I know, I know, I've been away from the hobby for a long while (shame on me). Things got busy and I got carried away with other hobbies - frankly, I got a bit burned out on TV's. Too many sets needing too much work, and I was never able to find the elusive "daily watcher" I wanted. Every set I ever find is in such bad shape - and that wears on you after a while.

But, anyway, I did acquire this one later model Philco roundie. It's one of the very last round color sets, I think, complete with a neat side view tuning eye.

Anyway, when I got the set, it displayed only a purple-tinted black and white picture. I replaced a cap in the color demodulator circuit, and got color... sorta. Red and blue, but no green. I had tested the tube then, found that the green gun gave me no reading at all, and pretty much put the set in the corner.

So, I dragged it out again today. Hooked up the tube tester again, still no green (guess it doesn't get better by sitting for a year). I carefully desoldered the three pins associated with the green gun, and reflowed them with fresh solder - hoping there was simply a bad connection between the tube pins and the feedthrough wires to the glass. Hooked up the tube tester again, and... still nothing. Nada. Zip. Can't get any reading from green. I tried the Clean/Balance function and gave it a zap - no effect. In desperation, I clicked over to Rejuvenate and tried a bigger zap.... And still nothing.

I've never seen a gun in a tube so dead that it won't produce any reading at all. Generally just real, real weak ones. I can see inside the tube and tell that all three filaments are lit - so that's not burned out at least.

The only thing I can think of is that perhaps one of those wires has broken inside the tube base - between the pins and the glass. Or, perhaps there really is something wrong with the green gun, and it's dead. I don't know. Has anyone successfully removed the base from a picture tube, and reinstalled it? I tried once on a dud 5U4, and even on that simple tube, was not able to get the all the wires unsoldered cleanly enough to get them to slide out of the pins. Of course, in that case, I really just wanted the tube base - but here I'd need to salvage both.

Any suggestions?

-Ian

I just changed one of these out the other day. I had a junk 21fjp22, I used a big weller soldering gun and a good manual solder sucker. I just heated each pin up and hit it with the desoldering tool, this removed all of the old solder in the pin. The base came off pretty easy as it was already slighty loose. I did the same thing with a good 21fjp22 with a broken base. I then soldered small gauge bus wire to the wires on the good tube and fed these through the pins on the good connector. I then used electronic grade rtv to glue the base to the good tube and soldered the wires in the pins. Should work on your tube, just take your time and be patient, you have nothing to lose by tying it! Good luck.
Mike

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once the base cement is loose make a loop tip for your weller gun from 12ga bare copper.form it to hit all pins at once,tin it and desolder the base.
tubes with one totally dead gun are about 50/50 open pin in base to open weld inside.that is as long as the heater is good in the suspect gun.

Back in the 70s I had a Motorola with a round tube, I don't remember which tube, that had the same problem. I could see in the neck that the heater for the green gun was not lighted. I found that if I tapped on the neck of the tube, the connection would make and as long as the set was on, it worked. The set was of the transformerless type, with series heater string, and had a heater transformer only for the picture tube. I wired the heater transformer ahead of the off-on switch so the tube heater would be energized all the time. The fix worked for well over a year until I found a better tv in someone's trash, a Setchel-Carlson, and got rid of the Motorola. The only issue with it was anytime that the power went out, or the tv got unplugged, I had to take off the back and tap the neck of the tube.

Now of course I wish that I had kept both of those tvs.

Philco roundie. It's one of the very last round color sets, I think, complete with a neat side view tuning eye.
I am curious about a color roundie with a tuning eye. DuMonts with an Inductuner had a magic eye, but they also had integral FM radio, an additional reason to include an eye. I wonder why Philco put one in this set . . . .

Phil Nelson

I am curious about a color roundie with a tuning eye. DuMonts with an Inductuner had a magic eye, but they also had integral FM radio, an additional reason to include an eye. I wonder why Philco put one in this set . . . .

Phil Nelson

Their ads for their rectangular sets (probably about the same time as a late roundie) showed an actual off-screen picture and said:
"Our Brand new tuning eye makes it easy to tune in color like this. As easy as tuning a radio.
We've eliminated the guesswork in tuning in the picture. Just turn the fine tuning dial until the little green eye is at it's narrowest point, and you've got it."

That was an age of gimmickry-GE used tuning meters, Westinghouse had an on-screen tuning indicator...something to set them apart, and people love gimmicks. I'm a sucker for them myself! And those indicators that Philco used were eye catching. (interesting how they were about the only major radio company to not use an eye tube in the 30s-making up for lost time?)

Yeah, "brand new" is an interesting descriptor for a magic eye in the 1950s. Maybe they meant "new to Philco." :)

Does anyone have a photo of the Philco with tuning eye?

Phil

Yeah, "brand new" is an interesting descriptor for a magic eye in the 1950s. Maybe they meant "new to Philco." :)

Does anyone have a photo of the Philco with tuning eye?

Phil

The ad that I quoted had a huge reproduction of the screen shot, and a small picture of the (rectangular) set, on which it would be hard to see any details of the control panel. In this series, they did not illustrate particularly what the tuning eye looked like. I have at least two ads of this format, one with a kid eating an ice cream cone, and the other with Red Buttons, and there is a third (which I may have but can't find) of a cowboy.

If I remember, I'll look through my NYWF memorabilia and see if it was mentioned in the Philco brochure from the Ford pavilion.