just got a set back from my daughter.it is a ctc187 badged ge 32 inch.i got this from a friend approx.7 years ago.replaced hot and resoldered tuner grounds.sharp picture with an almost black face crt.this set has played continueasly for those 7 years without a flaw.i heard a lot of comments about these being bad sets but i cant complain about this one.original hot was about 5.00 and some labor.i actually bought a replacement high voltage transformer for it.decided to let it run until it fizzles out.so far so good.maybe i have been lucky,but the picture is still sharp and right.

Those era of Thomson sets must not be that bad. In late 1999 I bought a no frills RCA 25" , which was the first new set I ever purchased. (I think it's a CTC-185) I ran the hell out of it, until I bought another new set in 2003. I only bought another new set because the RCA had NO inputs. Gave the RCA to some friends which was their main TV. It's now a "bedroom" set for that couple. I was over the other day and saw it running, and damn if the picture was fantastic! It's never needed a repair, and has been on daily for almost 11 years. The picture is a helluva lot better on that, than the high-end Toshiba that replaced it.

Great sets - the tuner grounds/EEPROM corruption aside. Some customers jerked the F fittings right off the sets, but that too was an easy fix.

Only saw one that had a fatal chassis - the PLL circuit in the tuner - VHF-H worked fine, but VHF-L didn't want to tune. Not even useable with a cable box.:thumbsdn: Salvaged the CRT from that one - have yet to use it.

Cheers,

hooked up a dot bar and played around with it yesterday afternoon.set it up and watched the superbowl.i have a sony 65 inch lcd set and a 106 inch projector downstairs in my movie room but i watched it on this set.i was impressed.this was just a spare set in our house and i never payed much attention to it.i just cant believe what a great picture this has.the last of the good rcas?puttung it in the rotation.may become my daily watcher.

Great sets those Thompson/RCA/GE 's of the mid 90's.
I've got 2 console CTC177AM2's, a 19" with a built in vcr and a butt ugly GE console - all 3 produce a great picture - excellent color saturation and flawless skin tones and impressive greyscale. Of course the 177's have had tuner issues but still fine sets for everyday watching - probably the last of the good RCA labeled sets are those mid 90's sets.

okay,need some help.went into service menu and accessed the v2 setting(horizontal).i went too far and the set shut down.cant get it to restart.had the finger on the remote too long.any help appreciated greatly

I will look in my RCA manuals - I know I have read the procedures for that scenario - give me a day or so to look.

Those era of Thomson sets must not be that bad. In late 1999 I bought a no frills RCA 25" , which was the first new set I ever purchased. (I think it's a CTC-185) I ran the hell out of it, until I bought another new set in 2003. I only bought another new set because the RCA had NO inputs. Gave the RCA to some friends which was their main TV. It's now a "bedroom" set for that couple. I was over the other day and saw it running, and damn if the picture was fantastic! It's never needed a repair, and has been on daily for almost 11 years. The picture is a helluva lot better on that, than the high-end Toshiba that replaced it.

I agree with you 100 percent. I have an RCA CTC185, 19" table model. Bought it new over ten years ago, and it has been working flawlessly on cable, VHS and DVD ever since. Only had one problem with it, a year after I bought it, which was the antenna connector on the tuner PC board. Unfortunately, the warranty did not cover the repair (ouch!)--cost me something on the order of $60-$70. Then the connector broke again about six months later, but prices had gone up by then so the second repair flattened my wallet even more. :no:

You are so right about the picture quality of these sets; mine makes a picture every bit as good as my 14-year-old Zenith Sentry 2, IMHO. As I write this the RCA set is on the NBC station in Cleveland and the last showing of the Jay Leno Show; the picture, as always, is beautiful. Say what you will about the problems RCA had with the CTC-18x series chassis up to the CTC203 (when they finally wised up and located the tuner remotely from the main board), but once those problems (poor tuner grounds, et al.) are resolved, these sets will give excellent service for years to come.

I've seen a few late production CTC185's that actually had a seperate stand up tuner in them while some of the early CTC203's had the tuner integrated into the main board.

Speaking of broken antenna connectors, I can't begin to remember the number of TVs of all brands that would come to me with a snapped off antenna connector. Many times, I was able to replace the connector without having to replace the tuner. And, I always soldered, rather than crimp, the connector in place in order to make it harder to rip out in the future. There have been a few cases where the tuner was severely damaged when the connector was jerked out.

What I find comical are the calls from people wanting to know how much I'll charge to put that "piece that the cable screws to back on". Many times, when I tell them $50, they have a fit. "$50 just to put that piece back on!". Then, I tell them, "would you rather pay $125+ for a whole new tuner?" They act like I should be able to just stick the connector back up in the hole and super glue it back in place. They don't realize what a PITA it can be to put some of those connectors back on.

Sampson,
Looked over tech manual - looks like you have to go back into service mode and manually enter ~ 181 parameters and values to reset the factory alignment - I have the #'s but they are for ctc 175 - 177 chassis. If you can pm me a fax # I can in the next few days copy pertinent parts of manual for you so you can try reset.