Primitive TV miracle glows green

"Surely we live in an age of miracles," says the manual for John Judd's 65-year-old television set.

The TV miracle takes another significant step next Sunday when the last analogue signals switch to digital, rendering old TV sets obsolete.

"I bought the television in Seattle in the States a long time ago, in the 1980s," the proud owner of a 1948 Capehart-Farnsworth Television said. His set is older than the winner of a search for New Zealand's oldest TV, but his set was ruled out as he didn't want it converted to digital.

Unsurprisingly, the television doesn't function as it once did.

"It just shows a green screen now. It's very primitive. The radio still works and it has a gramophone that still works. I can get sound," Judd said.

"It's a beautiful piece of furniture that I plan to keep." The Capehart-Farnsworth models were popular luxury home televisions in the 1950s.

Another of Auckland's oldest television sets belongs to Ron Milicich, who bought his television in the 1950s. "It still works and receives four channels," Milicich said.

Although he now also owns a new digital television, Milicich still plans to keep the old set. "I've always collected old things like that."

The introduction of digital television has been led by telecommunications company Kordia, from trial broadcasts in the 1990s.