this is a very attractive table top I have been sitting on for a long while. the veneer is in good shape, has some minor water stain damage in one corner but overall very solid. Has a very good 12LP4A (I think, it looks aluminized) CRT that gets into the cutoff and has good emissions that hold for a long time in the life test. After such a fun time I had with the RCA T-120 I decided to move it up the list and give color a rest. It seems more compact than the RCA even with the FM tuner included. I like the continuously variable TV/radio tuner, that should be fun.

If anyone has worked on one of these please give me a heads up on typical issues.

pulled the chassis, wow, a lot of work been done. there is a can cap that was epoxied to the chassis rather than using the factor mount location, there are a LOT of not early disck caps (dipped looking ceramics) that are soldered on to the resistor leads, maybe some on was trying to decouple RF. There are some nichicons like a .1 250v that has a 78 on it (1978?), just a mixed bag, some metal film resistors, still some wax papers but it looks like most of them have been replaced. Looks like most of the orig electros are still there but for the one that was expoxied in. I calls for a 12KP4 but it has the 12LP4A so I am guessing this set has seen a lot of use, and a lot of service. Most of the cap replacement was done using the lay the wire by the old wire and flow solder. Its done pretty neatly so maybe that was a common practice back in the day (I have seen J hooking used, and I use pig tails when working around delicate parts). I have not seen this practice before. At least there is no electrical tape/wire nuts type repairs. All those disk are odd since I don't see any evidence of an old cap being removed where these disc end up going.

I have a sams for this coming so it should be interesting to see the schematic. I peered in at the fly but did not remove the cage for a close up exam. From what I could see there was no distress. Wish I knew the history as to what side lined it since clearly someone was into gettting it fixed.

the FM tuner included. I like the continuously variable TV/radio tuner, that should be fun.

If anyone has worked on one of these please give me a heads up on typical issues.
Isn't that a DuMont RA-103 clone? If so, this article might be helpful:

http://antiqueradio.org/DuMontRA-103Television.htm

Well built TVs -- my favorite brand. The only weak spot I recall offhand is the tendency of the wirewound focus pot to burn up. I replaced that part in my RA-113; you can get 'em from Surplus Sales of Nebraska.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Yep Phil that looks like it. just a quick look at the sams underneath makes me think a lot of the paper tube caps may have been replaced by all those disc, not sure though cause again I did not see any clipped out leads.

Please post some pix so we can see your fabulous work.. Timothy

...makes me think a lot of the paper tube caps may have been replaced by all those discs....

Hopefully no ceramic discs in sensitive RC or LC circuits, ceramic caps' values will drift due to temperature, and I had to re-replace a cap because of this in the horiz oscillator of a TV I recapped. As the horiz sync wouldn't stay locked as the set got warm.

what a mess, I hate it when people fix stuff and reroute wires etc... but at least I have a raster and the FM tuner is working (somewhat, sound is not that great, think the limiter is not working right). I get no snow and no snow sound when tuning in TV stations, so will focus on the tuner tubes next.

replaced most of the "repair" caps, looking good, nice pic now sync and fold over issues improved as I replaced the caps. I used the sams as a guide for the values as I did not trust any thing that did not look original. Its amazing how much better its working. Happens in stages, some caps made a difference others not so much, but I feel its better to at least try to use the as designed values and types. On interesting thing I found was what I think is a germanium diode that is connected to the video detector tube. Its clearly not in the schematic. this set uses a 6AL5 for video detection AND has a 6AL5 for DC restoration. It looks factory based on the age of the diode (looks like a cartrige fuse). I was careful to heat sink it when I was doing some cap replacement. Checked the front to back ratio about 4 to 1 in circuit. (4k one way, 1k the other). I think 10 to 1 is prefered, but with something that old maybe 4 to 1 was the norm, besides I did not look to see if it was isolated in the circuit. I am going to go back and look at the RA-103 dumont and see if it has something like this.

nearly done, had problems with low audio, turned out to be a discriminator secondary that was WAY out (took several turns to get right). Not sure what the deal was there, the bottom adj screw has B+ on it, and perhaps there is something wrong that shifted the resonance point. Anyway its working well, very nice black levels, CRT is very good. Just have to replace a few left plastic cased caps (tested fine, but I dont like them), and button it up.

turns out one of the power resistors that was one of the metal multi section resistors was open. It acted as part of a voltage divider, with it open (to ground) the B+ was high in the video IF and video amp. At 1st it did not seem to have any real effect correcting the open resistor brought the B+ back in line but I noticed no change in the pic. Then I started fooling with the contrast and I noticed that it works "better" now. Before the fix the contrast would work normally getting darker and darker until starting to lose sync, then as I continued to turn clockwise, it started to reverse and the contrast started to decrease almost as if I had started turning it back. Anyway now its works like expected, fully CCW and no signal just a blank rasteer, advancing it CW brings up the pic then the contrast increases up until the greys are lost, and then the sync, ultimately completely cutting off the pic. of the 6 resistors that were built into those strips, I have now replaced them all with separate WWs, mounted on single pole term strips, which were soldered to the orig term (the lower mounts ARE isolated from the single lug).

The set is rock solid but a bit fussy about setting up the brighness and contrast (it has NO agc). Since OTA is gone its not a big deal since all my signals are the same from the modulator.

It was good following your progress and we'd like to see that good contrasty picture when you get a chance.

I will get some pics soon, got to find the darn camera...

got some howards restore a finish so hope to work on the cab soon.

I need some help on the knob markings. I think someone stripped the cabinet a long time ago, there are NO markings at all around any of the knobs.

I would like to do a dry transfer, but that is something new to me.

was playing with the FM tuner last nite, got some weather service, they said they were on 166 mhz. also tuned in some air traffic control.

oh and I was mistaken about the CRT I though a 12LP4a was the aluminized ver of the 12LP4. now I know what I have is a 12KP4 which is the aluminized CRT. Not orig to the set, but sure looks good.