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Old 09-15-2014, 11:11 AM
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TheShanMan TheShanMan is offline
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Hello from Portland, OR

Hello! I've got an affinity for retro electronics. I've been in the classic arcade collecting hobby for years and working on arcade monitors has given me a deep appreciation of CRT technology and the older the better. That led to me wanting a nice 50's era TV console for quite some time and Saturday my wish finally came true.

I got a 1956 Packard Bell TV/radio/turntable, model 21DK1 (I believe the "21" indicates the CRT size) with a 98D1 chassis. Virtually no info out there on these. I'm not sure if that means this is a particularly rare unit or if that's just par for the course with 60 year old TV's. I'd love it if anyone can shed some light on any aspect of this model (rarity, value, quality, desirability, etc). I don't intend to flip this but on the other hand I'm not sure I'll keep it forever either. I want to enjoy watching some old B+W TV and movies on it for at least the next 2 or 3 years.

Aside from the fact that I'm sure it needs recapping, the tuner is making poor connection (have to jiggle it around to tune the vcr signal), and while I get raster, I don't get an actual picture from the signal, just a completely white screen. The radio works great though. The turntable appears to work electronically (needle is active) but mechanically it does not. I'm not overly concerned about getting the turntable working, but of course I'd like to get the whole unit in tip top shape. And it strikes me as being well cared for, other than some scratches/gouges on the top.

I've purchased the photofact for it as well as "TV Servicing Guide" and "How to Troubleshoot a TV Receiver" books from that era - just waiting for them to arrive now. Of course I've also been researching quite a bit which led me to these forums, among quite a few other resources.

I've also got a 1946 Westinghouse H-110 radio/turntable with a V-2102-3 chassis which doesn't work. It's an heirloom my wife inherited from her mom years ago. It's always sat simply as a piece of furniture (table) in our entry way. But the TV I bought will probably finally motivate me to fix the radio too.

I'll also post a thread in the tech forum if anyone wants to give some advice to someone who's a noob with regard to vintage TV's.

Thanks for letting me joint the community!



















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Old 09-15-2014, 02:48 PM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
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Your Packard-Bell combo looks great for a 58-year-old unit. I agree that the set needs new capacitors, as almost all TVs and radios as old or older than yours are bound to have capacitors that are either outright defective or are failing. I would definitely replace the filter capacitors in the power supply before they eventually short and destroy the power transformer. Of course, if the house fuses or circuit breakers open as soon as you turn on the set or even as soon as you plug it in, there is a short in the B+ (plate voltage) power supply which must be corrected before the set can be used.

Another problem I can see your set has, as evidenced by the bright horizontal line across the width of the screen, is no vertical sweep. This is caused, in order of likelihood, by a defective vertical oscillator and/or output tube, by an open vertical output transformer or even by an open vertical hold control. Be sure to turn down the brightness control to avoid burning the CRT phosphors. Once the screen is burned this way the only recourse is replacement of the tube.

BTW, one thing that struck me as soon as I saw the control panel for the radio and phonograph was the large radio tuning dial, with the long pointer. I've seen this in small Packard-Bell 5-tube AC-DC radios, but this is the first time I've ever seen it in a combination unit. The radios only had one small pilot light illuminating the dial, but it looks like the dial on yours may be illuminated by two or more #47 lamps. The tuning scale itself looks rather unusual as well, as the frequency markings are abbreviated frequencies in kilohertz, i.e. 5.5 (550), 6 (600), 7 (700), etc. Again, I would expect to see this in small table radios, but not in a console.

There seems to be a UHF tuner mounted near the VHF one, so your combo may have been sold in cities which already had or soon would have UHF stations, as well as cities with only VHF stations; however, in the 1950s, UHF TV was quite rare, with most cities having, at most, three network stations. Since Packard-Bell was mainly a West Coast TV brand, I would expect the all-channel sets to sell well in cities such as Fresno, California which only has UHF TV stations. PB also had an AM radio it called the "Stationized" receiver. This radio had the call signs of West Coast AM stations on the tuning dial, another giveaway that Packard Bell mainly did business on the West coast of the US. These "Stationized" radios are rarely seen anywhere else in this country for just that reason.
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Last edited by Jeffhs; 09-15-2014 at 03:09 PM.
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Old 09-15-2014, 03:40 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffhs View Post
There seems to be a UHF tuner mounted near the VHF one, so your combo may have been sold in cities which already had or soon would have UHF stations, as well as cities with only VHF stations; however, in the 1950s, UHF TV was quite rare
Note; the OP is from Portland Oregon which was the location of the first *commercial* UHF station in the US, just after the Bridgeport tests concluded.

Interesting Zenith film here, promoting the quality of their UHF tuning strips; "Fog over Portland":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OaaCsGF61s&hd=1

jr
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Old 09-15-2014, 03:44 PM
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TheShanMan TheShanMan is offline
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It does have vertical sweep actually. That pic must have been the result of perfect timing. I didn't even realize it was showing that line in it.

Yes, it has UHF. As far as I can tell it lived its whole life in the Portland area. There are a couple of loose "chassis identification" tags floating around inside which say "Portland" on them. I'm not sure if those would've come with the unit originally or (my guess) they were some sort of service tag. I wouldn't expect the Portland area to have been a big enough market to warrant the addition of UHF if it was that uncommon then, but I suppose if California was their major market then that would be enough to explain it.

In my researching I did come across the "pilot light" term but didn't know quite what that was at the time. Now that you mention it though, there doesn't appear to be any form of lighting for the dial or any other part of the radio/turntable compartment. There is on the TV tuner though.

Thanks for your response. I'm really enjoying learning about this.
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Old 09-15-2014, 03:45 PM
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TheShanMan TheShanMan is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jr_tech View Post
Note; the OP is from Portland Oregon which was the location of the first *commercial* UHF station in the US, just after the Bridgeport tests concluded.

Interesting Zenith film here, promoting the quality of their UHF tuning strips; "Fog over Portland":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OaaCsGF61s&hd=1

jr
Wow. Interesting! I'll watch that video when I have a little more time. Thanks for that tidbit of info!
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Old 09-15-2014, 06:50 PM
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Yah ! great looking set !

I have that same record changer from an Emerson Hi-Fi I picked up decades ago-

Good luck with it. I would get some contact cleaner, spray it into the tuner,
change stations to actually "clean it" and get a picture on it, assess it's overall
condition, and then move into changing old parts carefully....

Use that contact cleaner on the volume, and other turnie knobs as well...

Really beautiful set.... Good luck with it !

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Old 09-15-2014, 07:33 PM
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If not for the arcade monitor work you've done I'd recommend doing the Westinghouse first for practice since tube radios tend to be easier to work on, but you could probably manage either one first if you put your mind to it.
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Old 09-15-2014, 07:40 PM
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TheShanMan TheShanMan is offline
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I may end up doing that in spite of my excitement over the TV. It only makes sense to order caps for both at the same time, and tubes too if I need any of those (haven't yet learned how to test them). So if I have parts in hand for both and I'm simply shotgunning, the radio will probably win out because of the simplicity and being able to get the job done much more quickly (plus making my wife happy since it's hers!).
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Old 09-15-2014, 11:50 PM
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IIRC you have a CRT tester, but not a 'tube' tester. Some signal tube testers could do CRTs, but CRT testers were generally not made so as to be capable test signal tubes. You will need to get, borrow, or bring your tubes to a proper tube tester. If you do not intend to work on pre-octal tube (they came out in '36 but the older types lingered in some new designs until WWII) based sets then one of the cheaper 60's-70's testers (like the B&K dynajet 606 I use) should be sufficient to your needs and fairly cheap to buy....Just make sure it has a quality meter (the uber-cheap filament continuity only testers which have no meter are useless as a tube test instrument IMHO).
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Old 09-16-2014, 08:49 PM
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TheShanMan TheShanMan is offline
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Yeah, I was reading about at least being able to check continuity on the filament pins with a multimeter. I'm still kinda reading up on tubes and then once I get a better understanding of different tube types and what types of tubes are in my tv (and radio) I'll then turn to tube testers so thank you for the tube tester suggestion. I do find particularly interesting the parallels between vacuum tubes and picture tubes (since I've worked quite a bit with the latter but not the former), which of course is understandable since a picture tube is just a specialized form of a vacuum tube. I just find this sort of old technology fascinating.
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Old 09-20-2014, 10:33 PM
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I have the same set but with different legs and I found mine here in Portland back in 2008. I recapped it back then and it has been a very good working set.
I can also check your tubes for you if you like. I live in Portland.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg 1956 Packard Bell (20).jpg (115.4 KB, 18 views)
File Type: jpg 1956 Packard Bell (13).jpg (57.8 KB, 12 views)
File Type: jpg 1956 Packard Bell Back (4).jpg (80.5 KB, 17 views)
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  #12  
Old 09-20-2014, 11:32 PM
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TheShanMan TheShanMan is offline
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So cool! Thanks for posting those pics. Yours sure looks nice. You've done a nice restoration of it.

I wonder if they produced these with both options for the legs? The base of mine and yours look the same other than the legs, but I also wonder if the legs might've been replaced at some point after seeing yours. To me it seems like your legs fit the look of the TV a bit better than mine do. Do you know anything about the originality of yours (or mine)? Have you come across any other pics of this model TV? What's funny to me (and this may be my own ignorance since I'm new to this world) is that the photofact doesn't include this model in its list of models, so not even the photofact provides a picture of it.

I may take you up on your offer to check the tubes (that is very kind, thank you), although if I happen to come across a good deal for a good tester I might want to do that. I haven't started looking yet though so I don't even know what these go for yet.

Finding the time to get started on this has been tough. I thought I might get to it this weekend but I might not be able to after all. I can't wait to start watching some old shows on it though!
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Old 09-21-2014, 11:09 AM
Dude111 Dude111 is offline
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Welcome to the site

Wonderful pics,thanx for sharing!!
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Old 09-21-2014, 03:32 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheShanMan View Post
So cool! Thanks for posting those pics. Yours sure looks nice. You've done a nice restoration of it.

I wonder if they produced these with both options for the legs? The base of mine and yours look the same other than the legs, but I also wonder if the legs might've been replaced at some point after seeing yours. To me it seems like your legs fit the look of the TV a bit better than mine do. Do you know anything about the originality of yours (or mine)? Have you come across any other pics of this model TV? What's funny to me (and this may be my own ignorance since I'm new to this world) is that the photofact doesn't include this model in its list of models, so not even the photofact provides a picture of it.

I may take you up on your offer to check the tubes (that is very kind, thank you), although if I happen to come across a good deal for a good tester I might want to do that. I haven't started looking yet though so I don't even know what these go for yet.

Finding the time to get started on this has been tough. I thought I might get to it this weekend but I might not be able to after all. I can't wait to start watching some old shows on it though!
Mine came from the original owner who's parents had passed away and he inherited the house and every thing in it. I was amazed that everything on it still worked but I still recapped it and checked all the tubes.I don't know about the legs on yous I have not seen any other pictures of these models but I would imagine your legs are original but not sure. Mine has a badge in with the record player that says it was a anniversary model celebrating 30 years 1926 to 1956. does yous have that badge on it as well? Seems like it would be. It looks like yours might be missing the safety glass on the front or did you take it off? You can always cut a piece of glass for it.
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Old 09-21-2014, 08:35 PM
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TheShanMan TheShanMan is offline
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It doesn't have the badge nor do I see any indication that there ever was one (screw holes or what have you). That is pretty cool though.

Mine also doesn't have that cylindrical thing in the corner, but it does have the holder. What is the cylindrical thing?

It doesn't have the safety glass. That explains why the plastic bezel isn't attached in any way - lol. I can see 2 screw holes at the top that are obviously related to holding the safety glass in but I can't tell from your picture what the retainer looks like. Would you mind taking a picture of it for me?

Thanks for the help and info!
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