I just picked this up off of Craigslist. Cabinet is mint, and it gets a nice screen full of static after I brought it up on a variac. I will post more about it when I get it into the house and take the back off...
Anyone know the year on this one?

Since it has UHF, it's from '64 or later. What chassis does it have?

Since it has UHF, it's from '64 or later. What chassis does it have?

Milwaukee sets had UHF tuners from 1953.
The sets looks like a '62 or '63. RCA made that basic model for about four model years, KCS 136. The newer ones had novar sweep tubes and a voltage doubler. The older ones had a 5U4 and octal sweep tubes.
A fine set to add to your collection and a great performer. :thmbsp:

Milwaukee had UHF channels that show upon a 1954 list*, so it may be earlier and equipped with a UHF tuner because of the location. Could be as early as '61 or so with that tube shape.

jr

*WCAN 25; WOKY 19

I got this right in Madison, WI, from a seller who said it came with the house, Had been an elderly lady who had no kids.. Did Madison have early UHF stations? I'll open it up this weekend and have a peek inside, and test the tubes. It has a repair tag hanging on the back, so it has had some service before. The seller claimed it was a color set, she had a hang tag that said color, But that has the newer RCA logo, and the pictures of the controls did not match the set, and further examination showed it to be from a 15" portable. I was hoping for a color set, but the price and condition were right so I grabbed it anyway. I have wanted a big screen B&W set also, although I had been holding out for a Zenith or Setchell Carlson. This one seems to be a 23" tube.

Did Madison have early UHF stations?

Yes, WKOW 27 and WMTV 33 show up on my 1954 list. At that time there were no other TV stations in Madison.

jr

Makes sense, since Madison is close to Milwaukee and Chicago, and they would have wanted to limit interference. My grandparents farm was midway between those 3 cities, so they always used a rotator. They were on a hill, so they got all 3 cities pretty good. If a station was a bit snowy, they could try the same network's station in another city. They would never have bought an RCA, though, My great uncle owned Marsden TV in Edgerton, a Motorola dealer, so they always had Motorola or Quasar TVs.

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I have a KCS-132 from '61 that uses those same knobs. The knobs on mine are gone, though. Does anyone here have a spare set of them?

I got this right in Madison, WI, from a seller who said it came with the house, Had been an elderly lady who had no kids.. Did Madison have early UHF stations? I'll open it up this weekend and have a peek inside, and test the tubes. It has a repair tag hanging on the back, so it has had some service before. The seller claimed it was a color set, she had a hang tag that said color, But that has the newer RCA logo, and the pictures of the controls did not match the set, and further examination showed it to be from a 15" portable. I was hoping for a color set, but the price and condition were right so I grabbed it anyway. I have wanted a big screen B&W set also, although I had been holding out for a Zenith or Setchell Carlson. This one seems to be a 23" tube.
You didn't do wrong! The RCA, performs as well as the other two makes, you mentioned.
Regarding the channels in Madison, they had a VHF, channel three, that was one of the originals.
Sometime in 1952 or 1953, Milwaukee channel three, had to be changed to channel four, because of co-channel interference with Green Bay, channel two and Madison, channel three. Also, Chicago channel two, came into the picture.:scratch2:

I just picked this up off of Craigslist. Cabinet is mint, and it gets a nice screen full of static after I brought it up on a variac. I will post more about it when I get it into the house and take the back off...
Anyone know the year on this one?


Had one like it, but with no UHF. It got ruined in the old garage. Saved the tube and chassis from it. I KNOW the tube is good. I think it is an early KCS 136--with a 5U4 rect. tube.

Fantastic, wish I could find old consoles like that here.

Rockford, IL south of Madison across the state line had UHF WTVO channel 39 in 1953 or so and was easily picked up in Madison. Rockford could also receive Madison stations with a good antenna. My first CT-100...still original working in 1977 or so...would pick up Madison on rabbit ears from Rockford.

OK, I got it in the house. It's a a model 233 C806 MU according to the paper label pasted on the back. Its showing a pretty good picture, but the sound is buzzy, even with the volume all the way down, and there are a few retrace lines on the screen. Its also hard to fine tune to get clear sound and picture at the same time. The sound is still buzzy when fine tuned for best sound. I've been supplying a signal off laserdisc with a Sanyo Beta VCR acting as a RF modulator. Had to run to WalMart to get a 75/300 ohm transformer. I'm sure some new caps will improve things. It came with the UHF antenna in the photo. Inside, It has at least one Nuvistor in the VHF tuner, An octal Horizontal output tube, and I don't see a rectifier tube. I'll start with testing the tubes and cleaning it up, and the sockets. Is there a separate number I need to get off the chassis to look up the Sams folder?

See how your AGC adjusts, can you go from washed out pix to rolling tearing overload? I had one of those, KCS136ZD a year newer. The sound was full of buzz and teh picture looked like yours with touchy sync. No amount of alignment on the sound IF or discriminator transformers got the sound right. It turned out to be an open X megohm resistor in the AGC line to the IF transformers.

BTW - that is one neat UHF antenna. It looks newer, like a "Digitenna"

I'm not sure how old the antenna is, the logos on it do have a '60s look. It's a Channel Master " Wonder Bow". There is an AGC adjustment on the back, I can try that. The sync is pretty good, but it occasionally rolled once vertically when there was a momentary dark image on the screen. The single UHF station in my area came in on UHF, but it was a bit snowy.

The lines in the picture went away after a bit of use,, Audio Buzz is still there, sounds like video is getting into the audio. I'll have to dig into it once I get a schematic, and probably replace the electrolytics, and check for other questionable parts while I'm in there. The AGC control seemed real dirty, the picture would cut in and out as i moved it. The other controls may have similar issues. Havn't spotted any non-original appearing tubes yet, so this set probably didn't see a lot of service. Picture is nice and bright. The Horizontal output tube is original, 62-22 date code, still looks like new and tests strong.

I had my eye on that set too, but I just couldn't justify getting another B&W console. I'm glad that it went to a fellow collector. It looks to be in great shape. As for the buzz in the audio, there is probably a buzz adjustment somewhere on the chassis. Using a better modulator may help, too.

As for UHF in Madison, I thought that WMTV started out as Ch. 15, which is what was for as long as I can remember. I wonder if it was interfering with Ch. 32 in Chicago? Growing up in Chicago, WMTV on channel 15 was one of the easiest TV DX catches when there was tropospheric ducting going on.

-Clark

Had a more detailed look at it. Every single tube is RCA with date codes in the 62-17 to 62-22 range. One can capacitor has a late '61 date code. There is a tag on the back with the owners name, so it may have seen serviced once, or maybe that was just to mark who to deliver it to. This set can't have seen much use at all. How often do you find a 52 year old set that seems to be 100% original?

Had a more detailed look at it. Every single tube is RCA with date codes in the 62-17 to 62-22 range. One can capacitor has a late '61 date code. There is a tag on the back with the owners name, so it may have seen serviced once, or maybe that was just to mark who to deliver it to. This set can't have seen much use at all. How often do you find a 52 year old set that seems to be 100% original?

You might have to re-seat a few of the tubes in the audio circuit.
Check the quad detector and audio IF tubes. You might have to touch up the quad coil. You can do that with an off the air signal.
That's the reason, I still have analog cable. As I said before, once they quit furnishing analog signals, I'll have to discontinue having it. :scratch2: