vintage

Literal youTUBE TV

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To meet the nerdy me in me I created this “literal youTUBE TV”.
I found this super retro/vintage CRT of the Austrian brand Kapsch on the flea market (it even came with a receipt of 1977) and as it uses just RF as input it is basically worthless as TV-stations only broadcast digitally nowadays.
But… you can buy an HDMI-to-RF transmitter which does exactly that: Converting your HDMI-signal to RF that can be injected instead of an antenna signal. After that you just have to plug a Chromecast or whatever HDMI outputting device into it and you have upcycled your old CRT.
Sweet, isn’t it?

  • Kapsch VIENNASTAR CRT, built 1977
  • AIYIMA Transmitter HDMI To RF (find it in your fav. chinese retailer)
  • Google Chromecast
  • Some wiring and setting up

Big thanks to my father who – as a former TV and radio mechanic – took care of adjusting and maintaining the CRT.

Making a home for my trinkets, keys and everything else lying around

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After I had seen the idea to use small spoons as hangers during my stay in Finland I knew I wanted that too. So I checked some old spoons at the fleamarket, got an old wooden board and voilá! Finally a stylish place for my seldom used things!

Upgrading a vintage tube radio to support Bluetooth A2DP

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My old tube radio has a gramophone input that acts like an auxiliary in. There I injected the audio output of a cheap 9$ bluetooth A2DP audio receiver from china (dealextreme) and connected a standard 5V power supply unit which is switched on together with the radio. This way I got my personal handmade bluetooth speaker. I really like the warm sound of these old radios and feeding it with a modern cell phone feels just super cool.

Attention: Be careful if you also want to upgrade an old radio! Most of them run directly on 230V. Be sure you know what you do!

This project also shows some sort of implicit critics against the just-so-common planned obsolescence. Do you think the stereo you bought just a couple of months ago will still work in 50 years? I guess not.