Ctc9f

[Charlie]

After being gone on the ship for 3 months and freezing my nads off in Alaska, I finally got to come home and start playing with this CTC9 that was in Houston. The guy that had it bought it as a package... he found a 50's Philco b&w set that he wanted (just for the looks) but the people that had it said he had to take the color set as well... it was a package deal. So, he really didn't know any history behind the set.

Everything was there... the set was super clean. There was only a thin layer of dust in there. The owners must have had a super-clean home.

I got really sick after getting the set home. The channel selector knob came off during the drive home! There was just a big hole there when I got out of the truck. I never thought to take it off, or to see if it was loose. In the meantime, I found a knob from an 11 that works, but it isn't the right one.

Someone had already changed the CRT. The 21CYP was replaced with a 21FBP with a date code of 1966. At first, it didn't test very well, but after cranking up the heaters a little bit, the meter jumped way up into the green and all was well. I let it cook like that for 30 minutes, and the tube woke up just fine. The blue gun is a little slower to come up, but it does and the emissions are almost as good as the other two guns.

At first, I found a blown fuse on the B+ line. I suspected the rectifiers, but they seemed okay. I tried to find any shorted lytics, but they seemed fine as well. I only have one spare fuse (pulled out of another CTC9), so I connected my meter across the fuse terminals and brought the set up and monitored the current. After two hours of slowly bringing the mains up, and monitoring the current, everything seemed okay. The current on the B+ never went above .7 amps (with the HV disabled). I wasn't able to get any sound thru the speaker... only the static associated with a unused channel. So, already it seems there are problems in the front-end.

After several hours, I plugged in a fuse and enabled the HV. Everything seemed fine. I got a bit of crackle from the HV starting up, but no raster. The B+ voltages were only 10 volts shy with HV running. I have not comfirmed my HV reading yet due to can't remember where I put the damn probe... been a while since i last used it.

Checked all tubes and all was good except one of the tuner tubes had serious grid leakage. Swapped it out. No change of any sort.

At one point, I had pulled a color amp, and later forgot to put it back in. It was the G-Y amp. When I turned on the set, I got a green raster! What the hell? Then I realized the tube was sitting there on the floor. Plugged it back in and the raster went away. For giggles, I pulled the R/B-Y amp... I got a purple raster. Plugged it back in... the raster went away.

I'm assuming I'll find a bad cap in there somewhere. Of course, they will all get changed. I'd first like to find the culprit that keeps me from getting a raster and why I get one when I pull those color amp tubes. If anyone has thoughts or ideas on the subject, speak up.

Also, if anyone happens to have the pretty channel selector that goes on this set, I'm willing to sell my soul for it!

[Kevin Kuehn]

That's a very nice looking TV. Weird how that the tuner knob didn't show up in the bed of your truck - turbulence rolling off the cab must have sucked it right out. Best of luck with your restoration.

[Tom S]

A great find. Good luck on the restoration. I'm having a ball with the 2 I recently got.

[ctc17]

Play w the service switch. If that doesn't get your video going start by checking the dc voltages around the video amp and moving fwd to the crt. A problem w the blankiing amp are can cause that too. Checking dc voltages is the best way to nail these issues fast

[Eric H]

That set is awesome, too bad about the knob.
I hate that sick feeling you get when something like that happens.

Did you stop anywhere where someone could have swiped it? Seems strange that it didn't just fall straight down.

[Charlie]

The front of the set was against the side of the bed. There was two pillows in there to protect the glass. The pillows stood a little taller than the side of the truck. If the knob worked loose, vibrated, wiggled, jiggled, shimmied, or simply jumped off the set, it would have landed on the top edge of the pillow, and then right down the side of the truck onto the road. No matter. I should have taken it off being it was above the side of the truck.

I did stop at a little store to get a drink. I cant imagine anyone would swipe it. I wouldn't think a channel selector would be a high theft item. I guess it's always possible that some punk saw it and thought it would make some cool bling to hang around his neck. He's certainly have something that none of his other homies had.

But, I think it came off going down the road. Probably got smashed by a Peterbuilt.

I found that I'm short a few caps, so will have to put in an order. I can get started on it and hopefully far enough that brings the raster back online.

I'm just glad the CRT is good. The tracking is almost dead-on with each gun.

Below is the knob that it's "supposed" to have... just in case someone finds one in their knob drawer.

[Reece]

That's a real nice-looking set; the cabinet should just respond to a cleaning and a little Old English maybe in some spots. And a good CRT means you should be fine after a recap. I saw a woofer and cross-fired tweeters in there so it should sound great. Then just to shuffle stock around and find a place for it!

[DaveWM]

swap out the video amp tube. If the CRT is cut off it maybe that tube plate voltage is too high due to some defect. I think its a 12BY7.

PS Glad you're back.

[mstaton]

Nice looking 9! I have one and I really like it. It has tons and tons of hours on it and it's on it's 6th CRT but just keeps plugging away. lets see any LCD or Plasma do that in 53 years from now.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by Charlie

I found that I'm short a few caps...

I have been accused of being a few capacitors short of a whole chassis myself a few times.

That CTC-9 looks nice, very similar to my CTC-7 Southbridge. I hope you find a replacement knob without too much trouble.

[Electronic M]

I've seen knobs like that at the MARC Extravaganza meet in Lansing. There is a regular that always has TONS of TV knobs......If you can't make it I may be able to look for what you want at the same time I ferret for stuff I want.

[Reece]

Can anyone post a clearer picture of the knob? I'll be at Kutztown this coming weekend and a lot of knobs are for sale there, mostly radio, but there are some TV also.

[Charlie]

Tom, sure.... if you happen to see one, grab it for me. I have a pretty good selection of RCA knobs here... some still in the package... but just don't have this particular one.

Got some progress going here. I've managed to get a pretty healthy raster. The brightness has to be turned up nearly 3/4 of the way before you start to get it, but hey at least it's a start.

Not so cool: The HV shuts off after about 5 or 10 minutes... just goes away... POOF. If I shut the set off, wait a minute, turn back on... everything is fine. However, I haven't left it on for the second round to see what happens... I just shut it off because I'm sure something in there is stressing out and I'll find it later when I pulled the chassis out again.

Still no signal. I did happen to notice that the AGC pot is reading way off spec. Sams says it's supposed to be a 1 meg pot, but seems I could barely get 90k out of it. I will go back and double check that later. I can also make comparisons with another ctc9 I have that does play.

Still plenty to do in there, but have to set aside today and do other things.

[Zenith26kc20]

Inside the IF area is a small bumblebee. Change it! Mine drove me a bit nuts with that cap leaking for awhile and it's not easily visible even with the IF shields off. The RCA schematic makes life easier than SAMS. SAMS does not use the parts location numbers on the boards. They make their own numbers up. Also, SAMS has the screen voltage too low on the schematic. Keep us posted on the high voltage problem. I would monitor grid drive to the HOT to see if the oscillator is dropping out. That may explain the blown fuse (too much HOT cathode current).

[Kevin Kuehn]

I think this is what that channel knob looks like? The one pictured below is off my CTC-10A. Possibly they came with various colored channel inserts.