For me, it was around 1990, shortly after I started collecting antique radios. Someone gave me an early '60's 19" RCA B&W set with the knobs on top of the case. It had no UHF tuner. IIRC, it only needed the tuner and controls cleaned/adjusted. I watched that set for a year or so, until I found a 19" Philco-Ford B&W set with UHF. I sold the RCA to a young married couple for $25 and they were glad to get it. I don't think that would happen in 2011.

The first color TV I fixed was given to me shortly after the B&W RCA was given to me and it was a mid '70's 19" Zenith space command CCII set. That one had a blown vertical output fuse. I promptly sold that one for $50 because having $50 to buy radios was more important to me than having a color TV in my room. That set did have an outstanding picture.

A 25-inch Sharp Linytron from 1982 or so. The largest turret tuner set I have (still!) ever seen. I was about 12. The set was arcing from the flyback casing to the HOT (?) heatsink. I wedged a piece of vinyl stripping between the two and the set worked perfect from then on.

I wish I still had that set! I remember it had a REALLY fuzzy picture; at that time, I didn't know to adjust the flyback's focus control. My parents dumped it when I wasn't looking. :sigh:

Been better if you stuck a Penny in there...(grin)

Been better if you stuck a Penny in there...(grin)

I'd be set for the 4th of July :D

I had tinkered on a lot of sets when I was a teenager but I have a hard time remembering one that I actually fixed. I recall a 12" bw Panasonic in a bright orange cabinet. The PC board was cracked all the way around. I probably spent the better part of a day bridging the gaps and did get it to work, though my poor soldering skills meant it didn't last. That was around the time of the first gulf war; I was hauling home a ton of junk sets right about then. The first set that I really brought back from the dead was a '50 Philco 12" which I recapped later in the 90s. (after I discovered the "miracle" of recapping, starting with a '39 Silvertone radio, I was transformed!)

The first set I restored was a 1953 Zenith.
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I did make up a jury rig to fix the UHF tuner on a 1964 S0ny portable before that, but all other stuff before the Zenith met with no sucess.

Sandy, if you keep puting pennys in electrical gear you are going to have another house fire eventually. :eek:

Oh, I KNOW that...Trust me, I know enuff about this stuff to know when I'm Over My Head...And to then Fuggeddaboutit, & take it to Terry next time I'm down there...

I remember those 25" Sharp's with the rotary tuner. I think they made them up until the late '80's-early '90's. They were probably the last ones to make a set that large with a rotary tuner.

I messed around with and collected tvs since I was 7 years old and I found an old 16" Zenith b/w out in the shed. But I didn't really get into fixing tvs until nearly 15 years later in the spring of '00 when I curb-picked a 1971 Zenith 19" hybrid color set. That set worked as found - but I was excited by my success with that Zenith and started looking for more old tvs and radios to work on. In June of that year I picked up a 1959 24" Magnavox b/w combo set. I had no idea what I was doing at first, but I had it going by September, I'd say that was the first set I really fixed.

Mine was a 1980 Zenith (go figure) 12" B/W that we had since I was a baby (Still have this piece of くそ too:D) Anyways, the horizontal was all twisted up and out of adjustment like we've all seen but at 6 or 7 years old, it's a big deal. I got it going and told my mom, she still wanted to throw it out but I persuaded her not to.(obviously):D
She was like "Are you sure it's fixed? What if it poops out again" I was rolling my eyes at her at this point.

old bugeye zenith.i was a teenager when i found this pile.it was a nightmare.i worked on it for about a month before i got it working.first color set was a ctc 9.couple resistors in the if.i got service advise from mr dixon.that was the beginning of our friendship.i eventually worked for him and maintained a close friendship until his death.i remember when color was first on the market.the sets looked so good!there was a ct 100 in the window at hoermles in south columbus.not much color broadcasting in those days but when their was,parsons ave would be like flash mob!i was about 8 years old and my dad would take me down there on saturdays.he was going to purchase a color set in 1959.ctc9 i believe.get a loan from the city loan company and have it delivered.my mom found out and cancelled the order.we got a kelvinator refrigerator instead.it was around 1966 that we finally got a color set.

I was 14, and replaced the picture tube in the family's first TV. It was a little 14" bakelite "flat" table model Silvertone, series string with seleniums. The tuner was unusual, using ganged air-variable tuning condensers with switchable low-band/ high-band. Never seen another like it (in the flesh) since. Phil Nelson has a Capehart from 1948 with a similar tuner.
I guess the Silvertone would qualify for the Rectangular proviso of this forum since the CRT was the 'rectangular' type with rounded corners. :D

Mine was a Quasar 2 console. This was before I started working in my Uncle's shop, but I would hang out there and already knew how to use the tube tester. "My" repair was easy. Customer brought in the Quasar 2 and I discovered the horizontal output went to air. Popped a new one in, and it worked!
I even wrote up the repair bill on it! Easy repair huh???

My first (non-)repair was on an 18"/19" B&W portable that I bought for $5 at a thrift store and brought home on the bus and then the El train in Chicago. It had poor vertical linearity that could not be adjusted better, so I bought a vertical output tube that made it worse. (Of course, now I know it just needed a 50-cent electrolytic capacitor.)

My first successful repair was in another 19" B&W set that was completely dead in our closet at home. I read one of those "TV Symptoms" books and tested all the tubes at the hardware store. One did not light up, and I had read what a "series string" was. A replacement tube brought it back to life, and I was hooked! I am still in the electronics business now, 35 years later, and I would not want to be in any other industry.

back in the day when i was 11 years old a tv shop closed next to where i lived and left hundreds of tvs both black white and color and had the chance to play with them as i did and found out what the red wire on the crt did when i got hit with it. so that was the first time fooling with tvs of that vintage, 1971 but the sets were fom the 40s,50s, and 60s. until my 1996 crt rca took a dump and was told 150.00 to come look plus parts i then decided to fix it myself and i did 2 times,over 15 years, and still works great.

in the year 2003 only . My grandparents' 'signature series' POS 19" color. They replaced a beautiful zenith color console with this bargain-aisle clunker. Anyway, it was from '85 and it intermittently shut down after a while no matter what. I got in there with a soldering iron and radio shack solder spool...knowing just enough to get the job done(with zero knowledge of the circuitry or of the precautions to take)... Well it got fixed and lasted til they died and my family threw it out (oh, it's so old..):thumbsdn: Was probably a Sanyo or similar Japanese brand.

About the age of 10 or so I was bringing TV's home from the dump and just used to pull them apart - was too scared to plug them in!
One day I got daring and bought a small Philips black and white home from the dump, it was a transformerless series wired tubes etc. I popped the back off and found a blown fuse, replaced the fuse turned it on and the filaments lit up, so I stood there and waited....After about a minute or so I could hear off station noise from the speaker...things were looking good so far...then there was almighty shower of sparks from the flyback section and the fuse blew again!
Gave me a hell of a fright so I left it alone for a few days until I plucked up enough courage to have another go at it. Second time around I looked in the area where the sparks came from an noticed this round thing (capacitor) with a burn't hole in one side of it. Ironically I had a junk box full of parts I'd pulled from other TV's and found something that looked near enough, somehow soldered it in, powered the set on again and it worked!:banana: That was it I was hooked on old TV sets and have never looked back :yes:

I had two vintage TV b / w with tubes when I was 12, an Indesit and a Philco. I have never repaired due. Two years ago I started to collect TV, I was in a house with a client of mine to fix his boiler (I'm hydraulic) and I see two sets, one from '90s and a b/w from '60s. I ask if I can take the tube set and the same evening I started to test it. Is a Sinudyne b / w 24'' 1969-70. He had no vertical deflection, the yoke was broken so I bought for $ 10 a yoke made for a Brionvega set and I fix a TV for the first time :banana:

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I guess it would be my early-70's 9" Philco-Ford B&W. The horizontal hold pot popped out the circuit board on one side. My Uncle West (who repaired audio equipment all his life) showed me how to solder, and when I went home I couldn't figure how to get the chassis pulled. The bottom of the plastic cabinet is covered with vent slats and Uncle West said "hell, just use the iron to melt off the slat right below the pot and resolder it through the bottom." So that's what I did, and the darn thing still works today.

My story is similar in that I would drag home curb sets and strip them for parts, but really not daring enough to plug them in. Then in December of '83 when I was a HS freshman my sister brought home her 12" Zenith Hybrid B/W. I found that it would produce a raster but no picture. I used my cheesy radio shack transistor tester to find an open video output transistor. I replaced it with something out from radio shack and it was fixed! My sister didn't share my enthusiasm as she felt she should have a color set. I think her and her room mates ended up renting a color set for the next semester to watch their MTV on. Later the transistor opened again and I had moved out and I think my mom gave the set to the Salvation Army.

Well, if replacing tubes counts (I think not!), I can't remember. First set I fixed involving a slobbering iron was my Aunt's & Uncle's 21 inch Zenith B&W upright console.

After my parents FINALLY got a plain floor model 23" Zenith color in 1971, the "old set" went to the attic, where I would run a cord to it and watch Rod Serling's Night Gallery and other scary stuff after everyone went to bed. When they found out, it was donated to various relatives as a spare.
5 years later, I was happily re-united with this TV, a 1962-vintage 19" Motorola BW. The only issue was an open line thermistor, which I was given the sage guidance on "just jump across it". I was afraid 'cause I never saw THAT component before. It lit right up but was snowy on even the strongest channel. I sent the tuner via mail to someplace in Chicago. 6 weeks and $25 later, it was good as new. Those tuner places never did tell you what they replaced, but I certainly tested all the tubes first. I still have both sets in my attic.

I had a 25" RCA XL-100 console who's audio went out. Seems I had to replace an IC to fix it and while I was in there I replaced the crap 4x6" speaker with something better. Other than that I remember tinkering around with a early 70's Quasar 19" set to improve its picture.

I remember the first TV I restored by simply replacing tubes. (I do count replacing tubes in an old TV as repairing it.) The year was 1969; the set was a 23" 1963 Zenith b&w console, trash find, with all but two tubes (CRT and 1J3 HV rectifier) missing. Replaced all the missing tubes and was greeted by an excellent picture on all three Cleveland VHF network stations. Sadly, I had to give the set up when I moved in 1972. :no: After all the work I had put into it -- new tubes and so on -- I felt terrible having to leave the set behind, but I had no choice in the matter (long story and OT).

As for the first TV I repaired by replacing parts rather than tubes, it was, IIRC, a 1964 Silvertone color TV with both a defective power switch (push-pull type, mounted on the volume control) and a defective circuit breaker. Well, I guess I shouldn't say I actually repaired this set properly, as I jumpered the on-off switch and bypassed the breaker. :nono: However, what the heck -- I got the set working, not the best way to do it by any means, but the TV did work after a fashion for three years afterwards. I didn't worry about the bypassed circuit breaker, however, because I would use the AC line plug to turn the set on and off; I figured if anything went wrong with the set that would ordinarily trip the breaker, I'd know it immediately and could quickly unplug the cord from the 8-outlet power strip it was plugged into at the time.

I definitely would not "repair" a television or any other electronic device that way today, even if I could; in fact, I wouldn't dream of trying to repair a recent-vintage CRT or flat panel set, as I'd be too afraid of overheating or otherwise damaging a circuit board -- or worse.

When I did those admittedly temporary fixes (?) on my Silvertone, I was a 14-year-old kid just starting out in electronics. Today, I would repair an old set the correct way, by replacing a bad circuit breaker with one of the correct rating, and replacing burned-out or broken power switches with proper replacement parts or approved substitutes -- as well as finding out (in the case of a so-called "burned out", i. e. welded, AC switch) the reason the old part failed in the first place, to avoid having to replace the same part twice.

I don't remember which set was my first, but one that comes to mind was a friend's from high school. In the day 1971, it was an older RCA color roundie. Replaced a couple of tubes. His father couldn't believe that we got it working again for only around $5 of tubes.

RCA B/W "portable". Changed a few tubes.

First circuit level repair was a Midland 16" B/W set. Vertical section needed rebuilding - caps and resistors were bad. Shotgunned it and got it working.

Regarding Jeffhs's Silvertone with the bad power switch. I've seen TV shops do this as well to save customers money and downtime (bypass the power switch)