knobs eventually did get detents in them like the VHF ones had. UHF was never used where I lived.
Every TV with a "channel clunker" had a smooth turning fine tuning. It's specifically the channelized UHF knobs that Kevin was talking about. As for how long they lasted, I've seen a video of a cheap TV from 1998 which still had channel clunkers.
Oh! When I was a kid, my dad had a different kind of radio that also picked up TV channels. It didn't have Braille labels, but if I'd first encountered it as an adult I'd still have figured out it was for blind TV fans. Back then, I just thought it was a fun novelty, and didn't realize the accessibility implications until just now!
That is a wonderful device and was probably a boon to blind and visually limited individuals. I do remember the radios that had TV sound,primarily used for people in offices wanting to keep up with their soap operas. We need a device like this for modern ATSC 1.0 and 3.o for people in situations that want the show but can forgo the video .
The problem is, you still have to decode the entire ATSC signal just to get the audio portion unlike this device which only needs to tune to the FM carrier. However, if ATSC 3.0 takes off, one feature of it is ATSC radio. While this is intended to provide an HD radio or DAB type experience using a standard television transmitter, this might mean that we might start seeing portable radios or car radios that could also tune to the audio portion of TV channels.
if you have youtube premium(or hack the app), you can turn off the screen and get audio-only. it even has a "listening controls" mode which basically turns youtube into a podcast app. they even have a dedicated "podcast" section. and if you use a modern web browser, the video will stop playing when it's not focused, will also save bandwidth.
I would use that as a sighted person, only if using "audio only" would save battery power. Does it? I don't watch every video, I do other things and listen a lot of the time.
@@Purdey921 oh it does big time. I keep a phone I only use to listen to stuff at bed time, and that battery lasts all night. I wake up with 50% battery after 10 hours of listening to youtube straight.
yes, i do this on the subway all the time. the cell connection is intermittent down there and this lets you buffer more content for the dead spots between subway stations.
I saw a color tv at the 1964-1965 NY Worlds Fair that had a UHF continuous Tuner which I saw for the first time with a Spanish language TV station, such Channel 41 in New York City. I understood that then President JFK around 1963 did encourage the FCC to do this to boost UHF viewership. Also I had a 1976 Sony 17 inch screen Color Trinitron TV which had the TV Channel detents also for UHF channels along with VHF tuning. Around 1981, we finally replaced our 1968 Zenith Color TV console with a Panasonic Color TV with a digital remote control. I remember, especially the old Detent VHF Tuner always became wobbly from the constant channel chaging. Actually, my 1964 Zenith Black and White portable tv had a remote which changed channels using Ultrasonic signals. 😊
Interesting product, it’s cool to see it still in action with that VCR stack! I’m sure a small TV eventually got to the same price as this later on, but still useful as a standalone radio. Gotta keep those receivers NSYNC!
Yeah I am blind myself and if I lived back then I wouldn’t of purchased one of these because I do have a little bit of vision. Plus that you’re still missing a lot of stuff by not having a screen, it’s not like everything was being described.
When I was young, before I had an old tube B&W telly in my room this guy had lent me a kitset VHF reciever, (I didn't realise it was a loan until a couple of years later he wanted it back, but that's a different story) you could listen to CB radio etc, but somehow it also managed to pick up the sound channels of the two TV channels we had in New Zealand. I spent many a night listening to programs on that. I am not really sure how it managed to pick up the sound channels as it was VHF AM receiver, and the sound channels were transmitted in FM. Only the picture was AM modulation. You could also get one of the channels on the normal FM broadcast band, but this was easier to explain. It was picking up a harmonic.
0:31 - I think you mean a LOT of wasted bandwidth and battery, since Free UA-cam forces your screen to remain lit, and all ads play in 1080p even if playback preferences are set to 240p. 🤪 2:59 - I love instrumental covers of pop hits. Especially when done tastefully. 3:22 - "The best that you can do is fall in love..." With this fantastic radio. There is truth that blindness is on a wide spectrum. I am legally-blind without my glasses, for example, because I am extremely nearsighted. Without my glasses, I can hold an object a few inches from my face, and it'll be perfectly in focus and greatly detailed. I can see surface imperfections and inspect solder joints much better with my own bare eyes than I can with glasses and a magnifier, although fatigue from focusing sets in VERY quickly. I could also remove my glasses, sit two feet from my mother's 42" LCD TV, and not know what was on the screen at all - aside from random blobs of color.
Great demo, I was wondering where you were going to find an analog signal for the TV audio. I'd have used a converter box but the VCR's were an even better idea.
As someone who is legally blind, more so in my left eye, I CAN see fairly decently with my right eye, I just have issues with distances and small print, So I need to be as close to the screen as possible or zoom in on my Mac Mini in order to make things out. Plus, when I'm outdoors during the day, it's damn near impossible to see anything without being overwhelmed with UV rays. I have to use shades or photochromic lenses to navigate places, even in overcast weather. I see better at night outside. When I was in school, I had to sit as close to the blackboard, TV, computer screen or projector screen as possible. I'm also partially colour blind and can't differentiate green from gray very well or see pale colours very well. I wish there was a brail based screen that you can feel to watch TV.
I remember when I worked in a factory when I was younger and a lot of the women could listen to the weekday soap operas on the radio because you could pick up the audio on the right frequencies from the over the air TV broadcasts.
I was just thinking..you could have something similar today if you're in an area with OTA digital signals. Just get one of those digital TV converters with remote that they were selling during the 2009 conversion. Connect the audio outputs to some powered speakers, do a channel scan & you'd have TV audio only
I use to have a tv band radio and I would use it to listen to the audio portion of the broadcast. That was my way of watching my favorite tv shows lol, mostly soaps back then, but still.
I found green goo in 5m audio cable. I had to solder a new jack because old one were torn a bit. Also this radio consumes only 13W. Little less then even modern LCD tv, let alone CRT at that time. And no noise from tube.
I’m blind myself and I wish manugacturers always involve a blind person in the design proces of any piece of equipment. Even washingmachines and radio’s are now less blindfriendly than in the 90’s. Please give us knobs
Even as a sighted person, I prefer knobs or other tactile controls.
My friend who is blind has such limited options because so many appliances have gone to digital readouts. I have gone shopping with her, and I remember a talking microwave that was supposed to be a big thing. The voice worked, but the appliance itself was a piece of junk: badly made, very small and underpowered. She realized that and didn't buy it.
It's the government role to force manufacturers to make this happen for blind people, It's actually not that hard to implement such control on appliances for blind people, All the commands are programmed at the chip level, All what the manufacturer needs to do is make an access port or a wireless connection such as RF for an external control box with knobs to be connected to the appliance that can be purchased separately and subsidized by a federal program.
I have glasses and this would be nice to have physical controls on things. And not just TVs but things like tablet, phones or even game consoles.
@@maimetechy You can add external joysticks to those already.
For those not old enough, "TV radio" was a pretty common feature on a lot of portable radios. At least for the VHF bands.
The "F" on the connection stands for "feed", "feeder", or "feed line".
I remember listing to tv radio in the mid 2010's on my mom's sony walkman I remember listening to gumball since I was a big Cartoon Network fan boy they blew my mind and I was able to enjoy my favorite TV such an old device in my backyard... But at last it was mostly a novelty from you since I would just go to the living room and watch it anyways very cool memory definitely sparked my love older electronics and old media!
Interesting video! I’m completely blind myself, with no light perception. I’m only 28 years old but have always been interested in vintage electronics. I collect 70s 80s radio cassette recorders (boomboxes). Even though I’m blind I can replace belts, clean switches, remove belt goo etc.
And you can probably do it better than I could being sighted, for sure!
As someone with only light perception and 10 years your junior, rock on man!
That’s awesome, I’m completely blind, too. Wish I could do all that stuff. Like you, I collect cassette tapes and players, but cannot fix it to save my life.
My dad had one of these. He lost his sight in the early 70's. He used it all the time for TV plus it was the only FM radio in the house. They were quite well made and pretty thoughtful in design.
where is that guy ? where you get get receive channels on it ?
Video systems he used !
An uncle of mine told that, in his college time, he had to complete the phrase in a class exercise: "It would be nice if ..." and he said "A TV for blind people exists".
And there we have it!
Was he blind, then?
@@carltonleboss No, he merely sympathized with the idea
@@UnderEu Did he pass the assignment?
@@Cacowninja I think so
@@UnderEu Awesome!
Fran Blanche showed the green slime problem a while back, it was in one of her old guitar amps. Great video!
There is a simpler reason for it not having a video output. A full television set has to tune to the TV channel and then demodulate (extract) the audio signal from it. But if you don't need the video signal, you can just tune to the audio subcarrier, and do away with the separation circuit. As the audio from a TV station is frequency modulation-encoded, this means that this receiver probably is little more than a AM/FM receiver with two extra tuners for the VHF and UHF bands. In fact, if designed correctly (i.e., using the same intermediate circuitry), the same FM decoder could be used to decode both FM, VHF and UHF channels. This is the most cost effective to implement this device, so I'd bet it's how it's build. It would also mean that at no point inside it there is anything remotely similar to a video signal.
Have fun with receiving two signals 21.4 MHz (2x10.7 MHz, the De facto standard FM radio IF) apart. Many cheap shortwave radios, that use the same 455 KHz IF suffer from mirror frequency problems. So many times a STANAG signal 910 KHz above has caused me issues on these radios.
@@fungo6631 As you say, this can happen in cheap radios. In a radio without SW, like this one, it can be solved easily with a high-pass filter tuned just bellow the low end of the VHF band. Also, if you only have to tune to the audio carrier, you don't need the full IF bandwidth for a TV channel, which would mean greater selectivity and less interference.
There are also a few multi-band radio's out there that also have the TV bands, all on the same large centre dial.
It’s a cost effective route for sure, unless they already had the circuitry and parts for a TV tuner and wanted to use that. Then that would be cheaper
@@onyourjackjones There are about five main parts to what you might call a TV tuner: the tuner proper, the video IF, video detector, the sound IF, and the sound detector. The video IF has several high frequency amplifiers and carefully tuned circuits. These IF stages are often on a main board so it's not something that would be a separate part.
That "green slime" is also apparently a problem in many 1970s UK wiring installations across the pond. John Ward has a good video on it.
as well as reacting with copper, it also eats into some other plastics, !
My parents had an old fan where one of the prongs actually came off of the plug and was left in the outlet after unplugging the fan because of this. I have enough knowledge where I cut the power to the house at the fuse box, took a pair of pliers, removed the errant prong from the outlet, turned the power back on and took care of that part of the problem. As for the fan, the cord itself was fine so I replaced the plug on the cord with a replacement made for that purpose and my parents had their fan back in working order.
An unrelated but similar symptom happens to telephone central office switching relays. Some start leaking green goo after 50 years
HID Lady
you girls did listen to the UK number stations ?
@@lucasrem I am a man.
My friend who is totally blind, does miss the radios that had the TV band. She never bought the specific radio for the blind, but she used to listen to TV band on a radio before going to bed on a timer. I am a sighted retired teacher of people with visual impairments and I read Braille by sight, so I could see what frequencies you were tuning to better on the Braille than on the dial. On the white case above the dial and the reading area are VHF and UHF on the white plastic, too. BTW, my friend does have a TV because her children and grandchildren can see and enjoy it. When my mom lost her central vision I suggested a smaller TV for her because the pixels are smaller and closer together (improved visual resolution). She would set it on the table and sit in front of it to watch. She didn't like all the stats and crawl lines on baseball games and because they were (and still are) there, the broadcasters wouldn't describe anything. So, I suggested she turn on the radio and turn down the sound on the TV. She liked that. Except the 7 second delay! I'd heard that someone made a radio that would sync with the TV, but I don't think it went over well. Mom passed before that was an option. Hope these suggestions can help someone else. Yes, the Sportsync radio still exists! Sportsyncradio.com. There is also an app that does it? I know the radio worked (never had one though) but my search did show an app.
I used to have a Walkman now and pick up the audio from TV stations.
I've been totally blind since birth. I think it's so cool they had a TV with braille on it.
How are you watching this?
@@joesshows6793 blind people use computers and listen to youtube all the time. Also blind doesn't mean they can't see anything blindness is a spectrum.
@@joesshows6793 I use my hearing. I have an iPhone and use the built-in screen reader called VoiceOver. I don't have any useable vission, but I can still follow along because of the spoken dialogue. I'm sure I'm not the only blind person subscribed to this channel.
@@joesshows6793 Probably using a screen reader.
Could you describe the colour purple
My brother and I used to stick a tape recorder in front of the TV while a movie played so that we’d have an audio copy of the movie we could listen to in bed.
I’ve listened to Hudson Hawk and LA Story so many times!
The simple way of making a mix tape too, just took time and a radio on ready to jump up and hit record 😂
That's a cool idea.
I recorded many hours of audio only TV with a shoebox tape recorder (it was a hobby). Much of that stuff was eventually released on videotape and now DVD. Thankfully I scanned my tapes years ago for video game commercials which until UA-cam became ubiquitous, audio was all I had. Evil family member stole most of that and I no longer have it.
I learned how to "patch cord" to the speaker coil itself. Very good audio going right into the tape recorder's input.
@@volvo09 Oh, how I used to spend hours sitting in front of the radio with the finger hovered over the "record" button on the tape deck, ready to record a song that I really loved. I think I still have some of those tapes.
Thank god they slapped an AM/FM in it. I need Christopher cross in my life more. As a legally blind guy I love that you cover cool stuff like this. Nobody else does and it’s neat as hell. They say you gain a sense and i definitely have an ear for radio, I’ll always thank the way my life turned out for the reasons why I love what I love.
And this is just an after thought but the amount I’m learning about broadcast television also is so awesome thank you.
I'm blind so videos without vision are common for me. I never knew these existed. I always had TVs as a child and can't say I ever noticed any inconvenience in terms of their use, size or anything else when only using them to 'listen' to the TV, and had a device like this existed when I was a kid in the early 2000s I probably wouldn't have wanted one. But it's cool nonetheless, thanks for sharing.
I'll say I think I would have enjoyed it when I was growing up, but I was happy with the CRT hand me down televisions we had.
@@KanawhaCountyWX I started with a hand me down CRT, then got my own CRT with a built in VCR. When that broke a CRT with NICAM stereo. Around that time the UK had started switching off the analogue channels, so a digital 'freeview' box was also required. Then on to a couple of LCDs with built in digital tuners, and now none at all because streaming is more convenient.
To think the good this did back in the day. It gave a blind person not only a form of entertainment, but it gave them back some of the independence they had lost when they lost there vision, (or gave them some if they were born blind). It meant that they’d have something to talk about with other people because they heard the latest hot show, Like the Odd Couple, All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, and UFO. Or listen to a baseball or basketball game. I’m sure that little box gave people their dignity back and made life a little better for them since they had been handed a bad card in the game of life.
I remember these when I was a kid in the '70s. I went to a school for the blind and Nebraska and they had a whole bunch of these. I remember them fondly. Matter of fact an old acquaintance of mine passed away about 6 years ago and him and his wife had one of these. The radio would work but you wouldn't get anything on the TV anymore.
Could do an external source via a Roku connected through a vcr then tune to channel 4
As a kid, I would have loved something like this for a reasonable price. Today everyone falls asleep to Netflix or other streaming services, but TVs never had a way to turn off the CRT while keeping the speaker working. There were many times when I’d want to lie in bed in the dark but still listen to television (especially late night interview shows which were rarely very visual).
You never covered it with black construction paper?
@@Intelwinsbigly ended up throwing a blanket over it which is the same idea but far less elegant than a radio that can also pick up TV stations. You’d think it’d be trivial to add TV audio carriers to a clock radio.
It's likely due to how the horizontal drive on those old sets was also used to generate extra voltages for the tuner and such.
@@seanwieland9763They, actually did. quite a lot of radios had "tv sound".
It's kind of worse now, there are various audio only stations available on digital TV, and modern smart TV's also do spotify etc. so the actual screen does nothing, yet there is no screen off button.
My father was blind (nervus opticus "died" out).
He had a computer, that could speak, a flatbed scanner.
It ran DOS or something like that, had card in it for the "box" that was reading up what the scanner scanned.
Also fun part - it was a 386 computer..
The box you could alter voice speed and pitch.
Could read from a book or a newspaper, there were also something called "Daisy readers", basically a CD/DVD that could read "books" stored digitally.
Reminds me of the Kurzweil Reader, except that was a standalone device. A deconstructed reader!
An uncle of mine is also blind and used screen readers with DOS. Not sure if he ever had one of those scanner things though. He mostly listens to music and spoken word. (And will tear you a new one if you say you like vinyl..!)
Greetings. My name is Dr. Bob. I am totally blind, and I've been listening to your great videos and content for many years now. I'm fascinated with radio and TV, and I hope to work in the business one day. Thank you for bringing me some great content about radios, cassettes, record players, and now a TV for the blind. That's pretty cool. I also like to collect CDs. Thank you for all that you do sir. Take care.
My Dad had this. He was blind. I know he enjoyed this so much. He also loved any kind of radio.
Robert John Blackwell, this is for you, bud!
As a blind person , a device like this would have been perfect for me . If I was born in the 70's . Very cool
Cheers from Philippines !
How are you able to read or type a reply/comment on UA-cam if you're blind?.
Too bad digital TV killed it.
@@planetX15 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_reader
I really don't need one of these, and I've never heard of it before as a blind person, largely because I was born in 2004, but now I really want one.
Edit: just purchased one on eBay, and it's only coming from Pennsylvania so it should be here pretty soon.
Also useful for those who have impairments where print is challenging. As Dyslexia, fine motor control issues, etc. Useful for those who want to listen to TV for the reasons you cite. Awesome video VWestLife. One of your best.videos ever.
As soon as it hit 3:27 the song hit me so hard I dropped my phone. I didnt expect to hear that over a radio in 2023😂
If analog TV was still a thing, I wouldn’t mind having one of those hooked up to my stereo for those times I want to passively listen (and not watch) TV in the background. Of course everybody already does that with a TV on but not being watched, but you can’t ignore the warm and fuzzy wood grain charm that comes with using a system like this.
Your proposition that the repurposing of non-indented tuning dials in this was a way to recycle them sounds like a very plausible possibility. I didn’t even know that the FCC were the ones behind the changeover back in the day.
Also, I’ve seen traces of that green residue on older, usually non-polarized power cords in the past. I always incorrectly assumed it was oxidation and corrosion caused by the copper prongs. This video was filled with some excellent value-added info!
"Floating" UHF tuners persisted until at least 1973. Another reason why these were abandoned was to keep UHF stations that were close to one another from "bleeding" into each other's channel. A common problem with those non-stop UHF tuners.
The part with "Victor Borg" is giving me flashbacks. My Grandmother had that VHS special. I watched it so many times 😊
Even IF it was a (cynical) way to repurpose an old stockpile of UHF tuners, It DOES seem to be a fine radio!
40+ years later, I still do this. Except I am no longer leaning my ghetto blaster up to the tv to record Eddie Murphy's Delirious. Which got me a 5 day detention in school for playing it at recess. But now i can just record out of the phone, tablet, or whatever into the computer and eventually have a 320k mp3 on my phone. So i now have upgraded from movies to youtube videos. That way i can pass out while having Techmoan playing all night long. Pretty sure i got over 60 of his videos on this phone now. Its that "extended stereo" one i got to watch out for. That ship that blows its horn always wakes me up.
something like this would be useful today so when it's late, you can go to bed, but still finish a sports game, show, or movie (audio only) without annoying flickering blue light
Another possibility to why these didn't catch on is that while they might work great for a single blind person, they don't entertain their friends and family who may visit or live with them.
Yep, it's easier to just have a TV even if you have low vision in case friends, and family want to watch
My blind friend always had both a radio with a TV receiver and a regular TV for her spouse (who used to sit close as he had some sight) and her children.
I am impaired and I love this. USA is amazing.We had FM almost in 1980 and digital broascast of any kind no exist. Gracias. Patagonia Argentina
I found one of these about a year back as a legally blind person it was super cool to find one in the wild.
as noted, until the late 1980s, no consumer tv's had composite inputs. as an early videographer, this was extremely frustrating. professional monitors cost thousands! the company videotek used to sell modified sony consumer tv's with composite inputs for a more reasonable price. they also upgraded the video circuitry and added features like underscan. i'd love to see you review one of those units.
Uxwbill was one of my first subscriptions when i joined UA-cam 14years ago. Wish he did more videos.
Wow! That power cord upgrade was dramatic. It sounded better in every way; soundstage, bass slam, vocal clarity, and the treble seemed much more refined than before.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
If only he used oxygen free copper, the soundstage would have felt so much more wide.
@@volvo09 Also silver plated for treble extension and braided to reduce noise
There was also an explosion of affordable AM/FM radios that had a TV band on them (even if it was only VHF) that were marketed throughout the 70's. Mostly by GE.
My CD Walkman from around 2004 has a radio that includes VHF and the weird thing is that I can still hear audio broadcasts not just on channel 6, which I know was the crossover frequency with the low end of the FM band on most radios, but also on 4 and 5.
What's the interest about this device ?
I don't see any.
Alright, blind guy here. I personally don't modify my vocabulary like one comment on the video did. I watched the movie. I saw you yesterday. We have the exact same interactions, just different. It makes us look weird and brings more attention than we'd like in most cases.
what a beautiful object of excellent design, and wonder of features! Bravo.
this was a wonderful invention. I had a friend who was not blind, but he had a portable radio that would pick up the sound from radio stations. it reminded me of hearing about the old days before TV, when people would sit together in the living room and stare at the speaker,
and they had to use their their minds eye, to picture what they heard. I remember when AFC first came out, sure made it easier to listen to the radio without all the fuzz of drifting radio signals. and AGC on televisions . thank you for a great video 😀
Regarding the terminals - I've found people online saying F is for FM when referencing similar labeling on an FM radio (where A would be the AM terminal and G is ground). It seems a little out of place on a device like this, but the TV sound would still be FM.
Terminals aside, that is a very good looking radio.
The F is for field.
That’s cool, I remember there was an audio only TV tuner by RCA that was more like a portable radio for VHF/UHF broadcasts. I was tuning to ABC 7 or NBC 4, for game shows or Saturday morning cartoons. There was also a time when TV networks rebroadcasted on AM radio due to the same affiliates ownership.
analog tv is still broadcast in some parts of the us to create an additional fm radio station at 87.75mhz. in nyc, you can listen to korean programming on the audio portion as wwru fm while they broadcast silent films on the video portion on wnyz channel 6. wikipedia has a whole entry about it.
I initially thought it was a device to translate subtitles into a braille setup for people to read subtitles such as audio description notes (like when there's no speech, just people doing something, a panoramic shot of mountains, a couple getting down to business, etc.), and as for the goo, the same issue is happening with modern Lenovo (and possibly other manufacturer) laptop power cables, I've replaced several of my own PSU's cables because they stiffened up and started oozing goo out the DC plug, you'd think they'd have fixed it by now...
At 7:15 the early generation of European VCRs had the ouput RF on channels 36 and 37. The VCRs made in the late 90s, early 2000s allowed you to select the output RF between channels 21 to 69 or 470 - 858 MHz the default channel was 36 but you could select other channel. The European UHF band uses channels 21 to 69 since the beginng of television. No need for RF modulator, unless you have a DVD Player, satellite receiver or gaming console. If you have a VCR you could connect the DVD Player or satellite receiver using RCA or SCART connection, sellect the desired output RF channel on UHF band and create your own private channel. In my case I connected my PC to my VCR I used an RCA cable and for audio I used a jack 3.5 mm to RCA stereo, and the RCA to SCART adapter. Since I had cable TV channels 21 to 60 were used for analog TV so I used channel 62 to broadcast to all my 3 TVs.
I believe many Americans used composite inputs on a VCR to use the VCR's own RF modulator, but of course SCART was definitely more convenient. I used to have a games console running through the pass-through SCART on a DVD player, which fed into the pass-through SCART of the VCR, and then the VCR SCART into my tiny little Philips TV. (Which was also useful for bootlegging DVDs I'd borrowed from friends...)
Imagine hooking one of this up to a DTV converter box when the switch to digital happened
Yea
And needed to tune the converter box with a separate tv or only be stuck on one channel
Because I have never seen a digital converter box that would allow channel and subchannel selection from front controls
That would be FANTASTICALLY miserable.
@@Veso266 Most converter boxes have channel up and down buttons on the front. Even without those it's trivial to enter channel numbers using the remote.
@@eDoc2020 realy, arent the buttons on the front usualy for saved channels (at least here in Europe u always need a remote to enter manual tune menu (if u are lucky and the converter box even has one))
@@Veso266 The ones I have seen you do a channel scan when you set up the unit (which can be done by someone else if needed) and then by default all the channels are in the up/down list. DVB might be different but ATSC uses channel remapping (for example channel 2.1 is actually transmitted on RF channel 5) so a channel scan is basically _required_ even if you always enter numbers using the remote. Once the scan is complete a totally blind person can pick up the remote and use it normally. Modern remotes tend to have a bump on the 5 key to make blind usage easier without memorizing the entire layout. Some brands (including Samsung and Toshiba) even have Braille next to the Power, Channel, and Volume buttons on their TV remotes.
I do this every time with your videos! I fall asleep to your soothing voice.
Blind person here. No matter what the reason for this device's manufacture, it's still a cool piece of tech. In some areas, we're struggling to use normal household appliances because of modern touch screens, which means, een with the ADA being in existence, we're still discriminated against.
Thank you for covering this, VWestlife. I'm blind myself, grew up in the 90s so heard about things like this but never had one. I sometimes think about running a digibox into some speakers to achieve the same ends, but I'm all iPhone these days so get all my media through there. It's also great to see so many other blind people or friends / allies coming out in the comments to share their knowledge. Thanks.
That's a device I had never seen, it's an interesting concept and execution. I always liked that style of rocker switch. They have a very satisfying action and sound. I had one as the power switch on my first new reel-to-reel deck, a Sony TC-255 in the late 1960s.
Can't believe seeing an old uxwbill video made me feel nostalgic.
I still finding some radio turners with analog TV in Peru. Unfortunately, that radio turners haves the digital dialing.
How did you leave a comment before the video came out
@@chevysparkgaming UA-cam is very buggy...
I remember when I first stumbled upon an FM TV broadcast as a kid, Since I was only allowed to watch a few hours a week, it was like discovering a numbers station
_Translator:_
A very interesting episode. Radios fascinate me. Recently I bought a Sony ICF-P27. I like this radio very much.
I got caught by the green goo a little while ago. I was clearing out some storage boxes and discovered some old shoes with crumbling rubber soles and I shoved into a box with some other stuff. After clearing them out and vacuuming up residue, wearing gloves to prevent the black rubber particles from getting on my hands, I started going to the rest of the box sans gloves, only to pick up a thing and discover there was a sticky goo underneath. Turns out the power cord from an old cable modem had started leaking the green goo, so that went in the bin and I had a lot more cleaning to do.
I remember the summer of '82. My family and I went to Maine on vacation, but we forgot to pack our portable TV. Instead, we listened to television on the radio while we played cards. You haven't lived until you heard Diff'rent Strokes and Facts of Life at the bottom of the FM dial!! Back then, some tv stations also owned sister radio stations where content could be simulcast on. Luckily for us, Portland's NBC affiliate had such a station.
I’ve never seen this radio before. This was the first AM/FM radio with a built-in TV audio tuner. This was popular for those of you who don’t watched TV all day just listening to TV audio. I used to have a Sony Walkman AM/FM/TV radio where you can listen to TV stations in analog format until June 12th 2009 when the FCC pulled the plug on all analog TV stations across the country to go digital, so they allow to use an RF modulator to broadcast stations with using an Amazon Fire TV stick to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix, Disney+, Max, UA-cam and others where it broadcast on analog TV stations.
0:30 now that's an unexpected bill
Just relying on my memory, but it seemed like it wasn't uncommon for radios to have a VHF band.
Thanks for the look back, at this audio only TV. When I was a client at the Addie McBride's Rehabilitation Center for the blind, back in the early 80s, they had one of these for the clients to listen to. Sadly, these will only work with those stations which still transmit analog, and AM/FM. :)
late 70s and into the 80s there was quite a few radios that tuned TV sound, some could also receive CB and airband as well.
There was a really common model that had a vertical tuning dial which tuned AM, CB, and about 75 to 175MHz. I could pick up both TV sound and radio Amateurs using mine, although you had to be very precise with the tuning.
Thanks for very informative review of something I have never seen before. It was fun to see that.
10:03 "Channel 6 is just below the edge of the FM band" I found this out in the 90s, when I tuned all the way down to hear The Simpsons TV show starting theme song from Fox 6 Milwaukee on my CD boombox.
If only this existed when I was a child back in the 80s, I'd surely wanted one. :-) Unfortunately, here in Europe I never heard of such a device. The closest I ever got was when I could recieve one of our public tv stations on my clock radio somewhere at 102 FM (if I'm not mistaken :-) ); I used that opportunity to record some tv shows to cassette at that time (which was all I needed being blind).
That's strange. Because as mentioned in the video, radios that could tune in TV stations' audio were relatively common in the US, at least in the late 80s. You could buy one in most major shops that sold Walkman and other radio equipment.
In the US, most FM radios could tune in the audio for Channel 6.
@@christo930 They are and were not so common in Europe or outside of the US. Just saying!
@@plan7a "Just saying?" What? I'm sure they existed.
@@christo930: They did/do but they were not as common as they were/are outside the US.
@@christo930 if the local retailer didn't have it, then it basically didn't exist to an 80s child! Not to mention you'd have to know such a thing existed Somewhere to even ask if the shop had it or could order it in. A lot of the trouble in finding useful tech in the 80s and 90s was just _knowing what to look for_ in the first place!
I'm sightless since birth. I've tried every gimmick, new age tech, scam, speaker, attenuator u can imagine. The best I've seen unfortunately is my braille printer as well as my braille generator. This device doesn't seem to break any boundaries. Everybody wants to rule the world....good tune....I use my camera app to aim at what i need to see and it dies a decent job saying what its looking at. Helpful with cash
Thanks for another informative post. I remember when I was young we had portable radios that also picked up telly frequencies which I thought was neat.
They watched black 'n white not caring about the fact it was not color. In fact one year I gave a friend of mine who is totally blind an old black 'n white TV I used in my dorm.
"F" is probably for feed, feed & ground were old radio antenna terms
yes, feedline
Thanks, that sounds like the most logical explanation to me!
I'm glad you addressed the green slime issue, because it's something I'd seen before but didn't know the cause of. I've got an old Westclox electric clock, with a split-flap display for the day and date, probably from the late 60s. The cord developed that issue, and eventually the clock itself began making strange clicking noises, to the point where I retired it and put it in a cabinet. So I wonder if the two are connected somehow?
Also, I have that exact same Sears TV you showed at the end. I picked it up at an estate sale awhile ago for pretty cheap, and it's one of my favorite things to just mess around with, hooking up different devices and seeing how they look on it.
That darn Slimer, getting his ectoplasm everywhere
Another interesting find and video. For the the power cord replacement and a built-in restraint, check out what's known as the UL knot. There are diagrams online for how to twist the two strands to make this.
I remember these when I was a kid. They're pretty neat.
I can smell the inside of that thing from here. I recently fixed an early 1980s Yamaha receiver and cleaned it out with isopropyl, and the smell that came out was quite potent.
I knew someone with this device. They were blind. I remember messing with the UHF fine tuning, I could pick up analog cellphone calls..
@VWestlife - The BBC have always demanded blind people pay a reduced rate TV license to listen to TV. That's effectively charging them an annual radio licence fee. In 2007 UHF TV frequencies were abolished in favour of digital reception. The best way to tune into free TV channels nowadays, is with a USB RTL SDR dongle (software defined receiver), that can be used on android and Windows OS, using the FREE open source SDR-Sharp tuner software. Hope this helps bring people up to date on how one can listen to most digital TV broadcasts. An appropriate antenna is crucial for a good digital reception.
Somewhere in a room at the FCC headquarters a red light is blinking on a map of New Jersey and they are zeroing in on the coordinates of your video distribution system. They come with tanks, they mean serious business. My 7-year-old neighbor accidentally got on his dad's ham radio and was saying hi to people without a license and now he's doing 50 to life at Riker's.
haha. the scary part is that riker's is just supposed to hold people awaiting trial, but some do seem to get lost there for years. your neighbor's dad should get "sent up the river" to sing sing (ossining) after conviction!
I know you're joking, but the FCC typically only bothers you if you interfere with safety services or a licensed broadcaster complains. VWestlife is well under any interference limits anyway.
Your 7-year old neighbor would earn her dad an official complaint from other hams at worst.
Over the years, I've had several of those multi-band portable radios. But none have ever had UHF TV sound.
ב''ה, usually by the time they'd throw a UHF tuner in they'd throw in a CRT since it's basically twice as much radio components cost wise.
Small clock radio or boombox TVs were around and predated the handheld TVs being Radio Shack common by a few years, probably.
The mechanical detent channel knob tuners with the radio-dial style, smooth turning fine-tune dials (yes, for the VHF channels as well) stayed around on TVs until the early 80s.
There were a few high-end models that came out in the late 70s, but digital, solid state, touch-screen style push button channel selectors didn't become mainstream until the 80s.
Ironically, right about that same time they became obsolete because everybody then got a cable box!
But it was these electronic TV tuners that also allowed TV remote controls to become standard on all TVs. Growing up in the 70s only millionaires had a TV with a remote control (or a VCR!)
I do remember that in the late 70s UHF channel knobs eventually did get detents in them like the VHF ones had. UHF was never used where I lived.
Every TV with a "channel clunker" had a smooth turning fine tuning. It's specifically the channelized UHF knobs that Kevin was talking about. As for how long they lasted, I've seen a video of a cheap TV from 1998 which still had channel clunkers.
Oh! When I was a kid, my dad had a different kind of radio that also picked up TV channels. It didn't have Braille labels, but if I'd first encountered it as an adult I'd still have figured out it was for blind TV fans. Back then, I just thought it was a fun novelty, and didn't realize the accessibility implications until just now!
I'm actually listening to this while doing mundane tasks.
Wow! An AMDEK monitor. I had one just like that to use with my Atari 1200XL computer. Memories!
That is a wonderful device and was probably a boon to blind and visually limited individuals. I do remember the radios that had TV sound,primarily used for people in offices wanting to keep up with their soap operas. We need a device like this for modern ATSC 1.0 and 3.o for people in situations that want the show but can forgo the video .
The problem is, you still have to decode the entire ATSC signal just to get the audio portion unlike this device which only needs to tune to the FM carrier. However, if ATSC 3.0 takes off, one feature of it is ATSC radio. While this is intended to provide an HD radio or DAB type experience using a standard television transmitter, this might mean that we might start seeing portable radios or car radios that could also tune to the audio portion of TV channels.
Really cool. Thanks for the video
if you have youtube premium(or hack the app), you can turn off the screen and get audio-only. it even has a "listening controls" mode which basically turns youtube into a podcast app. they even have a dedicated "podcast" section.
and if you use a modern web browser, the video will stop playing when it's not focused, will also save bandwidth.
I would use that as a sighted person, only if using "audio only" would save battery power. Does it? I don't watch every video, I do other things and listen a lot of the time.
@@Purdey921 oh it does big time. I keep a phone I only use to listen to stuff at bed time, and that battery lasts all night. I wake up with 50% battery after 10 hours of listening to youtube straight.
yes, i do this on the subway all the time. the cell connection is intermittent down there and this lets you buffer more content for the dead spots between subway stations.
@@Nutz0 If you have YT Premium you can also tell the app to download the video beforehand
I just retired as a CATV installer and service tech. I started in 1982. I have never heard of one of these or saw one in my 41 years as a tech.
I saw a color tv at the 1964-1965 NY
Worlds Fair that had a UHF continuous
Tuner which I saw for the first time
with a Spanish language TV station,
such Channel 41 in New York City.
I understood that then President JFK
around 1963 did encourage the FCC
to do this to boost UHF viewership.
Also I had a 1976 Sony 17 inch screen
Color Trinitron TV which had the TV
Channel detents also for UHF channels
along with VHF tuning.
Around 1981, we finally replaced our
1968 Zenith Color TV console with
a Panasonic Color TV with a digital
remote control.
I remember, especially the old Detent
VHF Tuner always became wobbly from the constant channel chaging.
Actually, my 1964 Zenith Black and
White portable tv had a remote which
changed channels using Ultrasonic
signals. 😊
Interesting product, it’s cool to see it still in action with that VCR stack! I’m sure a small TV eventually got to the same price as this later on, but still useful as a standalone radio. Gotta keep those receivers NSYNC!
Yeah I am blind myself and if I lived back then I wouldn’t of purchased one of these because I do have a little bit of vision. Plus that you’re still missing a lot of stuff by not having a screen, it’s not like everything was being described.
That was really good idea. That donor power lead is a great match.
When I was young, before I had an old tube B&W telly in my room this guy had lent me a kitset VHF reciever, (I didn't realise it was a loan until a couple of years later he wanted it back, but that's a different story) you could listen to CB radio etc, but somehow it also managed to pick up the sound channels of the two TV channels we had in New Zealand. I spent many a night listening to programs on that. I am not really sure how it managed to pick up the sound channels as it was VHF AM receiver, and the sound channels were transmitted in FM. Only the picture was AM modulation. You could also get one of the channels on the normal FM broadcast band, but this was easier to explain. It was picking up a harmonic.
the "f" on the back where the antenna terminals could mean "frequency", "field", or "feed" all of which have been used in relation with radio
0:31 - I think you mean a LOT of wasted bandwidth and battery, since Free UA-cam forces your screen to remain lit, and all ads play in 1080p even if playback preferences are set to 240p. 🤪
2:59 - I love instrumental covers of pop hits. Especially when done tastefully.
3:22 - "The best that you can do is fall in love..." With this fantastic radio.
There is truth that blindness is on a wide spectrum. I am legally-blind without my glasses, for example, because I am extremely nearsighted. Without my glasses, I can hold an object a few inches from my face, and it'll be perfectly in focus and greatly detailed. I can see surface imperfections and inspect solder joints much better with my own bare eyes than I can with glasses and a magnifier, although fatigue from focusing sets in VERY quickly. I could also remove my glasses, sit two feet from my mother's 42" LCD TV, and not know what was on the screen at all - aside from random blobs of color.
Great demo, I was wondering where you were going to find an analog signal for the TV audio. I'd have used a converter box but the VCR's were an even better idea.
You are a lot closer to me than I thought, I only live up in Rochester.. Cheers
As someone who is legally blind, more so in my left eye, I CAN see fairly decently with my right eye, I just have issues with distances and small print, So I need to be as close to the screen as possible or zoom in on my Mac Mini in order to make things out. Plus, when I'm outdoors during the day, it's damn near impossible to see anything without being overwhelmed with UV rays. I have to use shades or photochromic lenses to navigate places, even in overcast weather. I see better at night outside. When I was in school, I had to sit as close to the blackboard, TV, computer screen or projector screen as possible. I'm also partially colour blind and can't differentiate green from gray very well or see pale colours very well. I wish there was a brail based screen that you can feel to watch TV.
I remember when I worked in a factory when I was younger and a lot of the women could listen to the weekday soap operas on the radio because you could pick up the audio on the right frequencies from the over the air TV broadcasts.
Nice video, Kevin, thanks!
Really neat device!
Also, Victor Borge was awesome!
I was just thinking..you could have something similar today if you're in an area with OTA digital signals. Just get one of those digital TV converters with remote that they were selling during the 2009 conversion. Connect the audio outputs to some powered speakers, do a channel scan & you'd have TV audio only
I use to have a tv band radio and I would use it to listen to the audio portion of the broadcast. That was my way of watching my favorite tv shows lol, mostly soaps back then, but still.
I found green goo in 5m audio cable. I had to solder a new jack because old one were torn a bit.
Also this radio consumes only 13W. Little less then even modern LCD tv, let alone CRT at that time. And no noise from tube.