Color Television ChassisRCA CTC-2RCA, who controlled most of the patents for color television, sold kits of parts to rival manufacturers that included the yoke, a static convergence and purity coil assembly, a vertical convergence transformer, and other less esoteric components embodied in this RCA CTC-2 color television chassis. Many manufacturers had color television sets to demonstrate in those latter weeks of 1953 and into early 1954. Admiral, Hoffman, Philco, Zenith, and other now defunct television manufacturers, produced color sets in minute numbers, useful only for very limited demonstrations of the first over-the-air NTSC color broadcasts. Although Admiral and a few others actually demonstrated color television sets in stores, you could not have bought one if it were, for example, an Emerson or Hoffman or Philco. Westinghouse by comparison would sell you one of the dozens they were reported to be making at their plant in Metuchen, NJ each day, but no one was buying. In fact, only RCA out of all those manufactures who developed a color television set, produced them in what could reasonably be called production quantities. Beginning on March 25, 1954, the color production line at the large television manufacturing plant in Bloomington, Indiana began to make the first of about 4000 (yes, 4000, not 5000) CTC-2 chassis that were the heart of the famous RCA model CT-100 color television set. A CT-100 is noteworthy because it embodies the essence of color television -- those NTSC specifications for color TV approved by the FCC December 17, 1953. For a list of all known surviving CTC-2 chassis built for the RCA CT-100 color television set beginning early in 1954 click here .
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