This has probably been done before but what is your favorite and most durable set? You dont have to own it BTW.

I had a 1990 Sony XBR I used for 15 years, the CRT was getting a little soft but it still worked great when I gave it away a few years ago. Only repair was re-soldering some bad joints when it was about two years old.

Favorite set, the Panasonic Plasma I have now, durability? only time will tell.

If you are refering to old sets it might be the 10" admiral bakelite floor model , i can't think of the model number at the moment , if it is newer RCA 25" console from 1980 , i just recently got rid of it but it ran and ran and was still running , probably toward the end of when they were still made in the USA

mike

My most durable is my little 8 inch RCA personal portable. It is the little metal cabinet set sometimes found with the tilt stand and built-in rabbit ears. Mine is in a grey metal cabinet and it is the version with just the four plastic feet on the bottom and no included aerials. After I restored it, the set worked for 9 years before needing another repair. Since then it has performed dependably. I like the set because it is compact, ruggedly built, has a transformer power supply and just has that old TV look that you can't get on anything new.

As far as favorite, it is a tie between the above mentiond set and my 8 inch Motorola 9VT1. I love the round screen and the set since restoration has been very reliable.

That's a tough one, but I'd have to say my 1946 RCA Victor 621TS. The set just scores 10's in every respect, not to mention the John Vassos design provenance. It performs very well, although the fine tuning must be very percise to get full volume. I grabbed this one over 20 years ago when they were a bit more reasonably priced than today. With a previous full chassis resto, it has performed excellent with the limited usuage I've given it over the years.
http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/m554/decojoe67/radioTVcollection006.jpg

If we're talking vintage sets then probably my 1953 Philco has seen the most use since i restored it. The vertical has developed some issues since some of the original cans are still in it.
None of my old sets sees daily use so it's hard to determine reliability.

Any 1950s GE.

Vintage or modern I guess would work. Probably should have posted thin in general discussion.

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=177310&d=1356051609
I think this one would be my favorite. Had one just like it when I was a kid, which used to be my grandma's, before she checked out around 1960.

Among early models I'd have to go along with others and say Admirals, specifically a 10" bakelite console and a rect screen table model. If I absolutely had to go back, right now, and watch something on a BW set, those are as reliable as anything in the room. Of all the sets I have, I guess the CTC-5 is my favorite but certainly not the most durable.

Even though short lived, my Motorola 17p6 was a DX recieving fool.. Got far away channels on the built in rabbit ears.

Still lookin for one folks :D

SR

I bought a 1956 Philco 21" table model in 1982 or so in a Goodwill for $10. I was a teenager, so I used it quite a lot then. I remember that it came with a crt booster back then, but always did fine for, well, decades. We took it to the local tv shop for repair ONCE when the sound became distorted and a trip to the drug store tube tester didn't cure the problem. I think they put a resistor in the set.

Just a few years ago I finally replaced the original crt and two paper capacitors to cure some small vertical shrinkage horizontal issues. So, nearly 60 years of service with hardly any repair or restoration. That's one good set!

I bought a 1956 Philco 21" table model in 1982 or so in a Goodwill for $10. I was a teenager, so I used it quite a lot then. I remember that it came with a crt booster back then, but always did fine for, well, decades. We took it to the local tv shop for repair ONCE when the sound became distorted and a trip to the drug store tube tester didn't cure the problem. I think they put a resistor in the set.

Just a few years ago I finally replaced the original crt and two paper capacitors to cure some small vertical shrinkage horizontal issues. So, nearly 60 years of service with hardly any repair or restoration. That's one good set!
I have a very similiar story! I was a teen in the early '80's too and got a '53 Crosley 21" console from a moving sale. It was still being used in the living room!! $50 seemed like fortune, but it was like new. I used it for years without any chassis resto. It was all original! I had to sell in a few years later when I moved. Many of those '50's TV's were true work-horses!

I bought a 1956 Philco 21" table model in 1982 or so in a Goodwill for $10. I was a teenager, so I used it quite a lot then. I remember that it came with a crt booster back then, but always did fine for, well, decades. We took it to the local tv shop for repair ONCE when the sound became distorted and a trip to the drug store tube tester didn't cure the problem. I think they put a resistor in the set.

Just a few years ago I finally replaced the original crt and two paper capacitors to cure some small vertical shrinkage horizontal issues. So, nearly 60 years of service with hardly any repair or restoration. That's one good set!

Was that the Microgrid 390 model?
They originally came through with a 6BZ8/X155 as an RF amp. IIRC, that was Philco's own tube. Most techs replaced them with a 6BQ7 or 6BZ7.
It also had a 90 degree CRT. Great working set.

My 1967 Philco 19" color (chassis 17KT50) luggable was found in a trash pile in 1978. Just a 2 watt resistor in the yoke was burned. The transistorized tuner and IF strip in that set was so awesome that it has moved with me 10 times, used in top-floor rooms with rabbit ears. It was a DXing maniac!

It still works but the CRT guns are equally weak and it seems to not like a DTV box for some reason.

My 1967 Philco 19" color (chassis 17KT50) luggable was found in a trash pile in 1978. Just a 2 watt resistor in the yoke was burned. The transistorized tuner and IF strip in that set was so awesome that it has moved with me 10 times, used in top-floor rooms with rabbit ears. It was a DXing maniac!

It still works but the CRT guns are equally weak and it seems to not like a DTV box for some reason.
Magnavox DTV boxes, don't seem to be old set friendly. :sigh:

I wonder why? Just because of strong signals?

the most durable set probobly a late 50s zenith b/w

my favorate set though is a tie between the kuba komet, and rca victor coffee table set.
now ive owned a coffee table and a late 50s zenith, but not a kuba komet

OK, nobody laugh...

A Sampo (Not Sanyo) 19" color set purchased from a now defunct Seattle area discount warehouse (Jafco) in 1980. The jungle IC went out in it after about a year. I broke all the rules and re-soldered the new IC back into the set instead of "socketizing" it.

I paid $200 for the set new, and $12 for the IC. That set saw minimum 10 hour per day use until 2002, and still worked except the CRT was getting tired and badly out of focus. My father used the set exclusively during that time. He liked to turn the set on first thing in the AM, then get coffee and a shower. He leave it on if he went anywhere, except for turning it off while at work.

I hope I did not post this already. If I did, I declare "senior moment", and sincerely apologize.

Looking back, probably the most durable set, both in terms of build quality and longevity, was a Zenith. Don't remember the model or chassis number, but it was an early-60s VHF-only, metal cabinet table model 19 inch. Power tranny with 3DG4 rectifier, 90 degree CRT with BIG NECK (as opposed to the more common 110 degree, small neck). Used it for 5 years and gave it to a widow lady who used it with a UHF converter for many more years till she passed away. The set never needed service or had the back off.

Looking back, probably the most durable set, both in terms of build quality and longevity, was a Zenith. Don't remember the model or chassis number, but it was an early-60s VHF-only, metal cabinet table model 19 inch. Power tranny with 3DG4 rectifier, 90 degree CRT with BIG NECK (as opposed to the more common 110 degree, small neck). Used it for 5 years and gave it to a widow lady who used it with a UHF converter for many more years till she passed away. The set never needed service or had the back off.
AFAIK, that model was the only Zenith that used that CRT.
Are you sure that it used the 3DG4? All the Zeniths I saw with that CRT used the rare 5BC3, novar based 5U4 equivalent.
I've been wrong before, maybe once. :D

Hi All;
The only set that I have known for that long, was the second Set my parents had.. It was on almost daily by me.. It was a B&W, I think Magnovox, somewhere between late 50's and Early 60's.. It had Stereo, But I am not sure when that came out.. I was a TV in the middle.. Speakers on each side, with Phono on upper Left hand side.. With AM/FM radio and Tuner on the Upper Right hand side.. I remember it have a TV Repairman come out, but most likely for a Bad Tube.. Its Demise, came when I Thought it would be an easy job to comvert it to color.. So, I took the B&W set out and tried to put in a color chassis, I had scrounged up somewhere.. Needless to say it went to the basement and our living room had a big empty wall..
THANK YOU Marty

...Are you sure that it used the 3DG4?
Yeah. Unless i'm losin' my marbles (which is entirely possible):bat:
The reason it sticks in memory is that it was the first 3DG4 I'd ever encountered. Maybe another oldtimer could chime in as to whether yea or nay.

:D

So far, my most durable has been this '57 Philco Diamond D set that I recapped back in 05 a few weeks before Hurricane Rita. So far, other than removing the safety glass to clean off the CRT, I have done no further repairs to the set. It's been used very regularly since 05... sometimes running 12+ hours a day.

The Philco is the set on the bottom. the top set is a '59 Motorola.

Yeah. Unless i'm losin' my marbles (which is entirely possible):bat:
The reason it sticks in memory is that it was the first 3DG4 I'd ever encountered. Maybe another oldtimer could chime in as to whether yea or nay.

:D

The set just struck me as being an odd model. The higher priced models used the 110 degree CRT and the 3DG3.
IIRC, that set is the only model that used a 19", 90 degree CRT. Zenith could do anything they wanted, as they owned their own CRT plant. :yes:

The set just struck me as being an odd model. The higher priced models used the 110 degree CRT and the 3DG3.
IIRC, that set is the only model that used a 19", 90 degree CRT. Zenith could do anything they wanted, as they owned their own CRT plant. :yes:
Hah. Never realized it was such a one-off model before. It was sure heavy, built like a tank, and acted as if it could run forever with zero service.

Hi All;
Isn't that what made Zenith and gave them a Great Trademark.. At least during the 50's and earlier.. I can't say about their later stuff.. When you had a Zenith, even Considering that it would last forever.. If you wanted a second set or a friend wanted a referral.. Zenith owners were glad to do so.. They liked their tanks, except at moving time..
THANK YOU Marty

I would have to say the most durable set I've had is the 15" Zenith b/w portable that my grandma bought new about 1974 or '75. She used it for the rest of her life and I've had it since she passed away in '86. It's worked flawlessly nearly 40 years and has never had the back off.

Hi All;
Isn't that what made Zenith and gave them a Great Trademark.. At least during the 50's and earlier.. I can't say about their later stuff.. When you had a Zenith, even Considering that it would last forever.. If you wanted a second set or a friend wanted a referral.. Zenith owners were glad to do so.. They liked their tanks, except at moving time..
THANK YOU Marty
I was never too fond of the Zenith sets built before 1958.
Most people didn't like those big clunky tuners, even though they were built well.
I think Zenith realized, when they made the 1956-57, donut chassis, that they weren't service friendly. In 1958, they started the Service-Saver design and the rest is history. :yes:

I was never too fond of the Zenith sets built before 1958.
Most people didn't like those big clunky tuners, even though they were built well.
I think Zenith realized, when they made the 1956-57, donut chassis, that they weren't service friendly. In 1958, they started the Service-Saver design and the rest is history. :yes:

my 59 zeniths been working great since i got it unrestored exept the horizontal problem but i already have that part

I too like the Zenith b/w sets from that same era, particularly the ones in the metal cabinet with the remote. How long did Zenith make those with that same basic chassis design? The oldest I've had is from 1959 - newest is 1971. The 1980 16" set I have has a totally different chassis, but I've never had one (other than the little 9 or 12" portables) made between 71 and 80 so I don't know the last year of these.

I currently have 10 of these Zeniths, my favorite is the 1966 19" metal cabinet set with the SC300 remote, automatic shutoff control and a the dual speakers.

The most durable and my second longest owned TV was a Sears.

Well, I always hated round CRT's because they cut off the corners of the image, so in 1965, as soon as I got settled in Long Island City and caught up on my moving bills, I purchased the cheapest non-round set that I could find -- a $210 floor model 16 inch color Sears (rebranded Toshiba) at a small Sears outlet that was closing. It was my daily driver and nothing went wrong until three moves later in 1972 when it developed an extremely annoying problem.

About every two or three days, it would simply shut down the picture and sound. The HV would remain and you could hear static from the speaker. At first the only thing that seemed to help was to turn off the set and wait a couple of minutes and turn it back on, and it was good for a couple of days.

Needless to say my wife was not happy with this problem. Tube checks and substitutions did not solve the problem.

I turned the set upside down and when working, all the voltages in the suspected problem areas seemed normal.

I quickly discovered that when the set went out, usually attempting to make the first voltage measurement would restart the set before you could get a reading. I tried leaving my voltmeter connected to the set to see what changed when the set quit. To save time, I quickly started measuring two points at a time with a pair of VOM's to check more efficiently.

After about three weeks with the set upside down, my wife started burning my ears about getting a new set, so I picked up a used round Zenith, with a rather weak CRT to buy some time.

A couple of days later when things quieted down, I finally noticed that the AGC shifted during the problem, so to determine if it was a cause or effect, I disconnected the AGC and jury rigged a pot and battery to manually control the AGC and discovered that this stopped the problem. The problem turned out to be an intermittent resistor in the cathode of the video output, which supplied the AGC reference or keying and I damn sure found it the hard way. The voltages both working and non-working were so close to normal that I had suspected nothing in this circuit.

After fixing, this set was then moved to our bedroom, where I removed the legs and placed it on top of our wardrobe so we could watch Johnny Carson while in bed. Getting up to shut it off was no fun, so I made up a long power cord with an AC switch on it. This set was in almost daily use from 1965, until we moved in 1984, at which time the seven foot ceiling in our home prevented its night time use.

With no need for the set, I left it in our unheated garage, but it occasionally it was brought out when our Zenith acted up. I think the last time was about 2002 or 2003, when our last Zenith croaked. At that time, it still worked, but the sync, convergence and tint drifted.

One resistor and the still-checked-good video output tube were the only repairs ever done to that set while it was in regular use.

Just before I moved in 2007, I turned the set on for the last time, and it still put up a watchable picture, but obviously it needed recapping after 42 years, and not knowing how rare the set was, I decided to neck the CRT haul the set to the junkyard instead of moving it. I now regret that decision. :no:

The below link at ETF will show what this 16 inch Toshiba looked like when new.

http://www.earlytelevision.org/21_inch_color.html#sears

James

my 59 zeniths been working great since i got it unrestored exept the horizontal problem but i already have that part
Let's get that part installed, so we know if we were correct in our findings.
It's a whole day later! We're not getting any younger. :D

The most reliable set I have and the one with the best picture is an RCA 630TS that gets used for testing outboard circuitry I build and for testing of color wheel conversions I do. It has worked since I got it about 10 years ago and
has had a minimum of the original parts replaced.

Cliff

Hello my favorite set is my 1954 Crosley console tv with the doors on the front it is a daily watcher my second set is 1953 Admiral table top with built in radio at the bottom of the set tube type tvs is the way to go....Timothy

The most reliable set I have and the one with the best picture is an RCA 630TS that gets used for testing outboard circuitry I build and for testing of color wheel conversions I do. It has worked since I got it about 10 years ago and
has had a minimum of the original parts replaced.

Cliff

Wow Cliff, the color rendition on that is fantastic!

Wow Cliff, the color rendition on that is fantastic!

Yes, CBS had a better color picture both before and after NTSC!:banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:

Cliff