Proud to be an AMERICAN where people can watch TV FREE! It's red, white and blue. It has the American flag on it. It has a big twistee knob that looks like it does something? Until a few years ago, this would have been considered a valuable tool to night watchmen or toll takers or anybody who wanted to be entertained by the few channels that were available. It has a radio in it. Not completely junk right?

Oh yeah. Black and white television. Analog television. Just a few years before the gub'mint decided to take all analog television broadcasting and send it to the dust bin of history. I got this a few years before that time. I did use it quite a bit when I only had one TV and no tablets, flat panels or "found" televisions (My house came with two old style analog TV's plus I had a 12" black and white TV, but this one fit over my bed at my former apartment.) It's actually, a pretty good camping too as you'll see in a moment.

I grew up on B&W television because we were poor. My brother had a 10" GE from the 60's. Our main TV in the early 80's was a 15" B&W GE. We did have a console color TV but when that broke, we couldn't afford to get it fixed and/or it wasn't worth fixing. When we moved into a big house on the lake with my new step-pop, we had a d-lux color job and soon with cable. Whoooo. We also got a 5" B&W that we could take on the road. Plus   my brother got a 20" B&W that only got VHF!  It was the trade-off for him having a bigger bedroom.  I could watch cartoons. He could watch DONAHUE! Wow. Technology didn't move a bit for all those years. When lightning got the 15" B&W, I had to play Atari VCS games on the 5" until mom got me a Panasonic 12" B&W for my birthday.

It was in the works when I got this one above that they were going to cease analog TV broadcasting, but that was a long way off if it happened at all. Follow the $$$$$$$$. Suddenly, tech shifted into gear. Satellite Radio became a thing. Computers were getting faster/cheaper. Writing was on the wall. Soon, I wouldn't be able to watch Matlock movies at 2:30am on Sunday nights on my B&W TV. More's the pity.

You see, this isn't a total piece of junk right? If you're out of the trail, and need to know what your bearings are you can use the cheap ass compass on the top of the set. For value added TV, they also included a handy thermometer. That way, if it was too cold out, you'd know not to turn this thing on lest the tube implodes. Heat was usually not a big deal, unless you were on the sun. Hey, it's got an American flag on the side... maybe this was designed to be used in spaaaaaaaaaaace....

I sure wish I was a salesman again. I would have a ball selling all these features to the average mo-ron. "You know what else this TV comes with? A very handy light source. How many times have you lost a screw or something small into your rug and you reached for your television set to light the way? Well you can with this. You know what else? This has a replaceable bulb! If you got LEDS, you might as well throw the whole thing out if the lights burn out. Not with this baby! How often have you been aimlessly walking in traffic when suddenly you realize that you don't know where you are? Look at this compass! You can find your way of anyplace all while not missing any broadcasts of your favorite Seinfeld! NOW HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY? Let me tell you about the WARRANTY. "

Here is one feature that doesn't make this complete junk. Not completely junk. Really. It has an external antenna jack. That means, you can hook up a digital tuner to this and see your netlets in glorious B&W like you remember when you were a kid. Um... It also has the traditional analog TV analog controls. Jeeze, if you are 20 years old or younger, you're probably saying, "why did they need those?"

It's also not a total chunk of junk as it tunes AM/FM like normal. I'll admit I never listened to this. It's a 6 "C" battery eater. It's analog. It's a TV. It's worthless otherwise. I do remember a few years back when the Daytona race was rained out, I brought my digital tuner downstairs where I had to work and watched the race on my 12" B&W. I could do that with this. I could pack all this crap in a case if I really needed to see a rerun of Frazier on the box. Nahhhh. Heck, a quick search on the 'Zon and you can get a color 7" DIGITV for $50 or so. If TV was that important to me as it was in the 80's, I might consider it. Now, it's analog scrap heap but I'll never sell. Wanna analog 19" Toshiba? Cheeeeeep.

ARF! -Ricochet