I think we all know that in the early 1990's, Zenith decided to make their CRT's last only about ~3 years before becoming too dim or failing outright. What I've wondered is exactly how they went about doing this? Did they use less emission materials in their color guns? Did they use under rated color guns (Like color guns meant for a 19 inch TV put into a 27 inch CRT)?

I've heard that weakening the vacuum in a CRT will make it fail quicker. Could this be what they did?

I doubt it was done deliberately!

Once heard that LG (or Goldstar in its original manifestation) sabotaged a batch of their CRTs. Of course, they took over Zenith soon after, and stopped providing buybacks of the modules and other Zenith practices.

I doubt it was done deliberately!

Once heard that LG (or Goldstar in its original manifestation) sabotaged a batch of their CRTs. Of course, they took over Zenith soon after, and stopped providing buybacks of the modules and other Zenith practices.

You would be amazed at how many people believe manufacturers build things to "fail" at some pre-determined date. You'd think they'd be laughed-off like Elvis sightings, but sadly, no. :no:

Now it's quite possible that somebody said "We don't need this much vacuum" or "This cathode would cost $.0003 less if we made it thinner" etc. But a "goal" of early failure? No.

You would be amazed at how many people believe manufacturers build things to "fail" at some pre-determined date. You'd think they'd be laughed-off like Elvis sightings, but sadly, no. :no:


Mmmmm hmmmm...

I fixed a car door that fell off because the bolt between the two hinges had been designed with the center much thinner then the rest of the bolt. There was no reason I could find for this choice in design, other then eventual planned breakage. A 25 cent bolt from the hardware store fixed that, and it's still working fine. Lord knows how much the dealership would have charged, and they would have of course used another bolt designed to fail after a few years.

More on topic: pre 1992-1993 Zenith CRT's are still for the most part going strong nearly 20 years later, yet those from 1993 onward are weak and dim, if they're still functioning at all.

I wholeheartedly believe modern products are designed to fail after X amount of hours of usage. I've recapped lots of motherboards with caps that decided to fail right around the time when a new upgrade became available (sometimes as early as 6-8 months)

Mmmmm hmmmm...

I fixed a car door that fell off because the bolt between the two hinges had been designed with the center much thinner then the rest of the bolt. There was no reason I could find for this choice in design, other then eventual planned breakage. A 25 cent bolt from the hardware store fixed that, and it's still working fine. Lord knows how much the dealership would have charged, and they would have of course used another bolt designed to fail after a few years.



It's tough to figure out what you're talking about, but it sounds like you are describing a "hinge pin", and the reason it was thinner in the center was likely because it was worn out! Is this the $500 T-bird you're always griping about?

As to the CRT failures, it's quite likely they made a production change for one reason or another (either cost, production speed, or new material) and it didn't go so good in the long run. Happens all the time.

Seriously, what kind of sense would it make to purposefully design a CRT that fails after 3-years? Not very likely you'll get a return customer!

You think a conspiracy makes more sense?

No, the hinge pin didn't have wear on it. First off there was nothing to contact that area to cause wear. Secondly, the pin had a light coating of paint, and none of that was worn away.

I think you're being sarcastic, though it's hard to tell.

I also remember reading on the repair FAQ website that someone from Thomson said their CRT's were designed to last around 15,000 hours. With a year being around 8000 hours, one of those 15,000 hour CRT's might last around 6 years if watched for maybe 8 hours a day, and by then of course something new would be out with all kinds of new features.

000

I think you're being sarcastic, though it's hard to tell.

No, I'm not being sarcastic. But who cares? You've got your smoking-gun, er..uh "bolt", as evidence of the plot for unjustified failures. For some reason, your conspiracy theories about things you have no background in, irritates me.

I should get some sleep.

What year was this automobile anyways?

I'm sure someone will soon arrive to explain how Zenith decided it would be in their best interest to design a CRT that fails in three years. Or maybe you'll accept the idea that it was simply a bad design that didn't reveal itself until it was in the field for a while.

My System 3 27" set mfd in 1996 has had as much use as you would expect a primary set of 12+ years to have and is bright as the day it was delivered. I guess it failed to fail.

My System 3 27" set mfd in 1996 has had as much use as you would expect a primary set of 12+ years to have and is bright as the day it was delivered. I guess it failed to fail.

There's a slight chance that your tube was made by someone else besides Zenith. I seem to remember seeing a couple Zenith's from this period that used the bonded yoke style CRT's like what Thomson/RCA used. Some of the last Zenith CRT sets used Philips CRT's. Or, maybe Zenith "screwed up" and actually made a good tube. It happened once in a blue moon.

LOL

Reminds me of an album by 80s band National Pastime called "Built to Break"

Anyway, again not likely they did this on purpose. But slip-ups do happen when designing a product, and its quite possible that these faulty tubes were indirectly a result of cost cutting.

Cars are a different story though, and a pisspoor example IMO..... Different price point, different use, different MTBF and a hell of a different principle of operation.

Any manufacturer who knowingly markets a crap product that they know will die before it's out of warranty is a thief IMO. This is the main reason why I stopped shopping at Target, Walmart, etc.... its all shit.

I've heard various stories about contaminated materials and components used in the guns, but nothing certain. Those CRTs didn't really wear out, they failed. They almost always had shorted guns, or low emission on one gun. I only saw a few that were just weak with no other failure.

I heard somewhere that the aquadag coating inside the tube would flake off and make it's way to the electron gun, causing it to arc/short. As far as the low emission, who knows?

A warning to any "newbies": If you find a '90's Zenith with a shorted voltage regulator, fried resistors, and a blown apart driver transistor in the power supply; just go ahead and trash it. There's a 99% chance that the CRT arced and did it. A shorted CRT can also take out the video driver transistors. I'll never forget the first set I found that suffered from that condition. It was a two year old set with no green. The green driver transistor was leaky. I soldered in a new one and was greeted with a nice picture. After playing it all day without problems, I sold it to a friend. Two weeks later, the set came back to bite me in the butt with a "no green" condition and a blown green driver transistor. Turned out the CRT was the culprit. Back in the '90's, I was getting bad CRT Zenith TV's by the dozens from the local dealer. Many were only 2-3 years old. Heck, I've seen Zenith's right out of the box that looked like the CRT was shot.

I could see a design goof up if the bad CRT's from Zenith stopped shortly after 1992-1993. However, this continued throughout the rest of the 90's at least. Every 1990's Zenith or Zenith made TV I've come across had a weak CRT in it. The one exception was a 27 inch Sentry 2 from 1992. From 1993 onward: bad CRT's, and not just the 27 inch ones. 19 inch CRT's, and even 36 inch CRT's... all weak.

Also, not too long ago I found three JVC TV's from around 2003-2004. not only were the CRT's shot, I couldn't adjust the G2 voltage to brighten the picture very much. The flyback's themselves had something inside them limiting how much the knob could turn. I could turn that knob maybe 1/4 of a turn in either direction.

Finally, A Philips TV from 2005 that i worked on had a "feature" to make it shut down if the screen was too dim. That sure as hell wasn't a cost cutting measure!

EDIT: Also, if a company is trying to save money, why not take a reliable design and stick with it for as long as possible? Why spend the money designing a new chassis and CRT every year? Change the case and update the look/features, but keep the important internal electronics the same.

000

You would be amazed at how many people believe manufacturers build things to "fail" at some pre-determined date.

Let's see:

HP print cartridges that stop working after X pages, even if there's still ink in them...

Cars that turn on the check engine light every X miles to 'remind' you to replace the perfectly ok O2 sensor..

Sealed automatic transmissions, so you can't change the fluid and if there's a leak, you can't add any - new GMs are this way...

The infamously marginal timing belt on Hondas...

Lawnmower engines with plastic camshafts...

My other favorite is car parts where there's one REALLY marginal part, but you can't just buy/replace that, you have to buy a whole assembly.

Even nastier - I tried to get a manual for my new car (Mustang). Factory one? Nope - Ford wanted - get this - $10,000 for the manual set.

When all this was happening, I remember reading how Zenith and LG were sinking huge amounts of money into this CRT plant that was a completely new design. It was supposed to produce "high quality low cost" CRTs. Obviously, they never were able to work out the bugs.


LMAO! Yeah obviously not, and those bugs made it into other CRT's as the years went by.

Oh, and here's a smoking gun for my conspiracy on products being designed to break: FUNAI! Need I say more?

I could see a design goof up if the bad CRT's from Zenith stopped shortly after 1992-1993. However, this continued throughout the rest of the 90's at least. Every 1990's Zenith or Zenith made TV I've come across had a weak CRT in it. The one exception was a 27 inch Sentry 2 from 1992. From 1993 onward: bad CRT's, and not just the 27 inch ones. 19 inch CRT's, and even 36 inch CRT's... all weak.

Also, not too long ago I found three JVC TV's from around 2003-2004. not only were the CRT's shot, I couldn't adjust the G2 voltage to brighten the picture very much. The flyback's themselves had something inside them limiting how much the knob could turn. I could turn that knob maybe 1/4 of a turn in either direction.

Finally, A Philips TV from 2005 that i worked on had a "feature" to make it shut down if the screen was too dim. That sure as hell wasn't a cost cutting measure!

EDIT: Also, if a company is trying to save money, why not take a reliable design and stick with it for as long as possible? Why spend the money designing a new chassis and CRT every year? Change the case and update the look/features, but keep the important internal electronics the same.

And don't forget the Sonys that had the AKB blanking circuit that would either blank the video or cause the video to flash when the CRT got weak.

I also had a 2002 JVC "D series" TV with a bad CRT. Then, I had a fairly new 20" RCA Truflat with a toasted CRT. The green was very weak and the blue and red were dead. I think the tube was an LG/Philips. Also ran into an early '00's 19" Orion wal-mart special with a shorted green gun. I was able to swap the tube from another set and save that one.

Let's see:

HP print cartridges that stop working after X pages, even if there's still ink in them...

While I don't think that's a great idea (but I can understand it if I run a large business that needs to schedule maintenance) it's not the same thing as designing a premature failure. Some film cameras re-wind after you take 24 pictures, even though others can squeeze 25 1/2 out of a role. Do I want to take the chance my last picture is screwed up, or know it's done at 24?

Cars that turn on the check engine light every X miles to 'remind' you to replace the perfectly ok O2 sensor..

VERY old government mandate, since made obsolete by secondary O2 sensors that monitor catalyst efficiency. (How did those get developed when they manufacturers had such a good racket going with the earlier system?)

Sealed automatic transmissions, so you can't change the fluid and if there's a leak, you can't add any - new GMs are this way...

Stupid idea granted, but becoming quite commonplace on many cars. (Mercedes, Lexus, etc.) Probably done because so many people are adding the incorrect fluids and ruining transmissions. (Just ask Chrysler about all the "bad" transmissions that suddenly started failing when Mr. Lube techs started adding the wrong fluid. It's been happening to everyone). They all still have methods of removing fluid and filter. There are also fluid level inspection ports, but not easily accessed as with a dipstick.

The infamously marginal timing belt on Hondas...

Lawnmower engines with plastic camshafts...

No comment on these related issues. :D

My other favorite is car parts where there's one REALLY marginal part, but you can't just buy/replace that, you have to buy a whole assembly.

Who stocks parts down to a component level, and when has this ever been commonplace? If a power window motor is supplied to Mercedes by Bosch, do you expect the dealer to carry the internal nylon gear, or complete motors? Should Sony carry individual flyback windings? After all, it only takes ONE bad one to ruin a part.

Even nastier - I tried to get a manual for my new car (Mustang). Factory one? Nope - Ford wanted - get this - $10,000 for the manual set.

You didn't say what year, so I just went with the "new" body style. $65 BIN

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2005-or-2006-Ford-Mustang-shop-manual-CHOICE_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ34221QQihZ005QQi temZ150325462599QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

I was rather surprised to find they still offered a print version myself. Most are CD-ROM now, and I found that version for $14.99 BIN.

I realize that by being realistic and not joining the "I hate xyz" party, nobody like having holes shot in their conspiracy theories. There certainly are a lot of crappy designs out there, and attempted upgrades (for either the manufacturer or buyer) often have the opposite effect. However, this anti-industry sentiment is changing the western-world from a progress-oriented nation of innovators that graduates engineers, (and invents things like color TV) to a bunch of whiney saps that sit around and point fingers at each others cottage-industry of conspiracy.

I've made my point.

Mmmmm hmmmm...

I fixed a car door that fell off because the bolt between the two hinges had been designed with the center much thinner then the rest of the bolt. There was no reason I could find for this choice in design, other then eventual planned breakage. A 25 cent bolt from the hardware store fixed that, and it's still working fine. Lord knows how much the dealership would have charged, and they would have of course used another bolt designed to fail after a few years.

More on topic: pre 1992-1993 Zenith CRT's are still for the most part going strong nearly 20 years later, yet those from 1993 onward are weak and dim, if they're still functioning at all.

I wholeheartedly believe modern products are designed to fail after X amount of hours of usage. I've recapped lots of motherboards with caps that decided to fail right around the time when a new upgrade became available (sometimes as early as 6-8 months)


As far as the bolt.. thinner means less material.. multiply that buy hundreds of thousands of bolts, and you've got a substantial savings. It also could have cut the cost of machining because of the design...

Concerning the motherboards with bad caps. This is a world wide known problem. At one point, a recipe for the goo they fill them with was stolen from a company and many other companies started to use this recipe.. what they didn't know is that an ingredient was left out of the recipe, causing most of the caps made with this recipe to fail... Also, many of these caps that failed were counterfeits... The computer industry was one of the hardest hit by this, although other industries were too

Helps to know the history of things, and understand how manufacturing and business works before jumping off the bridge..

000

Concerning the motherboards with bad caps. This is a world wide known problem. At one point, a recipe for the goo they fill them with was stolen from a company and many other companies started to use this recipe.. what they didn't know is that an ingredient was left out of the recipe, causing most of the caps made with this recipe to fail... Also, many of these caps that failed were counterfeits... The computer industry was one of the hardest hit by this, although other industries were too

Helps to know the history of things, and understand how manufacturing and business works before jumping off the bridge..

I know all about the history of bad caps. i should have mentioned that LONG after all this was revealed, the bad caps were still being used, and are probably still being used in various designs. The company knows the caps are going to fail, yet they still use them.

I know all about the history of bad caps. i should have mentioned that LONG after all this was revealed, the bad caps were still being used, and are probably still being used in various designs. The company knows the caps are going to fail, yet they still use them.


While contemptable, that's still not "designed to fail". Designed to fail would be a line of code that shuts everything down after X number of start-ups.

Helps to know the history of things, and understand how manufacturing and business works before jumping off the bridge..

Amen. :thmbsp:

While contemptable, that's still not "designed to fail". Designed to fail would be a line of code that shuts everything down after X number of start-ups.

Mmm, like certain pieces of software that after X amount of days, they shut down and prompt you to upgrade.

MS hasn't tried this yet with Windows, but their more subtle lifecycle policy was put into place simply because software code doesn't wear out, and can be repaired just by inserting the CD and reinstalling.

And honestly: what company WOULDN'T want you to buy a new whirlygig after the old one stops working?

MRX, I hate to jump into this, but give me an actual example of software meant to fail.

The only software that does this is free demos of commercial software or unactivated versions of Windows.

Also the caps thing... most boards that have shitty caps these days are ECS boards, and those have been known shit since the stone age.. All the good manufacturers have learned their lesson and use good caps (Samxon, Nichicon, Rubycon, Nippon Chemicon, Matsushita).

Software is a different matter entirely. Those programs that stop working after X number of uses are akin to "trial size" soaps.

The point being made is that just becuase something is a piece of crap (like a Funai) it doesn't mean it was designed to fail. It would actually require a fairly high level of engineering to design a product to fail just outside of warranty, but last long enough not to damage a reputation... More than I would think a company like Funai capable of doing.

I hesitiate to mention it, but it's like those granola-eaters who think GM conspired to buy up all the streetcars/trolleys so people would have to buy private cars. (And please don't bother showing me websites that say it's true... I can find holocaust denial sites too.)

Do you think the average person needs to be "pushed" to drive a private car? You like standing at the bustop in the rain? Riding next to crazy people? Moving on somebody else's schedule? As it is, we subsidize public transport now just to keep it cheap enough for people to use it.

Everybody wants to jump to conclusions, or find the bogey-man in the closet. Hey, Zenith 1993-era screwed up on some part of the manufacturing process where they should have known better on. Then they figured it out and fixed it, but it was too late... Damage done, nail in the coffin.

Nobody ran out to buy another Zenith after the first one failed, they in fact AVOIDED them! I know that to be true because my parents bought my grandparents a 1993 27" Zenith based on the excellent performace of their 1990 27" Zenith (which is still my main TV). When the newer set died, Zenith was off the shopping list.

The dim Zenith CRTs we saw also took a long time to brighten, and even longer for white balance to stabilize. It looked like low heater voltage, but I would guess that something bad happened to make cathode emissions non-linear, like a warped screen grid. There were a batch of bad JVC 26" crts one year, all with shorting guns, and all NAP oem. Oddly, the Magnavox sets using the same crts rarely failed. That always seemed fishy to me.

Around this time frame, CRT manufacturers were trying to reduce energy consumption by lowering the peak temperatures and reducing the length of exhaust and screenbake cycles. In our experiments, life test suffered and we never cut back on our heat cycles during production. I suspect Zenith and some others did and paid the price.

The point being made is that just becuase something is a piece of crap (like a Funai) it doesn't mean it was designed to fail. It would actually require a fairly high level of engineering to design a product to fail just outside of warranty, but last long enough not to damage a reputation... More than I would think a company like Funai capable of doing.


Companies spend lots of money every year researching and testing potential new designs. Getting a product to fail just outside of its warrenty isn't an exact science, but you can't tell me they don't design their stuff to eventually fail.

I'm working on a convergence board right now from a Philips PTV835. It had several resistors right next to the convergence IC's, which of course get hot. These resistors were a brown color and made of a different material then the rest of the resistors in the TV. They had of course failed.

Were the resistors so close to the IC's because of lack of room? No. There's a ridiculous amount of empty space on this convergence board. It's bigger then it needs to be, yet those resistors were crammed right next to the hot IC's.

Let's see:

HP print cartridges that stop working after X pages, even if there's still ink in them...

Cars that turn on the check engine light every X miles to 'remind' you to replace the perfectly ok O2 sensor..

Sealed automatic transmissions, so you can't change the fluid and if there's a leak, you can't add any - new GMs are this way...

The infamously marginal timing belt on Hondas...

Lawnmower engines with plastic camshafts...

My other favorite is car parts where there's one REALLY marginal part, but you can't just buy/replace that, you have to buy a whole assembly.

Even nastier - I tried to get a manual for my new car (Mustang). Factory one? Nope - Ford wanted - get this - $10,000 for the manual set.

He's right, everything is designed to break now days. I had some of those lawnmower engines. Here is what they said on the top: 5.5 Hp Commercial grade. These were made by Briggs & Stratton. Cam lobes made of plastic. The tappets and valve stems are also thinner than a pencil. They used to be as large or larger even on a little 3hp. Every time I get one of these, the valves are shot and there is no compression. Pure garbage. The old Briggs engines are built like tanks. They just don't want smart people to fix things anymore, they want us to be consumers and nothing more, at the mercy of shops and companies raping us for money with little we can do about it. That is why I'm vintage all the way. I'm not playing their games. I work too damn hard for what money I get.

I found my Snapper lawnmower in the garbage. all it needed was the pull string spring lubricated.

I also have a John Deere push mower from 2006 that has much more plastic, a thinner pull cord, and a hard to find oil drain plug (it's under the mower, easily hidden by grass buildup). I had to change the spark plug, and fix the throttle cable on it. The damn thing wasn't even 2 years old when I found it!

My snapper mower is probably a good 20+ years old, and the only maintainence I do to it is change the oil regularly, which is easier because the drain plug is easy to spot. It hasn't needed a new spark plug yet either.

my parents bought my grandparents a 1993 27" Zenith based on the excellent performance of their 1990 27" Zenith (which is still my main TV). When the newer set died, Zenith was off the shopping list.
My mother had a poor experience with Delta Airlines in 1963, and she would never fly on them again, and she lived until 2005.

There's a slight chance that your tube was made by someone else besides Zenith. I seem to remember seeing a couple Zenith's from this period that used the bonded yoke style CRT's like what Thomson/RCA used. Some of the last Zenith CRT sets used Philips CRT's. Or, maybe Zenith "screwed up" and actually made a good tube. It happened once in a blue moon.

My Zenith Sentry 2 19" table set is 14 years old and still has the original CRT. As the previous poster described, the tube in my set is as strong and bright as when I got the TV. I also have a 9-year-old RCA CTC185A7 XL-100, with the original CRT and a fantastic picture. The Sentry 2 is in my bedroom and doesn't get much use (was my main watcher from 1995-1999, then I bought the RCA when I moved here in '99), but I use the RCA most of the time, mostly these days for watching the news and DVDs/VHS videos.

I'm almost convinced that I got a good CRT in my Zenith purely by the luck of the draw, considering all the problems Zenith had with CRTs in their televisions from 1990 on. However, I'm not surprised my RCA's CRT is still good and still makes a picture as nice and sharp as you please. The failure mode of most RCA TVs of the early nineties was not, as a rule, the CRT; rather, the onboard tuner becoming ungrounded (through bad solder joints) and bombarding the jungle IC (EEPROM) with noise and ruining it in short order was a major problem until the CTC203 and its successors, as in these sets the tuner is mounted separately from the main board. However, a friend of mine told me his parents had an RCA Guide Plus 25" TV in which the CRT failed after just two years. They bought a new set, same screen size, that worked right out of the box and is still working today, some five-plus years later; no CRT problems or chassis faults. An interesting side note: This TV actually fell off its stand several years ago, but again is still working; the CRT shadow mask apparently wasn't bent when the set hit the floor. I had the same experience last year, with my RCA XL-100 CTC185. However, I was able to eliminate the color splotches in the picture by running a magnet from an old loudspeaker around the screen.

The Zenith we all knew and loved overbuilt its sets compared to the competition. By the 80s TV sets were becoming a commodity. Why buy the Zenith when the store down the street has a FlungDung that does the same thing: it has a decent color picture and the same basic features, yet costs $100-200 less? Zenith had to change; it had to cut costs. It moved production to Mexico. It lost ground on R&D versus the competition. At some point, faced with an uncertain future, they had to cut more corners. From what I have read, the '93+ crts were designed to be just as good, or even better, but be cheaper to make. Even if the crts had been good, those sets were far from the best on the market. From what I've seen an RCA/GE from that era was a vastly better set. The sad thing is that Zenith was probably the most common brand being sold by independent dealers. I've spoken with several guys who sold only Zenith in later years because of easy parts availablity and the fact that they catered to the small shops. All those little guys then had to deal with unhappy customers.

I really don't think there was any malice on Zenith's part. In the situation they were in c.1992 the only other choice may have been to close the plant and buy all their tubes elsewhere.

Oh, why is there crap like plastic camshafts and FlungDung TV sets? 'cause that is what people buy. The next time you're in WallyWorld, take a look at the lawn mowers. Now, had did they get them that cheap? Compare the price of a no-frills push mower to the cost of a new 3.5hp motor out of a catalog. The money is in volume; the volume is in cheap. This is not new...it is older than any of us having this conversation.

So, the answers I've gotten range from LG sabotaging their CRT's, to Zenith cutting corners and trying to make a cheaper decent CRT but failing miserably.

Any other theroies, or better yet maybe someone here worked at Zenith during the 90's, or knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who worked there during the bad CRT era.

Anybody remember the notorious bad solder joints between boards in late 80's vintage RCA sets? I was the CE at a hotel that had 145 of these sets, all manufactured in 1989. (I forget the model #, silver XL100 set with analog AM/FM radio). Anyways, right about the end of 92 and into 93 I spent plenty of days fixing these darn sets - which never really had a single component failure that I can remember - just bad solder joints throughout. But with that experience, I have never purchased an RCA or GE set either for work or personally since.

The next facility I took care of had 85 Zenith 25" Concierge sets m'fd in 1995, and I rarely had a problem with those for the two and half years I was there. Sometimes the Smartcards would need to be reinstalled (sorta like a reboot), but that's it.

The place I'm at now had all 1996 vintage mexican-made Zenith HealthView sets, and those were problematic - either bad modules or the CRT's would go south, sometimes both. But those had high hours. Most of those are gone now, but we still have a dozen or so of those old sets still in daily use with the original CRT's. Couldn't even guess how many hours are on 'em. I spec'd out newer Philips 19" commercial TV's, and we purchased about 15 of them several years back. Those are all going strong with great pictures and no servicing req'd. The rest are all just LG/Zenith HealthView's, same exact model that we've used all along. The bean counters insist we keep buying them. The newer ones are hit & miss, a few have died outright within months, I've seen two with bad guns within a year, but most are still OK after a few years of service.

Anybody remember the notorious bad solder joints between boards in late 80's vintage RCA sets? I was the CE at a hotel that had 145 of these sets, all manufactured in 1989. (I forget the model #, silver XL100 set with analog AM/FM radio). Anyways, right about the end of 92 and into 93 I spent plenty of days fixing these darn sets - which never really had a single component failure that I can remember - just bad solder joints throughout. But with that experience, I have never purchased an RCA or GE set either for work or personally since.

The next facility I took care of had 85 Zenith 25" Concierge sets m'fd in 1995, and I rarely had a problem with those for the two and half years I was there. Sometimes the Smartcards would need to be reinstalled (sorta like a reboot), but that's it.

The place I'm at now had all 1996 vintage mexican-made Zenith HealthView sets, and those were problematic - either bad modules or the CRT's would go south, sometimes both. But those had high hours. Most of those are gone now, but we still have a dozen or so of those old sets still in daily use with the original CRT's. Couldn't even guess how many hours are on 'em. I spec'd out newer Philips 19" commercial TV's, and we purchased about 15 of them several years back. Those are all going strong with great pictures and no servicing req'd. The rest are all just LG/Zenith HealthView's, same exact model that we've used all along. The bean counters insist we keep buying them. The newer ones are hit & miss, a few have died outright within months, I've seen two with bad guns within a year, but most are still OK after a few years of service.

I remember the late '80's RCA's with the MTT tuner module that always had bad solder connections on the plugs and the wirewrap stakes. These would have been in late production CTC120, CTC130, and CTC136 chassis sets. The older RCA's with the MSC tuner controller and MST tuner module suffered from the same problem. The solder problems with RCA really took off with the introduction of the CTC175/76/77 chassis in '92 or '93 and continued thru the later production CTC203's when RCA finally got sense enough to use a seperate tuner instead of their lousy "tuner on board" design. Those sets are usually good after the tuner grounds are resoldered. The main component failures I've experienced were bad eeproms (due to bad connections), shorted HOT, defective regulator IC and shorted B+ rectifier, and the occasional bad flyback. Once RCA started using a real tuner again, their flybacks started going south way too soon! Go figure!

One of our local hospitals had those Zenith healthview sets like you mention. I wound up with a few of them that had, of course, bad CRT's. Years ago, another hospital had a bunch of mid '70's 19" Sylvania's with motorized tuning (heavy as lead and probably their best sets). Those were replaced in the late '80's by 20" Magnavox cable ready sets. Those sets were recently replaced by Philips BPC sets. I wonder if they'll last 20 years like the previous Magnavox sets.

Unless I missed something, everyone in this discussion has only talked about Zenith CRT problems around 1992-'93. By 1990 I was seeing Zenith tubes fail faster than I could haul the carcasses away, starting with sets from '87 and '88. Lots of H-K shorts, and lousy emission.

RE: CTC120-136 chassis. I got in the habit of resoldering those wire wrap stakes on every one of those sets, no matter what I was asked to fix. Kept the callbacks down to near zero.

Re: CTC175+ tuner-on-board: I hated it because it was a stupid design, not having wires to backup those tabs on the shield to tie grounds together, AND I loved it because I have earned tens of thousands of dollars fixing them. At one time I had a running count going on how many I had fixed. I lost track at almost 600 units, but I was still fixing those then so the total is higher than that. ( I still see one from time to time)
At the Thomson training session that covered those (spring of '93 I think) several of us went to the FSM and expressed our concern about that design during the lunch break. We were assured that the engineering guys had tested the design and the grounds would not fail as they had been doing in Zenith and other tuners. AS he said that , I had the feeling that he didn't really believe it, but he had to say it.

Plastic camshafts in lawnmowers??!!! I was not aware of that, but it sure explains a lot! I have seen plastic pistons in brake calipers. Wont use them again. I've had 2 of them warp and bind in the bore. Sure made the van steer funny!

Re: Sony blanking until the tube is warmed up. I recall Sony did issue a mod for those sets to reduce the blanking sensitivity. I think late production sets came with it from the factory but early models were extra touchy and changing a resistor or two helped.

OK. I'm done now.

Unless I missed something, everyone in this discussion has only talked about Zenith CRT problems around 1992-'93. By 1990 I was seeing Zenith tubes fail faster than I could haul the carcasses away, starting with sets from '87 and '88. Lots of H-K shorts, and lousy emission.

I too remember a fair amount of late '80's-early '90's Zenith tubes being bad; but, the problem really took off around '93. Really, here are my experiences with Zenith CRT's:

1. Delta gun tubes from the '70's almost never went bad. Even to this day, they are still very watchable.

2. The first inline tri-pot tubes used with the system 3 chassis were not as good. The 13", 17", and 19" held up pretty good but I've seen plenty of weak 23"/25" ones.

3. Same story on the COTY (?) tubes from the early '80's thru the early '90's.

4. And, we already know about the early '90's and up.

My System 3 27" set mfd in 1996 has had as much use as you would expect a primary set of 12+ years to have and is bright as the day it was delivered. I guess it failed to fail.

i have worked on zeniths that had rca tubes in them maby yours has a thomson tube in it. steve

When I was in 9th grade back in '03-'04, my high school consists of a separate freshman campus building from the main high school building for 10-12 graders. The freshman campus building used primarily Zenith sets in all the classrooms which were from around 1994. These sets were still going very strong back in 2006, which was the last time I ever went to the freshman campus. Many of them are constantly used on a daily basis to display daily announcements and stuff like that.

I was very impressed with the picture and sound quality of these sets too.

Anybody remember the notorious bad solder joints between boards in late 80's vintage RCA sets? I was the CE at a hotel that had 145 of these sets, all manufactured in 1989. (I forget the model #, silver XL100 set with analog AM/FM radio). Anyways, right about the end of 92 and into 93 I spent plenty of days fixing these darn sets - which never really had a single component failure that I can remember - just bad solder joints throughout. But with that experience, I have never purchased an RCA or GE set either for work or personally since.

The next facility I took care of had 85 Zenith 25" Concierge sets m'fd in 1995, and I rarely had a problem with those for the two and half years I was there. Sometimes the Smartcards would need to be reinstalled (sorta like a reboot), but that's it.

The place I'm at now had all 1996 vintage mexican-made Zenith HealthView sets, and those were problematic - either bad modules or the CRT's would go south, sometimes both. But those had high hours. Most of those are gone now, but we still have a dozen or so of those old sets still in daily use with the original CRT's. Couldn't even guess how many hours are on 'em. I spec'd out newer Philips 19" commercial TV's, and we purchased about 15 of them several years back. Those are all going strong with great pictures and no servicing req'd. The rest are all just LG/Zenith HealthView's, same exact model that we've used all along. The bean counters insist we keep buying them. The newer ones are hit & miss, a few have died outright within months, I've seen two with bad guns within a year, but most are still OK after a few years of service. I'm guessing all hotels these days are quickly switching to the plasma widescreens. Who knows what kind of problems could pop up in these!:scratch2:

The freshman campus building used primarily Zenith sets in all the classrooms which were from around 1994. These sets were still going very strong back in 2006, which was the last time I ever went to the freshman campus. Many of them are constantly used on a daily basis to display daily announcements and stuff like that.



My grammar school had B&W sets installed when NYC's educational channel 13 (ancestor of PBS) went on the air around 1961 or so. These sets were rarely used, maybe they saw 10 hours a year. We did watch some badly written anti-drug shows (just like sex ed at the time, they didn't want to really say what they were talking about).
http://www.geocities.com/wa2ise/radios/classtv.jpg

He's right, everything is designed to break now days. I had some of those lawnmower engines. Here is what they said on the top: 5.5 Hp Commercial grade. These were made by Briggs & Stratton. Cam lobes made of plastic. The tappets and valve stems are also thinner than a pencil. They used to be as large or larger even on a little 3hp. Every time I get one of these, the valves are shot and there is no compression. Pure garbage. The old Briggs engines are built like tanks. They just don't want smart people to fix things anymore, they want us to be consumers and nothing more, at the mercy of shops and companies raping us for money with little we can do about it. That is why I'm vintage all the way. I'm not playing their games. I work too damn hard for what money I get.

I have found that I stopped having stuff break when I started buying vintage. I drive pre-75 cars and trucks, use 60's era yard equipment, 40's era tools, so on and so forth. I also implemented a rule that I would never let anybody else repair my stuff again, (except tire stores). The only things in my home that might be new are computer parts, but I research them before I purchase. I haven't had to fix anything in a long time. :yes:

My grammar school had B&W sets installed when NYC's educational channel 13 (ancestor of PBS) went on the air around 1961 or so. These sets were rarely used, maybe they saw 10 hours a year. We did watch some badly written anti-drug shows (just like sex ed at the time, they didn't want to really say what they were talking about).
http://www.geocities.com/wa2ise/radios/classtv.jpg

In the '80's, my elementary school had a ton of those commercial grade steel cabinet RCA CTC39 tube sets connected to Sony U-matic tape machines all housed on roll about steel carts. We usually watched interesting films such as: tornado safety, '50's cold war era "what to do" in case of nuclear attack, and films on nutrition. If we were good, they would take us into the library and show us a tape of "Sesame Street" or some animated cartoon. There was one newer '80's era 25" particleboard Zenith with pull on volume knob and a green LED channel readout connected to a Panasonic U-matic tape machine. I don't think the school got a regular VHS player until '87 or so (and, it was donated). Even in the '80's, our school system was about 15-20 years behind on technology. Heck, that school didn't even have A/C until late '88.

In '89, the school system caught up a little when they installed 19" Magnavox sets in all the classrooms. They were used to show a short "news" broadcast called "channel one" every morning and they were also connected to a CCTV system located in the library. I think the TV's were donated by the communications company that produced "channel one". If a teacher wanted to show a film, he/she just had the library feed it to their classroom. I think those TV's are still in use.

For some reason, my 10th grade Biology classroom didn't get one of those newer TV's and there was still one of the old tube RCA's in there for "channel one" use. The last time I saw it play, it needed some 6GH8's bad. That was back around '92-'93 and I'm sure that set has long since been dumped.

000

My high school, around 1971, had a B&W video tape machine. And a couple B&W monitors to go with it. It may have been a "U-matic" but I don't remember clearly what it was. The student newspaper did newscasts that were played during lunch hour in the cafeteria. "And yesterday Joey set the school record on the number of "milkies" (those little cartons of milk with pictures of USA Presidents on them) drank at one sitting, 15 of them".

When I was in high school (1972-'75) in suburban Cleveland, we had a rather elaborate (by 1970s standards) closed-circuit television system. Three channels in the beginning (2, 4, 6), three b&w Sony VTRs (CV series, IIRC), and three monitors in the control room. Channel 2's monitor was a 1960s Zenith 19" B&W TV; channels 4 and 6 used small (5") Sony b&w sets. All of our programming was from video tape, programs taped almost exclusively from the Cleveland NET (now PBS) affiliate and school events such as football games, concerts and the like, although we did take a stab at a live newscast in my senior year. I could tell you lots of stories from those days, as I was a member of our school's AV/TV crew and spent quite a bit of time with the CCTV system (camera operator for live tapings, control room operator lots of times during free periods, et al.).

We got our first and only color channel, channel 7, in my senior year. The VTR was a Sony AV-series color machine, the control-room monitor was a 25" RCA "Lyceum" TV (with the control panel to the right of the CRT, looking at the set from the front). We used RF modulators ("mini-mods", as we called them) to create the signals allowing us to send the videotaped programming over what must have been hundreds of feet if not a mile or more of coax cables behind the walls, terminating in the classrooms to F-type connectors mounted in standard electrical outlet boxes, to any or all classrooms in the school building.

I miss those days, although I think of them quite often when I use my video equipment (TV, VCR, DVD player) here in my apartment. I moved from the suburb my school was in some 34 years ago and haven't been back since, so I don't know what the CCTV system there is like these days--if it's still around (I heard, a year or so after I graduated, that the amateur radio club, of which I was also a member, had disbanded; I don't know whether or even if the club has been reinstated--I've been away far too long and have gotten out of touch with all the guys I knew there).

However, my experiences on the A/V and TV crew are memories that will be with me for many years to come. Some of those experiences could have parallelled those in the 1980s TV series "WKRP in Cincinnati", but never mind. I wouldn't have missed any of it for the world.

Mostly our schools had 25v "old-logo" Magnavox table models, woodgrain cabinets. Our elementary school had one on a cart with a Panasonic U-Matic. In high school the classrooms in the newer part had these mounted on the wall. In elementary a couple of the classrooms had early 60s bw 21 inchers-one a Motorola, another had an Admiral. The only time I ever recall one being fired up was for a shuttle launch or some such, and it wouldn't work. There was also a lone GE KE chassis color set, 23v, on a cart. I only recall seeing it in use once, when they connected it up with the Maggie/U-Matic so a larger audience could see the program. I can recall that the GE had no color. Wish I had it now. In middle school they had a late model GE 19" with a VHS machine; the teacher in charge of A/V had all kinds of neat stuff piled in the back of his classroom, like a Sony reel-to-reel video deck that worked (he demonstrated it one day; someday I need to ask him if he kept it when he retired) and a 19" Zenith color set that was either a tube chassis or a very early CCII.

My high school had early 90s magnavox's in all the rooms. They were 20" 4:3 sets mounted on little swivel stands attached to the walls of the rooms. Rarely used, I remember they were set up all wrong and had terribly washed out black levels for the most part.

In elementary school I remember a 25" RCA on a cart. Probably a CTC-120 or so.

In '89, the school system caught up a little when they installed 19" Magnavox sets in all the classrooms. They were used to show a short "news" broadcast called "channel one" every morning and they were also connected to a CCTV system located in the library. I think the TV's were donated by the communications company that produced "channel one". If a teacher wanted to show a film, he/she just had the library feed it to their classroom. I think those TV's are still in use.


We got the same thing at my high school around '91 - Channel One did provide the sets, 19" Magnavoxes on swivel wall mounts. My school did not make use of the CCTV capabilities other than broadcasting Ch. One - we still used the old metal cabinet analog tuned sets hooked up to c.1980 top-loading VCRs on rollaround carts to watch anything else. I do remember we could pick up the local cable channels on the new sets though.

(Channel One rant here)
Our 15-20 minute homeroom period changed, as the faculty was pretty adamant that we watched and paid attention to those stupid (imo) Channel One news broadcasts and their commercials. Personally, I had been watching the local morning news since I was in the 6th or 7th grade and had no interest in these hip, dumbed-down "newscasts." I raised an ethical issue about an archdiocesan school forcing it's students to watch commercials, but the brothers & priests were disposed of by then and, like most everything else with the Church down here, it was all about the money (free TVs.) I wound up using Ch. One as an avenue for humor, cracking jokes about much of their subject material. :naughty:

I have no idea if Channel One or the sets still exist, as I haven't set foot in my high school in 16 years.

I'm guessing all hotels these days are quickly switching to the plasma widescreens. Who knows what kind of problems could pop up in these!
Plasma TVs are about the worst thing they could put in hotel rooms, compared to CRTs or LCDs. I stay in a lot of different hotels and so far they have all still had CRT TVs. I never even turn the TV on in my room anymore, since I always bring my laptop, and the TVs are always horribly misadjusted. I used to adjust the TV for a decent picture first thing when I got in a hotel, but the newer sets have menus (of course) instead of knobs, and the menus are usually locked out. I tried a Pocket PC that included a universal remote control program a couple times, but I didn't get very far and it was not worth the trouble to try any harder.

High-end hotels do already have flat-panel TVs, though.

(Channel One rant here)

I remember the big controversy when the Channel One service was first announced. They would provide free TVs to schools and a ten-minute newscast each day, provided that their two minutes of commercials were shown to the students as well. I always thought, "What a wasted opportunity", when the service was just rejected because of the required commercials (or if the service was just accepted as-is). What the schools should have done, is to accept the TVs and service, show it each day, and then discuss the commercials afterward. They could have taught the students how to be better consumers and shoppers, and how to see through the commercial messages. "Notice how the Pepsi commercial has good-looking people in it... But, they are only actors, and now lets talk about the calories and sugar in soft drinks compared to water or fruit juices." "That basketball player with the exciting shoes only wears them because the shoe company pays him thousands of dollars." And so on...

You have a very good point Chris - I never thought about that.

Thinking back, I don't remember a great variety in the commercials aired, so that may have been a dead discussion rather quickly.

000

Personally, I had been watching the local morning news since I was in the 6th or 7th grade and had no interest in these hip, dumbed-down "newscasts."

I know exactly what you mean. I live near Cleveland; the local newscasts on the major network affiliates (channels 3, 5 and 19) are nothing like how I remember them from 30+ years ago. Those 1970s-era newscasts had anchors who actually looked and sounded as if they belong on television, and they didn't clown around either. This whole monkey business started maybe 20-30 years ago, when a TV news format called "happy talk" swept the nation's local newscasts; unfortunately, it stuck and will be with us I don't know how long, probably for many, many years to come.

Today, 30-odd years later, it's a completely different landscape as far as TV news in Cleveland (and the rest of the US) is concerned. The anchors still report the news as they are paid to do (channel 3, the NBC affiliate for this area, has a motto, "Report the facts. Respect the truth"), but the manner in which they do it just leaves me cold.

I just remembered, after reading a news item on Broadcasting&Cable.com a few minutes ago (I'm writing this on 02.16.09, one day after originally posting this message) why I like (and have liked for over 35 years) watching channel 3 news. The newscasts on WKYC-TV channel 3 in Cleveland are actually among Cleveland's better local news programs; their motto, which I quoted elsewhere in this post, says it all. The same article in B&C.com also had an observation that WOIO-TV 19's local news is "noisy" and very much resembles tabloid newspapers; this is why I do not care for the station's local newscasts. Channel 3 is not as bad as I said it was; in fact, 19 could take some lessons from channel 3's news department, although I don't think they will, since WOIO-TV has defined itself as an "unconventional" television station which apparently does things its own way, the other stations in the Cleveland market be darned.

This, among other quirks the station has, makes me very sorry that they picked up the CBS network from channel 8 a decade ago or more. With all the quirks and fluff channel 19's "Action News" has, I don't think the station deserves to be an affiliate of a major US television network; it should have remained with FOX or become an independent, and CBS should have remained at channel 8.

CBS wouldn't have moved from channel 8 to channel 19 over a decade ago if FOX hadn't purchased the former station from its previous owner (as it did with stations in several other markets across the country). That sale caused channel 8 to drop CBS and pick up FOX in the blink of an eye, and channel 19 to do the reverse. The result? A no-holds-barred Wild West newscast on channel 19 with the CBS Evening News at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Of all stations in this market to pick up CBS, why the devil did it have to be channel 19? Crying out loud, the station didn't even have a local newscast until about the mid-'90s.

The only time I watch the so-called "local" news is if I should miss the world news at 6:30 p.m. local time; otherwise, I don't bother with the six or eleven o'clock newscasts. These programs mostly cover Cleveland and the suburbs, hardly ever mentioning small towns such as the village in which I live, not to mention another even smaller village near here. When I lived in a Cleveland suburb (that's all of my life until I was 43--I'm 52 now), I was interested in the suburban news from other parts of the area, not to mention Cleveland (as I had relatives there at the time--I still have one aunt who lives in the city), but since most of my older relatives have passed on, and since I don't really know anyone anymore (except two cousins and an old friend of mine) in the suburb in which I grew up, I have little reason anymore to know much of anything that goes on in the city of Cleveland or its suburbs.

I don't get the Cleveland newspaper anymore, but I do have a subscription to a local paper that covers all of Lake County, Ohio (where my current residence and my former one are located) and the part of Cleveland in which my aunt lives, so if there is anything I really should know I can find it in that newspaper. The TV news in this area won't say much about Lake County or any other place further east than the Cleveland suburb of Euclid, so as I said, these newscasts are of little value to me anymore.

I realize times change, but what the changing times have done to local TV news leaves me cold. The previous poster said the newscasts in the New Orleans area are "hip (and) dumbed down"; well, that's apparently a trend that has swept the nation, including Cleveland and other cities. Sheeesh, even the NBC station in Cleveland has laid off many of its on-air staff because of the state of the economy; there is one man working weekends at that station (whom I cannot stand watching, even when he used to work at channel 8 in the seventies, when that station was still a CBS affiliate, before they switched it to that poor excuse for a TV network called FOX), who anchors all three of its newscasts--noon, six and eleven p.m. The station used to have a full staff of weekday/weekend anchors.....oh well.

That's the way it's going these days, like it or not. What local TV news will be like five years from now is anyone's guess.

Please don't get me started on the media storm that hit after NBC named David Gregory as the moderator of that network's "Meet the Press". I could not believe the to-do they (and the rest of the news media) made over the fact that Gregory is six feet five inches tall! What difference does (or should) that make? I'm sure NBC, after all, has other people in their employ who are at least as tall as Mr. Gregory is. Who cares (or should care) how tall he is, as long as he does a decent job moderating MTP? Why was such a fuss made over this in the first place? :dunno:

I no longer watch NBC national/world news because of the foregoing, unless the other two networks have preempted their news for sports events (and the latter run past 6:30 p.m. local time). I think NBC had better clean up its act, and soon. This network, after all, was the first TV network in the nation (and America's first radio network as well, until GE disbanded it and sold all of NBC's O&O [owned and operated] radio stations), and, in its heyday, IMO, had some of the best programs Hollywood had to offer. NBC was also the first television network to go full-color.

All of the foregoing was done under RCA's ownership of the network. All GE cares about is money (so what else is new?).

Meanwhile, the network and its programming continue to sink lower and lower. I'm surprised it hasn't sunk out of sight already, amid the other networks competing against it for viewers (CNN, FOX News, et al). NBC used to say that their network's nightly news was America's #1 newscast. I don't know if it is any longer. A television station in Cleveland, the CBS affiliate on channel 19, also proudly announces, with a screen using slanted, bold letters at least four inches high, that its six and eleven p.m. news programs are Cleveland's #1 rated newscasts. I beg to differ. I think channel 19's news is Cleveland's answer to the news program on the old Mary Tyler Moore Show on CBS in the '70s. That program had a poor excuse for a newscaster by the name of Ted Baxter, on WJM-TV's newscasts. He was funny there (and was meant to be), but Channel 19 in Cleveland has a slew of Ted Baxters working on its newscasts, many of whom are news anchors. The weather forecaster is one of the worst I've seen on Cleveland television in my life; dancing around the studio as he does the forecast, waving his hands around, et al.

And these people are professional newscasters? I don't think so. That is, they may be in the business, but the manner in which they present the evening news, IMO, leaves one heck of a lot to be desired. Channel 19 defends the style of its newscasts by stating (this has been in print in the local newspaper) that it is an unconventional television station and, as such, will do its newscasts in an offbeat manner completely unlike the other three Cleveland network TV stations.

I don't watch this newscast (19 Action News) for just that reason. I am all but convinced that, these days, Cleveland is where a TV news anchor either begins or ends his or her career; many former anchors at Cleveland stations have gone on to bigger and better things in important markets such as Chicago, New York or Los Angeles (I don't consider Cleveland an "important" media market anymore), but how they are doing at their new stations, I don't know. I certainly hope they don't pull the same monkey business they did when they were in the Cleveland market.

I don't know if or when the powers-that-be at channel 19 will wise up and cut out the nonsense on their local news. However, I guess enough viewers must like their style of newscasting; otherwise, the station would have abandoned their "Action News" format some time ago.

Please, whatever you do, don't get me started on CNN. That network has to be one of the most dramatic news networks on cable today. I mean it: CNN itself is more a clearinghouse for Hollywood news and gossip than a pure news channel, especially at night and on the weekends, and boy, do they ever overdramatize the stories they report. CNN Headline News isn't much better. What does Turner Broadcasting think it's doing? Are they running news channels or the television version of scandal sheets such as The National Enquirer, et al.? If the latter, they can forget me as a viewer.

We got the same thing at my high school around '91 - Channel One did provide the sets, 19" Magnavoxes on swivel wall mounts. My school did not make use of the CCTV capabilities other than broadcasting Ch. One - we still used the old metal cabinet analog tuned sets hooked up to c.1980 top-loading VCRs on rollaround carts to watch anything else. I do remember we could pick up the local cable channels on the new sets though.

(Channel One rant here)
Our 15-20 minute homeroom period changed, as the faculty was pretty adamant that we watched and paid attention to those stupid (imo) Channel One news broadcasts and their commercials. Personally, I had been watching the local morning news since I was in the 6th or 7th grade and had no interest in these hip, dumbed-down "newscasts." I raised an ethical issue about an archdiocesan school forcing it's students to watch commercials, but the brothers & priests were disposed of by then and, like most everything else with the Church down here, it was all about the money (free TVs.) I wound up using Ch. One as an avenue for humor, cracking jokes about much of their subject material. :naughty:

I have no idea if Channel One or the sets still exist, as I haven't set foot in my high school in 16 years.

There were a few teachers at my high school that would unplug the TV from the AC outlet when channel one came on. They saw it as 12 minutes of wasted time that was cutting into already limited educational time. My 10th grade English teacher would allow it, provided 100% of the class was glued to the TV. If someone made the slightest noise, the TV got unplugged. In the more liberal teacher's classes, we'd just use that 12 minutes to socialize and act up, not paying a bit of attention to their so-called "news" broadcast. Whatever the situation, I always liked that 12 minute interruption because that was 12 minutes that I wasn't having to do algebra equations or having to engage in "critical thinking" for English class.

When I was in 9th grade back in '03-'04, my high school consists of a separate freshman campus building from the main high school building for 10-12 graders. The freshman campus building used primarily Zenith sets in all the classrooms which were from around 1994. These sets were still going very strong back in 2006, which was the last time I ever went to the freshman campus. Many of them are constantly used on a daily basis to display daily announcements and stuff like that.

I was very impressed with the picture and sound quality of these sets too.

when I was in grade school from 1973 - 1979, we had these old Setchell/Carlson B&W TV's:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/cdmandus/setchellstudio.jpg

I remember they had a "standby" position as well just to keep the tube filaments warm.

I know exactly what you mean. I live near Cleveland; the local newscasts on the major network affiliates (channels 3, 5 and 19) are nothing like how I remember them from 30+ years ago. Those 1970s-era newscasts had anchors who actually looked and sounded as if they belong on television, and they didn't clown around either. This whole monkey business started maybe 20-30 years ago, when a TV news format called "happy talk" swept the nation's local newscasts; unfortunately, it stuck and will be with us I don't know how long, certainly long after the digital transition if not for many, many years to come.

Today, 30-odd years later, it's a completely different landscape as far as TV news in Cleveland (and the rest of the US) is concerned. The anchors still report the news as they are paid to do (channel 3, the NBC affiliate for this area, has a motto, "Report the facts. Respect the truth"), but the manner in which they do it just leaves me cold.

The only time I watch the so-called "local" news is if I should miss the world news at 6:30 p.m. local time; otherwise, I don't bother with the six or eleven o'clock newscasts. These programs mostly cover Cleveland and the suburbs, hardly ever mentioning small towns such as the village in which I live, not to mention another even smaller village near here. When I lived in a Cleveland suburb (that's all of my life until I was 43--I'm 52 now), I was interested in the suburban news from other parts of the area, not to mention Cleveland (as I had relatives there at the time--I still have one aunt who lives in the city), but since most of my older relatives have passed on, and since I don't really know anyone anymore (except two cousins and an old friend of mine) in the suburb in which I grew up, I have little reason anymore to know much of anything that goes on in the city of Cleveland or its suburbs.

I don't get the Cleveland newspaper anymore, but I do have a subscription to a local paper that covers all of Lake County, Ohio (where my current residence and my former one are located) and the part of Cleveland in which my aunt lives, so if there is anything I really should know I can find it in that newspaper. The TV news in this area won't say much about Lake County or any other place further east than the Cleveland suburb of Euclid, so as I said, these newscasts are of little value to me anymore.

I realize times change, but what the changing times have done to local TV news leaves me cold. The previous poster said the newscasts in the New Orleans area are "hip (and) dumbed down"; well, that's apparently a trend that has swept the nation, including Cleveland and other cities. Sheeesh, even the NBC station in Cleveland has laid off many of its on-air staff because of the state of the economy; there is one man working weekends at that station (whom I cannot stand watching, even when he used to work at channel 8 in the seventies, when that station was still a CBS affiliate, before they switched it to that poor excuse for a TV network called FOX), who anchors all three of its newscasts--noon, six and eleven p.m. The station used to have a full staff of weekday/weekend anchors.....oh well.

That's the way it's going these days, like it or not. What local TV news will be like five years from now is anyone's guess. Even the world news on one network (NBC) has gone to pot since NBC was sold to General Electric from RCA in 1986, which is why I've been watching ABC news the last few years or so, and will continue to watch it (or CBS news) until or unless NBC cleans up its act and starts producing a professional national news program, without the clowning around. I personally do not like the manner in which they identify their reporters on-screen during the newscasts; the reporter's first name is shown in capital letters in thin style; the person's last name is shown also in caps, but a very bold type style is used. For example: The manner in which NBC would identify Tom Brokaw would be as follows: TOM BROKAW, and below it, "NBC News", which would be replaced a few seconds later by the location from which the person was reporting.

Please don't get me started on the media storm that hit after NBC named David Gregory as the moderator of that network's "Meet the Press". I could not believe the to-do they (and the rest of the news media) made over the fact that Gregory is six feet five inches tall! What difference does (or should) that make? I'm sure NBC, after all, has other people in their employ who are at least as tall as Mr. Gregory is. Who cares (or should care) how tall he is, as long as he does a decent job moderating MTP? Why was such a fuss made over this in the first place? :dunno:

I no longer watch NBC news because of the foregoing, unless the other two networks have preempted their news for sports events (and the latter run past 6:30 p.m. local time). I think NBC had better clean up its act, and soon. This network, after all, was the first TV network in the nation (and America's first radio network as well, until GE disbanded it and sold all of NBC's O&O [owned and operated] radio stations), and, in its heyday, IMO, had some of the best programs Hollywood had to offer. NBC was also the first television network to go full-color.

All of the foregoing was done under RCA's ownership of the network. All GE cares about is money (so what else is new?).

Meanwhile, the network and its programming continue to sink lower and lower. I'm surprised it hasn't sunk out of sight already, amid the other networks competing against it for viewers (CNN, FOX News, et al). NBC used to say that their network's nightly news was America's #1 newscast. I don't know if it is any longer. A television station in Cleveland, the CBS affiliate on channel 19, also proudly announces, with a screen using slanted, bold letters at least four inches high, that its six and eleven p.m. news programs are Cleveland's #1 rated newscasts. I beg to differ. I think channel 19's news is Cleveland's answer to the news program on the old Mary Tyler Moore Show on CBS in the '70s. That program had a poor excuse for a newscaster by the name of Ted Baxter, on WJM-TV's newscasts. He was funny there (and was meant to be), but Channel 19 in Cleveland has a slew of Ted Baxters working on its newscasts, many of whom are news anchors. The weather forecaster is one of the worst I've seen on Cleveland television in my life; dancing around the studio as he does the forecast, waving his hands around, et al.

And these people are professional newscasters? I don't think so. That is, they may be in the business, but the manner in which they present the evening news, IMO, leaves one heck of a lot to be desired. Channel 19 defends the style of its newscasts by stating (this has been in print in the local newspaper) that it is an unconventional television station and, as such, will do its newscasts in an offbeat manner completely unlike the other three Cleveland network TV stations.

I don't watch this newscast (19 Action News) for just that reason. I am all but convinced that, these days, Cleveland is where a TV news anchor either begins or ends his or her career; many former anchors at Cleveland stations have gone on to bigger and better things in important markets such as Chicago, New York or Los Angeles (I don't consider Cleveland an "important" media market anymore), but how they are doing at their new stations, I don't know. I certainly hope they don't pull the same monkey business they did when they were in the Cleveland market. This sort of thing is exactly why channel 3 is almost always at the bottom of the ratings, year after year after year. It has been said that eventually, one Cleveland television station will leave the air for good. I am all but amazed that station isn't channel 3, as its ratings must be at the bottom of the barrel (or worse, if such is possible) by now.

With the economy in the shape it's in, I am amazed as well that some of the smaller suburban radio stations in this area haven't gone silent. One, a small 1kW daytime-only small-town operation about 20-25 miles south of here, did in fact go off the air permanently at 5 p.m. on Memorial Day, about five years ago.

I don't know if or when the powers-that-be at channel 3 (or channel 19, for that matter) will wise up and cut out the nonsense on their local news. I do know this much. Until they do, I'll skip the local news and watch the world news exclusively on ABC or CBS, or else read the local news in the newspaper. At least those networks know how to produce a professional news program. I honestly do not know for the life of me what NBC is trying to prove, with that poor excuse for a news program it calls NBC Nightly News.

Please, whatever you do, don't get me started on CNN. That network has to be one of the most dramatic news networks on cable today. I mean it: CNN itself is more a clearinghouse for Hollywood news and gossip than a pure news channel, especially at night and on the weekends, and boy, do they ever overdramatize the stories they report. CNN Headline News isn't much better. What does Turner Broadcasting think it's doing? Are they running news channels or the television version of scandal sheets such as The National Enquirer, et al.? If the latter, they can forget me as a viewer. I have programmed CNN and CNN Headline News out of the channel scan on my TV for that very reason.

Sheeeeeeesh! What's this world coming to? :scratch2:

There is an interesting news clip of NBC News on Youtube from July 4th, 1972 that went into detail on the planning of America's BiCentennial that will happen 4 years later and about President Nixon making preparations for it. Of course, this was before Watergate got legs and the rest is history so to speak. They then went into a clip of two different celebrations of the 4th. One was Attica Prison in upstate New York showing the prisoners chilling and enjoying themselves to jazz music and the other was parkgoers in Washington DC, listening to a country/bluegrass band where you saw people relaxing, kids running around, people paying games and so on. During these two clips, hardly a word was said, you just saw what the camera saw and the microphones were picking up, the pictures themselves told the story. I sit there and think, those kids in the park are around my age, they are my generation when we were little. I'll be 43 in July. It was refreshing to see that, just sit back, take in the pictures and let them go on with the story.

BTW, anybody remember when it was special when you saw "live by satellite" on the bottom of the screen? :D

We got the same thing at my high school around '91 - Channel One did provide the sets, 19" Magnavoxes on swivel wall mounts. My school did not make use of the CCTV capabilities other than broadcasting Ch. One - we still used the old metal cabinet analog tuned sets hooked up to c.1980 top-loading VCRs on rollaround carts to watch anything else. I do remember we could pick up the local cable channels on the new sets though.

(Channel One rant here)
Our 15-20 minute homeroom period changed, as the faculty was pretty adamant that we watched and paid attention to those stupid (imo) Channel One news broadcasts and their commercials. Personally, I had been watching the local morning news since I was in the 6th or 7th grade and had no interest in these hip, dumbed-down "newscasts." I raised an ethical issue about an archdiocesan school forcing it's students to watch commercials, but the brothers & priests were disposed of by then and, like most everything else with the Church down here, it was all about the money (free TVs.) I wound up using Ch. One as an avenue for humor, cracking jokes about much of their subject material. :naughty:

I have no idea if Channel One or the sets still exist, as I haven't set foot in my high school in 16 years.

Yeap, they still exist. Go here: http://www.channelone.com/ I graduated high school in 1985 so it was after my time.

You can even do the Jonas Brother's crossword puzzle. I don't know who the Jonas Brothers are, anybody want to do a Duran Duran, Culture Club or Van Halen crossword puzzle? :D

In our schools, they had 25" RCA XL-100's and top loading VHS machines or Sony Betamax. They were still showing 1960's vintage films (complete with splices) well into the 80's. Occasionally, when our local PBS station ran educational programs designed for schools in the afternoon, some of the teachers would use them, but very few.

Another poster mentioned news on NBC and in Cleveland. Youngstown used to have good local news on at least two stations. For many years, WFMJ was the fluff channel, but not anymore. When the tornadoes hit in 1985, it was not FMJ's top story, some fluff story was. Now, FMJ is the only locally owned station in the market. When WKBN (CBS) was sold in 1996, they sacked most behind the scenes people and one on-air personality. At the same time, FMJ's news director quit. Most of the KBN people went to FMJ. Now, they have the best news coverage in the market. WKBN and WYTV (ABC) is now mostly fluff.

I still watch NBC news because it's what I was raised on. I refuse to watch CBS fluff. At least now, CBS doesn't interrupt programming every time the President farts.

I'll take my tube sets anytime. What I want is more Zenith's.

when I was in grade school from 1973 - 1979, we had these old Setchell/Carlson B&W TV's:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v471/cdmandus/setchellstudio.jpg

I remember they had a "standby" position as well just to keep the tube filaments warm.

Brings back memories for me. When I was in high school from 1972-1975, we had several of those Setchell-Carlson sets as well. Stored in the A/V department when not in use, they were wheeled about the school into various classrooms for viewing video tapes through the school's closed-circuit video system.

I don't remember seeing a "standby" position, however, on the function switches of any of our Setchell-Carlson TVs, although I'm not surprised to find out from your post that these sets had it; it was an early form of the "instant on" system all new TVs of that era had, until the late '70s when it was decided that the feature actually wasted more energy than it saved. The advent of all-solid-state TV a few years later finally killed instant-on (the last nail in its coffin, so to speak) for good.

Those S/C TVs were made during the so-called energy crisis of the 1970s, when everyone was worried about wasting energy (turn off all unused lights, turn off the TV when you're finished watching it, don't let your car idle at railroad crossings when a train is going through, set your furnace at 68 degrees, turn off the instant-on feature of instant-on TVs.....that sort of thing). I remember every bit of that stuff, having grown up in the '70s (I'm 52 1/2 years old now) and hated studying it in school, but it's interesting looking back on it all now, thirty-odd years later.

BTW, anybody remember when it was special when you saw "live by satellite" on the bottom of the screen? :D

Yup. I sure do. When I was a teenager in the '70s and just starting to get interested in watching the news on TV, everything was either live or on film. In those days, I rarely, if ever, saw any kind of notice on my TV screen saying "live via satellite"--that or else if I did see it, it didn't make that much of an impression on me. I think the technology was so new back in the '70s that the networks didn't make much use of it, except for special reports.

Today, however, satellites are used all the time by the networks and local stations, so everything we see on the national evening news (or even the so-called "local" news on our areas' local network affiliates at 6 and 11 p.m. local time) looks as if it is happening right in our living rooms/dens/family rooms, as we are now seeing the events in real time as they unfold. The national networks (and local stations, for that matter) don't make much use of videotape for breaking news these days, either; the technology now exists (and is being used) to allow a national or or local TV news anchor to speak directly to one or more of his or her correspondents in real time while the event, etc. is underway--no more waiting for film to be developed and sent back to the station, as was common practice in the '60s through about the nineties.

000

...Setchell-Carlson sets. We had one at Sunnyside Elementary back in 1970, and the cart it sat on also had an Ampex VR-5100 VTR. And there started my career in electronics. In 6th grade the school let me operate the Ampex. We had one in Junior high too, and a couple of VR7000s as well as some Panasonic 1/2 inch machines in high school. I was the school geek with a Panasonic VTR slung over my shoulder, carrying a b/w camera, and a Panaloid belt pack around my waist that weighed more than I did.

Where'd you find the picture of that Setchell-Carlson? I was looking all over for a picture of one of those a few nights ago.

Oh yeah. How about those Zenith tubes.

Very neat Setchell-Carlson. I'm driving out to Rockland to look at a 50's s/c console next week :thmbsp:

I remember when CNN had respectable news coverage. Nowadays, it might as well be Entertainment Tonight. No substance, all flash. I remember when NBC had excellent journalism and better than average news content. Today, Fox is on a par. CBS and ABC have much better newscasts. Every broadcast network needs solid Radio Network facilities which can deliver the news when TV fails to. We need pre-1959 Radio News and Mutual News back to provide a strong backbone when TV isn't able to broadcast in the event of national disaster or emergency. That aspect is a disaster itself.

Every broadcast network needs solid Radio Network facilities which can deliver the news when TV fails to. We need pre-1959 Radio News and Mutual News back to provide a strong backbone when TV isn't able to broadcast in the event of national disaster or emergency. That aspect is a disaster itself.

I couldn't agree with you more.

IMHO, GE should have thought of that before they disbanded and killed the NBC radio network after buying out NBC (radio and TV) from RCA in 1986. That's a big reason why today's NBC-TV news is no longer the respected news organization it once was. I remember when NBC radio was alive and well in the late '60s, '70s, and right up until the end in '86. I would listen to their hourly news capsules in the '60s-'70s over WKYC-AM-FM radio in Cleveland, which were at the time owned and operated by NBC; however, in 1970, NBC sold their Cleveland affiliates and the network's programs (newscasts, features, Meet the Press, etc.) were picked up by another local AM station, then another after a couple more years. By the time NBC had landed on its third Cleveland radio station, however, the network was close to death, as by this time (1980s) GE was close to finalizing the deal that would give it absolute control of NBC, both its radio and television divisions. GE apparently thought that, by the mid-1980s, network radio was on its last legs and was losing money for NBC, which eventually led to GE disbanding and ultimately dismantling the network permanently.

A once-popular weekend variety show titled Monitor Beacon, running from 1955-1975 over NBC radio, was one of the last regularly scheduled network radio programs; as well, I liked Monitor Beacon's little interval signal they sent to the local affiliates just before going to commercial breaks. I've never heard anything like it on radio in my life since then. Very unique. This signal, plus other tributes to the former Monitor Beacon, may be heard on NBC's "Monitor Tribute Pages" web site. I don't recall the site's URL as I write this, but if you do a Google search on "NBC Radio" or "Monitor Beacon", one or more of the results should show a link to the site.

NBC's flagship Sunday morning public affairs program Meet the Press, however, is still carried on select stations over the Westwood One radio network on Sundays, just as MTP was carried over the NBC radio network until the latter's demise. The program may also be seen on NBC-TV and MSNBC; however, the time slot of the latter network's rebroadcast of the program varies by market. I am at something of a disadvantage where I live in that I cannot hear (over the radio) Westwood One's rebroadcast of MTP, as the radio station that carries it does not reach here (a small town just outside the greater Cleveland area) after sundown Eastern time. However, I could listen to the station's Internet stream and catch the program that way should I miss the rebroadcasts over MSNBC.

I realize times change, but what the changing times have done to local TV news leaves me cold. The previous poster said the newscasts in the New Orleans area are "hip (and) dumbed down"...

I was actually talking about the teen-marketed "Channel One" news we were forced to watch in high school, but you do make an interesting point. Most of the local newscasts have moved towards a tabloid, graphics-intensive production rather than a straight newscast.

Around 2002 we had a storm hit the Gulf Coast that caused some headaches, and WVUE was lauded as the only station that stayed on the air through it all with something close to 24 hours of continuous coverage. The fact is they didn't have a choice, as the stations owner, Ennis, had fired most of the technical staff and everything was controlled by a central computer in Mobile or Pensacola. The hurricane knocked out the computer, and the station had no means to run any programming themselves except a live newscast.

Of course, we had our share of characters years ago - including the late Ron Hunter. During a flood one year he rescued a dog. When he found out the cameraman wasn't filming it, what does he do? Yep, throws the dog back in the water for take two. He also once did a special report about escaping a submerged vehicle by having a Valiant lowered into Lake Pontchartrain with him inside. Never mind that anyone breaking through a guardrail and plunging into a lake or canal would have suffered the impact of a 10-20 foot drop - often upside down...

Please, whatever you do, don't get me started on CNN...do they ever overdramatize the stories they report.

During Katrina was the first time I had watched CNN/MSNBC/etc. in years, as I was in a motel in Valdosta, Ga. I grew very tired of the thirty-six screens flashing different images behind Blitzer - you know, the whole way many networks operated during the disaster was appalling. I remember when responsible broadcasters remained calm and broadcast confirmed facts. These networks' style of reporting added stress and despair to an already unbelievable situation. Geraldo did everything but wave a severed limb at the camera.

000

At my old high school, by 2002 or so, the Channel One-owned Magnavox sets and equipment (TV swivel brackets, huge metal box containing a Magnavox-branded Panasonic VHS, timer and distribution equipment) moved out. "Cable in the Classroom" took its place, though only a couple of instructors used it as a tool, the rest had the sets off during the day. By the time I graduated in '04, the school was doing its own newscasts - glopping with cheese, using 32-inch Samsungs and Toshibas.

The school system had also invested in a few mono 4-head Sony VHS recorders to compliment the dusty Pioneer CLD-V2400s in most classrooms. Of course, the 2400s sat unused except for the science classes.

As far as TV news, the mudslinging and oversensationalization between the cable networks is becoming tiring and I find myself watching the local stuff or even WGN (yes, I have cable and live nowhere near Chicago, blah, blah...).

Yup. I sure do. When I was a teenager in the '70s and just starting to get interested in watching the news on TV, everything was either live or on film. In those days, I rarely, if ever, saw any kind of notice on my TV screen saying "live via satellite"--that or else if I did see it, it didn't make that much of an impression on me. I think the technology was so new back in the '70s that the networks didn't make much use of it, except for special reports.

Today, however, satellites are used all the time by the networks and local stations, so everything we see on the national evening news (or even the so-called "local" news on our areas' local network affiliates at 6 and 11 p.m. local time) looks as if it is happening right in our living rooms/dens/family rooms, as we are now seeing the events in real time as they unfold. The national networks (and local stations, for that matter) don't make much use of videotape for breaking news these days, either; the technology now exists (and is being used) to allow a national or or local TV news anchor to speak directly to one or more of his or her correspondents in real time while the event, etc. is underway--no more waiting for film to be developed and sent back to the station, as was common practice in the '60s through about the nineties.

We sure do have a 24 hour news cycle. I remember as a kid, most people got their news on TV maybe in the morning, you had a local noon broadcast, then at 6 local news came on and at 7, the national news. Then at 11 PM, you had a local newscast again and that was it. I remember when ABC added "Nightline" when the hostages were taken in Iran and it stuck ever since.

Unless something really big was happening like the JFK assassination, TV news was restricted to those times and if you wanted to get news updates, radio was the way to go.

...Setchell-Carlson sets. We had one at Sunnyside Elementary back in 1970, and the cart it sat on also had an Ampex VR-5100 VTR. And there started my career in electronics. In 6th grade the school let me operate the Ampex. We had one in Junior high too, and a couple of VR7000s as well as some Panasonic 1/2 inch machines in high school. I was the school geek with a Panasonic VTR slung over my shoulder, carrying a b/w camera, and a Panaloid belt pack around my waist that weighed more than I did.

Where'd you find the picture of that Setchell-Carlson? I was looking all over for a picture of one of those a few nights ago.

Oh yeah. How about those Zenith tubes.

I found it on a site that featured old televisions. I'll have to check my links or even look for it again.

I remember when CNN had respectable news coverage. Nowadays, it might as well be Entertainment Tonight. No substance, all flash. I remember when NBC had excellent journalism and better than average news content. Today, Fox is on a par. CBS and ABC have much better newscasts. Every broadcast network needs solid Radio Network facilities which can deliver the news when TV fails to. We need pre-1959 Radio News and Mutual News back to provide a strong backbone when TV isn't able to broadcast in the event of national disaster or emergency. That aspect is a disaster itself.

I remember Mutual as well, I have some MP3's of the CBS Mystery Radio Theater that has Mutual on them, IIRC.

The infamous Zenith tubes developed shorts from control grid to screen grid. I have placed a 630 volt mylar cap on the screen grid and a 100 mfd @ 25 volts on the control grid. When the short appears normally the affected gun goes full bright, overcurrents the power supply and kills the regulator IC as well as killing the catode. If the tube is good when the parts are added, when the short appears a loud snap will be heard, the tube goes dark then comes back on. I've kept many alive doing this.

I heard somewhere recently that the "Average" designed life expectancy of an electronic item is 2 years. :scratch2:

Wow.

No wonder stuff is so cheap.

:scratch2:

I heard somewhere recently that the "Average" designed life expectancy of an electronic item is 2 years. :scratch2:

Wow.

No wonder stuff is so cheap.

:scratch2:

BAH!!!

If it doesn't last at least 10 years, it's a piece of shit. 20 is even better, and 30 means they weren't fucking around when they built it.

BAH!!!

If it doesn't last at least 10 years, it's a piece of shit. 20 is even better, and 30 means they weren't fucking around when they built it.

Well, I have a 1982 Zenith System 3 that we've been using since early 1983 and it has been in daily used since then with a couple of minor repairs. It is our main TV.

"average"

By 1990, Zenith already knew TV as it was then was in end phase.
They had already borrowed money from a Korean company using 55% of stock as collateral.
That means Zenith got a huge deposit on the sale of the company.
Zenith stated in their annual reports that they never made a profit in 20 years.
Governmental regulations regarding X-Rays and radiations also contributed to the degradation of picture screen quality, beam currents were lower compared to older tube designs.
I am sure equipment was no longer being maintained to the highest standards.
There is a video on you tube that explains why the "new low cost" tube Zenith was designing failed, it was to be completely assembled by robots and machines. "The human finger is hundreds of times more sensitive than any machine is capable of."
Looks like to me all the Korean company got in 1995 after the bankruptcy was a name, and an empty bag. Zenith name is great for marketing.
Electron guns were not designed or made to be cheap, the "shorting out" problems so common then in "inline" guns was an unforeseen event caused by close tolerences of the new design.
By then, "why bother pouring more money into research, use up what we got, cause the door is gonna close real soon."

By 1990, Zenith already knew TV as it was then was in end phase.
They had already borrowed money from a Korean company using 55% of stock as collateral.
That means Zenith got a huge deposit on the sale of the company.
Zenith stated in their annual reports that they never made a profit in 20 years.
Governmental regulations regarding X-Rays and radiations also contributed to the degradation of picture screen quality, beam currents were lower compared to older tube designs.
I am sure equipment was no longer being maintained to the highest standards.
There is a video on you tube that explains why the "new low cost" tube Zenith was designing failed, it was to be completely assembled by robots and machines. "The human finger is hundreds of times more sensitive than any machine is capable of."
Looks like to me all the Korean company got in 1995 after the bankruptcy was a name, and an empty bag. Zenith name is great for marketing.
Electron guns were not designed or made to be cheap, the "shorting out" problems so common then in "inline" guns was an unforeseen event caused by close tolerences of the new design.
By then, "why bother pouring more money into research, use up what we got, cause the door is gonna close real soon."

Some facts in your post are wrong.

Zenith didn't go bankrupt until I believe either 1998 or 2000. 1995 was when they sold 55% of ther stock to LG.

Governmental regulations concerning X rays and beam current don't explain why RCA, Magnavox, Sony, and various other TV's from the 1990's still have good working CRT's, or at least better then their Zenith equivelent.

The rest of your post may be accurate, but I don't know for sure.

I just remembered something.

I think the bad Zenith CRT's started as early as 1991.

A friend of mine had a 27 inch "Bell & Howell" TV manufactured in 1991. Eventually he bought a new one and gave me this TV. As it was the only 27 inch TV I had at the time, I was glad to have it, even of the picture was tinted green, and the corners of the image were badly out of focus.

Thinking back, the casing looked a lot like some other early 90's Zenith TV's I've found. It was a greenish silver color, but the styling, and the square buttons were the same as Zenith TV's all the way up to 1996. The channel numbers had the same font. It even "sounded" like a Zenith, meaning you could hear the CRT scanning. I can't describe the sound, but early 90's Zenith's make this same sound... you can really hear it when the raster is static or otherwise unstable.

And this Bell & Howell TV? It died on me about a year after I got it...

---

MRX, I hate to jump into this, but give me an actual example of software meant to fail.

The only software that does this is free demos of commercial software or unactivated versions of Windows.

Also the caps thing... most boards that have shitty caps these days are ECS boards, and those have been known shit since the stone age.. All the good manufacturers have learned their lesson and use good caps (Samxon, Nichicon, Rubycon, Nippon Chemicon, Matsushita).

Also, many motherboard manufacturers ended up buying counterfeit capacitors that they believed were genuine, through no fault of their own. Unscrupulous suppliers screwed them.

Dishonest suppliers have been around for a long time. Back in the 1950s some dishonest suppliers would wash used tubes and sell them as new. This is the reason for the water eraseable numbers on many 1960s vacuum tubes.

Just found a 1994 model Zenith out on the curb. The cord is cut off. I wonder if this is one of these.....

I just tested it out and it works but the picture is so dim I have to be in a totally dark room to see it.

Was that the problem with these or was it mostly guns shorting out?

CRT is shot. You might try cranking up the G2 control on the flyback. Otherwise, put it back on the curb.

---

I just tested it out and it works but the picture is so dim I have to be in a totally dark room to see it.

Was that the problem with these or was it mostly guns shorting out?

I'd almost bet money you have a rebuilt Zenith CRT in there, probably from 1995 or 1996.

If it still has the original CRT in it I'd be surprised.

Well I have a Dec 1983 25" Zenith Space command with "Space phone" that my uncle has sitting at my work. He has had it since new and used it since new! Just a few weeks ago he noticed that colors especially red wask over to the right. Green too, but not as bad. Im almost positive the CRT is getting tired. It drives the colors off with the contrast turned up.
It's sad that our proud company produced once probably the best CRT on the market, and this one in this set is no slouch (it's gotta have thousands of watching hours on it) to something that lasts 6 months...

That '83 would probably respond well to rejuvenation with the right tester. It's amazing when the older tubes just last and last and the newer ones are doing good to last out the warranty. I just picked up a '58 Zenith B&W portable and the CRT is in great shape.

I just did something you won't believe. I actually did a tube swap in a 25" '98 Zenith with a dead tube (red dead, green almost dead, blue good). I had some fun with the old tube before pulling it out. I cranked the filament voltage up to 12 volts (that's how high I had to go to get it to register "good"). When I did that and checked for shorts, the needle was going crazy on all guns. hitting the neck of the tube with a screwdriver handle was causing even more excitement with the shorts test. I was just about to rip out the chassis when I remembered there was a 25" Magnavox tube from the late '90's in an empty cabinet behind my shop waiting to be thrown out. The mounting ears on the Magnavox tube were a little higher than the ones on the Zenith tube; but, I was able to mount it without any problem. I never could get the purity right and ended up ripping out the rubber yoke wedges and shoving the yoke all the way up on the tube. Actually, the set that the Magnavox tube was in had been dropped; so, there may be some shodowmask damage to the Magnavox tube. At least it's watchable now and maybe I can find it a home. With that Magnavox tube installed, the TV is probably more reliable now than it was the day it left the factory.

I wonder if you could just throw in any old CRT from another brand of TV made in the same era and have it work?

I've done it many times with various brands of TV's over the years. As long as the tube is electrically the same and will mount in the cabinet, it will usually work.

000