Perhaps the two pin male plug is a power on/off circuit to allow the TV chassis to remotely control the power chassis? And the is two pin socket above it a convenience power outlet to plug your VTVM in?

Most likely, since the early prototypes had a lower chassis which supplied power to the whole shebang.

I looked at the 2 pin thing, and it's wired into the heaters of all the tubes with some really thick wire. I suppose it's possible that the heater circuit is the 2-pin, and the rest is B+ type stuff on the 7-pin one.

There are some pictures, by Harry Poster, of an RCA prototype set that looks like this set showing the CRT mounted. It even shows the black tape. Link: http://www.earlytelevision.org/rca_color_prototype.html

So you don't actually have the power supply for this set? Did it go missing? And won't that slow down getting it going?

It should be possible to make a replacement power chassis. If a schematic could be found it would help.

However that puts to rest the question of whether to recap it or leave in non-working survivor condition. The whole bottom chassis is going to be all-new.

No, and there's no reason to expect it will ever turn up. No one knows where it is, so it is assumed missing. Something like that would be very common looking anyway, so it probably was either tossed or repurposed for something else. It won't really slow anything down, other than the time it takes to build a new one. It's easy to trace the wiring, and figure out what voltages need to go where. I figure I'll start with an old console amp chassis, install a suitably large power transformer, and use the sockets for the rectifiers. Maggie chassis are plentiful, so that's what I'll probably use. That, or I'll strip the old organ chassis in the next room.

Found the heater string connections: the 'main' part of the chassis, that is, everything that is not tuner/IF related, gets it's 6.3 volts from the small male 2-prong plug on the back. The tuner/IF strip is powered from pins 1 and 6 of the 7-pin round plug, with pin 1 connected to chassis ground.

That reminds me: I'm gonna need like 30 tube shields! lol

I've got a box of maybe ten or fifteen assorted 7 and 9 pin tube shields your welcome to.
I've also got an old power supply from a corespondence course that you can have if it will help.
http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/...y/DSCN0829.jpg
Tom C.

Hey my dad took that same course! I remember playing with that PS when I was a kid!
Its no good for that tv, its going to need to be more current and they'll have to figure out what different voltages are needed too. That PS is for single tube circuits.

Most likely they are going to have to come close to matching the specs on the PS for the ct-100's that some of those guys already have access to, or possibly a model 5, something like that. This tv should have a lot of very similar circuits to what later became the production version of this set.

Anyway it should be fun for these guys, and for us to read about. Thanks guys!

That reminds me of visiting a well known radio dealer years ago. His place was packed with amazing items. I finally broke down and asked, "Where do you find all this stuff?" He shrugged and replied, "People bring things to me."

Phil Nelson

Isn't that interesting? Is the CRT serial number a match to your prototype, Nick?

Harry offered the set to the museum before he put it on Ebay. I tried to get him to donate it and take a tax deduction, but he declined.