Hey gang! I decided to take that '91 Magnavox TV back to the thrift store. I swapped it for a Sanyo that I thought was older than it was (thought it was from the mid 90's, but it's actually circa 2001!). It's model number is DS13390. It's a basic set just like the Magnavox, coax input only. The picture looks a lot better on this TV except for a little ghosting (color ghosting mostly) on the right side of the image/text. Otherwise, it's a good little set. Is there something I can tweak to fix it?

If there is a slight red cast flagging off sharply contrasted outlines, it is likely a weak CRT. A sanyo of that vintage likely has a screen and focus control on the side of the flyback, try adjusting the screen control a little and take note of the picture.....if turning the screen control down improves it and turning it up makes it worse, then you probably have a weak CRT.

Turning the brightness and contrast down may make it watchable.

Hard to guess what "a little ghosting" means - unless you post a close-up picture of the effect.

It seems like if it had a weak tube, it would be overall too dark. It's mainly whites that seem to streak a little. It's got a fine picture, otherwise.

The ghosty streaks stay proportional to the screen control I can even see them slighty with the screen adjustment almost all the way down.

Hard to guess what "a little ghosting" means - unless you post a close-up picture of the effect.
http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x207/Trance88/tubeghoststreak_zps5204f4de.jpg

If the drive is turned up high to compensate for a weak tube, you can get an obvious bright "tearing" to the right of white objects, ususally in one color (often red.) You can get rid of this by turning down the contrast or "picture" control.

If you have a smear that's there at all contrast settings, it's something else.

By the way, a weak picture tube won't usually be especially dark because the screens and drives will be turned up to get the brightness back. Then two things can happen:
the gun(s) runs out of current in the highlights and the picture gets a "milky" look and/or changes color in the brightest highlights; and/or the excess video drive saturates an output transistor(s) giving that bright tearing to the right.

So, the word "smear" is not sufficient to diagnose what you are seeing. You also need to diagnose by turning the color all the way down to see if the smear is in luma rather than chroma.

Does this set have synthesized tuning, or is there a fine tuning control that could affect it?

I was thinking it might be the tuning, but I can't find the fine tuning control. I'm guessing since it's a 2000 model, it's synthesized. The smear is there at all settings, so it's gotta be something else besides the tube.

Edit:
Gawd dammit!!! While I had it open I had the screen face down on a desk and now there's a big scratch in the glass. So much for this TV.:wtf:

Oooookay! 4 days ago, I took that Sanyo TV back to goodwill and went to another thrift store and picked up a 1984 10" Quasar TV (It's vintage, right? Almost 30 years old!). Interesting how this set uses a shadow mask type screen. Never had one before. Bright clear picture overall, but it's doing the exact same thing. I've now tried multiple RF modulators including a VCR and 3 different cables. I still can't get rid of that color ghosting. I don't get it.

In the picture it looks like a luminance smear to me, not color.
Hard to track down this kind of long smear, as it could come from several things.
1) in the video source - have you tried different sources?
2) in the modulator (apparently not, you tried several)
3) in the receiver IF (apparently not, you have tried 2 sets)
4) in the receiver video section (apparently not, you have tried 2 sets)

It's also possible that in the combinations you have tried, you are getting similar but not identical effects from different places in the system as you change things. But if you are always using the same video source, that is now the obvious suspect.

Nope, I've hooked a DVD player up to the RF modulators that I have. Same thing.

Have you seen any example of a set without this?

It is possible that you are looking at an imperfection that is present in most sets to a slight degree due to not having a perfect Nyquist slope around the video carrier. Analog systems have a vestigial sideband in broadcast and a double sideband in home modulators, both of which extend beyond the lower edge of the receiver bandpass. Analog systems depend on the receiver response having a symmetrical slope around the video carrier. Any imperfection in that slope will show up as a smear of some kind.

I guess it might be location too. I'll have to move it and see if things improve.

I've seen smeared video caused by a poor low frequency response within the video ckts, mainly the lumanance video amplifiers. Usually a bad cap, or off value resistor.
Also check the delay line if it has one. I once had a CTC9 roundie that had outline type ghosting, and found it was caused by a bad delay line which rarely fails. Of course that was a much older TV.