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#1
08-15-2010, 04:05 AM
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Saved Zenith Model 5111 color "roundie!" Free 50's sets in VA!
Well, after over a year trying to give away a really nice 1958 24" B&W Space Command just to make room for this "roundie" Zenith Model 5111 that someone gave me. He is losing his storage so it was either my place or possibly a dumpster. I am usually only on the black and white forum because I gave away my last "roundie" color set before there was an Internet as we now know it. I always liked the deep color of a well adjusted old Zenith or RCA color set old enough to have the round CRT when I was a kid and a lot of our treasures now were junk to most people. I seemed to always be able to find a decent "roundie" back in the early 80s for $10-20, or often free. Remote control was sort of the "big deal" in those days and the technology had been around long enough for even a low income household to command going out and buying a remote console.
Just the lack of that one feature was the last nail in the coffin for a lot of aging console sets back then. Anyway, my new/old Zenith was supposedly working when it was last used around thirty years ago by an older couple who didn't use it a lot; not in the way we use TVs now; they may play around the clock today. So when I got it home and blew some dust out and found that a rebuilt Sylvania 21FBP22 CRT with virtually no dirt or soot build up which to me are good low use indicators. Also, there were a lot of stock Zenith tubes still in place; another low use indicator. I got out my 100 watt light bulb jig for slow starting old radios and TVs and let it sit at the reduced line voltage for about three hours. I then looked around for any tubes not showing a lit filament or anything heating up, and I found nothing out of the ordinary. NOW IT IS TIME!  I plugged it into the wall and harkened back to my younger days of finding an old set and just plugging it in and its just fine; as is. I sort of knew what to expect, but I just HAD to know if the set would come on. Basically I heard a bunch of noise from the speaker, a tuner tube glows BRIGHT blue, the DC seemed to come in and then I smelled smoke. I hoped that I had not already fried the flyback, so I moved the cover back and the fly had not even ran long enough to get hot. Then I removed the cap from the HO tube and turned it back on again. This time nothing burned and it allowed the set some time for old caps to charge or form (if possible), and some time for me to hook up a DTV box and try to get sound. Nothing doing; then I started feeling the multi-section caps and the power transformer and they felt like they were starting to heat up more than I would like, so I shut it down. The set might take a bit of work, but I think that it would be worth it. The metal cabinet means no finish worries and lighter weight. The rebuilt CRT has a non-bonded faceplate; that's a big plus too I think.  Now if some TV lover would come and take a FREE ANTIQUE ZENITH REMOTE SET off of my hands so I can move around again. The 24 inch CRT makes the FREE set uncommon on top of being an early remote control set. I can't save the TV world, and I REALLY hate to junk out a good looking old set! I am in south central VA. I have other clean 50's (Motorola and Magnavox) sets that I might throw in minus the tubes. This stuff is not junk by any far stretch. I think that if you are trying to give things away that people assume that you are skimming off crapola and junk. Anything that I have is in VG+ cosmetic condition and has a good CRT. I will not keep basket cases. It is just a matter of having limited space; your hobby comes to a stall quick if you are doing this in a small house. 
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