The "The Doobie Brothers At The Bottom" Story

My 8-Track RCA unit with speakers sitting on top of it.

It was an ordinary day.  Just loaded the photos of my old RCA 8-Track player that I had purchased in the early to mid-1970's onto my computer.  I purchased the 8-Track that would hold five cartridges from the RCA family store when my brother and sister-in-law both worked for the electronic giant.  They were able to buy products that RCA made at a discounted price and my brother told me to meet him in the store, show him what I might want to buy and he would make the purchase and drop it off at the house for me.  Pretty neat electronic piece of equipment and a top-of-the-line player at the time that still works great.  

Early RCA logo.

A few years ago a young woman, whom I printed flyers for her business, saw it in my garage on the shelf and wanted to buy it from me.  At the time I was still using it and turned her down.  Bad move on my part, since it now resides in the shelfs above my garage and has been collecting dust for the last few years.  My sister-in-law worked on one of the production lines while my brother was the head of inspections on the color TV tubes that RCA produced at its plant on New Holland Avenue in Lancaster, PA.  We recently talked about his years at RCA where he landed a job after serving in the Marine Corps.  

RCA facility in Lancaster, PA is seen in the center of
this aerial view.  In the foreground is the area known
as Grandview Heights which I recently wrote about.

RCA was founded in 1919 in New York City by David Sarnoff and produced electric phono- graphs, RCA Photo- phones, Videodiscs, RCA Televisions and RCA Studio II for NBC.  RCA, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was in business from 1919 until General Electric took over the company in 1985 and then closed the next year.  

The RCA-Victor model used as a logo for the company.

In 1919 General Electric used RCA as its retail arm for radio sales until 1930.  In 1929 RCA purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company and became RCA-Victor.  They began to sell the first electronic turntable in 1930 and the following year RCA Victor began selling 33 1/3 rpm records.  In 1933 RCA moved into 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York in what became known as the RCA building.  In April of 1939 RCA began broadcasting on television.  

The familiar test pattern seen on TV.

They were known for creating the television "test pattern" that year.  That year, at the New York World's Fair, they demon- strated an all-electronic TV system and began broad- casting from NBC studios.  Their televisions were equipped with vacuum tubes until 1975 when the company had switched from tubes to solid-state devices in their television sets except for the main cathode ray tube.  The factory in Lancaster, Pennyslvania, which made the color TV tubes, was opened in 1940 and finally closed in June of 1986.  The testing of those tube was the job of the unit that was overseen by my brother.  He told me that they often had tours through the laboratories and many of the tourists were Japanese who would take photos of all the equipment that was used to make the tubes.  They even had guides who explained how the tubes were made and tested.  According to my brother, this led to the eventual demise of the company in the mid-1980s.  

An early RCA table-model tube television.

All secrets as to how the technology worked were on display for all the see, photograph and take with them as they left the factory.  At the time RCA was the indisputable leader in television technology.  It was in 1965 that RCA became a major proponent of the eight-track tape cartridge.  Sales of the 8-track peaked shortly after with the compact cassette tape taking over.  In 1980 RCA moved the manufacture of its TV sets to Mexico.  

Closer look at some of the 8-tracks cartridges I still
have in my 8-track player by RCA.

Eventually RCA was taken over by GE in 1986 and shortly GE sold the rights to make RCA-brand TVs to the French Thomson Consumer Electronics.  The only thing that is still connected to the RCA brand is the unit known as Government Services.  I read online that RCA antique radios and early color TVs are collector's items.  Can't imagine what my 8-track player might be worth.  I mentioned this to my brother and he told me to take photos of the device and he will sell it for me on eBay.  Here's hoping someone will love it enough to want it for their collection and I can recoup my money I spent on it ages ago.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.