Why are 1960s Zenith TVs so rare on the west coast?

[LukeSimon]

I have found multiple 1960s Magnavox and RCA TVs, but not a Zenith and from everything I read online about 1960s Zenith TVs, I desperately want to collect and restore one. The fact they continued to use point to point wiring after everyone else moved to using saltine crackers… I mean printed circuit boards.

Point to point wiring is more handmade. Looks more artistic than PCBs.

[zeno]

I dont know why. Zenith & RCA had between 40% & 50% market share
in both B&W & color for yrs. Zenith always sold a few more & stayed
on top. So you should see apx the same. And 50-60% of ALL others.
As far as hand wiring goes you should never mix PCB's with tubes.
Look at the hook up wire. Most is braided & tinned with rubber
insulation then covered with cloth. The cloth had tasteful colors & tracers
in lots of shades & were color coded to the set. Example white / blue
is AFT. Yellow is video, etc. They must of spent millions over the yrs
on that wire. Premium parts were common such as the use of Bel fuses
& Sprague caps.

Enuf fer now
73 Zeno
LFOD !

[Electronic M]

Perhaps there wasn't a dealer in your county?

You're in one way lucky being on the West Coast.... You're probably in Packard Bell country. The American made Packard Bell sets (not the rebadged Panasonic table sets of the late 60s onward).... At least the ones PB made (I've seen some GE C2s rebadged as Packard Bell Teledyne) are built like Zenith's....Same chassis solder pots and everything but PB sets didn't have the stupid Zenith Buzz-o-matic audio detector.

If you were to make me choose between 2 fully loaded remote all tube color roundy stereo combos in the same style cabinet one Packard Bell and the other Zenith, I'd take the Packard Bell almost hands down. Back then PB had this hinged upright doughnut chassis that the picture tube protruded through the center of. The hinge allowed it to swing out for service access to both sides. It's a better design for combos than the service saver bottom hatch. It's a LOT of effort to lift a 350lb combo up and turn it on it's side as you must on a Zenith, but not that hard to slide one away from the wall and swing the chassis out on a Packard Bell. I also like that all PB sets were remote ready so if you find a ruined remote set and a mint normal set you can easily make the mint one remote. The remotes were more rugged too all metal and if the hammer spring broke you can resolder it back together easily.
About the main leg up Zenith had was the belt driven 2G changer with the platter mounted clamshell 45 adapter...Best domestic changer of that decade besides the Glasser Steers GS77. Packard Bell used Gararrds which were kinda middle of the road IMO.

I consider Zenith the readily available nationally middle to upper end of consumer television, and have considered Setchel Carlson and REAL Packard Bell sets to be a step above, but MUCH more difficult to find. Kinda like comparing a race horse to a unicorn. Supposedly PBs are easy to find on the west coast, and I've had some luck finding them by me somehow. Setchel Carlson sets are almost as rare as PBs here and Setchel was made in basically the next major city west of me.

[LukeSimon]

A guy offered me a very good condition early 1960s Packard Bell roundie. I didn’t know better at the time, so I turned him down. I will check to see if he still has it for sale. I want a premium hand made color TV. No printed boards. I will get a custom clear plexiglass back cover made so the art like interior is visible. I won’t in any way damage the original back cover, but just keep it in storage.

[zeno]

The P-B roundy is probably a RCA clone. You have to look into that.
P-B squares were there own. They combined hand wiring & PCB's.
Quite well built. The only thing was the OEM CRT's were not up to snuff.
A replacement from Zenith, Sylvania or RCA gave them much more
snap. Not many P-B in the NE. Most I saw were 18, 19" sets
made by GE or Panny.
From the top Zenith chassii rather boring. Just a steel chassis & tubes. The hand wiring is all underneath.
Motorola roundys, 23 & 25" tube jobs the same.

As far as no dealers go that would be rare. Every medium szed town around hear had a Zenith AND a RCA dealer. They also carried one or 2 low priced lines.
Admiral, Syl, etc so I dont think thats it.

73 Zeno
LFOD !

[Electronic M]

Zeno brings up an interesting point. I currently somehow have 2 Packard Bell roundys.
One is a 1962 and looks like RCA shipped them a then several years old stock CTC-7 or CTC-9 chassis (I haven't dived in to the resto on it yet since I'm waiting on the previous owner to send me parts he forgot to load) PCBs and all, and then PB modified it to accept their computer light tuner and remote control system, suck it in a custom cabinet to accommodate the tuner and remote and made it work with a 21FJP22....

My later 1964 PB is the one with the doughnut chassis that is built like a Zenith (and like the rectangular PBs Zeno is thinking about) the circuits while RCA influenced don't appear to be a direct copy of any RCA chassis.

[LukeSimon]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Zeno brings up an interesting point. I currently somehow have 2 Packard Bell roundys.
One is a 1962 and looks like RCA shipped them a then several years old stock CTC-7 or CTC-9 chassis (I haven't dived in to the resto on it yet since I'm waiting on the previous owner to send me parts he forgot to load) PCBs and all, and then PB modified it to accept their computer light tuner and remote control system, suck it in a custom cabinet to accommodate the tuner and remote and made it work with a 21FJP22....

My later 1964 PB is the one with the doughnut chassis that is built like a Zenith (and like the rectangular PBs Zeno is thinking about) the circuits while RCA influenced don't appear to be a direct copy of any RCA chassis.

The PB roundie I am referring to has an upright doughnut chassis that swings out. I am not sure where to source a new CRT for it.

[zeno]

Originally Posted by LukeSimon

The PB roundie I am referring to has an upright doughnut chassis that swings out. I am not sure where to source a new CRT for it.

Never seen a P-B roundy. The real P-B's I remember had an L shaped chassis.
Looking from back the power stuff ( HV, Vert etc) were on the bottom &
the low level on the left behind the tuners etc. There were a few I remember,
hybrids were taking over. Dont remember the swing outs but maybe I
never needed it to fix anything that deep.
Best way to find the source of a CRT is the EIA number on the CRT tag.
That tells you who built it. Ex #274 is RCA, 343 Zenith, 1101 Rauland div of Zenith etc..
CRT's seemed to be sold at different grades also. Best ex is Sanyo built
19" Sears sets using Sylvania jugs. @1980. Most got H-K shorts BUT
I never seen a Sylvania of that vintage short out.

Time for a
Zeno

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by LukeSimon

The PB roundie I am referring to has an upright doughnut chassis that swings out. I am not sure where to source a new CRT for it.

Spare NOS roundy CRTs are extremely rare and sought after. If all you want is a good roundy CRT look for a CTC-16 or a less interesting clone (especially one with a wrecked cabinet that's priced cheap), confirm the tube is good with a tester before you buy it, then harvest your treasure. It's also doable to stick a brightener on the old tube, stick it in the donor set, make the donor set work well enough to sell and flip the the donor for a profit... I've done it before.

Sometimes they show up at TV swapmeets and sometimes if you know local collectors you can ask your way into acquiring one.

[ARC Tech-109]

Originally Posted by zeno

I dont know why. Zenith & RCA had between 40% & 50% market share
in both B&W & color for yrs. Zenith always sold a few more & stayed
on top. So you should see apx the same. And 50-60% of ALL others.
As far as hand wiring goes you should never mix PCB's with tubes.
Look at the hook up wire. Most is braided & tinned with rubber
insulation then covered with cloth. The cloth had tasteful colors & tracers
in lots of shades & were color coded to the set. Example white / blue
is AFT. Yellow is video, etc. They must of spent millions over the yrs
on that wire. Premium parts were common such as the use of Bel fuses
& Sprague caps.

Enuf fer now
73 Zeno
LFOD !

I have to disagree with the part about tubes & PC boards. My Mag T940 Astro combo from early 1970 is a PC board based tube chassis and despite the use (and abuse) of us growing up it has never had a heat related PC board issue be it bad solder or tube sockets going weak. The only real service has been the numerous 6GH8's and 6JE6's replacements along with a sagging heater in the 3A3 that was caught in time. The set survives to this day with plenty of life in the old jug.
There were plenty of bad designs with point-to-point and PC boards, the Zenith YC had its share of problems as well that were heat related.

[JohnCT]

Originally Posted by ARC Tech-109

I have to disagree with the part about tubes & PC boards.

We were RCA dealers during those years, and RCA to their credit made a very sturdy PC with excellent foil adhesion. The boards and foils handled the heat from the tubes just fine.

But the problem with those TVs was that the solder would crystallize over time, so bad tube socket connections became a thing as these racked up the thousands of hours on them. Reflowing the solder on the tube socket/PC was difficult. Most times, replacing the sockets was the best option.

I bought my first Dremel (which I still own) just for RCAs in order to pull an offending socket and grind down the oxidized pins, then resolder them back into the board which worked well.

This certainly didn't affect every RCA with tubes and boards, and I assume they were higher hour examples or those that didn't get a lot of ventilation.

John

[SueAnders]

Dunno if it's an outlier, but our '62 CTC-11 still has all it's original boards in good shape and it produces an excellent picture. Thanks to a tune up by Dave G MotoMinion, it's the pride and joy of our '56 era living room (he's got all the CTC-5s lol). In his opinion the -11 was, for a roundie, a particularly good mix of RCA's refinement up to that time and a decently durable design. We just love how it looks, and in our mid-70s it warms those childhood nostalgia cockles of our heart as well!

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by SueAnders

Dunno if it's an outlier, but our '62 CTC-11 still has all it's original boards in good shape and it produces an excellent picture. Thanks to a tune up by Dave G MotoMinion, it's the pride and joy of our '56 era living room (he's got all the CTC-5s lol). In his opinion the -11 was, for a roundie, a particularly good mix of RCA's refinement up to that time and a decently durable design. We just love how it looks, and in our mid-70s it warms those childhood nostalgia cockles of our heart as well!

I've got an all original metal cabinet CTC-10 that beei the hor AFC diode pack is still original and works. I don't run it much. If I did there'd be new electrolytics in it
PCBs especially in the CTC-12 and newer sets tend to have their own set of problems. Joints melt and go open fuse able board jumpers open, PCB tube sockets get hotter and fail.

All tube sets have their issues and you pick your flavor of poison.

[SueAnders]

Since ours is a CT-11, not a 12, perhaps the earlier PCBs were a different design and/or more durable composition?
Have seen that problem in older tube stereos too, we had a Heathkit AA100 amp (7591 tubes) once where the boards got so hot they were scorched charcoal black! Not our favorite Heath model, so can't believe the prices being asked on eBay for them now, when similar era Scotts & Fishers didn't tend to have that problem, being point-to-point they didn't suffer that fate. Some GE consoles we've seen had heat scorched and brittle PCBs too, even from little 6AQ5s! However I've seen some mass-market tube-era consoles that were OK, mostly lower power jobs though.