Wow Chuck, that s a beautiful set!!
I couldn't have waited a year to get that home:p:

Eric

Working on my Fada 799 at the moment. Cabinet is in near mint condition, unmolested dusty chassis cleaned up nicely, super-strong 10BP4, may need several caps, tunes in sound and snowy picture as-is. Tuner is touchy because the detent clip is broken, but I'll find a source for the parts I need. I'll keep everyone posted as to progress.

Most recent set to follow me home from a local auction. Spent 4 hours waiting for it to be put up.

Chuck

ChuckA,

Nice Porthole! That grille is most unusual. Do you think it is factory issue?

Rob

Originally posted by Rob

That grille is most unusual. Do you think it is factory issue?
Rob


Rob,

Don't know, I just unloaded it in the garage and haven't looked to closely at it yet.

Went out to look it over, it's a model H2449E, 16GP4 CRT. I looked at the grille decoration, if it's not original someone went to a lot of trouble making something that fits that opening perfectly.

Looking at Riders I think it's 1950.




Chuck

Here's a Dumont I picked up today from my ad in the paper.
It even has a matching wood stand. Someone put handles on both sides! Does anyone know the year of this beast? From what I was able to get off the label on the back it says that it is the model RA-306 "Warren" Was thinking maybe 1952 or 1953?

The RA-306 shows up in Riders Vol 13, so should be 1953


Chuck

Here's my RCA 8-T-241. I had it moved to the display room and set up just in time for the two customers who dropped off their Crosley TV and Zenith Cobramatic radio phono for restoration to see it work. Both this one and the Fada TV30 could use IF alignment, but I prefer to set up my custom-calibrated B&K 415 to do that. The unit is on its way. Until I get the equipment ready, I still need to fire these up periodically to keep them in good shape. The display room seems like the most logical place.

Here's my Fada TV30. This set is "the groupie" that has been passed around from one collector to the next over the years. I had it moved to the display room and set up just in time for the two customers who dropped off their Crosley TV and Zenith Cobramatic radio phono for restoration to see it work. For both these sets, I ended up cutting pieces of rubber to the proper size and attaching them with hot glue to the CRT brackets since I couldn't find any 1"x3/8" rubber bands to exactly match the originals.

Thanks Chuck,
I thought it was around that year. Would you believe that tv works great still, When I looked at it at the old womans home all I got was sound.
After getting it home, I found the brightness all the way down as well as the contrast and vert hold.
It has a suprisingly clear picture with excellent brightness still, Has a replacement Dumont tube in it, Although I couldn't read the date (I'll disturb the dust later!)

Hello
I bought this at a flea market about 10 years ago for $20.00
It still kinda works a little, very faint sound and a picture
about the size of pin head!
I'm actually taking it today to get looked at by a TV repairman
who has been in the business for a long time.

If any one has any info on the Sentinel company let me know.

Thank You
Mike Caldwell

Mike, that is a good find! It is worth maybe $150 to $200 as is. I paid $165 for mine not working and missing two knobs.
Marlin

I knew it was too good to pass up!

Thanks
Mike Caldwell

I just purchased my first vintage tv, an RCA 9PC41, identical to the one pictured by Marlin Makley in his 9/25/02 post in this thread. I know nothing about it and would appreciate any information anyone can give me on it. And does anyone know someone in the Rio Grande Valley (Harlingen, Brownsville, McAllen, etc.) who works on vintage tv?

Thanks for your help.

js,

Congratulations on your score! The series of RCA projection consoles that started in 1946 and ended in 1949 with your model (and mine) all share the same four chassis and optics. They all have Channel 1. Projection TV's are much more of a challenge to restore to reliable operation than the more common direct view receivers which we are more accustomed. You have chosen quite a challenge for your first foray into this interesting hobby.

I have two of these with plans to eventually restore one of them which is now on display in my home. It is one of those non-urgent future planned projects.

I know that there are a couple collectors who have restored these projectors who might be willing to give you some advice.
I'll contact one I know and see if he will agree to me giving out his contact info to you.

Quite good service and setup info on this set is published in the Rider TV books.

One thing you must really be cautious about is to never operate the set with deflection circuit problems as when the raster is not present the high energy of the electron beam operating at reduced or no deflection will easily and quickly burn a permanent mark (dead spot) into the delicate phosphor of the 5TP4 projection CRT, a tube that is now somewhat rare and difficult to obtain. Another CRT used in small theater projectors from the same era (yes they were doing 15x20 foot projected TV screens in those days!) is the 5AZP4 CRT. It can be successfully installed in these vintage RCA RPTV's. Another suitable projection tube, the newer version of the 5AZP4 is the 4820A. That one is a very bright CRT due to phosphor improvements. Always use the least amount of brightness from the control until you can verify that you have a proper scanned raster before turning up the brightness. Do this in a darkened room and look into the flat corrector plate lense surrounding the CRT with the light blocking sock removed. Once you have verified that the optical system is properly alighned you can trust what you see on the actual fresnel viewing screen up top.

Your major work will involve mindless replacement of very many wax-paper capacitors and testing tubes and replacing the bad ones. Do not tamper with any of the adjusting screws in the cans or coils! You may shoot cleaner/lube spray into the potentiometers and work them back and forth between their end stops to clean them up. Return them to where they were set or mid position if you don't know. They can be set properly once the set ius operational. I'm going from memory here but would advise not tampering with (don't try to clean) any of the pots in the High Voltage box. It will take proper steps by an experienced tech to restor those settings. This includes the Focus control which shouldn't be cleaned anyhow. This TV uses 28 kilovolts on the small picture tube. There is about 6 kV on the socket of the CRT for focus voltage as well. Keep fingers away from the tube while operating!

Best to find a fellow collector in your area with vintage TV restoration experience to at least work with you on this project which I suspect you will really enjoy.

Rob

Thanks for the info. My challenge will be to try to find someone down here who can work on it - I don't know a thing about them. Any idea of it's value?

Originally posted by jsjacobson
Thanks for the info. My challenge will be to try to find someone down here who can work on it - I don't know a thing about them. Any idea of it's value?

js,

Right now they seem to go for about $0.75 - $1.50 per pound unrestored depending on condition. A fully restored unit in good cosmetic condition SHOULD fetch $2.50+ per pound. With large consoles of anything it takes a special collector to want them. They are hard to handle (very heavy) and take up a lot of room. I predict that they will command significantly more someday when collectors awaken to the true value of these rare projection consoles.

Rob

John, congrats on your find of the RCA projector! Mine was less than 5 miles from my home and had been there close to 20 years. A friend told the owner of me and the rest is history. I paid $100 for it. (40 cents per pound). Networking at its best! I have done nothing to mine yet except show it to anybody I can drag kicking and screaming into my studio. They are always impressed by the cabinet, novelty of its age and design, and that it has a remote control, of sorts. Anyway, enough babling on my part, and hope you have fun with your set.
Marlin

Hi Rob -

I like the idea of hidden casters on TV consoles as well. :) The small wooden cart my living room TV is on (which in its previous life had been a microwave oven cart) has hidden casters, which makes it look better than if the casters were out in the open for all to see. (That's one thing I never liked about those metal TV carts that were so popular in the '60s and '70s, before entertainment centers became commonplace.)

Kind regards,

Jeff,

I have a cart similar to that too with built in casters for my system in the bedroom. BTW, that is a beautiful coffee table.

I gotta ask...you DO turn that window off at night right? :)

Rob

Hi Rob -

Don't have to turn it off; it goes out automatically at night. Seriously, I took that picture last year on a very sunny day, which accounts for the window being so bright. :)

BTW, thanks for the comments on my coffee table. It is part of an entire set of new furniture I bought when I moved here three years ago. What can I say--I like the warm appearance of wood. Every piece of furniture in my apartment is either cherry or oak, and matches everything else.

BTW (2): Did you do any more with that 1949 TV you said (in one of your posts a few months ago) you were going to convert to an entertainment center? If you did, and if I were a betting man (I'm not), I'd bet it looks very nice with the doors and all. I'd hang on to that cabinet if I were you, since this kind of cabinetry is only available nowadays in commercial entertainment centers like Sauder, Bush, et al--and they cost an arm and a leg.

I think recycling old furniture like that, and as I did with my Sauder utility cart, is an excellent idea, and an inexpensive alternative to purchasing an entertainment center. I hope that if you did go ahead and convert that cabinet, you enjoy it for many years to come.

Kind regards,

Jeff,

I haven't had a chance to convert the TV cabinet yet. I have so many irons in the fire now it is in real danger of going out. When and if I do it will make a fine piece of furniture in the living room, and will match the other similar vintage TV's I have on display there. I actually have a real need for three audio/video equipment rack/stands here. I don't like piling too much gear on top of itself on a small wobbly table. :(

Rob

Here's one I don't think i've posted before.

Got this 6 or 7 years ago so it's actually one of the first sets in my collection. Found it in the back yard of a thrift store, it was overpriced at $75 and still overpriced for the $60 I gave for it but it looked like rain and I didn't want it to get ruined so...

It has a 16" tube and a radio, that's the dial scale under the screen. The cabinet is rough but inside the doors it looks like new!

Got a NOS CRT off eBay, it has been recapped and works but I just never seem to get around to doing all the little details to finish it, could be because it is a huge heavy pain in the a-- to move. :D

I got this pic off eBay too, it shows the exact same model being given away for a prize.
Check out the price tag!

Eric,

I like your latest avatar!

Rob

Thanks Rob, it's cropped down from this Rider booklet:

Picked this Zenith up at a local auction, furniture dealer ran me up on it a little more than I was hoping to get it for, but still a good buy. Has all the original Zenith tubes and 50 years of dust in it.

12" Model G2340R "Saratoga"

Chuck

Chuck - great looking set! I got one just like it in restored condition for $250 and considered myself lucky. While I have other rarer sets in the collection I use this one on my TV collecting business cards.
Marlin

Marlin,

These Zeniths sort of grow on you, I have two now. I like this one better than the 16". Guess I'll have to find a combo unit next.

No idea where I can shoehorn it in, between my stuff and outside repairs everything is getting full.


Chuck

Picked this up this morning.
Circa 1959, I think this uses the same CRT as the 17" Predicta.

It was filthy but it's cleaning up pretty nicely.

Eric,

That's a nice set. Good performer, with a good picture, and works well in fringe areas iirc.

Been a little quiet on this thread.

Here's my Zenith 12" Saratoga, after recap and a few other parts.

After getting it all done I still had the same vertical problem that I started with - severly expanded center of picture and compressed top and bottom. After 2 days of beating my head against the work bench, it finally came to me (must have been all those shocks from the metal CRT shell) on the Zenith chassis ground isn't always ground everywhere on the chassis. The top is insulated from the bottom and sides, when I replaced the 3 sections of one of the electrolytic cans, I grounded the replacement caps at a convenient point on the BOTTOM section of the chassis. This was the same as having the original open electrolytic can in the circuit. Moving the ground point back to the top section of the chassis and a great picture popped in.


Chuck

Great Zenith there! I've always wanted one of those porthole sets. I have a radio chassis that goes in the console model. Been saving it in case I come across one.

Hmmm... perhaps I will try beating my head a little more often!
:twak:

Chuck, great jop on the "Z"! Makes me brood over not having time to finish mine. I had the same "chassis isn't ground" prob on a radio/wire recorder I restored a couple of years ago, and the Sams did not show it! Gave me fits after I grounded a replacement cap instead of using the terminal the old one used, new caps being smaller I had used a closer connection point.
Marlin

What a beautiful Zenith!

I was having fun looking at the online chronology of RCA cameras and fired up the 'ol 8T241. I still can't believe how clear and bright the picture is on this set :)

Originally posted by Cory
What a beautiful Zenith!

I was having fun looking at the online chronology of RCA cameras and fired up the 'ol 8T241. I still can't believe how clear and bright the picture is on this set :)

When Marty went "Back To The Future" that set was already 7 years old! :eek:



"Oh Marty, nobody has two Televisions!"

Chuck,
There is a porthole combo currently on e-bay. It's in Grand Rapids, Mi. I somehow can't get you there directly :mad: but the item # is: 2179945608

Here's a link, it's a beauty!!


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2179945608&category=3638

Thanks Eric,
Try as I will,
I couldn't get that link to work. It is really a deluxe set.

I just noticed the seller says it needs refinished, looks great to me but then it's hard to tell in photos.

I just looked at that Zenith porthole set on ebay. Very nice 3-way (early) home entertainment center from about 1949 (I remember seeing an old Zenith advertisement for this model not long ago--that's how I know the year it was made).

The cabinet looks good to me. I couldn't see any gouges or other so-called "flaws" the seller mentions, even when I supersized the pictures. I think whomever gets this will be very happy with it, if only for the beautifully crafted cabinet. They don't make them like that anymore.

I hope as well that the person who finally wins that auction knows something about repairing TVs, as most of today's TV repair shops won't touch a set of that vintage with a 10-foot HV probe. :( The problem the seller mentions, "faint picture on . . . screen", could be caused by something as simple as a misadjusted AGC control, a weak video-amplifier or output tube, a weak or dead tube in the IF strip or, at worst, a weak or nearly dead CRT.

Repairing old sets is not easy in many cases, as I know all too well after having repaired (or at least tried to) many old radios, TV sets, phonographs, etc. picked up from my neighbors' trash 30-odd years ago; again, I wish the eventual winner of the auction the best of luck. Even if they cannot get the television to work, this set ought to make a good radio-phono combo if the TV's audio section works (almost all 3-way sets used the TV audio output stage for the radio and phono as well, and they sounded wonderful with those push-pull output stages, huge woofers and tweeters--they sounded and were built much better than some modern stereo outfits.)

If worse comes to worst and the entire set must be junked, the cabinet can be gutted and used to house a modern TV and stereo system (as many folks on this forum have done). In any case, I think a set of this vintage would be an excellent investment for the right person.

Marlin,

I can't say for sure, but I think your TV repairman friend referred to these sets as "bug eye" Zeniths because of the positions of the volume control and channel selector (both with huge knobs reminiscent of--yup, you guessed it--bug eyes) on either side of the CRT, so the term fits to a T. A very unique design not seen since the '50s.

Steve,

I saw the Zenith listing, but Michigan is a little to far for me right now. :(

Need to find one around the Philly area.


Chuck

RCA 630 TS with channel 1

Here's my latest buy,
Zenith Model H3469E. Listed as a "Blonde" cabinet in Riders TV vol. 6. Color looks a bit darker than a Blonde but Probably darkened over time ?. I haven't begun restoration yet, Looks like a nice summer project. Hope I don't find any rubber coated wire in there!

Jim

Jim, I am no expert, but I think Zenith may have offered that particular porthole set in several different cabinet styles. I just saw the pictures of yours, and am inclined to think you may have a darker cabinet after all, something like oak, maple or even cherry.

I don't think, however, that a blonde cabinet would darken as much as you seem to think yours has, even after 54 years (assuming your set was made in 1949). Some woods do darken with age, but I've never seen light wood darken as much as that.

P. S. I live in a small town near Lake Erie and just love the idea of this set being referred to as a "porthole" model. Sounds very nautical and makes a lot of sense. (I wonder if Zenith got the idea from the fact that, in the 1950s, their main plant was in Chicago, near Lake Michigan, as well as because the screen is round like a porthole?) If I were a betting man (which I'm not), I'd bet a lot of these sets were sold in lakefront and/or coastal communities because of that nautical appearance.

Eric, when I saw the picture of your Philco Seventeener as I was browsing the forum just now, it brought back memories. I had a set like that, which Philco called the "Briefcase 19" (in an off-white cabinet) in the early 1970s, which I picked up from a neighbor's trash; the set served me well for about two years, until I moved and got a new set. The Philco worked well during the time I had it, though (although I had to use an external antenna with it because the dipole antenna in the handle was missing). The set was built like a battleship and worked as soon as I plugged it in after lugging it home (even though this set did not have a power transformer, it still weighed the proverbial ton--making it more of a "luggable" than a true portable).

BTW, I remember seeing the schematic for the "Seventeener" and my Briefcase 19 (the latter having a 19-inch CRT) in an old collection (Beitman, if memory serves) of Philco TV schematics for their line of sets manufactured in 1961. I don't know when the Seventeener came on the market, but my Briefcase 19 dated to '61. This leads me to believe that the Seventeener and the Briefcase 19 used the same basic chassis and cabinet, the only real differences being, one, the size of the CRT and two, slight differences in cabinet color (yours is red, mine was green with the CRT bezel in an off-white).

Jim,

That's a gorgeous set! BTW the "H" series Zeniths are 1951.


Chuck

Was "Porthole" Zenith's actual designation for these sets or is that a nickname that came later?

Hi Eric,
I believe "Porthole" is a nickname. Zenith proclaimed these sets as having a "Giant Circle Screen."

Originally posted by classicradios
Here's my latest buy,
Zenith Model H3469E. Listed as a "Blonde" cabinet in Riders TV vol. 6. Color looks a bit darker than a Blonde but Probably darkened over time ?. I haven't begun restoration yet, Looks like a nice summer project. Hope I don't find any rubber coated wire in there!

Jim

Hey Jim, I have nearly the same set, and mine is also a dark blonde wood. I believe the darker blonde was the original color of the set. It was great fun restoring this set last winter.

I've posted this picture before but here it is again so you can see the similarity of the color...

Unimatic1140 ,
Looks like we have the exact same cabinet finish. My TV has a 16" CRT, Is your's really a 19"? Looks the same size as mine. I saw your combo photo here on the forum. In fact, That's what sparked my search for a Porthole Combo. It's great to have the Radio, Cobramatic changer and Round Screen TV all in one nice cabinet. Plenty of space on top for more Vintage radios and TV's.

Jim

Originally posted by classicradios
Unimatic1140 ,
Looks like we have the exact same cabinet finish. My TV has a 16" CRT, Is your's really a 19"?
Hey Jim, yes mine really is a 19". The picture tube is a 19AP4.

Here's the latest addition to my display room, a 721TS. Completed final assembly and adjustments and it looks great. No deep scratches, no veneer loss, even has the original cord, still in good condition and still riveted to the HV cage.

Thought I'd post a picture of my "problem child" before I do a hatchet job on him!
http://www.bcpl.net/~rpope/pix/olympic2.jpg
He's an Olympic CB137. A stocky blonde, I call him Troy.
Nobody's been able to get him up and going again, so I plan on chucking the CRT and replacing it with a (gasp!) color set. I know it's "not done", but I'm at the end of my rope. He's too cool to get rid of!
Plus, he goes really well with Marilyn, my blonde Silvertone stereo console:
http://www.bcpl.net/~rpope/pix/stereo.jpg
Now all I need to do is replace the rest of my bedroom furniture with 50's stuff and I'll be done.
No, wait a minute. Gotta start thinking about the den. Captainmoody's sending me a '65 Zenith console so I guess I'll have to add a few more "period pieces" to make it feel at home!

Neat set ,what exactly is wrong with it?

I see one problem, it's too short to stick a color set inside.

Were you planning on taking the color set apart and mounting the CRT in place of the B&W tube and mounting the chassis seperatly?

Wow! That set is way too cool looking! Very retro! I wouldn't chop it, either. What does it do? Or not do?

Hmmm... my ship docks in Baltimore for 24 hours on the 12th or 13th (hint hint). :D

I have two complete B/W test fixtures and an array of other test gear and could probably get that set running, eliminating the need to chop it. What are the symptoms?

My impression is that Veg-O-Matic doesn't want to stuff an old roundie into that retro-blonde. I think he wants to pull the guts out and place a modern 19/20" color set in to the cabinet. I hope if he does that he at least leaves untouched all the original tube masking, woodwork and knobs. Kind of the Harry Poster approach.

What I want to do is just slide a new color set in it and be done with it. Of course, I'm not foolish enough to believe that'll work without a lot of finagling. Yes, I'd prefer to keep the mask as is and I'm definitely going to leave the knobs in place. The thing is, I won't know 'til I get there what's going to have to be done. I'm even toying with maybe reverse-painting the safety glass into a roundie shape. As I say, I'm not sure yet.
The major problem with the set is that it doesn't work! There's a resistor that keeps frying and something else that I forgot (sorry, I'm not up on repair speak!) The restoration guy gave up on it and the repair place said there were too many things wrong with it and wouldn't begin to touch it. So here it is, currently holding up my 13-inch black plastic set.
Charlie: feel free to drop in when your ship docks--just don't count on sneaking out with a set under your jacket! I've got a weiner dog who's in charge of security!

I have the schematic in my library and the set shouldn't be difficult to troubleshoot. It looks like a fairly straightforward late-50's wide-deflection design. Since it's a console, probably uses a power transformer and 5U4 for LV power, has keyed AGC, intercarrier sound and might have a 39.75-45.75 MHz IF bandpass. If I knew which resistor (Rxxx number) then I could look on the schematic to see what other parts in that area might be shorted and causing excessive current in that resistor. Could be a mis-biased tube, etc. but a shorted cap is almost always to blame (and can throw bias way off).

Hi all - Here's a picture of the Olympic B/W TV/stereo console I picked up at a used furniture store two weeks ago. Been working my fanny off to restore it ever since. It's all been buffed and polished and the stereo section is now complete. I am still waiting for the re-cap kit for the television section from a company in Canada.

It's all original black laquer and doesn't photo well so bear with me on the pix. It's really gorgeous in person. Maybe I'll him outside to take some daylight pix tomorrow.

Love the site by the way!

Fredro

Here's another picture with the doors closed on it. I love the Oriental art that was handpainted on the front . I think the make is about 1960 or so.

Fredro

Man, that black Olympic has got to be the coolest set I've ever seen! Makes mine look sick! Well, almost.
Is it me, or does there seem to be a shortage of information and/or interest in Olympic sets? So far, I've only seen two, yours and mine, but they're both pretty cool.
Maybe we're just ahead of the game and by next year, Olys will become the new CTC1s!

A quick question for everybody...I had never heard of Olympic before coming to this forum. Are they still being made in any form, or has it gone the way of Dumont and the "original" Philco. Does anyone have any idea of the timeline of the demise of various makes? Also, was Olympic a store brand, or would it likely have been rebadged as something else here in Canada, as I beleive some of the canadian "Marconi" sets were rebadged Emersons, judging from pictures I have seen of certain models (i.e. the Emerson portable with AM Radio that is shown on Eric H's vintagetvsets website is the same (from what I have seen), as sets badged as Marconi here.

Hey Veg..... Thanks for the compliment on the set. I will be posting some better, more clearer pix soon. I am going to have to take it outside to get the black to show up better. This set is just killer on the looks scale. My recap kit is in the mail now and hopefully, it will be here by this weekend. I have totally cleaned and polished every square inch of the cabinet, totally lubed and greased the turntable and brought the stereo amp into the new millenium. Sounds pretty good too. Hope that with all of this hard work, that I won't have the troubles that you have had with your Olympic.

BTW - I love the nice pretty petite blonde look yours has. I think it's really beautiful. DO NOT JUNK THIS LITTLE ONE. It's just too pretty. Someday it WILL function again.

You never said whether or not yours had been recapped. If you will let me know the chassis # of your set, maybe my schematic can be of some help to you. This schematic I have covers chassis JB, JD, JF, JH, JBU, JDU, JFU and JHU. You should be able to find the chassis model stamped on the chassis down on the steel deck where all the tubes are inserted. Mine has a chassis JD. I am assuming a JDU means that it has UHF capabilities. Mine does not carry UHF. From your pix, yours doesn't seem to have it either.

Lemme hear from you on this.


Hey Eric..... I have searched and searched for any information on Olympic sets. I see an occasional Olympic radio and Olympic brand name vacuum tubes on Ebay but other than that, I don't see anything else. My owners manual (yeah, I was lucky enough to get all the original papers on this TV) sez that Olympic television was a subsidiary of the Siegler Corporation in New York City.

I think that they were their own entity and weren't just renamed from other companies. The reason I think this is because of the vacuum tubes being stamped as Olympic and I see other vacuum tubes on Ebay with the same name brand.

Believe it or not, EVERY vacuum tube in this set is an Olympic tube. I only had one bad tube in it - a 5U4GB. I am hoping that this might be a hint of how good it worked. Maybe it ran very well for a long time and no one ever tried to repair it when it finally did quit. Of course it might mean that the TV quit very early on also and no one ever bothered to get it fixed. When I took the back off, the wiring appeared to have never been touched since the day it was made - you know, tied up just so perfectly.

Thanks for chatting - Fredro

I have a little Olympic three-way portable radio from probably the 1940's, nice little low-priced set in a plywood box with Bakelite front panel and contact-paper finish with a rope handle and all Loktal tubes. Excellent playing condition on Battery or 115VDC but needs recapped to play properly on 115VAC ... yet another project that I've set aside until I find time to do more work on my own collection. Just thought I'd mention it here since the Olympic brand is being discussed.

Hey Guys,
Both those tv's are beautiful examples of Olympic's products. They look to be the same chassis.
Olympic Radio & Television Corp. was located in Long Island City, N.Y. They produced a line of radios, tv's, HiFi and combination sets from 1948 to 1971. This included both b&w and color receivers.

Well, after a recap kit for this set and some hard work on the vertical hold, I got my Olympic console to where it looks like this. The picture looks better in person than shown here.

Fredro

Hey guys, I just wanted to share with you my three recent acquisitions, a 1950 Raytheon, a 1947 Admiral and a 1949 Philco. I'm a bit perplexed about the Philco because it seems to have no fine-tuning knob anywhere on this set. As for the Raytheon does anyone know if this set uses the entire tube face like when you have a Zenith porthole in stretch mode or is the top and bottom of the circle simply dark with the picture in the middle? I need to find a new picture tube for the Raytheon because the bakelite end of the tube has been snapped off and there was a brightener attached.

Originally posted by Unimatic1140
I'm a bit perplexed about the Philco because it seems to have no fine-tuning knob anywhere on this set.


You won't find a fine tuning knob on these '48 -'49 Philcos. The fine tuning is through a screwdriver slug under the channel knob, through a hole in the number plate.

Great looking blonde Admiral

Chuck

I found this on eBay a couple of months ago. Seems that the ones I've seen before on eBay would sell for 200 to 300 bucks. Was kinda surprised to see them go that high. I got this one for 20 bucks plus shipping. The seller said that the set was dead, and i had hoped that there was a burned filament since this set runs filaments in series. Well, when I got it, I found that all the tubes lit up... but no sound or light on the screen. Probably a simple problem in the LV power area. I put the back on again and put it aside for another day.

I think Dualettes were from 1959. Other than some scuff marks on the rear top corner, this one is in pretty good shape cosmetically. I've seen them in a few different colors. This one is not exactly one of the better colors! The antennas are both there with no damage.

Here's a set I was chasing for almost a year. The guy just kept putting me off every week when I tried to go see what it was. Finally perserverence paid off.

It's a 1949 Olympic TV-928, AM/FM, and 2 speed Webster changer.
The mirror lid stay was broke, I had a machinist friend make a new friction bolt and works like new. Maybe this winter I'll get some time to restore the electronics. It should be a bright picture as the CRT tests like new.

Chuck

ChuckA,

Congrats. Looks nice! I've begun stripping mine ready to refinish someday. This is my only MIL set.

Unimatic,

Those sets are really fine! I have the same 1947 Admiral in Mahogany awaiting restoration. The blonde is probably more rare. That large Raytheon is a nice one! I have a tabletop 12" Raytheon Porthole.

I have the rare (earlier I think) sibling to the 1947 Admiral that Unimatic just showed above. Mine has been fully electronically restored and makes a bright, sharp picture. The volume goes down and the picture starts to loose sync as the contrast control is turned down, a real indication of the crudeness of the early post-war TV circuits in use at the time. 1947 was very early for post war TV in North America. This is one of my favorite sets in my whole collection.

This is a screen shot off my 30A13. The detail is amazing, see the ice cubes in the glass? The horizontal shading band is a camera shutter speed artifact, not on the TV picture.

Rob,

I was lucky only the top needs work. I had a friend do the mirror side and I tried to match it by memory, of course I was about 3 shades off :(

So now I have to either get the fixed side off or take the whole cabinet over to him to match the movable side.

Have you looked to see how the chassis comes out of the cabinet? It looks like it has to be dropped through the bottom :dunno:

Chuck,

I seem to recall that the Rider's manual says the cabinet must be placed back down on the floor and the chassis comes out the top after removing the panel and window over the CRT and controls.

I agree, it wasn't too self evident looking at it.

Rob,

I thought of that way, but there are the front panel mounting wood brackets attached to the side walls and they don't look like they are removable.

I think it needs to be laid down on the front of the cabinet and the chassis is slid towards the bottom then lifted out. Don't know for sure - yet. It looks like they built the cabinet around the chassis:D


Chuck

Chuck,

I'll try to have a look at my Riders and post what I discover.

This arrived in the mail today... a Philco 50-T1403. Got it from eBay a few weeks ago. Cabinet is in pretty good shape. Needs a little cleaning. The insides are all there and major components look okay. Might take it out tomorrow to look at the underside. The 12LP4 checks out in the "questionable" zone on the tester. Probably good enough to make a decent picture. Chassis is pretty dirty, but looks like it should clean up nicely. The set is a little larger than I was expecting.

Charlie,

Sure took a beating in transit, look the top corners have been completely rounded! :D

But seriously, how the heck can you send something like this in the mail? How do you pack it to survive? How big of a stamp do you need?

OH BTW, nice set! :) I have a similar Philco with squared corners and the 12LP4 measures like new.

Originally posted by Rob

But seriously, how the heck can you send something like this in the mail? How do you pack it to survive? How big of a stamp do you need?

The box had a $35.00 stamp on it. The packing was pretty impressive. It took me forever to get all of that packing out of there so I could get the TV out! And there was notes ALL OVER the box saying fragile, glass, and this side up.

Big Dave,

You need not have all the channel strips in the tuner if you only use the set on cable (as you discovered). In fact, for a set such as yours running on a cable box, all you really need is one strip, for the output channel of your cable converter. As a matter of fact, back in the 1950s and early 60s, some people would remove all the unused channel strips from a turret tuner, leaving only the strips for their own area's local channels. I read of this in an old DIY TV repair book years ago. It was also mentioned that this dodge would save wear and tear on the tuner, as it would be possible to arrange the strips in numerical order for the channels in one's local area. One could then switch instantly from one network station to the next, without having to flip through unused channel positions. (Great for sets with remote or front panel power tuning.)

Another trick was to set your TV's fine tuner to midrange, then set the oscillator slugs in the channel strips for a properly tuned picture and sound. This way, one could flip from one channel to another without having to adjust the fine tuning. Of course, normal oscillator drift over time would require the set owner to readjust the slugs, which could be why this dodge never really caught on; most people found it far easier to readjust the fine tuning when changing channels. The only advantage I can see to presetting the oscillator slugs would be, again, for sets with remote power tuning, so the set owner would not have to get up and manually adjust the fine-tuning control when changing channels with the remote.

Here are two of my sets. On the left is my Stromburg-Carlson Classic 21. On the right is a 1954 RCA 21 T 165.

Polaraman

It looks like RCA had a theme going with the "brick wall" look of its speaker grilles for the 1954 model year. The set pictured above, a few other '54 RCA B/W consoles I've seen, the CT-100 and the RCA field test color models. I have a few books in my tech library with pictures of an RCA color field test set. The set very closely resembles the Merril with the very obvious difference being the placement of the operator controls right out on the front panel instead of being concealed behind the "pencil box" control door as on the final production model we know as the Merrill.

Here's a recent photo of my display room. There has been one other set added since this was taken.

Pictured sets (L-R) are ...

RCA 8-T-241
Fada TV30
RCA 721TS
Zenith 14-1440

Not pictured is an Admiral 19A1. I just recently found time to troubleshoot the cold solder joints in the restoration work of the eBay seller of that set and add tie points to support the junctions of series-connected 3kV capacitor pairs he had used as replacements for the 6kV deflection coupling caps. The cabinet isn't bad, but still needs some work including replacement of its non-original knobs.

I also just finished creating two VHS cassettes of test patterns. The "Indian Head" pattern is great for rectangular-mask sets, but the "WNBT" test pattern appears to have been designed with round-mask sets in mind. The main circle of the "WNBT" pattern is great for portholes.

John,

You have my old Zenith 14-1440 console! Your RCA 721TS looks great. I've had mine for maybe three years and haven't had a chance to even look inside yet. I do have it on display in the LR though!

Here's my second 721TS with one of the strongest used 10BP4's I've ever seen. I just picked up this 10BP4 and another really good one over the weekend and decided to put it in the 721 since that set had the weakest 10BP4 of the ones in my collection. Photo taken with my cheap camera.

Same set, different test pattern.

John,

That is such an attractive looking set! Nice bright CRT too. I really must restore mine someday, just way too much on my plate these days.

Speaking of really bright 10BP4's. Here is a screen shot from my 1947 Admiral 30A13 that completely overloaded my digital camera. This CRT is bright! The actual picture is perfect. This might be a 10FP4 in there though. I'm not certain. The only repair I needed to do to make it run was replace an open power resistor on top of the chassis in the HV cage which I was able to do without pulling the chassis. I'm pretty certain this set was completely re-capped and re-tubed before I got it.

Having spent a lot of time on the very good AROL website, I am new to here via the good fortune to know Chuck A. I jumped in on the thread about “Lesser” televisions and got quite a nice response. My CTC9 and Sightmaster can be seen over there.
Ok, here is the list of sets in the Dave A. collection in SE Pennsylvania in a very small house. They have all been gathered since 1985 when I decided that as a television director, I should pay attention to the history of what pays the mortgage…and my retirement. Not all have model #’s as they are buried and the numbers are not to be seen any time soon. NW=non working. W=working.

Pre-war sets;

Baird T-5 (1936,) NW
Baird T-23 (1937), NW
HMV 900 (1936), W modified to 525 (barely)
RCA TRK-120, W (daily viewer)

Post-war sets;

Philco 48-1000, W (daily viewer)
RCA 621TS Blonde, W
RCA 621TS Mahogany, W
RCA 630TS Mahogany, W
Emerson AM/TV portable, NW
Air King 630 type, NW
Crosley 7” suitcase, NW
Philco 10” Blonde Radio/phono/TV console, W
Philco 701 7”, NW
Philco 702 7”, NW
Pilot TV-37, W
Admiral 17” Blonde console, W
Fada 730 10”, W
Fada 890 projection, NW
Sentinel 7”, W
Sightmaster 15-S-2, W
Radio Craftsman Chrome RC-200 (chassis & tube only), NW
Natalie Kalmus “Combination” 24” Radio/phono/TV, NW (just arrived)
Various RCA metal sets, W & NW
Various RCA and Philco 50’s consoles

Round color sets;

RCA CTC-100 under restoration
RCA 21CT55 under restoration
RCA 21-TMD 21” Studio color monitor, W and connected to my computer video editing
RCA CTC7 “Pensbury”, W
RCA CTC7 “Abington”, W
RCA CTC9 “Caulfield”, W (daily viewer)
Philco TV123 21” color 1956, parts set
Philco TV123 21” color 1956, not delivered yet

All the other stuff;

Zenith/RCA/Stromberg console radios, W
Atwater Kent Model 84
GE G-95 “Pianoforte” console radio (no dial), W
Assorted 20’s battery radios, W
Bendix 526C Catalin, W
RCA 19” tube color portable (last tube version), W
Assorted tabletop “All-American” radios, W & NW
Fisher 500B stereo receiver, W and restored
Peter Yanczer Mechanical Camera/Television reproduction, W
Col-R-Tel Color converter, W (not dedicated to a B&W set yet)
RCA TK-31 field B&W camera, modified for CCD image/LCD viewfinder, on loan to
Sarnoff Library in Princeton, NJ

If you noticed, most of the sets are unique for one reason or another. Having collected televisions since 1985 and radios since 1968, the one thing I learned is not to buy every/any set that came along. Old though they may be, not all of them are special. And I am allergic to vaporizing veneer and mundane mahogany. Slow and easy wins the race. The best thing any television collector can do is get very involved with your local radio club. The radio collectors want nothing to do with sets and will take pity on you and pass on all sorts of leads, not to mention hundreds of free tubes and parts that they do not want. I’ll post pix as I can find time to display the sets.

Stay tuned,
Dave A

A couple of notes on two posts I saw here this evening. The first one has to do with polaraman's two sets in his post. I recognize them both. His Stromberg-Carlson set rings a bell in my mind because my aunt had a TV exactly like that one in the '50s, except in a white cabinet. (How many different cabinet styles were there for that particular set?) The RCA rang a bell because my folks' first TV was an RCA console almost exactly like that one, except theirs had the speaker at the side of the cabinet and two small decorative metal bars (if I remember correctly) at the bottom of the cabinet, where the speakers are in polaraman's set. If not for these differences, these sets could have been twins.

I also saw the picture of jshorva65's TV display room. Very nicely done; I like it. However, I wonder. How on earth was he able to check those sets out for proper operation after repairing them? I ask this because every set in his display room is VHF-only; Warren, Ohio is a suburb of Youngstown, which only has UHF stations (21, 27, 33, 39 and 45). I didn't see UHF converters atop any of those sets. How does he know that the RF and IF stages are working? The only way I can think of he could have air-tested these sets (aside from hooking them up to cable) is to have hooked them up to an outdoor antenna and tested them on signals from Pittsburgh's three VHF network stations (channels 2, 4 and 11), or if his antenna was really good, he could also test using the air signals from Cleveland's channels 3, 5 and 8.

BTW, js, I like your avatar. I did a double take the first time I saw it, but later I realized it was a test signal generated from a color bar-dot generator, and the callsign/channel number was superimposed on it, like the color-bar test patterns TV stations used after round patterns went out of style and before TV broadcasting went full-time. Here near Cleveland we have a UHF station that still uses a color-bar pattern after it signs off, but the station's call sign, over-air channel number and network affiliation [it's the WB network affiliate for northeastern Ohio] are inserted in the black area below the color bars--not superimposed on the bars themselves. The PBS station in Cleveland used to do that too, when it signed off for the night around midnight--before it went to 24-hour operation several years ago.

Dave A,

That is a really nice collection. I copied your post over to the color TV forum where a thread got started listing everyone's TV collections whether B&W or color.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=83188#post83188

I had to do it as a quote for some reason rather than a simple move. All I seem to be empowered to do is move or copy entire threads, not individual posts. :dunno:

In this thread we really encourage posting photos of the vintage B&W tubed sets of your collection. I do hope you can share more photos with us here! :)

I feel that the Classic 21 is newer than the Chinese Classic. I have included a picture of my yellow Stromburg-Carlson Chinese Classic. It has a 19AP4 CRT. I have seen them in RED, White and yellow. Quite an expensive set in 1951. Cost about $900 fully equipped with a AM/FM, record changer and the tv. Mine has all three. All that works is the audio on the tv. I have collected all the tubes and caps to bring it back to life. Tv alone has 28 tubes.

On top of the S/C is a Crosley. (model F-17TOLU) It has both UHF and VHF. Paid a whopping $10 for it. Have yet to attempt to get it running.

On the right is a Philco. One of those split chassis sets. It also has UHF and VHF.

polaraman,

That control apron on the Crosley looks kinda cool. What happened to the CRT mask? Was there a component fire inside?

I believe the mask just got baked. No evidence of a fire in the set. I keep on looking for another one to replace it. I also posted a picture of my Stromburg-Carlson with the doors open. It is in Horizontal hold members gallery. It is under polaraman.

I got this RCA TV a few months ago, someone was tossing it at the curb. It worked (after dealing with a bad power switch) but I did a recap as a matter of course. I watched the Yankees lose the world series on it. :( But that's not the Yankees you see on the TV in the picture below! Also a picture of the chassis. No, I didn't try to dismount the circuit boards when I did the recap, I just clipped leads on the component side and j-hooked in new caps.

More old TV sets at my web site:
http://www.geocities.com/wa2ise/radios/tv.html

wa2ise

Welcome aboard! Nice pic of this classic 50's RCA. I checked your website. I like your blue bananas! :)

wa2ise,


Your set looks very familiar. My great-aunt and uncle had a TV exactly like yours in the early '50s; they used it until the '70s, when they got a color set. Their RCA worked well on Cleveland's three VHF stations (at that time), and the set itself didn't give them much trouble at all (that I was ever aware of, anyway).

Those early RCAs were built to last, which is more than I can say for the company's new color sets. My folks' first TV was a 21-inch RCA in a huge console cabinet; this set also worked very well on our area's three VHF channels on rabbit ears (we lived about 30 miles or so from the stations, so really good reception on all three with rabbit ears in the '50s was not easy to attain--eventually, when we got a new set, we put up an antenna in the attic which worked much better).

RCA once was "the most respected name in electronics", but look what's happened since then. Since the company was taken over by Thomson in the late eighties or early nineties, a lot of their TVs have been nothing but trouble for their owners. I have an RCA 19-inch color set which I bought new almost four years ago; I've already had it repaired twice for the same problem (the RF port on the back of the set snapped off the tuner PC board both times) and I know there is one defective IC (the EEPROM signal processor) in the signal circuits. (Also, I have a friend whose parents' RCA color set blew a picture tube after only two years!)

Since I live in an apartment building wired for cable (the village in which I live is 40+ miles from the seven TV transmitters serving Cleveland and is a definite fringe area), however, and my set is connected to the cable system, I have never used the set on an antenna except to test it. (The reception on all three VHF stations using rabbit ears was terrible; the only good signals were from Cleveland's three commercial UHF stations, one of which [channel 19] is now the CBS affiliate for our area, having swapped networks with channel 8 which was bought out by Fox Broadcasting in the mid-1990s. Channel 8 was Cleveland's CBS station for over four decades; 19 was a Fox affiliate from 1986 until it acquired the CBS affiliation from 8 around 1993 or so. Channel 8, now owned by Fox, naturally got the affiliation to that network).

The cable signal (from Comcast digital cable) is so good it doesn't matter that the signal processor in my set is bad and (probably) getting worse. The picture is still very good on all analog and digital channels on the system. The cable box bypasses the tuner anyhow, so even if the tuner were shot (or getting there) I'd still get a decent picture as long as the tuner worked on channel 4 (the output of the cable box), which it does.


BTW, I heard about the outcome of the World Series, although I did not see any of the games (found out from a friend of mine who is an absolute sports nut). Oh well, maybe the Yankees will win it next year.

73,

Here's my Andrea mentioned in another thread, with a better pic (I hope)

On top of the Andrea, is an RCA (like one of Eric H's) and a Philco. Can anyone ID the Philco? The model number is worn off.

I have a very similiar Andrea, but it poor condition, missing the doors. A guy I deal with in my business-a guy who is responsible for SENDING me business, had been telling me for years about these sets he wanted me to look at. I felt obliged to buy them, had to pay too much. Besides the tired Andrea there was a late 40's Magnavox console radio painted with whitewash and about 6 or 7 broken down reel-to-reel recorders. If nothing else I think someday I can make something of the TV.

Picked up this 21T165 at Salvation Army thrift store this past Saturday. Set is completely dead but has a good 21AP4. Fuses are blown in the HV section. I already have a 21T165 and this will make two!!!! I will have to get to this one after recapping my Stromburg-Carlson Chinese Classic.

Polaraman

Don't know what I'm going to do with this one. I may STORE it or RESTORE it, I think STOREING it will be the easiest. Notice the cool blue tinted picture tube.
UPDATE: This set is now working properly. Had to get some help from fellow member dewickt on this one. He replaced the filter cap and gave me some good pointer's (plus the Sams folder). I replaced some 20 odd caps and now its time to set back and watch a little TELIVISION.

This is a cool looking vintage TV. Short depth for a "console". It looks like a portable that the manufacturer mounted into a wood cabinet, and added a big speaker below.
http://images.channeladvisor.com/Sell/SSProfiles/10052868/Images/FURNN78.jpg
http://images.channeladvisor.com/Sell/SSProfiles/10052868/Images/FURNN80.jpg
http://images.channeladvisor.com/Sell/SSProfiles/10052868/Images/FURNN79.jpg
It's on evil bay (and it's not mine) :p:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2203289094&category=3638&sspagename=rvi:1:2

Cool! The legs are much like the Philco Predict Danish Modern. That loudspeaker driver in the bottom looks like something from Orson Wells' "The War Of The Worlds", or from Germany.

I want that! Too bad it's so far away.

That is the same GE I have been looking for but in a different cabinet. http://www.vintagetvsets.com/wanted.htm

A set just like that was used as a prop in the Movie "All That Heaven Allows"

eric. milwaukee is about an 1 hr 25 mins away from here.. that set should be shippable,looks solid..
but the odd size of that speaker..??? what is that a 17X 12"?? lol..
terry

I usually don't get excited over 60's B&W sets but this one really struck me. What a great, trim design. And if it looks like a portable above that huge speaker says hi-fi below. What did they use to drive that speaker. Very unique.

It probably just uses a single 6AQ5 or 6CU5 but those old GE's have the best sound of any tube set I've seen.

Slowly I'll get some pictures up of some of my sets; many are crowded together too much right now. This one is a Philco console from 1954 that I rescued from an estate a few years ago. I wish I could have saved all the sets they had but it was hard to justify storing all the late 50s/early 60s bw consoles. This one was too good to let die, I felt. My first test gave me a quick burst of light on the screen & then nothing. After a few years I dug into it, recapped it & swapped the seleniums for new diodes. This brought the set to life but with no vertical deflection. This was traced to a bad transformer. I tried a NOS one from my pile but it wasn't close enough-I couldn't get full height without srewing up the vert lin. Finally broke down & ordered the correct part from Moyer & this corrected the problems. The set was asleep for a long, long time (I estimate 30+ years). I'm not totally happy with the level of contrast in the picture but it is much better than at first. Swapping some tubes and just running it some have made a difference. Note that this is a split chassis set, I have the model number written down somewhere. It took some searching as the guy I bought it from threw away the back cover! (a story for another day) I also have an RCA which looks very similiar to this that I plan on displaying next to it.

Note that this set has a built in UHF tuner; I kinda think this was dealer installed since a couple details don't look factory, but it is the genuine Philco part, and works.

I am practicing my photography but could not get a good picture of both tv and screen this time so here is another shot.

Where do you guys come up with these gems? Other than E-Bay, I wouldn't know where to look. And the E-Bay ones in a lot of cases look like real junkers that would be well beyond my level of expertise in getting going again.

I have had success with electronic recycling collection days, trash pick-up days, estate sales and garage sales, a few from auctions.

The local Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper found me and my collection a few years ago and did an article...and was kindly vague about where I live. I had just over 100 phone calls and letters telling me that the person on the end of the line had the first television ever made. I did look at most of them and took home about 10 of them. Not a TRK in the bunch but did get my Philco 123 from that article. The last call came 6 years after the article from a woman who saved it for the time when her mom would be parting with it.

...

You can post an ad in the classifieds which will definately get you calls-and LOTS of wild goose chases! But some of it will pan out. Trash pick up doesn't work where I live since we mostly have small towns that either don't pick up at all or only pick up canned garbage. My town will take stuff like this but you have to go to the town office, pay $10, haul it to the curb with a special tag on it...easier for most people to take it to the county collection site, which is free but only open once or twice a week. I have found a few good sets there, but not recently. Some of these sets would be giveaways at auctions. Often they won't even let you unload them off the truck at the local auction barn. At an on-site auction they might not even bother trying to sell the sets, you may have to ask. Most of my sets in recent years have come from a lady who "bottom feeds" at a couple weekly auctions. She buys whatever goes cheap, then puts in in antique malls or her own junk shop. She knows I'll be around and will buy stuff from her so she picks up the bargain radios/tv's. Really, just keep your eyes open & keep looking. I have found bargains on equipment (and I havn' t spent over $125 for any radio or tv, new or used, ever!) in antique malls, yard sales, flea markets, classifieds, used furniture stores...this stuff doesn't show up like it used to but it is still out there. As I think was mentioned, since there is no longer any demand for such sets (even sets from the 80s or 90s) most folks that used to sell them no longer bother.

I also can testify that good media publicity about your collection works! I got on the 6 0 clock news recently for collecting old TV's from the recycling days. Just got a call at the radio station from someone who wants to give me another set. Also had a newspaper feature article about me and got responses to that too. Being in the radio business myself I am always on the lookout for interesting people to interview as on-air guests, so if you can make some connections in TV/Radio/Newspapers you may be able to get publicity about a hobby that not too many people engage in.

I have been also salvaging TV's from the trash for the past 10 years and have noticed the age of the sets in the solid waste stream keeps getting newer. Tube sets in the trash are getting rarer and rarer...so it is probably good to get them now, while they are still around.

Here is my Transvision kit tv. The only time I have made it to MAARC's Radioactivity was a few years ago, there were 2 tv sets in the auction. (the other was a Zenith porthole table model) I thought sure this would go high (at least over $100) but I was the only bidder & took it home for the reserve price of $35. It had been gone through by the seller, recapped, etc, and works fine. I have done nothing to it. Some interesting points: its sure not UL approved! Besides the fact that you can stick your little finger in the side vent holes, there never was a back, the chassis is just sitting there (never screwed down, I don't think) and no safety glass over the screen! The tv uses the DuMont style continous tuner with FM & aircraft bands in the middle. Also has a tuning eye-the schematic calls for the standard type of eye (I think 6E5) but this one uses a different type with 2 squares. (I should pull it & get the type) Not as neat looking but it works. The speaker is in the small grille to the right of the screen-its all ready for a big speaker down bottom but none was installed. The set came with all the original instructions & even the address label off the packing crate. It was built in Washington, DC-I think Star Radio is on the paper. It dates from '48 if I recall. This picture shows the local station off of a loop antenna hooked to a Mallory UHF convertor. I bought it the same day as the tv, as it happens, because my wife liked it so much. She was dissapointed-thought it was a radio! I knew better but didn't bother telling her.

Here is a shot from the rear. A fairly large chassis, which I guess made it easier to build for the beginner.

Bryan,

I seem to remember in your reply to one of my posts that you said you are quite a distance from TV stations in either Washington, D. C. or Baltimore. What stations are you getting in Federalsburg with just a loop antenna on a UHF converter? You did say you are only about five minutes or so from the Delaware line, but I don't think there are any UHF stations there. The only thing I can figure is you must be picking up a Philadelphia station, which would make sense since Philly is only a few miles from Wilmington--unless there are new UHF stations in the area.

The tuning indicator tube with the double-rectangle target is type 6AL7 and was designed to work with both AM and FM detectors. If memory serves, there are 3 beam-control electrodes which enabled the tube to be used for monitoring the output of a discriminator for proper balance. I have several of these tubes on the way, NOS from a bulk buy.

Jeff,
The local stations are WBOC-16 & WMDT-47 out of Salisbury, MD, which is a 45 minute drive from my house. But I believe both of their transmitters are near Sharptown, MD which is maybe 20 minutes and less as the crow flies. There is also a PBS station on 28 out of Salisbury. Both stations also broadcast from Dover,DE-47 has a translator on 27 while 16 is on, well, 16. (I'm a little farther from Dover than Salisbury)

Bgadow,

Wow, what a great collectible set! I have a rare Sightmaster that employed the same chassis. Look familiar?!

Long lost twins!:) :)

Originally posted by bgadow
Also has a tuning eye-the schematic calls for the standard type of eye (I think 6E5) but this one uses a different type with 2 squares. (I should pull it & get the type) Not as neat looking but it works.

The tuning eye using 2 squares is type 6AL7. It is more accurate in FM circuits as it can indicate the zero voltage center tuning in the FM discriminator. One control electrode is grounded, so that square will remain at fixed height, which indicates zero volts. The other electrode is connected to the FM discriminator, and that square will vary in height above and below the height of the other square as the set is tuned. Correct tuning occurs when both squares are equal in height (see image below), indicating the discriminator voltage is zero and the circuit is balanced (tuning eye tubes will work only in split-sound TV circuits - they will not work in intercarrier sets, since the sound IF frequency remains constant as the fine tuning is varied).

The 6AL7 is the eye tube used in DuMont sets. Allen B. DuMont invented the eye tube in the early 1930's, and sold the patent to RCA for $20,000. He used the money to purchase the factory building in Passaic, NJ where early DuMont TV sets and CRT's were manufactured.

Mine has the rectangles horizontal; is vertical more correct? I never thought about it, really. Easy enough to rotate it.

I wasn't aware that Allen Dumont invented the tuning eye tube. I'm more familiar with the inner workings of the sets than with the historical background of individual components, though. Sylvania's Technical Data series features a particularly detailed data sheet on the 6AL7 and one of RCA's tube manuals features a pair of application drawings showing the circuits of and visual displays from the 6AL7 as used with AM and FM detector circuitry.

Originally posted by bgadow
Mine has the rectangles horizontal; is vertical more correct? I never thought about it, really. Easy enough to rotate it.

They are used both ways, depending on the manufacturer. Its a matter of preference. Like you say, all thats needed is to rotate it. Below is an ad for the 1948 DuMont Meadowbrook. If you zoom in on the eye tube, it can be clearly seen that the bars are vertical in this set.

Stromberg-Carlson TV and Radio...

Bo

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3701089137&category=364 http://i13.ebayimg.com/02/i/01/41/1f/9a_1.JPG

Sweeet! :eek:

Here's another set that followed me home from a local auction. It's an Emerson Model 628 in walnut. It has an AM-FM tuner and provisions for a phono input.

Chuck

Chuck that is a sweet set.

The Stromburg-Carlson WEDWEB listed above has a new owner today. Polaraman has added the Tv set to his collection. I already have two of the S-C chinese type sets in my collection. I will not be able to get the set till the end of the month. Really can not wait to see it in person. Still looking for a Blonde version of the same set.

I do not know if you folks saw that the 19AP4A on EBAY went for $272 dollars. I really needed the CRT for a Zenith port hole set. It was just a little too high for me.


polaraman

That is a beautiful combo. Should mak a nice addition to your collection. And...I think the price was right.:p:

polaraman

Happy to have helped a fellow member. Hope everything goes well with that. Did you see my post for a tv/phono combo that is near where I live? I haven't been back to that store lately, but if you are interested in it I could drop by and see if it is still there.





Bo

I sent you a P.M. regarding CRTs

Eric

I finally have the above mentioned Stromburg-Carlson here in Georgia. This thing is a beast to move! Chassis is TS 125. I plugged it up and gave it a try. Very loud motor sound coming from the audio. Needs to replace some caps! I did get a raster but did not try to adjust it to get a clear picture. I had already pushed the set up against the wall. The adjustments are in the back. I am hurting enough from moving this thing 900 miles. It has a tuning eye!!!! Way cool addition for me. The power cords to the phonos are tattered. I will have to replace them before attempting to play a record. This has 2 phono players. There is also another storage area above the 45 phono. It is big enough to keep 45 records. It is a 12" crt. Looks like I will have this running in no time!

polaraman

hello, I'm new to the group and I thought I'd share my two tv's with everyone... the first one is a 1954 Muntz 321C1 and the other is a 1948 motorola VK101M (VK101R) that I picked up a couple of weeks ago... need to find two knobs for it and a cople of other parts like the tuning indicator gadget that is broken on mine and figure out how to attatch the damper / plunger mechanisim that keeps the tilt out radio chassis from flying forward :p

anyone have a sam's photo fact folder for a 1948 motorola VK101M
TV chassis # TS-5
B.C. - FM chassis # HS-108
that they'd be willing to copy and mail me??

thanks,
Antonio

http://www.gbronline.com/mysterieux2/1954muntztv.jpg

http://www.gbronline.com/mysterieux2/1948vkmotorola.jpg

http://www.gbronline.com/mysterieux2/1948vkmotorola2.jpg

Originally posted by huh1948
hello, I'm new to the group and I thought I'd share my two tv's with everyone... the first one is a 1954 Muntz 321C1 and the other is a 1948 motorola VK101M (VK101R) that I picked up a couple of weeks ago... need to find two knobs for it and a cople of other parts like the tuning indicator gadget that is broken on mine and figure out how to attatch the damper / plunger mechanisim that keeps the tilt out radio chassis from flying forward :p

anyone have a sam's photo fact folder for a 1948 motorola VK101M
TV chassis # TS-5
B.C. - FM chassis # HS-108
that they'd be willing to copy and mail me??

thanks,
Antonio

http://www.gbronline.com/mysterieux2/1954muntztv.jpg

http://www.gbronline.com/mysterieux2/1948vkmotorola.jpg

http://www.gbronline.com/mysterieux2/1948vkmotorola2.jpg

Holy mackerel! I haven't seen a Muntz TV since the '60s/70s, when my next-door neighbors in my hometown had one. The set died some time in the '70s, I believe, so they used it mainly as a stand for a 19" or larger portable after that, if memory serves. The Muntz had a beautiful cabinet, too, mahogany and with doors in front of the CRT, IIRC. (I like anything with a walnut or mahogany, or even oak, wood cabinet such as this.) They bought their set in the early '50s, so it may have been the same model as yours, only in a different cabinet. They don't make them like that anymore.

I am a newcomer to this group also and have about 20 sets, mostly late '40s and early '50s. Here is one of my favorite sets. DuMont RA-105 Colony that has been very well preserved. 15" round tube with a rectangle mask. It has AM and FM as well as a Phono.

Doors open.

Okie dokie.

1959 Zenith set. Just got her today. Works but needs some tweaking.

Originally posted by polaraman
I finally have the above mentioned Stromburg-Carlson here in Georgia. This thing is a beast to move! Chassis is TS 125. I plugged it up and gave it a try. Very loud motor sound coming from the audio. Needs to replace some caps! I did get a raster but did not try to adjust it to get a clear picture. I had already pushed the set up against the wall. The adjustments are in the back. I am hurting enough from moving this thing 900 miles. It has a tuning eye!!!! Way cool addition for me. The power cords to the phonos are tattered. I will have to replace them before attempting to play a record. This has 2 phono players. There is also another storage area above the 45 phono. It is big enough to keep 45 records. It is a 12" crt. Looks like I will have this running in no time!

polaraman


That SC is a great find; first one of its kind I've ever seen in 30-plus years of electronics experimenting. Glad to hear you got it home OK. :thmbsp: Sorry to hear you are hurting so badly from moving the set. :(

But 900 miles? Where was the set when you picked it up? My best guess is it must have been somewhere just west of Ohio (Kentucky or perhaps just into Indiana), as I have relatives in Georgia which is at least 600 miles from where I live (30 miles northeast of Cleveland).

You are correct as to the source of the motorboating in the sound. This is a classic symptom of defective electrolytics; best to change them all while you are at it, as most of them are bad or going bad (drying out, changing value or opening, but not shorting as a rule) by now. Fifty-plus-year-old caps aren't doing anyone any good, especially if you have problems such as motorboating (they may cause other problems as well, such as sync troubles, AGC malfunctions, etc.)

BTW, I like that cat sitting in front of your console. Guess he/she likes antiques as well.


Best of luck and very kind regards,

polaraman,

Just looked at a few past posts to this thread and found out where you got that Stromberg. I am a very poor judge of distance, but 900 miles sounds just about right to me as the distance between St. Louis, Missouri and Columbus, Georgia.

Kind regards,

Wow! We have lots of fresh meat here in just one day! That's great!

Jason, Huh, and Tim... welcome aboard! :D

Yes indeed! and some very nice sets too!

Antonio, I have a Motorola radio from a TV console, different model but if it has the part you need your welcome to it.

Eric


Originally posted by Charlie
Wow! We have lots of fresh meat here in just one day! That's great!

Jason, Huh, and Tim... welcome aboard! :D

I got the S/C from Philadelphia Pennsylvania. I also picked up 3 other sets on the trip. Stopped by a lot of antique stores on the way. I lived in Euclid Ohio from 1993 to 1996. I do not miss the winters there. Got this Philco set at an antique mall in North Carolina. It was in really nice shape and could not pass it up. It does work. I did not have a rectangular late 60's B/W in the collection.

Originally posted by Jeffhs
Holy mackerel! I haven't seen a Muntz TV since the '60s/70s, when my next-door neighbors in my hometown had one. The set died some time in the '70s, I believe, so they used it mainly as a stand for a 19" or larger portable after that, if memory serves. The Muntz had a beautiful cabinet, too, mahogany and with doors in front of the CRT, IIRC. (I like anything with a walnut or mahogany, or even oak, wood cabinet such as this.) They bought their set in the early '50s, so it may have been the same model as yours, only in a different cabinet. They don't make them like that anymore.

hehe yeah Muntz tv's seem to be a little scarce... I've never seen another in person before or after I picked that one up... I'm only 24 so I wasn't around when they were being made :p

but the cool thing about my muntz tv is that back around 1996 or so when I found it in an antique store I pluged it in and it worked right there in the shop and it had never been electrically restored (of course I know better now than to just turn on an antique piece of electronics with out a variac or first recapping the whole thing) but it was so cool that it still worked nicely after all those years...

now the picture is a little off so I'm going to get it recapped but I am going to have someone else do it as the big picture tube in it and such worries me a little... I've only done radios so far and the high voltage in it worries me a little... but since my motorola's picture tube is smaller I don't feel quite as worried or intimidated by it as I am by the muntz...

I too like the big old wood console tv's and radios also... but I'm running out of room and there are still two more tv's I want to get hehe :)

Antonio

http://www.gbronline.com/mysterieux2/mt001.jpg http://www.gbronline.com/mysterieux2/mt002.jpg

Originally posted by Eric H

Antonio, I have a Motorola radio from a TV console, different model but if it has the part you need your welcome to it.

Eric

Thanks for the offer Eric... I might have mis-spoke though, the radio chassis in my tv seems to be complete, the part I need some hardware to re-attatch is some kind of plunger mechanisim that seems to have been used to kind of slow the opening and closing of the lean out radio part of the tv... here are a couple of photos of the plunger part that is just hanging there with no obvious way for me to see how to re-attatch it to the back of the cabinet.

part photo 1 (http://www.gbronline.com/mysterieux2/radiopart001.jpg)

part photo 2 (http://www.gbronline.com/mysterieux2/radiopart002.jpg)

thanks for any aid you can give me on how to re-attatch the part to the back of the cabinet.

Antonio

Antonio,
looks like part of that is missing, I suspect the piece next to it that's screwed to the cabinet may have been part of the bracket that held it. Perhaps the Sam's folder for that set might have a picture of it.

Does that cylinder have a spring in it? It looks like brass so you could probably solder a new bracket to it. you could also just use a length of small chain in it's place, justs long enough to hold the radio door in the right position. That wouldn't be original but sometimes we have to make do :D

Eric

Check your local Lowes hardware store, they have a HUGE selection of strange hardware including loads of furniture bits. As far as chain stores go they have some really neat stuff unlike Home Despot.

Another possibility is to take a look at some of the hydraulic pistons that are used on modern cars trunks and hoods.

Anthony

The first old set I brought back to life, a few years ago. Has a scratchy audio that I need to trace but otherwise a reliable set.

(I have tried about 10 times but this photo just won't load-I'll try editing it again later with a new pic, maybe from work where my computer is a little faster)

Here is an early 50s Admiral-the cabinet (bakelite) doesn't show up much in this photo which is just as well as its pretty scratched up. Had this set for years with just one problem, multiple vertical pictures. Finally took a look at it one day and realized I had never recapped it, and it was packed tight with black beauties. The surprise was that the underside of the chassis is coated with rust. But, hey, it works! This is a metal/glass crt.

One more for tonight, this RCA 170PO42 that I just got running today. I've had this set long enough that I have no idea where it came from or what I gave for it! Pretty dirty set, inside & out, and I didn't hold out much hope for it. Finally found that a bad yoke was killing the hv. Thanks to Moyer here it is, alive again! I didn't think much of this set before, except that I liked the styling, but now I realize this is a cut above the competition, transformer powered, built pretty heavy.

Bryan, I just gotta say that looks more like a Flashlight than TV :D


Originally posted by bgadow
The first old set I brought back to life, a few years ago. Has a scratchy audio that I need to trace but otherwise a reliable set.

But seriously I think your picture got corrupted, can you re-upload it?

Eric

Here are two of my favorite sets. Neither is anything really special I guess but the Philco was my teenage room TV in the early 80s. I bought the Sparton from a guy at the flea market back then who used it as an everyday set until bringing it to the market to view. The strange thing is that both of these sets have been marvelous performers. The Philco went to the shop once in its heavy use days for distorted sound. The Sparton has never been worked on, at least in the last 20 years. They both remain watchable although the Philco came with a brightener and I believe it is catching up with the 21ZP4B. Best viewed with the lights off. I need the front plastic and small knobs for the Philco. Mine is damaged and missing 2 knobs. The Sparton is the more interesting and well built of the two. Double rectifiers, super reception, and extemely crisp, clear picture. Probably one of the best brands of the time. I think they are up there with Capehart and Dumont.

Today I drove across the state line to Lake Charles, LA to pick up this GE 10T1. The man had contacted me about it a while back in response to an ad I had put on our local online classified website.

He said he turned it on one day a few years back and POW! One of the filters blew. He started changing the caps out, but never got around to finishing. Before this incident, he said it put out a pretty impressive picture.

Also, in this deal, he threw in a bad full of electrolytics for it, extra tubes, and a spare 10BP4. I have checked the emissions of the spare tube and the one in the set... they both check out with excellent emissions!

That's not all... he also filled up my trunk with several binders of Sams and Riders. I think the Sams cover 1 thru 100. Not sure yet what the Riders cover. These Sams will be handy because I have many missing folders in my early ones.

All this for 80 bucks. Seemed like a fair price to me.

Charlie, great haul, and even greater car to haul in! Duster? 1975 or there a bouts? I had a '74 for years.
Marlin

72 Gold Duster with the 318. This car has hauled a few smaller sets, some CRT's from the old TV shop in town, and a few CRT's back and forth to Dallas to be rebuilt.

Charlie,

Isn't it a federal offense to transport a vintage tv across a state line?:uzi:

The law excludes those whom drive cool mopars!

How about a Truetone!

polaraman

How's the CRT in that Truetone...I have one of these exact sets, performance is good except CRT is weak.

What CRT is it? The markings on mine are gone. Really do not want to part out the set. Would like to test CRT though.

polaraman

Here's one of my recent aquisitions via Captainmoody. This Setchell P-67 had a few burned up resistors that I was able to replace thanks to Charlie sending the Sam's info. Thanks Charlie T! The set still has a way to go even after 95% of caps and lytics have been changed. The picture is very unstable and the 17" CRT needs replacing. The CRT has good emmision but low cut-off so contrast is horrible. I've set this one aside so I can focus on my RCA 14PD8054.
Jim

Just started cleaning and taking apart this RCA 14PD8054. The TV is in working condition but needs work. Nice strong CRT but the images are distorted (Squished legs, stretched heads, etc...)
I'll slowly go through and replace the caps. Anyone know the proper replacements for the selenium rectifiers in this set? Of course I don't have the Sam's folder on this one. I'm hoping I can go to Radio Shack and buy diodes as replacements. Any help or tips on restoring this TV is much appreciated.
Jim

Originally posted by classicradios
Just started cleaning and taking apart this RCA 14PD8054. The TV is in working condition but needs work. Nice strong CRT but the images are distorted (Squished legs, stretched heads, etc...)
I'll slowly go through and replace the caps. Anyone know the proper replacements for the selenium rectifiers in this set? Of course I don't have the Sam's folder on this one. I'm hoping I can go to Radio Shack and buy diodes as replacements. Any help or tips on restoring this TV is much appreciated.
Jim

I'd replace those seleniums with silicon diodes ASAP, as you are planning to do. (Replacing those old electrolytic caps won't hurt, either--in fact, your TV will work much better with fresh ones. Many stubborn problems in older sets (sync, AGC, hum bars, etc.) can be directly traced to defective electrolytics.

Remember, however, to use resistors in series with the new diodes to maintain the proper output voltage, i. e. to get the same output from the silicons as you now read at the output of the selenium stacks.

Selenium rectifiers were good in their day, but that day is long gone. Seleniums can short, causing them to release a gas which smells like sulphur or rotten eggs (the smoke may be toxic as well), which could also create a fire hazard if the selenium actually burns. Depending entirely upon which way the AC plug is in the wall socket, seleniums can cause a shock hazard as well.

In view of all the problems these outdated parts can cause, I think you're doing the right thing by replacing your TV's seleniums with modern silicons. Any TV/radio technician will tell you the same thing.

I'm not a technician, but I was an electronics experimenter many years ago. About 30-35 years ago I had a basement full of old TVs, radios and even a couple old phonographs which I experimented with quite a bit, so I've had some experience with these older style power supplies and circuits; the new ones throw me for a loop because I haven't kept up with the technology, but I still enjoy helping these guys on AK with their problems (and reading about the ones I can't help them with). And I enjoy looking at the pics of the old TVs I see here no end. It keeps me close to a hobby I enjoyed for many years, until I moved to a small apartment about four years ago. I am also an amateur radio operator (got my first license in 1972 and just renewed the license last month or thereabouts); one must know one's way around electronics fairly well to pass the written test for the license (at least that's how it used to be when I first got into the hobby; it's much different today).

Good luck and very kind regards,

Originally posted by Jeffhs
. . . Depending entirely upon which way the AC plug is in the wall socket, seleniums can cause a shock hazard as well. . .


:yikes:
The type of rectifier used in a hot chassis TV set has nothing to do with the shock hazard. It is the connection of one side of the AC line directly to the chassis, without the isolation provided by a transformer, that causes the hazard.

While I agree that it is a good idea to replace selenium rectifiers with silicon diodes, a hot chassis set will be no safer in regards to shock hazard whether a silicon, selenium, or vacuum tube rectifier is used!

Those sets are a real pain to work on!

The P.C. board is covered with a metal shield that has to be removed in order to unsolder the caps. It's held on by several solder joints, you have to gently pry up on it while heating the joints one at a time till it pulls away. Don't pull too hard or heat it too much or you will pull the trace off the board!

IIRC the shield is also a ground point so it has to be put back to test the operation of the set so be sure to replace everything that needs to be replaced the first time :eek:

A 1 amp 600v piv diode will replace the Seleniums, as noted by jeffhs you may need to add a resistor to bring the B+ back down to normal.


Originally posted by classicradios
Just started cleaning and taking apart this RCA 14PD8054. The TV is in working condition but needs work. Nice strong CRT but the images are distorted (Squished legs, stretched heads, etc...)
I'll slowly go through and replace the caps. Anyone know the proper replacements for the selenium rectifiers in this set? Of course I don't have the Sam's folder on this one. I'm hoping I can go to Radio Shack and buy diodes as replacements. Any help or tips on restoring this TV is much appreciated.
Jim

Originally posted by wvsaz
:yikes:
The type of rectifier used in a hot chassis TV set has nothing to do with the shock hazard. It is the connection of one side of the AC line directly to the chassis, without the isolation provided by a transformer, that causes the hazard.

While I agree that it is a good idea to replace selenium rectifiers with silicon diodes, a hot chassis set will be no safer in regards to shock hazard whether a silicon, selenium, or vacuum tube rectifier is used!


I stand corrected. Thanks.

I learned most of what I know from the "oldtimers" around where I grew up. Back in the 70's, I suggested to one tech that a pair of selenium stacks should be replaced with silicon diodes. I learned something that day and also did a bit of teaching. He said those stacks might not fail for another 10 years or more and replacing them would raise the B+ enough to need some compensation. Flipping back to the first page of the Sams, he read off the 1.8A current rating of the set (an old 19" B/W portable of some kind, metal case, knobs on top) and said "2-amp slo-blo pigtail" which he then went and got from the parts cabinet along with a length of clear plastic tubing. Unsoldering one lead from the on/off switch, he moved that lead to a nearby unused tube socket pin, soldered one end of the fuse there also, covered the fuse with the plastic tubing and soldered the other end to the switch lug where he had removed the original connection. At the time, I was maybe 14 and until that day my hanging around at the shop was sort of a nuisance to the oldtimers. The tech I was observing that day had been working on radio sets since 1941 and was from the "old school" of "if it ain't broke ..." and he thanked me for reminding him that safety precautions were often neglected in older sets and that's one more thing that it's our job to fix. He retired maybe ten years later and was about 80 when he died at the retirement home where my ex works.

I talked with a veteran technician from out in Arizona yesterday about a Farnsworth 661P at the request of someone from Texas who asked for my recommendation of a restoration shop that was closer to his location than Ohio. The conversation with someone in his 80s about this old gear reminded me of my years as a student. He doesn't have Internet access and only seemed vaguely aware that younger generations were taking an interest in old technology. I, of course, told him about AK and that his local library probably had Net access and people who could show him how to reach us. I also told him about Steve's museum and the Convention just in case he and his wife, who had initially answered the phone, might want to do a bit of traveling this or next year. He shared a few interesting stories about the CRT rebuild shops that used to operate in his area and how "some knew what they were doing, and some didn't" and he backed that statement up with one anecdote about some workers leaving some tubes in the oven with the vacuum pump running during a break. When the workers got back to their posts, these picture tubes were totally useless for anything "except maybe an ashtray" ... having been crushed flat when the heat of the tube oven softened the glass enough that the structure of the tube buckled under the pressure of the atmosphere.

Thanks to all for the outstanding tips on restoring this RCA TV.
I just finished this one last night after hours of work. Eric you were right about this set being a pain to restore, I rate it right up there with the Holiday Predicta as a nightmare chassis to work on.
Someone in the past tack soldered a few caps on top of the board but I removed the bottom plate and installed "ALL" the caps properly. The set improved slowly as I re-capped the set (Including all electrolytics) But wasn't stable until I re-capped the board. Runs great now. The last thing I need to do is replace those Selenims, I tried the 1KV 600V diodes with resistors in series but they didn't work. I don't have the Sams for the proper voltage rating so I guessed with 300 ohm resistors no luck. The seleniums are behind the CRT so It's hard to get a probe back there to measure. The original seleniums are hooked up for now until I get the Sam's folder. I'll replace those seleniums for sure, I can take this set apart in my sleep now. Thanks again for all the help.
Jim

Jim,

That RCA turned out great! I love that screen shot with Ralph and Alice! The expression on his face looks like she just shot him down good! :uzi:

Originally posted by Charlie
Jim,

That RCA turned out great! I love that screen shot with Ralph and Alice! The expression on his face looks like she just shot him down good! :uzi:

Yeah,
Ralph isn't impressed with Alice's woman's work is never done speech, His response "Good Gosh!"

Originally posted by classicradios
Yeah,
Ralph isn't impressed with Alice's woman's work is never done speech, His response "Good Gosh!"

"Pins and needles, needles and pins, a happy man is a man that grins."

Anthony

This my first B&W console. It needs all the tubes, including a new picture tube. The bakelite base is half missing and 2 of the 5 brittle wires are gone for ever. its ALSO missing the phono. I'd LOVE to have a chat with whom ever droped this set off at the dump! ARG

What picture tube do you need?

I guessed with 300 ohm resistors no luck. The seleniums are behind the CRT so It's hard to get a probe back there to measure.

I'd use resistors around 5 to 10 ohms. It's a little hard to calculate the desired ohmage when working with a half wave rectifier with filter caps circuit. Most of the time the rectifier diode is not conducting. It does conduct for a brief period of time at the top of the AC waveform, to top off the filter cap. That makes for a relatively large current spike. This spike is about 20 times larger than the B+ current draw by the rest of the set from its power supply. A rough guess for that current would be around 200ma. Twenty times that comes out to 4 amps. and to lose 20V would mean a 5 ohm power resistor. 300 ohms aint gonna curt it

H2s04:

I think that is a 1953 set. We had the bakelite table top version as our first set when I was a kid. My dad replaced the CRT twice and I remember "helping" him. We used it as our main set until 1965 when we got our first color set. Hope you can get it running. If you can find a CRT, I'll donate whatever tubes I have to the cause.

Kamakiri: I'm in need of a 21wp4x

Tim: You're correct, FEB 1953 is rubber stamped on the yoke mount. Thanks alot for the tube offer, but a some people on another message board have already chipped in to help.

You can try and e-mail this guy: [email protected]
He posted over on the ETF site that he had a bunch of CRTs for sale including a 21WP4. Good luck.

Originally posted by wa2ise
I'd use resistors around 5 to 10 ohms. It's a little hard to calculate the desired ohmage when working with a half wave rectifier with filter caps circuit. Most of the time the rectifier diode is not conducting. It does conduct for a brief period of time at the top of the AC waveform, to top off the filter cap. That makes for a relatively large current spike. This spike is about 20 times larger than the B+ current draw by the rest of the set from its power supply. A rough guess for that current would be around 200ma. Twenty times that comes out to 4 amps. and to lose 20V would mean a 5 ohm power resistor. 300 ohms aint gonna curt it

You were right,
5 ohm / 5 watt resistors with the diodes work perfectly, The old seleniums are disconnected now. The current is 240ma according to the Sam's folder so the 5 ohm resistor is right on. Thanks again.
Jim

Here I am, trying hard to get rid of tv's, and what do I do? Buy more! The story behind these: an elderly customer of mine has moved from his old farmhouse into an apartment. I mentioned that I collect radios/tv's. First he gave me an old Philco console radio from the barn. The story is that he never threw out any of the old stuff, just stashed it away somewhere. And thats where these came in-the old tv sets just got pushed upstairs when they stopped working. The one on the left is a Silvertone, 1954 model. The other is a 1960 Motorola. He says both have bad crts, something I usually take with a grain of salt. I tend to believe it on the Sears since it has a GE branded tube with a brightener, which would seem to point to years of hard use. Will have to put the tester on it-set is packed with black beauties so I know better than to even try it. The Motorola is loaded inside with tobacco gunk but has most of its original tubes, including HV. I carefully powered it up and I have audio but no hv, despite subbing all tubes in the circuit. Tommorow night I'll drag out my trusty Sencore sweep circuit troubleshooter and see what develops. Ironically, I just brought back to life a Motorola that is about a year older, a cheap table model. They are very similiar with the biggest difference being that the 59 is series filament and this one parallel. Last year I came across a collector who wanted to sell all his tvs and most of his radios. This included a Motorola console very close to this one. I walked on that deal because he hemmed and hawed on the price too much. Out of that whole lot this was the set I kept thinking I might want to call him on again-now I don't have to!

BTW, price on these was $15 each, which I, being a cheapskate, thought was too high. He said the cabinets were worth a lot...hmmm...sounds familiar?!

Hi Bryan,
I have the same Silvertone as the one in your picture. The only difference is that mine has doors on the front of it and has the factory built in UHF tuner that is integral with the VHF tuner shafts. It tunes thru the knob behind the VHF selector. The CRT in mine had went to air and with it being a metal cone tube i ended up converting it to an all glass CRT which works well. Mine was missing the back so i dont have a clue what model it is but its a nice playing set. Mine also has the phono switch on it like some of the RCA's of that era had and its switched behind the front cover plate. The cool thing about this one is that when you flip the switch to phono, it turns off everything but the audio in the tv so no looking at a snowy picture while playing records. Nice finds! I like the cool swivel legs on the Motorola! Very retro.
Tony

Originally posted by Tony V

The cool thing about this one is that when you flip the switch to phono, it turns off everything but the audio in the tv so no looking at a snowy picture while playing records. Nice finds! I like the cool swivel legs on the Motorola! Very retro.
Tony

Most TVs of early '50s vintage with phono inputs were set up to shut off the video circuits, even to the point of blanking the raster, when the record player was in use. I've seen a few of these sets in over thirty years of electronics experimenting, and even owned one. The one I owned was a 16" 1951 b&w roundie Majestic; the phono-radio switch was on the front panel, smack-dab in between the volume/contrast control and the tuner. My folks' first TV was a 1954 RCA Victor console like polaraman's (ours had the speaker at the side of the cabinet and two decorative vertical metal bars at the base, where the speakers are in his set), also with a phono input (we also had the matching 45-EY-3 45-rpm record changer, which sat atop the TV of course).

Speaking of the 45-EY-3 changer, I had one when I was a kid (the model with an integrated amplifier; the volume control was on the right side of the case, IIRC). The thing got pitched when we moved in 1972, again IIRC. :(

I know now, 32 years later, I should have kept the unit for the antique value of it, but I was just a kid then (16 years old). Besides, we were in a hurry to move, so a lot of stuff went out with the trash--including my 45 changer and a basement full of old TVs (including the Majestic roundie). :eek: :( Hated to part with those sets, especially a 23" Zenith b&w console I had rescued from a neighbor's trash and retubed from the ground up about three years earlier (it had no tubes in it except the HV rectifier and CRT when I found it), but again, I had no choice. :(

Most TVs of early '50s vintage with phono inputs were set up to shut off the video circuits, even to the point of blanking the raster, when the record player was in use.

Did they turn the heaters off along with the B+ to the TV only circuits? It'd be kind of a waste of power and tube life to leave them on. You'd need either a high current switch for the heater circuit or a separate heater transformer controlled by a lighter duty switch ganged with the TV/phono/radio function switch. If they did leave all the tube heaters running, you would have instant on of the TV once you were done playing records or the radio.....

Originally posted by wa2ise
Did they turn the heaters off along with the B+ to the TV only circuits? It'd be kind of a waste of power and tube life to leave them on. You'd need either a high current switch for the heater circuit or a separate heater transformer controlled by a lighter duty switch ganged with the TV/phono/radio function switch. If they did leave all the tube heaters running, you would have instant on of the TV once you were done playing records or the radio.....


I'm not sure by any means, but given the fact that only one switch was used in these sets as the TV/phono selector, and the TV came on immediately after switching back to TV mode from phono or radio, I would think all tube filaments remained on when the set was being used as a phono amplifier or when the radio tuner was on. However, the circuit was probably arranged to open the B+ lines to the video and RF tubes, leaving the filaments on, during such operation. The sets I've seen with phono inputs usually used a push-pull, rotary or slide switch on the front panel in this position. For TV/radio/phono, however, most if not all sets used a rotary switch on the audio control panel (I have never seen or even heard of any American-made 3-way console which used any other arrangement, including push button switches, for mode selection). The arrangement you mention, using either a separate high-current switch for the filaments ganged with the B+ switch or a separate switched filament supply for the RF and video tubes, would have been, IMO, unnecessarily complex and would have added a certain percentage more to the cost of the set, not to mention being wasteful of power, also as you mentioned.

I took a closer look at the Silvertone I have and it, too, has that switch. Seems like an odd place to put it. The Transvision I have is similiar in that you can tune it from tv to fm (or aircraft band) and the picture tube will come and go as you tune. (I forget how exactly its switched) That type of back/forth switch is kinda neat; its used on a Philco I have with factory UHF-turn the channel knob one way and you stay on VHF, turn it to the UHF setting then backwards and it switches bands. Kinda like switching an old car into overdrive!

Regarding the Silvertone,the cabinet is a natural for doors, mine looks like it has room for them, but no sign that it ever had them. That set is really oversized-the chassis is huge, especially compared to its contemperaries. The set is something like 27" square, not counting crt cap, and the chassis uses most of that floor space, plus is extra deep. Meanwhile, the Motorola has a chassis smaller than many old radios.

Most 3-way units had completely separate power supplies for the TV and radio/phono sections, especially separate-chassis arrangements like the RCA 730TV1 and 730TV2. The master on/off was usually part of the volume control or sometimes the tone control. The primary circuit of the power transformer on the audio chassis was connected so that the master on/off alone would control it. The TV chassis' power switch was ganged to the mode switch such that the tv power transformer primary was shunted across the audio power transformer's primary in television mode. Many radio/TV combo units left the heaters energized but switched the B+. Some compact and low-priced models merely cut the drive for the sweep circuits and biased the sweep output tubes to cutoff (thus killing HV and blanking the raster) such that the mode switch handled only grid-circuit currents, eliminating the need for high-current switch contacts. Certainly it was a waste of power and tube life, but it could be accomplished with cheap parts and the power company and service shops got plenty of business ... all those extra watthours and replacing weak tubes.

Here's my contribution. Got w-a-y too many sets after 20-some years of collecting and three moves, but here's a pic of the wretched centerpiece of my collection, in all it's "before" glory. I've had this set for 13 years and assumed I'd never get it done 'cause I'd never find a picture tube so it has just sat around.
Due to the extraordinarily kind assistance of Dave Johnson and Steve McVoy I now have a good 12AP4. The cabinet is currently undergoing restoration and if things go accoding to my usual thoughtful pace ("I think I'll have another beer instead of replacing those caps!"), I'll have the electronics done sometime within the next 13 years!

Hey, I'm new here... Still gotta get the hang of handling pictures. Here's the set:
http://sicaproductions.com/images/trk_before.jpg

Neat-o set, classic early Moderne styling. That's pre-war isn't it?

Anthony

Aah, yes I also neglected to ID the set for you. It is an RCA TRK-12 from 1939. This is by far the most common of the remaining prewar sets but I feel very fortunate to have found one. The styling is classic industrial design of the era. There's lots of info available on the web about designer John Vassos if you're interested.

Vassos you say? Sounds Croatian to me, kinda like a certain Serbo-Croat we both admire. ;) :thmbsp:

Anthony

Hallicrafters 820

Andrea CVL-16

The picture is better than this shot shows.

Philco 50T1403

Hoffman 7M112B

Here's a shot of my latest projection set (#10).

It's an RCA 648PTK from 1947. I picked this up from the original owners' son, it was kept in the main house and looks like new, but not working. He told me that it was operating until the early 60's then got to expensive to keep getting it repaired. A new 5AZP4 CRT was installed in 1958.


Chuck

So how many of these are there out there? I've counted three so far on this thread.

Mine gets sound, the cabinet is OK, but the set is unrestored. It's another project for another day, but I know the picture tube works.

I bought it a few months back at an antique show in New Harmony, Ind.

There are a fair number of them around, I have two of the single chassis models. These, is the several models built, are supposed to have the largest bakelike castings ever made for anything. I don't know if that is true are not. The earliest ones have a seperate power supply chassis in the bottom, does yours?
Marlin

Marlin:

My Admiral is a single chassis model--# 20x122

I haven't had much time to work on it as I've got a new old house in South St. Louis that needs more immediate attention.

However I did change out a few caps in the HV section. I was able to get a brief flicker of a picture until one of the other caps started dripping wax. There is hope!

Is there any particular product you'd recommend to polish Bakelite? I have no major problems, but I'd at least like to bring the shine back to it.

Is there an antique TV/radio club in this area that you know of? I have not found any.

There are a bajillion sites for polishing Bakelite:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=polishing+bakelite

I just don't have the time to review them all, but you can start with the above link. Word of caution, some (all?) Bakelite contains asbestos so keep abrasive polishing to a minimum or at least do it outdoors. A simple dust mask will NOT protect you, only one of those Darth Vader units with charcoal filters will help.

Anthony

Hey msepic, you are only 20 minutes from my place! I am in Fenton, about 2 miles from I-270. Check my web site for directions and give me a call and come by some time! 636-326-9096. http://www.studio4-17.com
Also the St. Louis radio club link is: http://blues.netscad.net/~joetausr/ARCH/
They are having there monthly meeting the second Tuesday 7 PM at the Kirkwood civic center, and the Fall swap meet and auction in October.
Marlin

I've come to the conclusion that the Admiral consolettes are fairly common out there. I've seen more of those models than anything else on the various sites that deal with vintage TV's. Mine is just now being brought back into working condition (I hope) by a local guy. It's the single chasis model also. I posted a similar question to yours about polishing up the bakelite and was advised to use Magnolia Glayzit. It's not cheap and I can only find it on line and they kill you on shipping. I won't buy any until I'm sure the set can indeed be fixed. It is NOT carried by Graybar Electric as one person advised. But hey, in the scheme of things it's not that much more money to add to the cost of getting the TV working again. I was told by a TV/Radio historian that Admiral was a pretty good brand back in those days and I think he said they were more popular than RCA's, so that's probably why there are so many of them out there still. They're supposed to deliver good picture quality when they are in optimum working condition. I'll spare everybody the redundancy of posting a picture of mine here. And I'm still looking for a way to rig a remote control for it. There are old VCR's out there that have volume controls on them, but they are pretty tough to find, and I think I'm dreaming as far as finding one with a switched outlet on the back, so I may end up improvising. Good luck with your set!

Originally posted by rp2813
I'm still looking for a way to rig a remote control for it. There are old VCR's out there that have volume controls on them, but they are pretty tough to find, and I think I'm dreaming as far as finding one with a switched outlet on the back, so I may end up improvising.

If you can find a cable box with remote control, you can have both remote volume AND a switched AC outlet; almost all remote control cable boxes have both features, as well as remote channel selection. Of course, if you hook up your set to cable through one of these set-top boxes, you can get the same features as well. If your TV can tune to channel 3 or 4 (as yours obviously does), it will work with a cable box, the fact that the set is over 50 years old notwithstanding.

As the last poster said, good luck with your set. Those older sets are in many if not most cases built and, once in peak condition, will work much better than today's black plastic "cube" sets coming off the assembly lines in Korea and other offshore locations. They just don't make them like your Admiral anymore.

BTW, I have had good results shining Bakelite cabinets with ordinary furniture polish, such as Endust. I polished the Bakelite cabinet of my Zenith H511Y radio with this spray polish a few months ago; looks great today.

Originally posted by heathkit tv

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=polishing+bakelite

Word of caution, some (all?) Bakelite contains asbestos so keep abrasive polishing to a minimum or at least do it outdoors. A simple dust mask will NOT protect you, only one of those Darth Vader units with charcoal filters will help.

Anthony

I'll be darned. I learned something (two things, actually) today. First, I didn't realize, myself, that Bakelite contains asbestos. As well, I was not aware that ordinary dust masks are not effective against Bakelite/asbestos dust. I have seen those huge dual-filter gas masks you mention; they look like something straight out of a science-fiction movie or TV show, as you said, but they are effective against more types of toxic dust and fumes than garden-variety dust masks (the kind you can get in most hardware stores).

Hey Jeff,
Thanks for the cable box advice. I hope you can clear something up for me. I will be hooking my Admiral up to cable since I'm in an area where rooftop antennas provide only marginal reception. I'm under the impression that analog cable boxes like the one you describe won't work if I'm not subscribing to that kind of service, and I have digital cable now with two set-top boxes. Can I really use an analog box on the Admiral in this situation, and would any box I find at a thrift store work? I've seen a lot of them out there that look like the analog boxes I had before I went to digital. That for sure would be the ideal solution for me.

...

Thanks Andy, that makes total sense! I have two cable-ready TV's that work fine on the non-digital channels. I'll start checking for one of those old analog cable boxes and see if I can track one down that has volume control.

This thread has been quite for awhile, so here's a set I dragged home recently. It's a DuMont Manchu, and it's BIG.

I have additional pictures on my site at: http://www.myvintagetv.com/dumont_manchu.htm


Chuck

Philco swivel consolette

.......here's a set I dragged home recently. It's a DuMont Manchu, and it's BIG.
Chuck

Foo! Man that thing is spooky lookin......I didn't know they have TV's back in the Victorian era :lmao: Went to your site and saw your mention of that chassis being used in the bar sets....think about it, at the time so few people could afford TV so what better thing to draw more customers into a bar than a TV? (besides free beer and naked broads I mean). I bet for a while larger bar TV's were big business for many of the TV makers.

Anthony

[QUOTE=heathkit tv]....think about it, at the time so few people could afford TV so what better thing to draw more customers into a bar than a TV?
Anthony [\QUOTE]

Especially a big set like that DuMont. I hate to think how much that particular set sold for when it was new--probably a grand or more (in late-1940s dollars). My aunt had a Stromberg-Carlson b&w console in the early '50s, same cabinet style as the DuMont under discussion here but white. I also hate to think how much her set cost new--again, perhaps in the $300-400 range (it was TV only, no radio or phono).

You're right; in the late '40s few people could afford TV, and from what I hear the '50s weren't much better in that regard (at least until the small portables came on the market in the latter part of the decade). When my folks were married in the mid-'50s their first TV set was a used RCA 21" console, followed, IIRC, by a used Crosley Super V 21" console (both monochrome--heaven knows they couldn't afford color in those days, but then again, neither could most folks 50 years ago). The first new TV I can ever remember us having was a Silvertone all-channel 17" portable in the mid-'60s, and even that was b&w. For some reason, my folks never had a color TV--as I mentioned, all our sets were b&w. The first color set to grace the living room of our house (aside from an old Silvertone roundie I got from a neighbor in my hometown in 1970, which remained in the basement) was my grandmother's 1971 Silvertone 25" color console; she brought it with her when she moved into the house in 1972, after my dad married his second wife and we wound up moving to another town.

Chuck, I was browsing your site a few minutes ago and found a picture of a GE UHF translator (what was later known as a converter). Its design struck me as unique, if odd, in that the channel selector dial was not marked 14-17-25-35-46-56-72-83 (for example) as all later converters were, but this one had the channel frequencies marked on the dial (starting at 470 MHz and ending at 890--this was back in days when the UHF TV band was still 70 channels).

I ask you, who could remember (or even knew) the channel frequencies of the various UHF stations in any city (the few towns that had UHF TV in those days, such as Youngstown, Ohio, Fort Wayne and possibly Evansville, Indiana, et al.)? Continuous VHF TV tuners were difficult enough to adjust for proper pictures; at least their dials were marked 2-13 (with FM between channels 6 and 7 on most DuMont sets), so there was no guessing as to which channel your TV was tuned to. Why didn't GE mark the dial of their translator with the actual UHF channel numbers, rather than forcing people to remember channel frequencies which are generally known only to station engineers and some dyed-in-the-wool TV hobbyists? Ordinary viewers, after all, don't care about such things as the frequency range of, say, channel 14. Technically-savvy folks know that's 470-476 MHz, but those numbers mean nothing to the average viewer.

Later converters and continuous tuning dials on all-channel TVs were calibrated in channel numbers, which, IMO, made a lot more sense to the average viewer who has little or no knowledge of or interest in how a television set works. After all, most ordinary people don't know or care how radios work, let alone TV. The idea of sending sound over the airwaves is beyond the understanding of most folks outside electronics; how sending pictures (video to us AKers) over the air is possible is totally baffling to most people as well. I know people who don't care how their color TV picture looks, as long as it's there--even if there is no color at all, or if whatever color is there is totally wrong. These folks were the ones for whom today's completely automatic TVs, completely devoid of front-panel controls except for one row or column of pushbuttons and functions accessible only by means of onscreen menus, were made (I don't know that most people even realize these menus even exist). The menus are accessible via a menu button on the front panel or the remote, but I would guess most people don't fiddle with them--they just accept the default settings out of the box and say "whatever" if someone tries to explain the menus to them.

I also think it is a wonderful idea that all service controls on modern TVs, except for focus and, in some cases, the G2 level (as on my own RCA CTC185), are hidden in service menus, accessible only to service personnel who know the access codes to get to them. Many televisions were heavily damaged or even destroyed (or at least incurred damage which was expensive to repair, especially in the case of color sets) in the old days of potentiometer controls along the rear apron of the chassis when viewers would go turning them at random, often "just to see what happens." Small children are notorious for this kind of stunt, but curious adults have been known to do the same thing--as I said, often causing serious damage to the chassis or CRT, which in turn leads to costly repairs. Moving the service adjustments to hidden menus eliminates this problem; the fact that the focus and G2 controls are on the back of the set will not lead to nuisance service calls either, since these controls can be adjusted only by means of a special tool available only to service personnel.

Most televisions made in the last decade or so (even the cheap offshore brands with names no one ever heard of), and all current production sets, are about as close to tamperproof as one can get. There is almost no way an average viewer can damage a modern TV by fooling with the service controls (except in cases where a person guesses the access codes simply by the luck of the draw, but then again there's the code or button sequence required to access the menus in the first place, which is generally unknown to the average person, so even this is practically unheard of).

For most viewers, however, since the service menus are invisible and, in most ordinary cases, inaccessible to them, there is almost no chance of anyone but a qualified service person altering the settings of the service controls. This is a system which should have been in place (its analog equivalent, anyhow, later followed by digital of course) from the beginning; it would have saved TV repair personnel much time responding to nuisance service calls, necessitated by viewers having fiddled with rear-panel controls they had no business adjusting in the first place.

Hey msepic, just an update on my 1950 Admiral's resurrection. It's fixed and working and provides better resolution than you might expect from an early set. The only annoying thing is that it can't compensate for the different types of video that it has to process, like a live local newscast compared to an old film. The newscast will be in such high contrast that a lot of stuff just looks black, but change the channel to an old movie and the picture will be so washed out and lacking contrast that the re-trace lines are always there. It's a case of constantly adjusting which was pretty much what I remember with my family's first TV set in the early 50's. I've read that there are fixes for the re-trace lines (Admiral actually put out a service bulletin for it) but the set doesn't get enough use to warrant taking it back to the guy who fixed it just for that. This TV is in a guest room with old furniture but I knew if I didn't make it convenient to use that I'd get protests from my other half. Found a cable box to make it remote but it got fried after the first round of viewing. I'm wondering if it was cable company sabotage. Haven't found another to replace it so am using a VCR and have put the TV on an extension cord with an in-line switch by the bed since the VCR doesn't have a switched outlet. I just keep the volume at a medium level. Two things I've come to realize about a 10-inch round or "double D" screen: 1) It's pretty small for viewing from more than several feet away, and 2) anything that would appear in the corners of a rectangular screen is cut off--really only noticeable when there is verbiage on the screen or with those little "bugs" all the networks superimpose in the lower right corner. But it's a novelty to watch and after it's been on a while that familiar old smell of warmed up bakelite fills the room. I think you'll have fun with your set once you find the time to get it working.

...

Thanks Andy. If I need to take the set back to the fix-it guy I will ask him about installing the circuit you've described. I know I've seen mention of an Admiral document that provides instructions on how to do this so it shouldn't be a big deal. Right now it's more trouble than it's worth to pull the chassis just for this one issue but it's nice to know it's not a major undertaking to fix when and if the time comes for some other repair.

HI Andy,

Maybe you have some more ideas on the DC restoration in old sets. All the stuff I grew up with, with the exceptiion of Color sutff, had no DC restoration. I assumed they thought they were saving money, or that maybe they thought people didn't like blacked-out scenes. But then when you go back a little further in time, a lot of the really old (1949 and back) sets did have DC restoration, and either RF HV or flyback HV. Because they had DC restoration they didn't need any H or V retrace blanking ckts. But the problem they did have was raster blooming, since they had no HV regulators. Thus on bright scenes the raster would enlarge due to the falling anode voltage. No DC resoration took care of this problem since the average scene illumination was alway the same, and thus the anode current was a constant after the video coupling capacitors settled from scene to scene. But it was necessary to add retrace blanking since the picture black level was all over the place. I am guess this is the reasoning that went on with the mfr's. What do you think?

The contrast problem you're describing is caused by a lack of DC restoration on the video. Basically, the video is AC coupled, so all the DC information in the video is lost. The circuit needed to restore the DC level is actually very simple, but it was usually not included to cut costs.

The problem might be lack of DC restoration, but I would also suspect a lack of video AGC (Automatic Gain Control) on that set. Many/most TVs from that era either had no AGC, or a less-functional form sometimes referred to as "simplified" AGC. [I'm not sure when improved, "keyed", AGC was introduced.] The result is that the contrast level will change as the signal level changes (i.e. as you switch channels or adjust the antenna). If your set does have at least some form of AGC, there should be an adjustment for it on the back of the set somewhere; that might help a little bit, but don't expect it to be perfect.

In any case, if the problem is poor/no AGC, then you'll see the contrast change dramatically if you adjust the antenna or move it around.

An easy way to tell if a TV doesn't have DC restoration is to see what happens during fade-ins/fade-outs between scenes in a show, or any program material that has large areas of solid black or solid white with some other motion (for instance, a white credit scroll/crawl on a black background). If fade-outs fade to a mid-grey instead of black, or white-on-black titles end up looking like white-on-grey (with the background grey level constantly changing as the amount of white text on the screen changes), or black segments between commercials turn grey instead, then you don't have DC restoration. Most TVs made in the mid-50's through the early/mid-60's don't have DC restoration, but a lot of older sets did.

BTW, regarding that GE UHF converter calibrated in MHz rather than channel numbers: I actually have one of those too, and I don't know why GE decided to calibrated the dial like that either. :) Then again, the FCC way-back-when actually assigned "channel numbers" for all the assignable frequencies on the FM broadcast band (didn't the numbers start with 200..?), but I don't think very many FM radios ever actually had those channel numbers marked on the dial. Did any FM radio stations ever actually announce their channel number duing station IDs rather than their broadcast frequency?

Andy, thanks for all the great info on DC restoration. There's a 1951 Capehart model 325F over at my parents' place that has been retired since 1962 except for a brief period around 1970 when I had the picture tube replaced, but it needed more than that, as everbody looked like a conehead on it, and this was a good 5 years before NBC Saturday Night came up with the concept! I recently checked the owners manual for it and it does have AGC so now I'm tempted to get this one recapped. Trouble is, I have no place to put it. It also needs the on/off and channel knobs so I will need to find exact replacements for those before bothering to have any chassis work done. Thanks again for sharing all of your knowledge with us on this subject.

Here is a set that I used to have. This is a 1951 Zenith H2250R 12" porthole. The set was a basket case when I bought it. I have a webpage up showing the restoration: http://www.angelfire.com/electronic2/radiosean/tv/Zenith_H2250R/porthole.htm
I ended up selling it when I bought a 1950 G2350. You can browse around my page and find another page on the restoration of that set.

I finally bought a real digital camera. Here is a screen shot of my Philco 50T1403. I need to experiment with lighting and such. But I finally got a useable screen shot...

BTW, regarding that GE UHF converter calibrated in MHz rather than channel numbers: I actually have one of those too, and I don't know why GE decided to calibrated the dial like that either. :) Then again, the FCC way-back-when actually assigned "channel numbers" for all the assignable frequencies on the FM broadcast band (didn't the numbers start with 200..?), but I don't think very many FM radios ever actually had those channel numbers marked on the dial. Did any FM radio stations ever actually announce their channel number duing station IDs rather than their broadcast frequency?

I can't speak for other stations elsewhere in the country, but I do seem to remember a station in Cleveland that used to announce both its frequency in MHz and the FM channel number at the top of each hour, during the FCC-required station ID. This was an NBC-owned and operated station (WKYC-FM); it used this particular automated station ID at the top and bottom of every hour ("This is WKYC-FM, 105.7 megahertz, channel 289, Cleveland, Ohio"), when the network's own programming would pause for commercials and local affiliates' identifications. Also, another Cleveland station would announce both when signing off for the night (this was in the '60s-'70s, when FM and some AM stations would go off the air for maintenance late Sunday nights or early Monday mornings).

Yes, the FM broadcast band began with channel 201, IIRC, and ended with 300, 201 being 88.1 MHz and 300 being 107.9 MHz.

There were some very early American FM radios which had the FM channel numbers listed below the frequencies in MHz; in fact, there were even a few very old FM receivers which had their dials calibrated only in channel numbers. Some European FM sets, like Grundigs and others, marked their dials in frequency and channel numbers for years, until everything went digital.

As this is the Early B&W and Projection TV forum, here is my RCA TLS-86 "Television Receiver / Projector System" Circa. 1948. This unit was adapted from the RCA model 648PTk, according to the RCA Instruction Booklet. The unit is designed to project up to a 6'X8' image. The photos show the unit operating with a NOS 5TP4 CRT. Sorry, I did not have the unit quite focused properly when taking the photo.

As this is the Early B&W and Projection TV forum, here is my RCA TLS-86 "Television Receiver / Projector System" Circa. 1948.

There's one of these sitting in a local Junque Shop. It's been on display in the window for several years now, I've given up on them ever selling it.

I was looking for more info on the Web about this set and found this interesting item:

http://www.terramedia.co.uk/cinema-television/RCA_projection_television_2.htm

There's one of these sitting in a local Junque Shop. It's been on display in the window for several years now, I've given up on them ever selling it.



Eric,

You need to throw more money at them.
:D

Chuck

Hey guys, the base of that thing is the base for the RCA record cutting lathe. Guess it made sense as transcription records were being phased out and I bet they had a bunch of them around the factory.
Marlin

There's one of these sitting in a local Junque Shop. It's been on display in the window for several years now, I've given up on them ever selling it.


Just wait around a little while...sooner or later the shop will most likely close down or at least be hurting for money and will give you a fair deal to make some cash. I have seen things sit around shops for YEARS, like 5 years or more, and when it's been there that long, the shop will usually come to their senses that YOU are the only real hope of making any money on the item, and will deal with you.

That projector is awesome, I bet it eats CRTs for lunch ! Modern units are rated 10k hours so with 40's technology I wonder what that one gets, 5k ? Whats the HV on it ? You can probably check for broken bones with its xray output heh. I didn't know anybody had a working one, I saw some original photos of one on a TV site a few days ago.

Now you just need to get 2 more, some color filters and a demodulator for the worlds largest color projector :)

There's one of these sitting in a local Junque Shop. It's been on display in the window for several years now, I've given up on them ever selling it.

I was looking for more info on the Web about this set and found this interesting item:

http://www.terramedia.co.uk/cinema-television/RCA_projection_television_2.htm

Eric,

Below are the partial text fo som emails form this place in CA who had a TLS 86A, and wanted $1000 for it. I told them what is was. As I already had one, I was not tempted.

But maybe someonw would like to follow up, so here is teh data. Attached is a copy of the photo they sent me of the unit.

-John

PS When I post a message with attachments, how do I get teh attachments to show up in the body of the message, instead of be appended at the bottom as links?

**************************************

John
We would like to get $1,000.00 for it and you arrange for your own shipping.
Jo Walsh
The Blues
Sales Rep.
1-800-use-levi

***************

We are in Redlands, CA. Our shop is located at:

The Blues
114 E. State St.
Redlands, CA 92373

*********

> From: [email protected]
> Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 17:56:46 EDT
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Model 86A

> We don't know! It is tube but it doesn't have the cord to plug it in but it
> looks to be around the 40's so probably black and white.
> This is the information that is on it:
> Property of Enginering Department of National Broad Casting Co. Inc.
> Engineering Inventory 4770
> N
> B
> C
> Model TLS-86A
> Serial #01062
> Consisting of MI-15300A, MI-15501A,MI-15302A
> RCA
>
> Eclipse Pioneer Dio.
> Bendix Aviation Corporation
> RCA Part P970181
> Serial #4496
> OTW
>
> Was hoping you knew what this was and what it does?
> Help!
> Jo Walsh
>

The 1940s vintage RCA projection TVs using the 5TP4 CRT operated at just under 30KV. I don't know what the life expectancy of the CRTs was, but they did develop a borwn "burn" in the phosphor with use, whcih got darker as the hours went by. The unit Eric showed in his link was the big brother of my unit, which used a 7NP4 (or was it a 7WP4?) CRT operating in the 50KV-70KV range. Very scarey.

I recall reading about an RCA projection set that was used to televise closed-circuit events in theaters, in the 1940's....it said it used 80 kv. on the CRT.

John, that is the exact same set I was talking about.
$1000! Back a couple years ago would have considered 1/4th that much but now I don't really even want it.

So what is one worth anyway?

Eric,
Value is a hard thing to establish. But in general, collectors do not seem to be as fond pf projection sets as I am. You probably saw the RCA 648PTK which just sold on ebay for $300. I think that is undervalued....but that is just me. And there are probably only 2 or 3 of those RCA TLS 86A projectors known....so should that meke it more valuable? Hard to say. But as I said, I really like projection sets.

John raises a very interesting point about value which I learned working on vintage cars.....just cuz something is rare doesn't automagically mean it's valuable.

There's a silly olde tyme saying: It's rare nowadays because nobody wanted it when it was new......in other words, if no one wanted it then why would they want it now? Obviously that's not quite true, but that WAS the prevalent attitude before the rage of collecting everything.

Anthony

With over 30 years of collecting "things" I also came to the conclusion a long time ago, that being rare and being valuable do not necessarily go hand in hand.

Just look at a Zenith 1000Z Stratosphere radio, production was about 750 units and it cost $750 in 1935, one sold last year for $42,000 and one just recently for $50,000 and there are 40 of them accounted for. I know of TV's that had production numbers in the low 100's (if that) and only a couple accounted for that wouldn't come close to those prices.

The only TV I know of that has been quoted as having a value in the $40K range is the RCA RR-359.

It still ends up that the value of a "collectible" is only what the buyer and seller agree on.

John, I have to agree with you - love those big projection sets! :thmbsp:

If I was near California I'd probably have that TLS86 sitting in my living room.


Chuck

It seems to me that the things that are collectible are those associated with pop culture and have some decorator value, or things that the 30-50 year old crowd remember as fun from their youth. The projection sets, especially the type you use with a seperate screen would have been industrial or institutional items and not seen so much as a "fun" item.
Just like a 1957 Chevy Bel-air might have a lot of collector value, but a 2 ton truck or school bus from the same year really doesn't and would be a lot cheaper...even if they may be rarer.

Of course, collecting things, like big old projection TVs, which the rest of the world is not in llove with is not all bad. It does mean that the collection is not going to make a good retirement invstment plan. But it also means I can collect a bunch of 'em and not have to mortgage the farm to do it!

Lucky thing for me too...that I really enjoy equipment which doesn't have a lot of fantasy or collector value!

I guess what we really need, and I hope for, is that our collections are built up of items that are not in high demand, and then after we have them then they DO become high demand items! My tv collecting started when many of then were available for the taking so to some extent that has worked out.
Marlin

Found this Setchell Carlson 19" set at the old tv shop I hang out at. Chassis number 301 in Sams 742-3. The set's a little dirty, but looks like it should clean up well. No idea yet of what the insides are like.

I have a couple of sets very similar to this. The picture is not quite as square, so I believe that mine are older models.

I guess what we really need, and I hope for, is that our collections are built up of items that are not in high demand, and then after we have them then they DO become high demand items! My tv collecting started when many of then were available for the taking so to some extent that has worked out.
Marlin

I probably don't have any TV's which have become high demand items yet, but have got some things when they were considered junk which have evolved into fad items, such as Ampex 350 and 351 tape recorders and "preamps" and 5AR4, and 7591 tubes.

I brought this home from the tv shop today. It's a 17" RCA portable that has legs bolted to the sides. I don't really find the set itself to be very attractive, but, it is kinda cute with the legs attatched. Couldn't find a model number. I am guessing somewhere between 1958-62.

The front of the set is plastic and the back is metal. The plastic is in pretty good shape... no cracks. The metal back will need to be sanded and repainted. It's missing a knob, but, I think I will be able to find something blend in.

Not sure of the condition of the insides... haven't taken the back off yet, and, it will probably be several days before I get around to it.

Sorry for the fuzzy photo... my camera doesn't always focus.

Neat little set Charlie, early 60's I'm pretty sure. Never seen one with the stand before, is that custom to that set?

I've got one of these in black, but not that cool stand! One way to sort of date it is that later models got nuvistors. (mine doesn't) Mine works pretty well but for an arcing hv that I need to track down.

I have a couple of those from the TV shop in Athens. One is missing a knob just as this one is.

No stand though.

Once I get the back off, I'm sure i'll find a number to look up the sams.

The stand bolts into the side of the cabinet, so, it allows the tv to tilt up and down. You can actually turn the tv upside down. Probably not a good idea while trying to watch your favorite show. :no:

The stand bolts into the side of the cabinet, so, it allows the tv to tilt up and down. You can actually turn the tv upside down. Probably not a good idea while trying to watch your favorite show. :no:

Not as crazy as it sounds, if you also flip the deflection yolk, or the horizontal wires and the vertical wires, to right the picture when the set is "upsidedown". Then the set becomes a left handed set, with the controls positioned for the convenience of soufpaws (left handed people). This assumes a reasonable "top" to the flipped over cabinet. Not just lots of vents like most sets' cabinets have.