Thought I'd share these pics of a Zenith model X1215-1, chassis no. 13X15. It's a 12" black & white manufactured in late 1966 (latest date code I found was December.) I was given this set in mid-2005, and I just had the chance to dig it out the other night. Sadly it received a few dings in storage, but is still in pretty nice shape, although she needs a scrub down and she's very dusty inside.

The picture tube is very strong (12CBP4). It needs some attention, as the UHF is weak (not pulling in stations very well,) the VHF tuner needs alignment (sound drops off when station focused) and I'm sure some caps and/or resistors have drifted, as the picture is not as clear as it was when I last plugged it in 3 years ago.

Overall I like this little set and look forward to getting her "right" sometime this year.

Nice! Those are great little sets. I have had mine for 10 years now, mine has a foe woodgrain on the side otherwise it's the same. After you are done fixing it up it will outlast you! Good luck and post pics when she's done!

My first TV was one of those. It was 20 years old when I got it and headed for the trash. That set started my love affair with Zenith. That set deserves to be fixed and put into daily service.

The shims in the UHF tuner go bad. You can replace them or carefully remove them, clean and increase tension and slide back. Check the 1N82 mixer diode while you are in the tuner. Replace if necessary. UHF will work fine after that. That TV is a good performer. Zenith crammed a lot of value into that little package.

Don

The shims in the UHF tuner go bad. You can replace them or carefully remove them, clean and increase tension and slide back. Check the 1N82 mixer diode while you are in the tuner. Replace if necessary. UHF will work fine after that. That TV is a good performer. Zenith crammed a lot of value into that little package.

Don

What's a shim in TV tuner parlance? Is it something you can describe in words? I tried googling it but didn't come up with anything.

John

The UHF tunes like an old radio, using a very small variable capacitor. The brass shims go between the tuning shaft and the compartment walls to provide a solid ground as the tuner rotates. They are tack soldered in and should be removed, cleaned and buffed, bent slightly and replaced. Of course it an earlier time you would just change them. They cost about a dime at the time.

Sometimes it is possible to clean them in place with a solvent and clean the contact surfaces with a relay burnishing tool or some other fine abrasive.

Thanks for the advice y'all - I definitely will put this one back into service.

This little set came out of Gulfport, Mississippi - escaped Katrina out there by two weeks, survived the damage & looting in my apartment and many moves thereafter. She wears a couple of battle scars from all of this, but I think she surely deserves a fix and a place in my home.

Aren't the larger, non octal tubes of that era (60's-70's) referred to as compactrons, or was that some G-E specific name/design? It seems that some have that name on them and others don't. I have a bunch in a box, but I would need a newer tube tester to be sure of their condition.

Aren't the larger, non octal tubes of that era (60's-70's) referred to as compactrons, or was that some G-E specific name/design? It seems that some have that name on them and others don't. I have a bunch in a box, but I would need a newer tube tester to be sure of their condition.

Yep, those are compactrons. I have a bunch of them too. I was browsing eBay earlier and saw an adapter for an Eico tester that took compactrons and nuvistors (among a couple of other types.) One day when the economy (or my economy) improves I'm going to get one of those.:yes:

Yes, those small Zenith TVs are excellent sets. I had one, a J121Y 12" solid-state portable, that went 22 years without a hitch and was still working when I gave it up in 2000, due to space issues in my apartment (I already had two 19" color sets and no room for a third, even a small portable). I think someone in my apartment building must have grabbed the small set when I put it out for the trash, as I looked out there a day or so later, before the trash was to be collected, and the TV was gone. I hope whomever picked up the set got some use from it, as it was still working almost like new--great picture and all, except the detent mechanism for the UHF tuner was broken, jamming the tuner on one channel....wouldn't you know it, a blank channel in my area.

I had not heard of the issues with the shims in UHF continuous tuners until I saw this post. I always thought those tuners were almost trouble-free, as the pre-1975 ones do not have the detented UHF channel selector. Is the problem being described a common one with continuous UHF tuners? I have owned several TVs with this type of tuner and never had such a problem, although I have had to have the detent mechanism disabled in one (my 1979 Zenith L1310C 13" color portable) when it broke. (Was this also a common failure in TVs using this type of tuner?) The tuner in that set then operated exactly like the pre-1975 ones, but it was plenty good enough for my purposes, until I gave up that set some 20 years later. One of the best things Zenith ever did with their small portable color sets, IMHO, was to do away with those detent UHF tuners and replace them with fully-electronic frequency-synthesized all-channel tuning systems. The ones in my Zenith Sentry 2 and RCA XL-100 CTC185 haven't given me five minutes worth of trouble, especially since the ground points on the CTC185's on-board tuner were resoldered; this was a very sore point with RCA/Thomson's CTC-17x through about the CTC202 chassis. It was finally licked in the CTC203 to current production; these sets have the tuners mounted separately from the main chassis, eliminating the grounding issue that plagued so many earlier chassis in that series. The problems loose or outright missing grounds caused in these tuners included loss of the EEPROM programming (due to noise entering the chip), which rendered the set unusable since this IC controls the operation of the entire TV. I can only guess how many of these sets were repaired under warranty (or put out for the trash if out of warranty) because of these issues. The number must have been huge, considering what a problem the onboard tuners were.

I had to clean the shims on my 12" Zenith UHF tuner. The stations would cut in and out or sometimes there would be no reception without jiggling the knob. After I took care of that, no problems thereafter.