Finally, a tube set has been found as a result to my "free pickup of non working TV's ad." The CRT was replaced in '72 with a Zenith Chromacolor (now complete with green halo). I fired up the set and it will need new power supply filters. I get hum in the sound and a weave through the picture. Also, the focus circuit appears to be not working as the picture is very blurry. At least I have HV, sweep, and color. The model number and chassis numbers are pretty faded. If anyone recognizes this chassis; please let me know. Also, if anyone has any thoughts (good or bad) about these Magnavox sets; I'd like to hear them. There are some water spots on the side of the case; but, it was free (and I'm not complaining)!

Finally, a tube set has been found as a result to my "free pickup of non working TV's ad." The CRT was replaced in '72 with a Zenith Chromacolor (now complete with green halo). I fired up the set and it will need new power supply filters. I get hum in the sound and a weave through the picture. Also, the focus circuit appears to be not working as the picture is very blurry. At least I have HV, sweep, and color. The model number and chassis numbers are pretty faded. If anyone recognizes this chassis; please let me know. Also, if anyone has any thoughts (good or bad) about these Magnavox sets; I'd like to hear them. There are some water spots on the side of the case; but, it was free (and I'm not complaining)!

And here's the chassis:

'jes like tha tv, there ain't no picture :D

'jes like tha tv, there ain't no picture :D

Sorry, I had to leave and am just now getting the problem fixed. So, I'll try once more. Here's the chassis...

Here are the side pictures. Really, this is one ugly TV. At least it was free and it does not take up much room. Oh yes, and it has that nice tube TV degaussing "thump" when it's turned on.

These were fine sets. Fixed a few. They had melty flybacks though. Watch the HOT cathode current especially, and get the Sams so you know precisely what the max current level is supposed to be.

Sure it needs work but that is not an ugly TV. If the cabinet is veneer it can be refinished. I really love compact consoles and that one is a diamond in the rough.

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I moved the set to better light and the chassis number looks like T933-04 and it appears to have been made in '68. I checked the Zenith Chromacolor tube installed and all 3 guns read almost equal and about 65% up the scale on my B&K 480 tester. The life test also checked OK. One day, I may try to remove the green halo. I'll see how bad it bugs me in operation. This set does have an instant on option. Of course, the instant on switch was turned on. The cabinet appears to be real wood (good thing). I'm sure I'll like it's looks better once I spruce up the cabinet.

Replace (or bridge) the main filter capacitor. This is what is causing the "crawl" in the picture and because B+ is low you will see a out of focus picture too. Julian

isn't the instant-on switch the one that causes fires?

Yes, I plan to replace all the power supply electrolytic caps. I'll disconnect the original can and leave it there for looks. I'll solder single section caps under the chassis. I've never heard of the instant on switch on a Magnavox causing a fire. I have heard of fires caused by the power switch on some RCA mid '60's color sets. I don't know when I'll get a chance to get back on this set. I was given 13 BPC & SPC style modern TV's by the local TV shop. I've been going through them to see what can be fixed in 10 minutes for $0. I did fix one POS 2004 27" Emerson flatscreen. Lightning blew up the filter cap and blew the fuse. After looking at the insides of that cheap made set; it just makes my appreciate the old Magnavox even more. I'm just not motivated to spend much time or $$ on a modern TV because I'd be lucky to get my parts investment out of it.

I never thought of instant-on as a fire-hazard, since it was designed to do that. Even if some sets had a 'vacation' button to shut the set down completely when going away, this was never an issue. If anything, I would be more concerned with energy consumption. Thats probably nill, though. Wouldn't leaving audio equipment on 24-7 like some folks do be more of a fire hazard, since many, many units were not designed for sustained operation? Thats my reasoning on this.

The Magnavoxes had a switch on the rear to allow for the "quick picture" feature to be on or off...I think this is a better arrangement than the "vacation" switch on the rear which just cut the incoming power or the sets which had no defeat switch at all. The channel indicator light would light dimly when the Magnavox was in quick picture mode to remind you the standby feature was on.

If the sets were heavily used, the quick picture function probably did not decrease that much tube life over what it would have had without it...of course it is nice to be able to disable it when the set is infrequently used.

Has anyone ever done any scientific study of how instant on affects tube life? I know how people often see patterns where there really is no connection (eg. cell phones and brain cancer). While I've seen instant on sets with bad CRTs, I've also seen plenty of regualr sets with bad CRTs and instant on sets with good CRTs.

Instant on would result in less thermal stress to the CRT. Many audio people believe that having B+ applied to a tube while it's warming up is bad for it. They like to warm up the heaters before turning on the power.

Those sets put a lot of beans on my table in the 70's. The main filter can is an 80-80-20 at 475 or 500 can't remember now. If you have problems with low contrast replace the 1st video tube a 6LM8 they seemed to be a little short on life and would give a very washed out picture. The set is full of 6GH8's and you can almost assume they are mostly all shorted by now.

I saw quite a few of them arc through the filament winding for the HV rectifier, the fix is just to wind another one around the core of the flyback transformer very easy fix after you've done a hundred or so. If you find a 3A3 in the HV rectifier socket change it to a 3CU3 those have a posted filament structure and cannot sag and short out like the 3A3 can. I changed some flybacks but I don't think they were much worse about burning them than any other make of the time except maybe Zenith.

The instant on does not apply full voltage to the filaments there is another winding or a tap I can't remember now but it puts about half voltage on the filaments. The vacation switch kills all power when the set is turned off.

On the back you'll find a switch that is labeled chromatone, some liked it some didn't but what it does is reduce the drive to the blue and green guns and give the screen a slightly sepia color. I never really cared for it. I worked for a Magnavox dealer through the 70's and we sold a bunch of those sets in the late 60's so I've been into lots of them.

I owned a T933 that was the dual speaker model with the 8 function remote. Even with a single 6AQ5 for audio output it sounded great through the 6X9 speakers on each side of the screen.

Those sets put a lot of beans on my table in the 70's. The main filter can is an 80-80-20 at 475 or 500 can't remember now. If you have problems with low contrast replace the 1st video tube a 6LM8 they seemed to be a little short on life and would give a very washed out picture. The set is full of 6GH8's and you can almost assume they are mostly all shorted by now.

I saw quite a few of them arc through the filament winding for the HV rectifier, the fix is just to wind another one around the core of the flyback transformer very easy fix after you've done a hundred or so. If you find a 3A3 in the HV rectifier socket change it to a 3CU3 those have a posted filament structure and cannot sag and short out like the 3A3 can. I changed some flybacks but I don't think they were much worse about burning them than any other make of the time except maybe Zenith.

The instant on does not apply full voltage to the filaments there is another winding or a tap I can't remember now but it puts about half voltage on the filaments. The vacation switch kills all power when the set is turned off.

On the back you'll find a switch that is labeled chromatone, some liked it some didn't but what it does is reduce the drive to the blue and green guns and give the screen a slightly sepia color. I never really cared for it. I worked for a Magnavox dealer through the 70's and we sold a bunch of those sets in the late 60's so I've been into lots of them.

I owned a T933 that was the dual speaker model with the 8 function remote. Even with a single 6AQ5 for audio output it sounded great through the 6X9 speakers on each side of the screen.

Thank you very much for the information. I was lucky enough to have the Sams Photofact on this set. Your information and the Sams should be a big help when I dive into this set.

Instant on would result in less thermal stress to the CRT. Many audio people believe that having B+ applied to a tube while it's warming up is bad for it. They like to warm up the heaters before turning on the power.

Is that maybe what some projection TVs do?

With my grandma's elderly Philips 55P8288, when you hit power you'll hear the relay click and then the (the high-pitched TV sound... what is it called? 15khz/16khz? Isn't that the horizontial scan or the flyback? I forgot :( )... it'll wait for about 4 seconds and then come alive with a picture.

Well i aint no expert on old tvs , however i have three magnavoxs like the one in the picture above . As far as magnavox goes , they seem to eat up flybacks in those sets .My Dad bought a new mag color set in 67 and in the early 70s it caught fire in the livingroom . I cant actually remeber exactly what it was, but i remember the repairman saying it was the transformer . Also , as one of the members mentioned the main filter cap should be changed, thats definitly right , i seem to run into that cap being a problem in maggy color sets . These sets were also know to have bad solder joints and like another another member said the 6gh8a and 6lm8 tubes usually caused issues . I have a 68 magnavox color remote combo i been working on . Its been a slow project but they are nice well built sets and produce a nice picture and have great sound .

Well, I finally got around to pulling the chassis in the Magnavox to change the main filter can. Man, they didn't intend on that one to be changed easily! I un-bolted the sub chassis with the power supply components on it and sat it back enough to somewhat get to that filter. I'm probably going to remove the old can and mount a terminal strip with individual caps to the top or side of the chassis. That should make replacement much easier should the new caps need to be changed. The chassis looks pretty good otherwise. It does not appear to have been serviced much. I looked at the flyback and it does not look too bad. Would it be a good idea for me to try to obtain a spare flyback now just in case the old one goes up in smoke? The Magnavox part number is 361197-2F. Was there a replacement for this or is the original Magnavox all that is available?

I used a lot of Thordarson replacement flybacks, I can't remember what the number was now but somebody will surely have a cross reference. I worked for a Magnavox dealer but we serviced a lot of sets and for the most part I don't remember those Magnavox sets being much worse than most other brands. Usually what took out the flyback was some lady continuing to leave the set on while she finished out listening to "The Guiding Light" during this time the 6JE6 was melting a hole in the glass and burning up the flyback. If they'd just turned off the set when the horiz oscillator went out the flyback would have been ok.

There was a recall on the U-45 Magnavox color chassis and maybe a few early ones for fire hazard of the flybacks that were covered with the black wax tire. However I remember reading about this time that the most common cause of fire in televisions of the era was arcing in the AC power cord at the chassis interlock, I've actually seen big holes burned in the back of the set, If they'd been near curtains it could have really gone up. Those were really small connections and the tube sets pulled a lot of current. Magnavox told us this was the major reason they quit putting interlocks on the power cords.

My personal T933 that I had when I got married in 1971 and we used for several years had the main filter can open up and I pick one up from the local jobber and installed it. At the time I didn't look at it close enough to notice they'd given me one rated at 350 volts rather than 475. Believe it or not it worked for about 3 years until one day it started tripping the circuit breaker. I removed the chassis and had it tipped over and was making a few checks before it tripped the breaker again, it was about that time that the filter can blew all it's guts out right past my left ear...too close. We were careful to get the right value that time.

The set had the 8 function remote control, my Daughter was about a year and a half old when she discovered the hand unit, any time I saw the color getting really bright or going green or purple or changing channels continiously I'd have to chase Jill down and get the remote away from her, she loved playing with those buttons. She's 32 now and a college biology professor and doesn't even have a remote for her only TV a 19" RCA that I gave her in 1993 when she went away to college.

Good luck and have fun. Worked in a Magnavox shop during college in the early '70s. The only thing I appreciated about Magnavox were the purchasers, who (generally) bought the set for the cabinet, not aware there was most likely a crappy chassis inside. Those chassis paid for a lot of text books and gas.

Good luck and have fun. Worked in a Magnavox shop during college in the early '70s. The only thing I appreciated about Magnavox were the purchasers, who (generally) bought the set for the cabinet, not aware there was most likely a crappy chassis inside. Those chassis paid for a lot of text books and gas.

That's funny because I find most Magnavox cabinets to be really ugly. They may be well made, but the style is not to my taste. Putting something high tech in a cabinet that looks like it was made in the 19th century clashes horribly.

I'm not too wild about the cabinet on mine; but, it's the only tube TV I currently have and I hope I can get it going again. People around here must have liked those Magnavox cabinets because I used to see a lot of '60's and '70's TV's and Stereo's around here in the '90's. A good percentage of them didn't function; but, the owners kept them for the cabinet. I even remember seeing a few 19" (I think) Magnavox table models that were made to look like mini consoles. Of course, I'm still on the hunt for a Zenith tube color set. The main thing I liked about Zenith was the "no pc board" chassis and the metal plate on the bottom that could be removed for servicing.

Of course, I'm still on the hunt for a Zenith tube color set. The main thing I liked about Zenith was the "no pc board" chassis and the metal plate on the bottom that could be removed for servicing.

That's one of the things i like about my Zenith. That metal plate on the bottom really makes servicing easier. When I restored my set, I put brass inserts into the wood where the bottom screen attaches so I can remove it as needed without stripping the wood on the bottom.

Tubes and PC boards are a bad combo. I have worked on many tube sets with serious heat damage on the board. Also, 1960s 5 tube radios are notorious for burned boards.

I collect tube radios, and, I've seen many '50's and '60's 5 tube radios with warped, cracked, and scorched PC boards. The heat produced by an AA5 radio is nothing compared to a color TV set. I think the only "non pc board" TV chassis of the '60's that I remember seeing were Zenith and Motorola.

Mine is a T93301. I picked it up at a flea market. I have replaced a good number of tubes even though it did play when I first brought it up on a variac. As was mentioned earlier, cathode current in the Horizontal Output stage is paramount. Another is the 6CG7/6FQ7 horizontal oscillator tube. Rapid (the RCA tube book says 11 seconds) warmup is very important to flyback/output tube and Damper life. If the oscillator is slow to get started the Horizontal Output tube, Damper and Flyback transformer will experience overcurrent until horizontal drive is established. This can be slow death to the tubes and repeated torture to the flyback on turn-on. I don't use the "quick on" as I have seen it shorten CRT life. Also, once the set is up and running, no variac is needed for turn on as the oscillators need full filament to get going. I do use a strip to turn mine on and off as I remember many on-off switches failing years ago. One other note... The 6GH8 horizontal blanker can mimic a weak (!) CRT. Always keep a good one in that location!

Tubes and PC boards are a bad combo. I have worked on many tube sets with serious heat damage on the board. Also, 1960s 5 tube radios are notorious for burned boards.

Tubes and PCBs can & do work well together, unless you use a poor quality phenolic PC board.

Virtually all Italian TVs, radios, tape recorders etc. made since the early-mid 60s, are based on PC boards, i've dismantled, repaired and collected many of them, they sometimes had dry joints under the tube sockets but none had even slight traces of heat damage to their PCBs

I serviced Magnavox TV's from 1970 until 1989. Never had one I couldnt repair, until the solid state sets came along.

I bought my parents one of the first solid state console sets from Magnavox that had the VideoMatic feature... a small PE cell under the screen that measured the light in the room and adjusted the brightness...

Anyway, it caught fire and nearly cooked my moms living room after running perfectly for about 2 years. I repaired it, and it ran another 15 years, before lightning got it.

I always liked the Magnavox circuitry. Especially the stuff built in Fort Wayne.

When Phillips got it, it wasn't the same anymore.