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Yeah, I grew up with the Lundberg - I'm probably wearing that phrase thin around here :)

Thanks for the scans - it was really nice reading that.

This is a great catalog. I always liked that HM-801 combo unit. I have this catalog too, the only other RCA catalogs I have are for 1967, 71 and 73. I'd like to scan those and put them up here. Its nice to see them in PDF form, this way you don't ruin the catalogs as some of mine are very fragile from being looked at 100 times.

Andy, how did you put yours together? From looking at the link, I didn't see how you made it all work. I save my scans from my other catalogs as a multi-page PDF but the file size is huge (over 25 MB). I found a few free PDF hosting sites but they limit uploads to 25MB while others are "only good for 30 days". Do you compress your files somehow?

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Too bad the GL759 (I grew up with) is not there. I'm guessing the second character of the model number might be a model year. Anyone know the model name for a GL759WK?

I noticed that the FM513 in this catalog is "The Whitby", which was also used on a CTC-5 model about 15 years prior.

An early case of "electronics recycling?".

Hey, there is the set that I had in my bedroom for years! The Urbanite, huh? I never knew. It was never a great performer, sadly. It suffered from a broken plastic mount for one of the built-in antennas and the VHF tuning knob cracked at the base at one point. The replacement sourced from the local RCA depot came in gray, not black. It was replaced in the early 80s by another 14" RCA portable which worked much better.

Holy Chroma Batman, RCA sure made some great looking sets back in their hey-day!

Thanks for posting the catalog Andy - very nice. Great looking sets and great to look back into late 60's / early 70's decor - where there is a pleasantly noticable absense of assemble it yourself crap from Ikea and wallyworld.

Wow, a "computer crafted" radio tuner (page 5) in the home entertainment centers. :thmbsp: :D

We all love our Zeniths here...me included...BUT one HAS to admit that, in the "old days", RCA sure did have some sets that "pushed the technological edge"...at least, till about the time GE took over or so. From about the late '60's..till the mid 80's or so... Probably with the KCS-153 or so, taking the step of putting an IC in a consumer product...the FIRST TIME that had been done, in 1966. Then--the CTC-40, then the G2000-in 1969, ...and in 1975, the CTC 74/81"Direct address" sets discussed recently, and in about 1984 or so...the "dimensia" system in the CTC-131/132. and up till about the 140...their sets STILL had a semblance of quality too!! Till about the 169...the really last decent chassis....

TIll then...one could always seem to count on RCA unveling some "out there" idea for one of it's new sets--that would push the envelope, and set the trend for the future. The DA sets were a HUGE advance for their time--and even MORE SO was the 2000. and unlike the "current trend" things...those sets DID WORK right--and for a LONG time!!

So...what HAPPENED, over the last 20 years or so??? since then...RCA has came out with mostly forgettable chassis, in particular the MM series...one of the WORST rube--goldbergish messes I have EVER seen!!

We all love our Zeniths here...me included...BUT one HAS to admit that, in the "old days", RCA sure did have some sets that "pushed the technological edge"...at least, till about the time GE took over or so. From about the late '60's..till the mid 80's or so... Probably with the KCS-153 or so, taking the step of putting an IC in a consumer product...the FIRST TIME that had been done, in 1966. Then--the CTC-40, then the G2000-in 1969, ...and in 1975, the CTC 74/81"Direct address" sets discussed recently, and in about 1984 or so...the "dimensia" system in the CTC-131/132. ...

TIll then...one could always seem to count on RCA unveling some "out there" idea for one of it's new sets--that would push the envelope, and set the trend for the future. ...
So...what HAPPENED, over the last 20 years or so???


RCA got raped and pillaged in a corporate takeover by GE in the late 80's, I was there. It wasn't pretty. So pretty much things went to hell there after RCA was no longer a company but just a brand name. :thumbsdn:

I used to work at the RCA Smornoff Lab, developing digital signal processing of NTSC signals. Got several patents there.

RCA did develop some new good stuff, but they also came up with some big bombs, like that CED videodisc. :thumbsdn: They dropped about $570 million on that thing. But 15 years later DVDs came out, and they were a hit. Aside from being digital, go figure. :scratch2:

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I mentioned earlier that my "Urbanite" bedroom set from the 1970s needed a new VHF tuner knob at one point back then and that RCA supplied one that was gray and not black like the original. Last night I was watching an episode of Hawaii Five-O season 7 and there is a scene where a character is watching TV. The set is either an earlier or later version of that same Urbanite model, with the exact same control layout but different colors and -- you guessed it -- a gray tuner knob! So that is where it came from. Strange that RCA would restyle a set cosmetically from year to year.

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That's the first time I've seen those high-boy cabinets. Wonder how many they actually sold?

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I've never seen a high-boy either, except for one. I did see a home-entertainment system in the late 80's. TV didn't work. The family had some money, so I suspect those high-boys were pricey, considering we had TONS of RCA's on the service route (if I never see a CTC-38 again....).
Still wouldn't turn down one of those high-boys. They aren't as ugly as the Magnavox's.

I've seen one RCA high boy entertainment center. This was in the '90's and it belonged to some friends of my Mother. The owner was telling me that the original TV burnt up (as in smoked and stunk up the whole house) in the early '80's; so, he slid out the old TV and replaced it with one of those single knob tuned Zenith System 3's. I think it was a steel cabinet Zenith and it fit the opening for the old TV quite well. It didn't look like a hack job. The original RCA amp, tuner, and record changer were still there. I think they bought a new house in the late '90's and gave the old set to their daughter. I'm sure it's long gone by now.

The High-Boy I saw was "The Mark/Colonial Hutch HJ-873"
I saw a set I owned in the catalog. "The Aldrich GJ-729" What a piece of junk that was! It was sitting forever in my Uncles shop (circa 1978) so figured I'd have him fix it as it would fit in my bedroom. Of course, bad flyback. Had that changed, and the picture tube was weak. Had him put in a Zenith branded 25XP22, and it looked worse! I think a hack-tech at one point fu**ed around with the alignment, and we could never get it right. Junked it out, and used the new 25XP in a customers CTC-31

Some of those cabinets look pretty cool, and would be hard-pressed not to take one if I saw one at a sale, but as in previous posts, I'm sure you're aware I hated the CTC-38. RCA "cheaped out" on that one.That and the CTC-39 were the last tube chassis they used in a console. When we got a call on one it was almost always a bad flyback and a boat load of bad 6GH8's. The sets were mediocre when new, and once they got some age on them it got worse. We'd fix em if we had to, but always pressed the customer to not waste money and get into a solid-state Chromacolor. I'm sure that was the mindset of many repair shops in the late 70's early 80's, so it amazes me if I see one at a sale, altho I would have to say it's been a few years since I saw anything tube.

Thanks for posting the '68 catalog. RCA really had some top notch good looking cabinets. I too have always liked those vertical combos but I never saw one other than a magnavox. Some of those other cabinets were quite unique and I've never seen anything like it. Once I started to skroll down to the middle range and cheaper sets did I start to recogize them! I have an FL-532WR 23" remote table set that I got from Jamie back in '03. I still have it and is one of my favorite sets. Im surprized it wasn't in the '68 catalog there. I'm pretty sure its a '68 though, granted they didn't publish every single model available in the catalog of course.
I also have one of those "Headliners", the EJ505. I picked mine up at an estate sale back in '98. Those little CTC-22's have a great picture. That whole set basically works off of 5GH8's. They have like 8 or 10 of them scattered around the PC boards. I actually have a nice little booklet discussing the engineering details of the CTC-22. It shows pictures of the TV apart, but its not for the service tech, its more like an informational brochure for sales dealers. The book discusses the details and go in depth other than just telling you its equipped with a 5" twin cone speaker for supurb life like sounds etc. I also have a GJ-697W which was a curb side find back on in 2002.

I think we should post pictures of our sets that are published in these catalogs, we can them as an published in the brochure, and what they look like now 40 years later.

I still want to find one of the CTC22 sets with the white case and silver trim band . Like the one pictured in the 68 catalogue. I think I saw one in pictures oof a collection on here. This was our first color set and we got it in 1966 so they were already 2 years old when the 68 catalogue came out. Bought it at ACE appliance on Summer avenue in Memphis. I know we wern't the only ones that bought one, but they seem to be scarce around here.

Bill R

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... I'm sure you're aware I hated the CTC-38. RCA "cheaped out" on that one.That and the CTC-39 were the last tube chassis they used in a console. When we got a call on one it was almost always a bad flyback and a boat load of bad 6GH8's. The sets were mediocre when new, and once they got some age on them it got worse....

My grandma got a CTC39 in around 1975 to replace a B&W set. She probably got a good deal on it, clearance sale or such. My father (grandma was his mother in law, and they had the standard issue relationship...) and I would occasionally have to service it every so often in the early 80's. Don't remember anything big being wrong with it. Then grandma checked out in 1984 and we had it in our basement for a while. I do remember that the VHF tuner quit working, but oddly enough it still could get stations in UHF. Probably a dead local VHF oscillator. It got tossed in the early 90's.

I have two examples of the first and second generation CTC-22. The first one I found at an estate sale back in 1998 and the last one in 2005. I have the old RCA Service manual by Carl Babcoke and he mentioned that the ctc-22 was first introduced in March, 1967. His quote from the book "early production ctc-22's are easliy identified by the manual deguassing switch behind the TV". This particular one I have is an early production, I remember seeing many 1967 date codes in it as well last time I had the back off which was probably 8 years ago. The picture quality on the early ctc-22 is really good. The '69 isn't as sharp but still decent.

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_ta1B_ryr8bE/S7e58Vp_gjI/AAAAAAAABVc/5EmzpgJ0EAs/s800/DSCF2499.JPG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ta1B_ryr8bE/S7e582IcmRI/AAAAAAAABVg/r5o28TQBh4E/s800/DSCF2500.JPG

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_ta1B_ryr8bE/S7e59G1IgtI/AAAAAAAABVk/7H6AJztHzEw/s800/DSCF2501.JPG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ta1B_ryr8bE/S7e59EDXJoI/AAAAAAAABVo/E8xt1HBj_vs/s800/DSCF2502.JPG

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_ta1B_ryr8bE/S7e5_IaxByI/AAAAAAAABVs/b9_IZaq7718/s800/DSCF2503.JPG

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ta1B_ryr8bE/S7e6VOFOFgI/AAAAAAAABV8/-i7H34lcdm0/s800/DSCF2506.JPG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ta1B_ryr8bE/S7e6VTxKLEI/AAAAAAAABWA/mPYONb0pJf8/s800/DSCF2512.JPG

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ta1B_ryr8bE/S7e6VaFpvhI/AAAAAAAABWE/0wphN29R_qs/s800/DSCF2513.JPG

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ta1B_ryr8bE/S7e6VpQIfgI/AAAAAAAABWI/A4z3d50j3Ys/s800/DSCF2514.JPG

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_ta1B_ryr8bE/S7e6VwNbO5I/AAAAAAAABWM/obMMaH7E7e4/s800/DSCF2518.JPG

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_ta1B_ryr8bE/S7e6ghGOVLI/AAAAAAAABWU/NDX3b0ua8ec/s800/DSCF2515.JPG

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I've only seen one set like that. It was at a junk store, back in the mid '90's. It didn't work and the guy wanted $20 for it. When I asked why $20 for a broken TV; he said that he gave $20 for it and it was supposed to be working and he discovered that it was broken after it was too late. I offered $10, my maximum price at the time for a broken TV, but he was not interested. Had I been the seller, I would have taken the $10 and made up for the loss on something else.

That white 22 is the set I am looking for. We got ours on my 8th birhtday which would have been in Oct 1966. It would have been an early production 1967 model I guess. There was a 22A, B, and C chassis in this series with the B being the earliest production. Well at least all the A and C sets I have seen have been newer than the B series.
If you decide to part with it please let me know. I'm sure my wife is planning a trip to the Chicago area to catch a ball game. I would like to see your collection sometime.

Bill R

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_ta1B_ryr8bE/S7e6VTxKLEI/AAAAAAAABWA/mPYONb0pJf8/s800/DSCF2512.JPG



Yep, that is the exact set that lived in my bedroom from the early 70s to the early 80s. We also lugged it back and forth on weekends to our cottage in the country, which probably didn't do it's performance much good. Very nice -- though I must admit I like the other one better in terms of styling.

I'm pretty sure my parents had a Lundberg (CTC-40). After it got replaced by a Zenith (a real dog with bad module connections) a few years later it ended up in the cellar playroom. It lost the picture and I found a bad diode in the Horizontal Sweep section. It promptly (in the space of a few hours) chewed up the replacement diode and being a poor college kid with no test equipment (especially to check those fancy SCRs) the set got junked. I remember a few months later reading a blurb about RCA selling the wrong replacement diodes (first time I ever heard of a "fast recovery diode"). Who knows if the proper diode would have fixed it.