RCA Dimensia

[MRX37]

Looks like you lucked out.

I kinda miss my Colortrak 2000 now.

[TVTim]

I saw the original pic on FB. Love the set. Great catch.

[Steve D.]

Nice! And for about 8 bucks how could you go wrong. I miss having a video out on my current tv. Your's has it. and it comes in handy. A daily watcher for sure.
Posting several RCA 1987 catalog photos about your TV. and a photo of what you could have surrounded your Dimensia with if you had really big bucks.
Also just found this remote on e-bay that should operate your set: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-RCA...YAAOSwd0BV7VuW


-Steve D.

[dishdude]

Looks like it has a great picture.

[bgadow]

Nice, I think, to save it as among the very last products of the "old" RCA, and the top of their line to boot.

[radiotvnut]

GE owned RCA by that point and I think the year was 1988 when GE sold the RCA/GE line to Thomson. I'm pretty sure your set is a CTC140.

[OS X]

Thanks for all the info! And the funny thing is when I went in to that thrift store the first trip I was not really even looking for any sets but I always "have" to look at them and this caught my eye as I never seen one like this before I'm glad I did this is the perfect set being Im only going to have one "newer" TV in my collection atleast it's somewhat rare definitely more than a Trinitron would be. I really think the biggest thing I'm surprised by is the great picture it puts out and speakers in this thing they sound great and have a far amount of bass and really good hi's I wonder in a way if they were trying to copy bose being the mid range is somewhat curved to the side and the tweeter is above it also curved farther back some what like a tunnel effect

[Gunslinger]

worked on many of those. Still have parts for them. One of the biggest problems was solder connections around the IF chip, coils in the IF sections, solder connections at the small power supply board diodes, and the driver to horizontal driver. I am still using one of them for a recording monitor. I sold about 6 to 8 complete systems. The weak link was the CD player. Instructing older folks how to use the system was a common task.

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by bgadow

Nice, I think, to save it as among the very last products of the "old" RCA, and the top of their line to boot.

Yes, one of the last true RCA chassis.

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

GE owned RCA by that point and I think the year was 1988 when GE sold the RCA/GE line to Thomson. I'm pretty sure your set is a CTC140.

Remember, GE did NO TV engineering after they closed the Portsmouth Plant and the PC/PM line of sets. All of the TV's coming from the new GE/RCA were Indianapolis/Bloomington products. Same Engineers and Service Seminar folks from RCA then - even the RCA Communicator (TV products) newsletter continued, again from Indiana. It stopped in 1989-ish - that's the last issue Dad had in his stash.

Only after GE sold RCA to Thomson did the focus shift to other (worse) designs.

[MRX37]

You know, I know Thomson built RCA's took a nosedive in quality, but I don't think they were that bad overall.

Case in point my 1991 ColorTrak 2000 lasted over 20 years in the hands of various owners before I accidentally broke it. I've also found various Thomson built RCA sets from the 90's that still work, or have minor problems. The CRT's are generally still strong. The only Thomson built RCA I found with a weak CRT was an XL-100 from 1988.

[dishdude]

I thought the only real issue the Thomson sets had were the solder joints in that on board tuner they used.

[radiotvnut]

Today, I was a given a 19"/20" RCA-branded CTC146 from the early '90's. It still works; but, the CRT is a little tired. I'm going to adjust the G2 and focus controls and likely give it to the flea market to do with as they please. Frankly, I'm not in the mood to sit on it for the next six months to get $10 for it (and, have me getting more and more pissed off because I can't get $10 for a color TV). The owner of the flea market says he can still move them; so, best for me to let him deal with it. BTW, I think the CTC146 was the last 19" chassis before the CTC175 with the integrated tuner that had issues was introduced. I think the CTC146 was around from about 1987 until '92. There was also a CTC136 that was used in some 19" sets. In fact, my current set is a 19" GE CTC136 from 1989 and I recently gave away a 19" knob-tuned CTC136 from 1987. That's the chassis with the separate MTT tuner module that's also prone to bad solder connections. There was also a CTC130 that was used in lower-to-midline 25" sets from the mid-to-late '80's and I've seen a few higher end 20" sets that used the CTC130 chassis.

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by dishdude

I thought the only real issue the Thomson sets had were the solder joints in that on board tuner they used.

If it weren't for those CTC-175-187 sets and the later M134C sets, Dad would have folded right up. They paid a lot of bills.

Coming in a close second were the cheaper Asian sets with either bad flys, bad vertical chips, or bad caps.

Sonys with regulator problems (mX0841/2sc4834's) also made us some money...

[zeno]

IMHO true. The CTC175,6 & 7 CTC185,6 & 7 were average
reliability sets. If it wasnt for the connections & the RF
posts breaking off not may would have failed. Mostly
PS, Hoz & pin problems. Pix wise they were quite good & they
came anywhere from stripped down tuner only to higher end.
And you gotta remember other brands suffered from intermitant
tuners, Sony & MGA for starters. Sony used a combo tuner / IF
that was unrepairable & went from abt $60 up. Many failed & even
Sony couldnt tell us where the connections were. ( this is NOT
the int RF post problem).
Bottom line is cold joints happen to everything & kept us
employed. Even spots like the hoz drive that has a history were
almost never dealt with at the factory level.

73 Zeno

Originally Posted by dishdude

I thought the only real issue the Thomson sets had were the solder joints in that on board tuner they used.

[Arcanine]

Originally Posted by OS X

More pics!

Holy crap.

I just noticed that TV has SCART. I would KILL to have a TV with a SCART plug.