Altec Television sets?

[Old Guy]

Hi- I've set myself another fool's errand- that of trying to fill in some gaps I have in knowledge of Altec's history.

I know that briefly after WW2 Altec made television sets. They apparently didn't sell wel, being made to Altec specs made them necessarily expesive. I do know the TV division was sold off and became Conrac, who grew to virtually dominate the commercial video monitor field.

But that's pretty much it. No real timeline, literature or anything.

So was just curious if anyone here knew anything?

[Todd W. White]

After the war, Altec's owner, George Carrington, made a deal with the FCC (it may have been called something else back then) to standardize on their version of color television. It was VERY high-resolution and VERY expensive to build, but it worked GREAT!

After they settled on the Altec-designed standard, RCA, who had spent gazillions on their very low quality (read: CHEAP) version of color television, wasn't about to lose the standardization to anyone else, seeing as how whomever had it would be rich beyond their wildest dreams. SO, they petitioned the FCC to change to their standard, and, after more money spent - and probably some under the table, too - the FCC recanted and changed the standard to the RCA method, effectively putting Altec out of the television business.

Mike Conrow and George Carrington, not to be outdone, formed CONRAC - Conrow-and-Carrington - and began building the highest quality tv studio monitors anywhere (they had the superioir methodology).

Had RCA not prevailed and the FCC not recanted, we'd have had high-definition color television in the 1950's!

[Old Guy]

Thanks Todd,

Always glad to have any info. I did find a catalog for sale that had a picture of one. Unfotunately I don't think the 3 pages of scanty descriptions of Altec products is worth the $95 asking price. If it doesn't sell maybe he'll come down to something reasonable.

I've emailed all my old tech friends asking for Altec sheets that I don't see on the web sites. maybe a few will turn up. Regretfully I had a lot of stuff 20-25 years ago but I've moved something like 5 times since then, so god knows what I still have or where it is.