Pickup demagnetising

[Ross W. Lovell]

Back when there was such a thing as a TV repairman, my dad had a horseshoe magnet (not the Rickenbacker kind, the Bugs Bunny kind). Being a curious kid, I wondered if it would have any effect, and I held it up to the TV screen. It didn't turn purple, but it kinda sucked half of the picture into that one little spot. I didn't know exactly what happened, but I knew I'd be in trouble for it, so I might have broke some kind of speed record turning the TV off and putting the magnet back where I found it.

Honest to God when it happened to me the one side of the screen had a green yellow purplish thing happening real bad.

Being the dense 20 year old I was then, I'm just older now, not necessarily less dense, it didn't click for a week or two.

One day, the epiphany hit me and moved the cabinet. Most of the discoloration went away except the closest area seemed to be bereft of any normal color compared to the test of the picture tube.

Still have that cab though, still sounds sweet, but I ain't ever moving it.

 

[DrMole]

Pretty much all CRT color TVs had a built in degaussing coil that would degauss the internal shadow mask of the picture tube when the set was initially powered on. The manual degaussing coil was only really necessary if kids were playing with magnets on the front of the tube.

Magnets possess a property called Curie temperature where they abruptly lose their magnetism, but this generally happens 500F and higher, depending on the particular material, so I don't think the temperatures encountered in a boiler room would be responsible for degaussing the magnets, without char broiling the instrument.

" The manual degaussing coil was only really necessary if kids were playing with magnets on the front of the tube."

Guilty, as charged- perhaps twice...perhaps.

To be clear this was 40-ish years ago but I was old enough to know slightly better- well, no frontal lobe, keep on then.

 

[Jeff Scott]

No wire recorder, though. )

I know a guy who has one, maybe, even two of them.

///running a studio: we had two giant plate degaussers to recycle 1" and 2" reels --- for rental to those who weren't interested in owning their tracks.

We had one in a studio I worked at in the early '80s. I remember needing to remember to remove my watch before using it.

 

[crankypants]

Lol, funny thread, bro.

 

[farace]

Re: wire recorders:

I know a guy who has one, maybe, even two of them.

A few years back someone was cleaning out a closet of historical stuff in our town hall and came across a spool of wire. No one knew what it was for, or why anyone would think to save such a thing. Then thankfully a light went off over someone's head and they found someone with a wire recorder and ran the wire through it, and it turned out to be a recording from long ago of one of the town fathers reading an abridged version of A Christmas Carol. The historical society now sells cassette copies.