My Dad's CT-100 and Halo-Light TVs

[pustelniakr]

I've been enjoying a visit from my dad. We haven't seen each other too much, since I was a kid (long time ago). He's visiting for a couple days, and I'm sharing my vintage Pioneer addiction with him (acquired since we saw each other last). We spent several hours looking at the 'Show Me Your Old Color TV' thread. I had no idea how many old TVs (color and black and white, portholes, and portables, etc.) there were, and how many are actually alive and well. My house is alread completely full of vintage stereo gear, but I'm tempted to fall into the old TV abyss.

Come to find out, my pop has several old TVs, and didn't know there was such a demand for them. For example, he has at least 1 halo-light equiped TV, and an RCA CT-100 (with all the trimmings). He doesn't know what their functional conditions are, but will be finding out as soon as he returns home.

Any thing he needs to do (or know) to make sure he doesn't let the smoke out? Like reforming caps (best way), etc.?

Rich P

[Chad Hauris]

On a set the age of the CT-100 or other 50's set I would replace all paper and electrolytic caps. On something rare like this you don't want to damage anything like transformers or coils with a short because of bad caps.
Based on my experience old caps are not reliable! even if they may appear to work after a fashion they will continue to deteriorate. It is very difficult to do a good troubleshooting job when chasing down problems caused by leakage and low capacitance in these old caps.
Also you should replace the selenium rectifiers.
I would carefully check the CRT to see if it appears to have vacuum before investing a lot of effort on repairs...I'm sure someone who has worked on the CT-100 can offer more detailed tips (personally I have not worked on this model)