Motorola 16CK1 restoration complete

[old_tv_nut]

Wow, that's great!

[TubeType]

That's a great restoration.
Thanks for sharing your resources with us.
It's always nice to have another proven metal hardware refinisher in the wings.

[ohohyodafarted]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

Anybody have an estimate of the number of these sets that were produced?

jr

Not sure, but it couldn't be very many. Based on the survivor rate of the CT100 of about 12 to 13% a ballpark guess would be around 500 sets total. John Folsom has the only other two known surviving sets. The 19 inch model came out shortly after this run and was then shifted to 21" production shortly there after.

Some aspects of the set are rather crude, and prototype like. IE: the HV cage is made from two halves of smaller cages (probably from a B&W set) that are spot welded together to make one larger cage. The back of the set (not shown) is from a B&W set that was re-silk screened for this color set. At the top of the back they painted over a label that indicated the set had a "roto antenna installed" in the set. The main chassis has a number of punch outs for items that were installed when the chassis was used to build some other model. Things like this point to the fact that Motorola was not convinced that they would sell very many sets, and used parts from other sets to keep development costs down. If large production numbers had been contemplated, they probably would have had special dedicated parts made instead of recycling and modifying parts from other sets

Bob

[jr_tech]

"Based on the survivor rate of the CT100 of about 12 to 13%"

Ok, I am confused here... on another thread, Pete Deksnis said:

"The traditional estimate of 5000 CT-100 sets produced comes from the original RCA press release issued on the first day of production, March 25, 1954. However, based on my eleven-year quest for CT-100 serial numbers of the approximately 140 known survivors indicates just 4100 sets were produced by RCA, which is far more than any other manufacturer of 15-in. color sets in 1954."

This would be about 3.4% Are there considerably differing estimates of production numbers, or perhaps a guess that perhaps only about 25% of the survivors are "known" by collectors?

Also, if 3 Motorolas are "known" and if indeed that might be 13% of total production, would that not imply about 25 rather than 500 produced?

just curious,
jr

[ohohyodafarted]

JR you are correct... My Bad! Don't know how I came up with the percentage that I got.

So if that holds true, maybe they only made 100 15" sets???? Seems like a rather small number. I would guess it was more like double that at least. In any event there probably were not very many produced.

[Sandy G]

I have a radio kinda like that, an R-389. It is a "Lowfer" set, picks up from 15 KC to 1500KC, most of the BCB. There were only 750 of 'em made, MAYBE 300 left. Mine had been a "Hangar Queen" for apparently most of its life, somebody or something had pranged it REAL hard on the back panel, & bent some screw shafts. Otherwise, it was pristine. But even tho it is a Collins, who were the creme de la creme of military electronics back then (1954), there are certain little "foibles" about it that make me wonder if they ever really got the "Advanced Prototype" stage. Pretty good radio, tho-A guy had one in Denver, & during the winter of '96, was able to pick up BCB stations from France...That's not too uncommon on the east coast/maritime provinces, but pretty much unheard of 2/3 the way acrost the country...The only trick mine did was to pick up WHAS 840 outta Louisville like it was a local FM station w/only a 2' length of speaker wire crammed in the antenna socket...

[Dave S]

Fantastic Job! Bob, How did you touch up the speckled finish on the CRT bezel? Also, the brass(?) finish on the pencil box nameplate looks pretty scruffy in the "before" shot but really nice in the "after."

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

I have a radio kinda like that, an R-389. It is a "Lowfer" set, picks up from 15 KC to 1500KC, most of the BCB. There were only 750 of 'em made, MAYBE 300 left.

IIRC, with some sets like this, there's a coupling cap that must be replaced. If you don't, you end up ruining some fancy filters that are made of unobtanium. People tended to fire up such a radio, hear nothing, and switch bands (thus blowing out that band's filters just like the first band's were blown up upon turning it on, and so on...)

[ohohyodafarted]

Originally Posted by Dave S

Fantastic Job! Bob, How did you touch up the speckled finish on the CRT bezel? Also, the brass(?) finish on the pencil box nameplate looks pretty scruffy in the "before" shot but really nice in the "after."

Hi Dave,

Fortunately the speckeled finish on the vacuum formed plastic crt bezel was in fine shape. Just needed to be cleaned to remove the cigarette smoke.

The control door was sent out to be replated copper, nickel, brass, along with the two side coloumns. The center area of the control door is accented with a coat of metalic gold spray paint and then coated with clear spray enamel to gloss it out. I used masking tape to mask off the areas of the door that were not to be painted. Lastly I took a very tiny artist brush and painted the raised letters MOTOROLA with black Testors enamel from the hobby shop.

There are also accent areas on both coloumns that are painted in the same manor as the gold accent on the control door.

[stromberg67]

Great to see another early set restored. congratulations on a super job!
Question: Is the horizontal output tube a 6CD6G, or a 6BG6G? Can't really tell from the photos. I wouldn't think it would be the older tube, given the drive requirements, but with Motorola one never knows, do one?!
Kevin

[ohohyodafarted]

Originally Posted by stromberg67

Great to see another early set restored. congratulations on a super job!
Question: Is the horizontal output tube a 6CD6G, or a 6BG6G? Can't really tell from the photos. I wouldn't think it would be the older tube, given the drive requirements, but with Motorola one never knows, do one?!
Kevin

It is the 6CD6G. I was able to get several from vacuumtubes.net They are nice people to deal with and I buy most of my tubes from them.

[Aussie Bloke]

Totally awesome job Bob!!!

Nice to see the set cosmetically as well as electronically restored to superb condition!!! I bet that couple you bought it from would be thrilled to know how well this set has been restored.

I do notice in the photo of the colour bars displayed on the screen that the yellow bar appears to be light green, is this just the digital camera not picking up the CRT colours properly in the photo shoot?

Anyways superb job!!!

[ohohyodafarted]

Originally Posted by Aussie Bloke

Totally awesome job Bob!!!

Nice to see the set cosmetically as well as electronically restored to superb condition!!! I bet that couple you bought it from would be thrilled to know how well this set has been restored.

I do notice in the photo of the colour bars displayed on the screen that the yellow bar appears to be light green, is this just the digital camera not picking up the CRT colours properly in the photo shoot?

Anyways superb job!!!

Aussie,

Thanks for the kind comments.

There is a two fold issue on the yellow. The camera changes the color somewhat. I tried many different setting for the white balance on the camera but this was as close as I could get. Second: This set seems to amplify the green more than I want and I have done everything I can think of to balance the green down and the blue up but when I get it just about correct, the 3.58 falls out of sync. So I have struck a fair compromise. In person the yellow is better than in the photo, but only about 80% as good as I would like it. But still it produces a very nice picture if you are a good tweeker of the hue, contrast, brightness, and saturation. But then; these old sets were known for needing an engineer to constantly keep tweeking the settings.

Here is another screen shot of the chassis when it was still on the bench taken in a darkened room with the same camera. Depending on the lighting conditions and how the camera is set, the camera will produce different results.

[Phil Nelson]

Zowie. What an interesting set. Great job on the restoration!

Phil Nelson

[Sandy G]

We marvel at these nowadays, when its hard/impossible to find a new B/W set, imagine how they must have felt back in '54/'55 when these bad boys were IT...