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  #91  
Old 03-15-2012, 10:19 PM
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See yourself on Color TV!
 
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Best room lighting is nothing shining on the face, and a "TV lamp" dimly illuminating the wall behind the set. The CRT is too reflective and the picture too dim to compete with general room lighting.

just googled this, (no recommendation intended):
http://www.tvlamps.net/
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  #92  
Old 03-15-2012, 10:56 PM
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Another CT-100 lives!
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ohohyodafarted View Post
I made it a practice to keep the brightness down to a low level to help extend the life of the picture tube. (don't know if it made any difference on the extended life but it seemed to make sense to me as a young kid of 17 when we got our first color set)
I have also done this since I got my first color TV in 1979. My method was always to start with the contrast at minimum (and brightness set for proper black level), then increase the contrast to the least amount I thought I could live with. Usually this was less than halfway up.
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  #93  
Old 03-15-2012, 11:38 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ohohyodafarted View Post
Sounds like a wrap to me Nick. And I very much like your H drive and HV adjust mods. Next time you are over here you will have to draw the mods on my Sams for me.
Sure thing Bob, though I had to mod my chassis to work as well as your unmodded one. I think mine had a lot more play time on it, so more parts drifted in value. Based on the voltage readings I took last time I was up your way, I think your set is just fine as is. I don't like the idea of fixed values for h-drive and HV, fiddling has always been my preference. Like tuning an engine for best performance, I can't leave well enough alone.

Quote:
And also remember as the young wipper snapper that you are, you have been used to watching modern day tv sets that were more capable of producing a decent picture in a moderately lit room. Back in the day (yes I go that far back) us old farts were used to watching color tv in the evening, during prime time when colorcasts from the network were likely to be seen, and it was common to watch in a dimly lit (if not completely dark) room. So an expremely bright picture was not all that necessary. (IE: we didn't have to turn the brightness up so far that the picture was apt to bloom) In fact lots of people who had nearly dead picture tubes would postpone replacing the crt for years by letting the set warm up for a long period of time and then watching in a totally dark room so they could see the dim image on the weak crt.
I understand the low lighting thing, but I'm approaching it more from the standpoint of trying to understand why RCA would go from building a chassis with very good HV production (CTC-4) to something that by comparison was quite anemic. My Director 21 and 21-CT-55 both make a full and very dangerous 25kv, and are both able to drive the CRT to acceptable brightness levels even by modern standards. It seems to me that RCA took a step backwards with the CTC-5, by designing a chassis that was simply not capable of driving the CRT hard enough to produce even moderate brightness.

Some have said that RCA realized their mistake in the HV department, since all the later chassis had stiffer HV sections by comparison and were all more capable of producing high brightness than the CTC-5 chassis was. The CTC-5 has a stated HV of 19.5kv, CTC-7 comes in at 22.5kv (23.5 for the ones with silicon in the LV power supply), CTC-9 is 22.5kv, and later chassis went back to the full 25kv of the early models (CTC-16 thru CTC-20). So it seems on the surface that they made an error in judgement, but there may be a reason for their decision. We know that the CTC-5 had 2 distinct lines, both low cost entry level sets and the TOTL stuff. Since chassis tend to share parts on a generational basis, it's entirely possible that the 5 and 5N chassis only had the same HV sections because it was the most cost effective thing to do (parts bin swapping, as it's known). Then again, one could argue that when you make a TOTL set, you put top quality circuits in it. To counter that argument, perhaps they spent all their money with the 5N on it's more complicated chroma circuits and fancy cabinets. Seems an interesting discussion to have.
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  #94  
Old 03-16-2012, 08:02 AM
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I have always wondered why RCA went from the 25KV of the 21CT55 to the 19.5KV of the CTC-5. When did the big TV radiation controversy come about? Could it have been a reaction to the radiation concerns? Or was this before the radiation concerns arose?

It is a shave the CTC-5s don't perform better, that Wingate is one beautiful set! Wish I had one. :-)
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  #95  
Old 03-16-2012, 08:06 AM
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I remember X-ray warnings in the mid to late 1960's. I've got several 6BK4's and 3A3's with the leaded glass.
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  #96  
Old 03-16-2012, 03:45 PM
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I believe I've seen X-RAY warnings on original 1B3 tubes from the 50s, especially Philco branded by Sylvania. Don't know when the controversy began with CRT's. My CTC-4 generates about .4 millirems/Hr measured with the Geiger tube directly up to the safety glass, with a pure white screen.
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