I have a 1978 RCA Colortrak 25 inch console owned since new when my dad bought it at a K-Mart in Feb.1979. This set was replaced in Dec.1995 by a new Zenith 27 inch(non-console). This RCA had 2 repairs in its history-1980, fusible resistor near AC input went out(probably a power surge-whoever used surge protectors in those days?) & 1992, another power surge during a storm here in Indiana.The set was actually purchased in Liverpool, NY when we still lived near there by the way. The model number is GC-648-S, don't have the chassis number(can't move the set right now). This set still has its original picture tube, which still has a nice range of colors-especially nice greens on this set. Picture brightness has dimmed overall, but still has a razor-sharp image which surprises me. What is the general impression of this set/chassis as far as quality & reliabilty? This set has held up well, has been degaussed, & is now on a surge protector! Made in Nov.1978 at the Bloomington, IN plant.

Last week a guy at work gave me a nice 1995 GE XS Stereo 27 inch oak console on a swivel base, chassis is CTC-177. This one also made in Bloomington, IN. His sister bought a new 32 inch Toshiba, so out went the GE(which works perfectly, nothing wrong with it). This set also has excellent color(again favors greens & a nice purple too-"full color fidelity"). I've heard that mid-90s RCA/GE sets had reliabilty issues as far as power supplies going out, & this set seems to function well. It has never had any repairs, according to the guy's sis. Imminent demise coming for this one's PS or am I paranoid? I in fact bought a new GE 25 inch set in 1996 which DID crap out in 1998-yep, bad power supply the repair guy told me. Has run fine since, but kinda verifies the RCA/GE fear.

By the way, that 27 inch Zenith(made in Mexico) my dad got to replace the 1978 RCA? It went in for service last Dec.2005 for a bad power supply. Tech said Zenith quality was sinking by the 1990s, & picture tubes were 'soft' to him. And in the last 8 months this Zenith sometimes goes to a mostly green screen then comes back, soooo...a-hem. What would YOU buy new today? My tech recommends Sony & Toshiba CRT sets over the various Mexican/Chinese RCA, Sharp, Philips, etc.

Here's my 2 cents worth.

On the CTC177, I think they're pretty good sets, except for one major thing, and that's the "tuner-on-board". You've probably noticed that the tuner can't be removed, because it is part of the main PC board. They had zillions of those sets fail because the ground connections to the shield around that tuner would pull apart. It was a thermal thing. The board would expand at a different rate than the metal, causing the solder to crack. When the connections to the shield cracked, various parts of the tuner that needed to be grounded weren't any more. The shield was the only ground connection to some of these areas. They tried a bunch of stuff to fix the problem-different alloys for the shield was a big one. Some of them were made of copper, and you needed a blowtorch to get them hot enough to resolder the shield to the board. I don't see the coppper too often, but I hate it when I do. They also added some additional traces/jumpers to tie ground points together. That helped some. There was a special solder kit that they told us to use to resolder the shield to the board, and it was supposed to be flexible enough to move without cracking as the set warmed up. It came with a tube of flux, and it was messy to use, and seemed to eat up soldering iron tips. But it worked. There were also 6 jumpers to be installed in the tuner, so if the shield came loose again, the wires would keep these critical areas grounded. Another fun aspect of this problem was that if the customer continued to use the set after these connections failed, in addition to tuner type problems, it could kill the memory for the micro, and you could have all sorts of funny stuff happen, from scrambled displays, to a dead set.
Back in '94, when they told us about the design at a training session, a couple other guys and I approached the Field Engineer and expressed concern about how the was grounding was done on these sets. He insisted that all the problems were worked out in advance. I always thought he was concerned too, because his answer sounded like a corporate script.
I guess I shouldn't complain about them though. I made a ton of money fixing them. Still see one every month or so, for the tuner problem. If yours is OK, it was probably serviced sometime in the past. Some stores started sending all of them in for service as "store stock-defective" because so many had failed soon after being sold, and the returns were killing the stores profit.
As for the power supply, I didn't see an unusual number of failures on these sets. Early sets did have a couple minor bugs I know about, but they changed the part numbers and I dont see those problems anymore.

The Zenith
Always makes me nervous to go out on a call on those, because after the power supply fix, you fire it up and the CRT looks awful. Zenith CRTs have made me nervous for a long time.
The power supply probably failed because a little 100uf/25v cap changed value to somewhere around .000000000001 pf, with a lot of ESR. Then the IC goes poof, along with couple other things.

The GC648S
Chassis is CTC92

My advice for a set today?
Hit the thrift stores and find a 1979 RCA or Zenith. If they ever break, you fix them. If a new set fails, it is likely to be dumpster chow. If you did want a modern CRT set, Sony and Toshiba are pretty good, but I don't think they will last as long as the old sets do.

I could keep spewing for hours, but I've already spent way more than 2 cents worth, and the kids yelling for pancakes, so its time to take off the TV guy hat and put on the daddy hat. Hope this info is of value to you

The CTC-175, 176, and 177 were heavily discussed at training seminars in the early '90's at Sears. They really had issues, as was said before. That tuner was the worst idea, I think. Replacing varactor diodes on it was something I absolutely HATED to do. I still have a 175 20" set that has run OK after having its tuner resoldered twice since 1994 when a customer gave it to me. Color and sharpness are excellent. HOWEVER, I loaned it to someone, and they ripped the antenna connector out of the tuner shield. I cant find one! So, here it sits.

I have an RCA CTC185A7 (model #F19261), bought new seven years ago. RF port for antenna snapped off the tuner PC board twice not long after I bought the set, but after the second repair it worked great, and continues to do so to this day. The onboard tuner idea was a bad one, but once the ground connections are resoldered properly you won't have any more trouble--from that, anyhow (if your tech gets to the problem before it messes up the EEPROM programming; besides, once this problem is identified and repaired properly, the set is likely to go for years with no further problems, as the OB tuner was probably one of the biggest trouble spots these sets had). I think RCA/Thomson must have gotten the message a few years later, as all their current sets are built with the tuner well separated from the main PC board. They probably get far fewer callbacks for tuner problems now. I can't help wondering why they didn't do it this way from the beginning. :dunno:

I've got a GE 25" 178 (I think) that's had tuner issues since new (1996). I'll switch it on, and as the set settles down, either the lowest channels I get off-air (3 and 8) or the highest (61, 65, 67) will go totally bananas: white screen, then stripes, coupled with a loud buzz. After that ends, everything's fine. I also have the EEPROM problem: one day I hit "Previous Channel" on the remote, and the pic reset itself to the horrible factory defaults. :yuck: At least it was a snap to turn down the Blue bias to get a gorgeous, warm, natural-looking pic... the service adjustments were printed on the inside of the cabinet!
Tom