TV Signal Booster
Videon Jr.

The second, and apparently last, signal booster produced by Indianapolis-based Videon Electronic Corp., was a big styling step up from the wooden-cabinet B-122, but electrically they are pretty similar. However, the Junior may have been too late into the market for much sales volume; the model is very rarely seen. Indeed, my rusty knobless unit is the only one I've found up to this point! The 1952 ad was placed on the cusp of the unfreezing of VHF channels and the advent of UHF broadcasting, both of which spelled the rapid decline of VHF boosters.

1950s Indianapolis was home to the much-more-successful I.D.E.A. and their Regency line of boosters, which also used permeability tuning and 6J6 dual triodes like the Videons. RCA also had a very large plant in town building television sets, so there was a lot of technical talent around to create such accessories as boosters and later UHF converters. Marketing such things was more difficult as the industry matured, which may have been Videon's eventual downfall.

The "Watch For It" notice presages the appearance of Videon's "Navarre" UHF converter in 1953. It was attractively styled in a pre-space-age "swept-back" way, but to date I have seen no actual examples of that converter.

Updated February 23, 2009

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