RCA (Thomson) had its share of problems with its sets from the '90s (CTC-177 to CTC-202), but every once in a while a trouble-free set would appear. My CTC-185 19" table model is a case in point. I purchased this set new in late 1999, and have had only one repair on it -- the antenna/cable connector snapped off the tuner PC board, probably due to poor soldering at the factory. But once that was repaired (and the ground points resoldered around the tuner), the set never gave me five minutes worth of trouble, and it gets used around here quite a bit in the evenings.
RCA/Thomson finally got it right when, beginning with the CTC-203, they started mounting the tuner remotely from the chassis. The onboard tuners were giving them no end of problems, especially when the grounds gave way and noise got into the jungle IC -- corrupting the tuner programming and causing other problems as well. (I have been told my set would have had problems like this and would not have lasted as long as it has, had I not had the tuner grounds resoldered properly.)
RCA's reputation as "the most automatic television in America" (as their 1960s-'70s ads proclaimed) remains spotless, even in the present Thomson/TTE era. I have not had to readjust the on-screen picture controls on my set for quite a long while -- as a rule, all I do is turn on the set, select the channel I want to watch, and forget the rest; the TV's excellent control circuits keep the picture rock-stable and the colors beautiful. Sound is not an issue for me because my hearing isn't that good; my set only has one small speaker in the left baffle (the right one is empty -- the cabinet in which my set is housed must have also been used for certain MTS stereo RCA TVs made within roughly the same time frame as mine was).
BTW, does anyone have any info on the "ON" Corporation, as applied to today's RCA televisions? I have noticed this corporation being mentioned in recent RCA literature online, and I'm curious to know what connections or associations this firm has with today's RCA. Is it a division of (or a successor to) Thomson? If not, is the ON Corporation a separate entity that is now using the current RCA block logo under license, but is not associated in any way with RCA or Thomson?
