Well i came here a radio lover and am now rather interested in old tv's. Still learning about their "magic" right now, but i think ive become an addict.

Id love to see some homebrews guys made up back in the day, maybe some of the kits. If anyone has any pics, id love to see them. Thanks.

Most kits were for mechanical TV. Electronic TV was too complicated for most folks that did not have an EE Degree. There were companies that offered kit TVs such as Telekit (go to earlytelevision.org to see some of their products and read about them), Heathkit, and some of the electronics corespondence schools.

I have a couple of kits but they are in storage right now.
NRI Kit - 2 inch crt
Another probably 1947/1948 7" 7EP4 CRT TV school kit
Heathkit from UK
Couple of cabinets for Transvision kits waiting for me to find chassis
I also have a prewar Andea kit which I can get a picture of later

Richard

Thanks for taking the time to post your sets, rid-tv01. I really enjoyed seeing them as I am sure some other members did also.

Thanks Rld, those are some very interesting sets.

Ive been looking at all the old magazines on ebay with "build your own tv receiver" articles in them. I figured some people had to have built them.

I built a Heathkit color set in 1975. I suspect the Heathkits were in a class by themselves compared to earlier kits, in that the Heathkits were thoroughly complete in both the parts supplied, the instructions for assembly and alignment and even the provision of built-in test equipment when necessary. The color set had a built-in dot generator for convergence, for example.

I built a NRI TV in 1982. I bought it from a friend that paid for the course, blew up the first circuit he assembled, and never touched it again. Mine has the Dot/Bar Generator, too. Needs a CRT--25V. No service except tweeking the CRT over the years.

At the time, I took a few polaroid SX-70 pictures of it. I'm looking for them.

I built a NRI TV in 1982. I bought it from a friend that paid for the course, blew up the first circuit he assembled, and never touched it again. Mine has the Dot/Bar Generator, too. Needs a CRT--25V. No service except tweeking the CRT over the years.

At the time, I took a few polaroid SX-70 pictures of it. I'm looking for them.

I believe the NRI kit was a rebadged Heathkit.

I too, built a Heathkit set in the late 1970's, a 25 inch with the built-in dot generator; still have it in the garage, worked when last turned on, 8 years ago-weak picture tube originally forced me to get a newer set in 1988. It's in the large Early American cabinet, quite an experience building it back then but it worked fine from the start.

If mine was a Heath set, I didnt know it. Mine only had the metal wood grain cabinet. If I run across a good 25V tube for it, I'll replace the one thats in it.

This set came with all the IF sections built and aligned from the factory. I thought that was interesting, since I built the oscilloscope kit before the TV, and did alignments with it. The scope still works today. I have it connected to a VCR in my system and it shows video levels.

Forget all those Heathkits, this is ultimate homebrew TV set:
www.richardbrice.net/ww_tv.htm (http://www.richardbrice.net/ww_tv.htm)

The author describes two TV sets built from scratch by his father using plans from Wireless World. The latter one he built was a color model:
The design was a hybrid solid-state/valve variant. All the small-signal stages contained transistors: the output stages and the timebases, valves. This wasn't a kit: all the electronics was either constructed on tag-board on copper-strip, matrix board (Veroboard). The only PCB was the IF strip and this was made by hand from copper-clad board with a drill and a sharp pen-knife! Certainly, the most remarkable part of the whole project was the colour decoder section, constructed on two, long strips of matrix board.

Some photos:

http://www.richardbrice.net/pas_tv_back.JPG
Chassis

http://www.richardbrice.net/if_strip.JPG
Homemade IF Strip

http://www.richardbrice.net/decoder_detail_small.JPG
PAL Color Decoder

The sad part is that he tossed it after his father died.

Forget all those Heathkits, this is ultimate homebrew TV set:


Truly a thing apart from the rest. Marvelous!

I LOVE this TV!

[QUOTE=Retrovert;3028848]Forget all those Heathkits, this is ultimate homebrew TV set:
www.richardbrice.net/ww_tv.htm (http://www.richardbrice.net/ww_tv.htm)

Amazing.

I have a mid 80's Heathkit that is basically a pull off the line from their Zenith ownership days. I still have the TV and am still using it!! 27 inch TV. Its hardly as complicated as any tube tv from the 70's or 60's but I had a great time building it. I replaced the main board once myself and then a choke went out a few years back on that new board. A real TV guy fixed that part for me.

Welcome to VK, el34guy! Was the Heathkit a very big savings over a comparable Zenith?

When I was cleaning out a TV shop for a friend of mine I found a 10BP4 and then a chassis that was obviously a kit. I asked him about it and he had built it himself. I really wanted to take it and get it going, partially as a tribute to him, but he didn't want to part with it yet. A few months later I looked and it was gone. Somebody had offered him $100. I sure can't blame him for selling, since I couldn't have paid that much. I have no idea what brand it was. Wish I snapped a photo. I keep thinking maybe the buyer will show up on here?

I really need to take some pics of my 12" Transvision. I posted some not long after I joined but they've all been lost in the shuffle, I suppose. I really need the excuse to power it up; it's been dormant for too long.