[drh4683]

Picked up the combo yesterday afternoon. Was as simple fast drive. The guy I bought it from had it since 1984, it was his aunt+uncles set and he got it in 84 after his uncle died. its been sitting in the bedroom of his home since then. He's moving into a condo and is clearing out the large items in his home. His aunt and uncle must have been smokers, as it has the orange/red dust inside but its not to the point where it turned into a sticky tar throughout the set (luckily!). This set is a 1964 model, all tubes are dated 22 through 26th week of 1964. As jsstout said, its an early production CTC16 (CTC16AP). The late production CTC16X series was the 1965 models. The turn table was stamped "MAY 5, 1964" so its past the FCC mandate for UHF. When I got the to the guys house to pick it up, I noticed that the back of the CRT cap had a hole punched in it. You can tell this damage happened years ago as the breaks had dust in them, they were not clean new breaks. He just didnt mention it on the auction. I thought nothing of it as I have a replacement cap for an rca roundie from parts sets (theres a reason I kept those few caps all this time!) When I got home to look at what this set was all about, I noticed the CRT plug had been smashed in the same area as the hole in the cap. Something jammed through there at one time and made its way to the CRT. Amazingly, the CRT is just fine and didnt bend or distort any of the fine wire leads.
The set has a great bright picture from a cold start up, and the screen drives are not cranked all the way either. It definitly has some good hours of use on it, but the pc boards look good yet. Most of the orignal tubes have been changed out for the TV component. The color wouldnt sync in, due to a bad 6GH8. I had to change many tubes in the set, many tubes in the IF, AGC circuits had shorts, grid emission.
The radio works very well on FM and FM stereo. AM needs attention in the front end, as strong AM stations distort badly and overload. I noticed the 6BE6 AM converter had a short, which probably damaged a cap or resistor somewhere in its circuit. Phono works very well.

As of now, it needs a new crt plug. Does anyone have a dud CRT that I can buy for the plug, or buy the plug itself? Cateract repair is the next step. So far, without touching a thing like convergence etc. it displays a good sharp color picture.