Hey folks, new to the TV forums, but a regular poster in the audio section. Glad to be down here! :D

Anyway, I have a Zenith Space Command 3 TV circa 1985 that I snagged off a friend for free with an odd problem. The tuner is very intermittent. Usually when I turn on the TV, the signal is halfway there, a good picture but staticy. It stays like that for a random amount of time, then either instantly switches to a good picture and sound, or just snow. Again, this is not consistent at all. Sometimes I turn the set on and it is just snow. Sometimes it's a good picture right off the bat! I assume some capacitors must be going up somewhere (since it is intermittent), but I figured I should check down here before wrecking it. What is going on? Thanks! :thmbsp:

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The first thing I would do is re-solder all the ground shield connections in the tuner. I saw a lot of mid 80's Zeniths with this problem, even 10 years ago.

I assume the tuner is the big shielded box the cable line runs directly in to? I tried to remove it earlier today, but I couldn't see... guess I'll have to rig something up. I'll resolder every ground connection I can find and report back. Thanks!

Yep, I resoldered all the ground connections that looked dubious... and some that weren't even soldered on! :yikes: The pads were there, the shielding was next to it, but no solder there! Now my TV works perfectly. Thank you very much!

Ya got lucky! Nice! :thmbsp: :yes: