I began collecting vintage TV's with round CRT's about 5 years ago when it occured to me that one of these would make a really cool period and conversation piece in my living room. I started looking around and putting out the word to my circle of friends and one day got a tip that there was a 1948, 10" Admiral bakelite consolette at an antique shop a couple of hour's away. Well it was in really tough shape, major crack in the top of the cabinet, most of the tubes were missing, and even the knobs were missing. The price was also too high but I just hadn't discovered the 'network' yet and let me tell you, these vintage sets are really hard to come by in Ontario, ...so I bought it. Then began all the phone calls, at first trying to find a good 10BP4 CRT (the picture tube was also shot). I eventually discovered the AWA and the radio swap meets and the rest is history. I had to buy another cabinet for that set, and another complete Admiral just for the right knobs, but eventually did get it fully electronically restored and polished to a nice shine. During that project I developed a keen interest in these early post war marvels of technology and that interest led to a full blown desire to collect more and more. Now I have filled my home with them and the collection spills over into the shop where the unrestored ones still await my attention. I would be ready to open a Vintage TV Museum any day now, if it was only a practical thing to do. The cost of heating the display building alone would never be recouped by the take at the gate. Anyhow, when I get time I'll eventually be sharing these sets with visitors to my website in Virtual Museum mode.

Vintage TV collecting has not entrenched itself yet like the well established hobby (and business) of radio collecting, but in the past 5 years it sure has seen a rapid growth curve. I'm glad I got started when I did, my collection is now pretty much big enough and I limit my collecting now somewhat selectively to just those few B&W sets I still desire to find or vintage round screen color sets.

I've enclosed an after restoration picture of my first set that launched my collecting hobby and invite all of you to share your pictures and collecting stories with us.

Rob

Rob:
Boy, that is opening a can of worms! Do you want them cronologically or alphabetically! Allright, how about a 7" Emerson. Ummm, lemme see if I can do this.....

Marlin

Marlin,

Nice Emerson 600! That is one of the ones still on my wish list. If you'd like I could store it for you. ;)

Rob

Hi Rob, great group you got here!
OK, here is one of my newest favorites, a 1953 + or - Philco 21" floor model with a "Golden Grid" Tuner whatever that means. It must work though because it really pulls in the stations even without an antenna!

This is an old set you can actually watch.

Eric

Hi Eric,

Glad you could drop by! That is a great early 50's set. Yes one you can watch! Great sound too I'll bet. Didn't they make a car about that same time, early 50's, with a front ornament that looked like the pencil box with that Vee below it? :D

Rob

Rob, I believe you are referring to a chevy. The "V" stands for V8. Come to think of it I have several television sets which grills that look sorta familliar. maybe I saw them at our neighborhood classic car show.....
Marlin

I always thought the "V" stood for "Victory", after the US won WWII. But that was always an educated guess, seeing that I've never seen a television with a V8....but then again I wouldn't put anything past Rob :p:

Here's my Crosley 9-408. Bought from a friend in NY, I restored it about a month ago.

Here's an RCA 721TS that I bought unrestored from a Canadian collector. It took me over a month to get it cleaned up and working since it was once used in a bar and was covered with tobacco smoke residue. Here it is, working again..

Also bought in Canada, here's a GE 800C working again.

Here's a Pathe 12-2 that I restored some time ago.

JS,

That 721TS is a beauty now. After all that hard work, why on earth are you selling it?????

Rob

To answer that question, I'm selling it because vintage tv is now more than a hobby. I used to work for a leading long-distance phone company which is now in the news for the worst accounting scandal in US history. Vintage electronics is my job now.

Some products and services we offer are:

1 - We buy, restore and sell vintage radio, tv, hi-fi and guitar amplifiers.

2 - We design and build tube guitar and hi-fi amplifiers.

3 - We restore vintage electronics for those collectors who already have the sets but lack the time or expertise to do their own restorations.

When I acquire an especially rare set (there were fewer Crosley 9-408's made than RCA 630TS's) I hold onto them for private display in my home.

One of my goals is to increase the number of surviving antique sets that are also working antique sets.

This has been something I've wanted to turn from a hobby into a career since I was 12 years old. The ultimate goal of my business is to bring America's consumer electronics industry back to its former glory in the same way as we all love to bring pictures bact to the screens of classic tv sets that have sat dormant for decades. I hope to market a 100% American-made tv set within 10 years. Please visit my Web site and have a lok around. The URL is http://home.earthlink.net/~amptechsys. Here's my AboutMe page on eBay, also http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/jshorva65/

Thank you for the reply.

John

John,

Sorry for you that the bean counters at the phone company got caught doing what they and bankers do best. A lot of people that trusted the system have been burned badly.

I wish you luck in your enterprise. It is great when you can turn something you love as a hobby into something you will also enjoy as a mechanism for buying groceries. Looks like the 721 will buy you a few groceries.

I have one of those 721TS's obtained from a mutual friend (I'll bet) who happens to also live in New York State, the Crosley looks awful familiar :) , and wouldn't think of parting with it. I'd like to restore it someday myself. I just have so many to do I don't know which one to tackle next and other matters keep me distracted of course. I don't buy any of these ever to resell however, just for the private collection. Someone's gonna get a nice complete collection someday.

Rob

Can't get much rounder than this set. A Stromberg-Carlson TC-10

Chuck

Dear Rob,

Yes, this one set will pay most of the bills here for the month. I also received a phone call yesterday from someone in Oklahoma who will be paying to have his RCA 8-T-241 professionally packed, shipped to me, restored by me, re-packed and shipped back. Why? Because he has owned the set (in working order) for years until just recently when the tuner was damaged by a visiting grandchild. He removed the tuner and had it professionally rebuilt. He thinks he may have reinstalled it incorrectly since he reinstalled it himself and is not experienced with electronics. The set also was working with all of its original paper capacitors unreplaced when it worked. I plan to evaluate the condition of the set and either confirm or disprove the customer's suspicion that the paper capacitors may finally need replaced and then, if necessary, relace them. My own suspicion is that the rebuilt tuner, now properly aligned by the rebuilder, may be producing an IF for which the chassis is no longer properly aligned. Armed with sweep and marker generators and a frequency counter, I plan to do RF sweeps on each channel, verifying that the tuner is set up to produce the correct response curve, check the response curve of the IF amplifiers, and then likewise align the set's IF amplifiers back to factory specifications if my suspicions prove to be true.

Incidentally, I also kept my Crosley 9-408 for a second reason besides the fact that it is less common than the similar RCA 630TS. My Crosley set appears to have been kept in a climate-controlled environment for many years and cared for very well. Although both sets are complete and the finishes are almost equally nice on both the RCA 721TS and the Crosley 9-408, you'll notice that the Crosley's finish looks almost like it would have looked when it was new while the RCA's has dulled just slightly from age. The Crosley also works as well as it does and produces all the correct waveforms and response sweeps flawlessly without the need for replacement of even one of its original paper capacitors. The set is powered up weekly, always with a Variac, protected by a 2.5-amp fuse, displayed in a room that's climate-controlled between 65 and 85 degrees and never left unattended with power aqpplied. If any capacitor does eventually fail, I'll replace them all.

John

And you guys guessed it, I'm the mutual friend! :D

You guys have more sets in common than you realize.

John, I was stunned to see wat the 721 is going for!

about 5 years ago I sold a 721, 830 and another 48 RCA for $200
that's $200 for all three!!

Someone please shoot me now <LOL>


Eric

Chuck,

Are you the one that scored one of these N.I.B. recently? Totally awesome set!

I've got three Zenith Portholes now, a Raytheon 12" Porthole, and a Teletone 209 suitcase 7" porthole that also qualify as 'round'. I just scored my latest Zenith, a 12" with doors last weekend. These true portholes are soooo cool!

Here's a picture of the new one and the 16" I had before to it's left. Both have identical cabinets and identical patterned doors.

Rob

Rob,

Yes, that's the NIB Stromberg. Your right, the porthole style is pretty slick to showoff. So far I haven't found another, just a couple more projection sets.

Chuck

Dear Rob,

I suspect that the presence of Channel 1 on the dial may be part of the reason my set is going for over $1,000. My GE 800C only went for $249 although it's nearly impossible to find those locomotive-style Bakelite cabinets in good condition. Virtually every one of them that I've seen except that one has at least had one crack somewhere. Many that I've seen had most or all of the top grille smashed out. I really think that Channel 1 is the attraction.

John

Wholly geez! :eek:

Makes me wish I'd have held on to more of my collection! But then again, most of the good stuff went to Rob, so at least it's all loved :smlove:

Many of the 10" sets made prior to 1949 are likely to have Channel 1. I just count the positions in the photos that are posted on eBay and I'm almost always right about which ones do have Channel 1 vs which ones don't. I just bought an RCA 630TS for $150 that has Channel 1. Buy-It-Now wasn't originally an option, but I convinced the seller to sell it to me for $150 with Buy-It-Now since the set was listed in Collector's Guide to Vintage Television as having an average unrestored value of $175, was missing a knob and needed a small piece of veneer fixed on the front. It's going to cost me quite a bit to have the set professionally disassembled and packed since the seller didn't want to attempt it himself. I'll also have some money involved in the veneer repair. I bought a complete set of knobs for the 630TS on eBay recently so I have the replacement knob on hand. I even have a spare 10BP4 (had two, but used one of them) and saved a dud to have rebuilt if necessary. What I don't have but hope to find are replacements for a missing HV cage, back cover and 2 knobs for my Fada TV30 (also a Channel 1 set). The cage and back shouldn't be hard to find as they're pretty much identical for the 630TS and all its clones. The knobs, however, are going to be harder to find because, although any 630-clone knobs will fit the shafts, the Fada knobs are cosmetically different.

John

Round is good. Round is cool. Check out this partially restored '48 Zenith 12".
Pardon the bad exposure, the flash washes out the picture. I found it in a small town antique mall trying to work but looking funny. I talked them down to $150, hauled it home, parked it on the bench, and proceeded to hand wind a power choke. 2000 turns of #32 wire. I thought I was going to choke! A couple of caps, two good 5U4's and a few other tubes and this is what I got. Still needs recapping but I hafta make a living sometime.....
Marlin:p:

Hey folks: Anybody else watchin' the GE mirror in lid set on ebay? It ends tomorrow evening and already is at $7500.00+! Auction #2115928008. Sure wish I was rich!
Here is a photo I lifted from the ebay auction.
Marlin:eek:

Moderator's Note: That auction has closed and the set sold for $12,300.01. See http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2115928008

I saw it the moment it was posted and have been following it with interest. Nowadays, generally only well funded museums or wealthy collectors can afford to obtain historically significant gems like this. Thirty years ago you could still trip over this sort of thing at a yard or estate sale and have it for a working man's pay. Not any more.

Rob

Many of these gems were actually DELIBERATELY DESTROYED years ago because they were considered DANGEROUS. For those who don't know the background, pulse and rf supplies for high voltage were not developed until after the war. These pre-war sets used a second power transformer and usually a 2X2 rectifier with much larger filer capacitors to develop the 7.5kV second-anode voltage. These supplies were not energy-limited like the more modern flyback-pulse or rf oscillator supplies. These old supplies could easily continue producing high voltage at sufficient current to kill while loaded with body resistance. Body resistance normally presents such a heavy load on rf and flyback circuits to limit the output current to a level that will produce little more than a very unpleasant shock to a healthy adult. A picture tube only draws about 1mA of beam current from the hv supply. Pulse and rf supplies normally have high impedances which tend to limit their output current. I still wouldn't recommend touching the hv circuits of a flyback or rf supply with power on and also recommend discharging the filter capacitor(s) before working on them.

When restoring one of these pre-war gems, use extreme caution around the high-voltage supplies, never work near them with power applied and always discharge the filter before working on the hv circuitry.

John

Here is my Stromberg Carlson. My next door neighbor gave this one to me about five years ago...

Here's my limited collection of old BW sets. See my post in color sets for explanation for lack of pics.

1. Stewart Warner 12" round. Made in 1949. I can get a picture, but I also got this set prior to learning that recapping is a good thing. Once recapped, this set will look really nice. The strips in the tuner are not all there, but I still can get it to work on cable. This one is a tabletop.

2. Zenith 21" made about 1958. Here's a good worker. Nothing special about this VHF only metal tabletop. A set similat to it is pictured in the AS THE WORLD TURNS book published in 1996. The child pictured would eventually become one of ATWT's executive producers. I'll eventually scan the photo and picture of the set. This one will eventually get a full recap, but it works after replacing some caps in the vertical and correcting other "repairs" done before I had the set.

I am always looking for old sets, but I'm not sure when "primetime at curbside" here is.

Here is my Bakelite Admiral just after the restoration was finished playing a 1949 commercial for Joy dishwashing liquid when the set was barely 1 year old...

And here is my TV project for next winter. It's my first porthole television set, a 1951 Zenith Blonde Console...

hi Rob I see that you are from Ontario..i was passing through Napanee last week and notice the guy who runs the flea market there has 2 or 3 vintage TV sets for sale..i am into the audio side and picked up a nice reel to reel for a good price..just thought i mention it

Originally posted by Unimatic1140
And here is my TV project for next winter. It's my first porthole television set, a 1951 Zenith Blonde Console...

Your Blondie is sure a beauty!

Good luck in your restoration effort. This system is worth fussing over!

Hear is my antique t.v[IMG][IMG]http://168.103.222.44/photogallery/tv.jpg

They don't get much bigger than this one. Will be my winter project, a 1948 RCA Berkshire Regency. All 6ft and 550lbs of it.

http://myvintagetv.com/regencyfront.jpg

Chuck,

Do you need a special class of license to tow that package? :)

Wow, now that is an entertainment center! I have never run across any info on those but understand that it uses the same basic 4 chassis projection set as all the RCA projection receivers like my own 9PC41's, but with additional chrome plated (I think I read somewhere) radio chassis. Correct me or comment on this if I am wrong.

Your's is the first photo I have ever seen of one of these. That will be quite a project. Great score!

BTW. at something like 250 lbs, my 9PC41 was impossible to move about on the carpet until I installed hidden 2" casters underneath. I am a firm believer in hidden casters wherever possible on these vintage consoles.

Rob

Rob,

Yes, you are correct the TV chassis' are the same as used in all the '48-'49 RCA projection sets. If you want to see more of the set look here :

http://www.myvintagetv.com/rca_berkshire_regency.htm

I have a 8PCS41 that is restored and a 9PC41 not worked on yet. The 9PC41 has the remote control.

This is sitting on moving blankets, that's how we moved it into position. Since this picture was taken I put teflon coasters under it, great for wood floors.


Chuck

Chuck,

That is a real collectible piece there. It cost about 1/4 what you could buy a house for when new. Wow!

I have the remote for my 9PC41 also. I haven't gotten into restoring the one of mine that I plan to keep yet. Too many proyects on the go.

Rob

Just wanted to bring everyone up to date on the latest additions to my vintage b/w collection.

At a local auction this week, I picked up (for $1 each) a Motorola and a Philco B/W console both from circa late 1950s. Both produce picture and sound, one has a brightness problem (but a good CRT) and the other has insufficient vertical sweep. The Philco has what looks like a Predicta chassis inside a traditional 50's-style console cabinet. I'll snap some pics of it later this week.

Here's the REALLY EXCITING NEWS!!!

Part 1 -- I've almost finished recapping the Fada TV30 (channel 1) that I bought from Tim (with the original Owner's Manual) and all I need next is to get a coil slug, a few knobs, a hv cage and a back. I've got those projects in progress.

Part 2 -- My RCA 630TS (channel 1) arrived yesterday. All I need for that one besides recapping is a back, a few knobs, a safety glass and a bracket.

Part 3 -- I just won an auction for a Fada 799 (channel 1, near mint with original Owners Manual and a full raster) today. Here is a pic of the set which I hope to be receiving sometime in the next month. An educated guess tells me that it's likely to produce a picture after cleaning the tuner, recapping optional like with my Crosley 9-408. The seller tells me that she acquired it from the original owner. It appears to have been taken care of very well and probably stored in a climate-controlled area of the house.

John

John,

That 799 is gorgeous! Great score. How are you gonna have it shipped??? I'd be nervous about any other way than personal pickup if it was my deal.

Rob

The plan was to have the seller disassemble and pack the set into 3 boxes. Since she has sold, packed and shipped sets like this before and her feedback indicates great success, I'll trust her and UPS Ground with $1,000/carton insurance. She has sold quite a few other sets (RCA 630TS & 8TS30's, Crosley 9-408's, Fada TV30's 799's) and I know that she knows what she's doing. Honestly, there are 2 individuals I'd trust to pack this set correctly ... Tim from this forum, and Sharon who sold me this set. Honorable mention goes to Dan for selecting a professional who did a nice job of packing my 630TS for its recent safe arrival.

...

Here is my Admiral 19A15 which is the same as the 19A11 but with a wood cabinet.

This was a $40 basket case from eBay or so I though till I got it home and found out it worked!
I refinished the cabinet (it was water stained on one side but bleached out pretty well) found some knobs and a back and Viola!

Eric

OK, I see that I am only posting 0.17 times per day so here is another picture.

This is an Admiral 24X12 10" it has been electrically restored for the most part and works.

I will always remember the day I won the auction for this set on on eBay: 9/11/01 :(

OK, here's something more colorfull :)

Two 1957 GE/Hotpoint 9" sets. A cheaply made little piece of junk with the crappiest Picture tubes know to man!
Oh well, they do work, the Red one has a Rejuvenated tube and produces a really good picture, The green one has a 40 year old Rebult tube and produces a so-so picture. I also have one in black but it doesn't work because the crummy picture tube is bad :mad:

OK, I'm up to 0.24 per day :cool:
Here's another picture of a bunch of Electostatic sets.

Note the big Curtis Mathes combo they are sitting on, what was I thinking when I bought that :dunno:

All hail Eric! Oh, hail Eric, the keeper of the technology that runs on the same stuff of the universe, the vacuum. ;)

Great pics, great sets dude!

Rob

Here's more news about my collection. I just acquired another Channel 1 set (a Fada 899) which is on its way from RI. This set is a little rough, but it's essentially complete except for one knob. Unfortunately, some unexpected car repairs since winning that auction have forced me to list my Crosley 9-408 a few months before I had planned to sell it. I'm almost finished with the restoration of my Fada TV30, though (new Width coil is on the way, repro hv cage under construction, repro back is here). I expect to have the TV30 working next week. My RCA 630TS will likely be my next project, followed by my Fada 899 and Fada 799. I'll be buying another box of assorted knobs for $20 from a local tv repair shop next week. As much as I hate to sell these sets from a collector's standpoint, I really love being able to make a living by restoring vintage tv sets.

Here's my 630TS, also. As I said before, I haven't started its restoration yet. This one will need one of my reproduction backs, a Channel knob, a Fine Tuning knob (notice that someone has moved the Brightness knob set to the channel selector shaft), a safety glass and a safety glass bottom bracket. I plan to have reproductions of the glass and bracket made by having the safety glass and brackets from my Fada 799 (which are identical) duplicated.

The safety glass is *almost* identical, anyway. What I'll need to do is have a piece of glass cut to the shape of the 630TS face using the same type and thickness of glass as the Fada 799 safety glass. Does anyone have reproduction safety glass available for either model?

John,

Thanx for sharing. You sure are going that extra mile to restore these early marvels.

A good glass and mirror shop that has a wet belt sander can make these glass windows for you. They won't be tempered safety glass though as you cannot cut that stuff, it just explodes. I don't see this as a problem.

Rob

My goal is to preserve as many of these sets as possible for posterity. There were many variations on the same theme (630TS/8TS30 chassis) in that era. Each one, although a variation on the same original design, is unique in its own way. I even saw a 12" set based on the same 30-tube RCA chassis design recently. How many of us know the difference between a 1948 8TS30 and a 1948-1/2 8TS30? As I see it, virtually any set with an unmolested chassis and structurally-intact cabinet is a viable candidate for restoration. I'd rather re-wind a transformer than sacrifice another viable chassis as a "donor" unless several other vital parts had already been harevested from the donor chassis.

My latest auction find, Philco 48-700 straight from the house. Love to find them with all the 50 year old dust covering the chassis, I know I'm the first to look inside in a lot of years.

I brought it up on the variac and got a small raster on the CRT, until the telltale sound of an electrolytic getting ready to blow.


Chuck

Chuck,

That may be the best condition 48-700 Philco I've seen. Good score!

Yes, seeing the carpet of original dust build-up inside is reassuring that the chassis hasn't been messed with.

Rob

Here's the Philco 48-700 after restoration. Again it seems like I put in a thousand caps. Only had one bad electrolytic.

I had to do some actual troubleshooting on the horiz and vertical output sections, a bad bias resistor on one of the vertical output tubes and a bad resistor in the plate circuit of the horizontal driver tube.

Chuck

Awesome!!!!!

Here's my latest eBay find. It's an RCA. The model number wasn't in the listing, but it looks like an 8-T-241. Since it's relatively close, I'll be picking it up this week to save shipping costs. From there, I'll be storing it temporarily until its turn on my workbench comes around.

Has anyone ever seen a picture tube shield like this one? It weighs over a pound and is almost 3/16" thick. This thing could shield a nuclear blast.

It rests on a rubber ring at the base of the tube and 3 rubber pieces glued onto the bulb of the tube.

Chuck

ChuckA,

That's Philco for you. They apparently couldn't find a loctal base CRT so they had to do something else strange. :)

No, I've never seen a 7JP4 shielded quite like that.

Rob

Chuck that tube shield is amazing!

my Philco 50T-700/702 sets have a stout shield but it's only about half that thick, they also have a spring thingy that slips inside to hold it snug.

Eric

Here's the latest addition to the collection.
Picked this beauty up on eBay for $19 +$10 Fed Ex:D
Didn't need it, got 3 more like it but hey $19!! couldn't NOT bid on it.

CRT checks like new and it's in really good condition except for the plastic screen for which I have a spare.

Has a raster but no sound or video, not even any snow, may just be missing a voltage somewhere (tubes checked OK)

Eric

Hi Folks, I am Charlie and just joined this forum you guys have going here. I've gathered a small handfull of sets over the years, and wanted to share with you. I have been looking at the ones you guys have here, and they all look fantastic!

ERIC H....

I see that big Curtis Mathes set you have! Well, it was kinda hard to miss <laugh>. May I take a stab at your set having the "8E" chassis? (Sams 615-1) I have the same set pictured below, but in a different style. This was the first TV that started my collection, and the first set I learned to work on. For a beginner, I found it very easy. The chassis was a breeze to go through. The picture I ended up with came out pretty good. The stereo in this thing rocks! Has a very impressive speaker system in it. I changed the "creepy eye" 6E5 tube in the stereo with the 1629 and adapter, still had the origional Curtis Mathes 6E5 in it. The cabinet my set is in has a very nice finish to it. This has been my daily watcher now for 7 years, and has been trouble-free. That big cabinet is sturdy for stacking, as you have also demonstrated with your Curtis Mathes picture!

Charlie,

Welcome aboard! That is a really fine console. I see some really large woofers hiding behind those grilles. Can you tell us more about the speakers and audio amp in that beauty? There are a few people here at audiokarma who are interested in sound equipment. ;)

How about posting pics of your other sets too.

Thanx for sharing.

Rob

Hey Rob

Thanks for the welcome!

The Curtis Mathes pumps up the volume with 12" inch woofers, and the accompaning mids/tweeters. Sound is pushed out with a set of 6BQ5's. Unfortunately, the tv is not putting out its sound in stereo, but the quality of the sound is so impressive that a person might not notice. The amp has inputs for an aux, so, I plug in a CD player there from time to time. It has a very clean sound. I would have never expected something from 1963 to play so well.

A few years back, I came across a guy that had 3 CM multiplex adapters that I picked up for 20 bucks. One of them had never been out of the box, and was the correct unit to connect to this system. Now, I can listen to the FM in stereo. I have saved the other two mpx adapters. So Eric H, if you are reading this, I think I have another mpx adapter that will probably fit your CM system... if you don't have one already.

There is my predicta. I got it from a man here in town. I spent some time on this to get it running, and learned very quickly that these are a pain to work on! It plays now, but still needs a few tube sockets changed out and the flyback could use some dope to fill in the cracks of the insulation. Of course, you see one Predicta, you see 'em all. I assume that the stand-up barber poles are easier to work on.

I have a late 50's wooden Magnavox 17" with chassis V2704AA. I found this in a junk shop in town, and couldn't understand how it got there! This set looks almost mint! The inside was extremely clean and nothing had been changed other that a few tubes. It played ok when I got it home, but I changed a few coupler caps and the picture became more stable. The picture now is really good... only thing i need to do to it is turn the deflection yoke just a hair. The front has alot of shiny trim to it, but I feel that they could have used more attractive knobs. This set was supposed to have legs, so I plan to get some made one day.

Also below is a Motorola 21" that a relative gave me. I think it is from 1959. It needed new tubes in the tuner. I went thru all of the caps and tubes, but it still have a sync problem. The stronger the signal, the worse the sync. I thought maybe the AGC needed to be turned down, but this set has no provision for adjusting the AGC. It has a copper chassis (TS564). I have always liked the styles of Motorola TVs and radios. I think they are easy to pick out in a crowd. I feel that this set will put out a great picture once the sync is fixed. .

On top of the Motor is a Telefunken Jubilate 105 radio I got while driving thru New Mexico. It just needed a little cleaning on the inside. The cabinet has a very attractive grain in the wood and a very shiny finish. It is loaded with Telefunken 12AX7's.

Below the Motor is a Magnavox record player with wood cabinet. A friend gave me this one, although record players are not something I look for. I think the amp in it runs on 6V6's. Has good sound to it, but I think it runs a hair slow.

My Sentinel is there as well. Found it in Houston and probably paid too much for it. It plays, but needs work. I have not messed with this one yet. One day I will get in there to see what it needs. Probably needs caps.

Hope you guys like the sets below.

Charlie,

The 6AQ5 was a popular small power tube for hi-end consoles in the 60's and some all tube integrated amps and receivers. As long as you stayed under 18 watts they could sound really good. The 6V6 octal is another great output tube in the low power class.

That 21" Motorola set on the wooden turned legs looks similar in design to a 1965 RCA color set I have which I havent had a chance to start restoring yet. It's H. output tube hot plates.

Please put any pictures of your vintage radios in the Antiquities Forum as we just deal with TV here.

Great pictures! Thanx,


Rob

Charlie-
You can have stereo out of that TV! Of course the obvious way is to buy a cheep stereo VCR and hide it inside, but if you want to do something really cool, take one of those extra multiplex units and modify for TV. You need to retune the coils for something around 15 kHz (I forget the exact frequency) instead of the 19 kHz used by FM. I used a Dyna FM3 for this purpose many years ago when stereo VCRs were more than $600. The coils can not be tuned that far by themselves, and you will need to add parallel capacitors across the windings.
The other thing you will have to do is to remove de-emphasis capacitor on sound output detector in tv audio which filters out the required 15 kHz stereo pilot signal. Good Luck!

Dave

That's a good idea, converting an old FM-MPX decoder to operate with MTS tv audio, BUT, remember that MTS audio's L-R component is compressed with dbx noise reduction and must be re-expanded to sound right. Many cheap tv sets and vcr's use a cheaper circuit to achieve the required expansion, but they do re-expand the dynamic range of the L-R component before it reaches the matrix that reconstructs the L and R signals from the L+R and L-R components. The MTS pilot tone is 15.734kHz (same as the horizontal sweep rate), by the way. Did you know that b/w sets originally used 15.750 kHz as the horizontal sweep frequency and 60Hz as the vertical? When color sets were introduced, the sweep rates were slightly altered to 15.734kHz and 59.97Hz respectively to eliminate some pesky interference that was a byproduct of the chroma channel.

Hi Charlie, nice to know I'm not the only one crazy enough to have one of these monsters!

I don't know which chassis it has but I have an extra one because for one day I owned TWO of these things.

The second one never made it off the truck, It was a beater with a bad CRT and the cabinet was junk so I stripped out all the guts and busted the cab small enough fit in my trash can.

I found this one at a thrift store for $15 and it is near pristine!
The CRT is somewhat weak but watchable, the tuner was messed up so I had it rebuilt. I haven't done much with it since, it works but needs some caps.

Mine doesn't have the eye tube, it has the CM logo in that spot on the dial. Is the octal socket on the back of the radio where the multiplexer plugs in?

Eric

Yeah, I would have done the same as you... keep the better cabinet of the two, and get the guts out of the other. It takes a big house with many rooms to keep more than one of those. They are nice looking pieces if you have a spot for it somewhere.

The model numbers on the TV and stereo chassis are stamped on in ink. If I remember right, the model of my stereo is 29C. You must have a slightly different model if your stereo doesn't have the "creepy eye". Too bad, because it would display really cool on the front of your system. I kinda wish mine was on the front like yours instead of the top. Then I could stack more stuff on the cabinet without having worry about getting to the slide doors on top! My cabinet looks more "old fashioned" and yours looks more "modern" for the early 60's

Yes, the octal socket on the back of the stereo is for the MPX adapter. Also, there will be 3 rca connections. If yours still have the labels on them, one should say MPX out and the other two should be MPX in. Yours would probably use the same adapter as mine as I assume that they probably had one adapter that covered several different stereo models. My uncle told me this was a pretty pricey system when he bought it. You would think that the MPX would have come with it instead of being an "optional accessory".

Another set of RCA's back there are for the tape input, which should be the 2nd position on your front selector switch. I plug my cd player in there and it sounds great.
:boink:

COOL TV Sets!!
Some very COOL collectible sets you have! Looks like there are in very good shape.I do not have much more room,but collecting these would be a great experience!

"Trust Me I Know What I'm Doing!"-Sledge Hammer

Mark...

We never have enough room! But somehow, we always manage! Glad you like the sets. There are SEVERAL cool sets in here... and in the color set thread as well. I especially liked seeing Mr. Spock on that round picture tube! :)

My 8TV41 console. TV / Phono / AM-FM-SW radio.

This one was a bear to get working, the horizontal wouldn't lock up. Ended up being an open 2.2 ohm resistor in the filament circuit to the 6AL5 Synchrolock discriminator, which is inside the HV cage - hidden from view, and the resistor is next to the tuner - go figure!

Chuck

Chuck, that is a fantastic set!

I just picked up a 721-TS Here are a couple pics of the chassis.

It looks like it hasn't been touched in decades

http://www.vintagetvsets.com/images/721dirty2.jpg

And this is after cleaning it with a brush and vacuum cleaner

http://www.vintagetvsets.com/images/721clean2.jpg

Eric

Eric,

Looks like a nice set, chassis wise. How's the cabinet condition?

Missed one of those on Ebay the other morning, $75 buy it now, and just a few miles from home.

Did you get the schematic for it? If not I can scan it in a few pieces and email to you.

Chuck

Originally posted by ChuckA
My 8TV41 console. TV / Phono / AM-FM-SW radio.


Chuck

Chuck,

That is one heck of a nice console. Looks H E A V Y. Congrats on the restoration.

Rob

Originally posted by Eric H


I just picked up a 721-TS Here are a couple pics of the chassis.

It looks like it hasn't been touched in decades

Eric

Eric,

That 721 chassis sure came clean. No corrosion either. Bonus! :) I have a 721 also but haven't had a chance to look inside yet. It is just on display as-is. Your photo shows the first electromagnetic ion trap I've ever seen. Amazing! I guess my set has one too.

I can scan the 721 schematic for you if needed from my Riders TV if it is in there (probably is). Let me know.

Rob

I also have a schematic for the 721TS. I have two Sams libraries (1-2284 and 1-1871) and will be listing the smaller of them (1-1871) on eBay soon.

Finally got a somewhat viewable picture on this "small" set so I thought I'd share with the group a set you would have watched sporting events at your local tavern around 1947.

This is a US Television T-525 projection set, the picture is 25" x 19", it stands just over 6' tall. The design is surely pre-war as all tubes are octal except for the modified tuner which uses miniatures and the addition of an add on chassis for horizontal sync. The power supply is one step above a brute force type from pre-war, uses an RF oscillator and tripler putting out 30KV.

Here's a picture from the T-525. The mirror is dull so the picture is dim and a bit fuzzy. I have some new front surface mirrors from modern projection sets that I'll try and cut down and use.

Rob, I have a Sams now, I copied it from the Library.

The set is giving me fits trying to get the vertical sweep to work :(
I have replaced many of the small caps and checked resistors and transformers but still no luck. I just ordered all the Lytics from Mouser, I think I wiil change those before I try anything else.

Eric

Hey guys, I added some more sets to my page including a page for this Hallicrafters which I am particularly proud of because it was such a piece junk when I got it.

Eric
www.vintagetvsets.com

Eric:
Great television! Is it a channel one set? I had probs with mine because it was too early for the sams diagram, with several tubes being quite different, and it had the deleted #1 channel.

Eric,

Yours looks just like mine...terrific! Mine looked like junk, all rusted until my restoration. I have the earlier 1947 model with Ch.1 and all octal IF tubes. The later chassis went to miniature tubes. This later model is more common. I know your's is channel one but which chassis have you got? Great set!

Rob

Here's a picture of mine running after my complete restoration.

Rob

Hi Rob, Marlin. This set has channel 1 but with the later chassis. I had a similar problem with Sam's that my Sam's was for the octal tube set. Fortunantly I didn't run into any problems where I needed a correct schematic. Grubby as this set was the chassis would produce a raster as it was.

I have two of the wood cased models too, a 505 and a 506? in bad need of restoring also (all with the later chassis) I had a set of brown knobs made at the same time as the black ones for the T-54 wish I could have some 7JP4s made :)

Here's a before photo of my T-54 as found. Besides the rust the fine tuning knob and shaft was completely missing from the variable tuning capacitor. I had to manufacture a 1/8" shaft and solder it into a hole I drilled into what was left of the old front of the tuning cap and also fabricate a new knob out of aluminum and setscrew to match the pushbuttons next to it. The HV supply was not repairable because of a broken HV RF coil so I scrapped the entire stock HV system and built a new 60Hz HV supply into the HV cage using a 6 kV bug zapper current limited transformer, a HV diode and a big capacitor. This set makes a bright image that will not bloom. The HV supply is pretty stiff, and lethal, just like in a prewar TV. I placed a series 100K, 2 watt resistor in the supply output to limit arc current to non destructive levels. The entire set got recapped and the tuner was completely cleaned out with 200 PSI air and alcohol through a solvent gun. It works on all channels. :) I also had to locate an old Halli short wave receiver of similar vintage to get a genuine Hallicarafters 'h' emblem button for the front panel.

Rob

Here is what the early 1947 octal chassis in the Halli T-54 series looks like. There is something special about an early post war TV with almost all octal tubes. I like those the most of the early B&W's I collect.

Rob

Hello Eric and Rob;
I can't brag about a great cleaning job on my 505 'cause I only wiped it out with a damp cloth. I did recap it, except for the HV deflection caps that I have yet to aquire, so it is not up and running. Rob, great idea using that bug zapper supply! (Just on that thought, wouldn't it have been fun if Frank Zappa had named his son Bug??) Sorry, I digress. My Halli has the old tube complement, and my sams the later. Not sure but it sounds like there are two versions of the sams. I paid a fare amount for this set, but found the Mahogony version for $5 at a yard sale! That one was, and still is kinda rough but at least had the magnifying lense mounts. Eric, where did you get those knobs made? I have different sets going knobless. No, the bass drum it NOT some sort of newfangled antenna!
http://home.earthlink.net/~marlinmackley/halli7metal.JPG

Originally posted by Marlin Mackley
Hello Eric and Rob;
I can't brag about a great cleaning job on my 505 'cause I only wiped it out with a damp cloth. I did recap it, except for the HV deflection caps that I have yet to aquire, so it is not up and running. Rob, great idea using that bug zapper supply! (Just on that thought, wouldn't it have been fun if Frank Zappa had named his son Bug??) Sorry, I digress.

Marlin,

That suggestion for Frank Zappa's son's name "Bug" was hilarious! LMFAO. Your T-54 looks great with the normal age showing for its vintage. My plastic screen window was aged and yellowing around the edge like yours so I got some 1/16" plexyglass from a sign shop and cut (successfully without cracking, thank goodness for having a belt sander) a new window for mine.

I can send you some new 0.002uF@10 kV
disc caps that I use for my electrostatic recaps. Use two in parallel for the V section and singly for the H section. You will need a total of 6. PM me your postal address and I'll drop 'em in the mail no charge for an AK buddy.

Rob

Oops, I meant T-54. Too many tv's 'round here, I get them mixed up! The wood with metal front is the T505.

Originally posted by Marlin Mackley
Eric, where did you get those knobs made? I have different sets going knobless. No, the bass drum it NOT some sort of newfangled antenna!

I had the knobs done by Larry Bordonaro at Old Time Replications:
http://www.antiqueradioknobs.com/

They look perfect, you can only tell they are repro if you take them off and look at the back.

Eric

Here's a pic of my latest find. Picked this up this morning in an Antique Mall of all places, those are usually priced far too high but this one was fair I think.

This is the "Bad" side, it's really in good shape overall and that veneer should be easy to fix and hide under the dark finish.

Eric

Cool RCA, Eric. Yeah, I have passed up several "antique mall" sets. Some of them I really wanted, but they were always rediculously priced. Seems like they would sell their items faster if they would lower the price tag, and move more merchandise.

:cool:
Charlie

Eric:
Cool set! I have several RCA's with the same innards but I have never seen this cabinet. Is that front made of metal? Odd they would have left so much room above the CRT. Also, is that top section removable? The smaller ones I have are, for inserting the CRT. These were I believe shipped CRT-less to be assembled at the store.
Marlin

Originally posted by Charlie
Cool RCA, Eric. Yeah, I have passed up several "antique mall" sets. Some of them I really wanted, but they were always rediculously priced. Seems like they would sell their items faster if they would lower the price tag, and move more merchandise.

:cool:
Charlie

Charlie,

I think their strategy is to price the merchandise so that it will not sell until it becomes a really valuable antique.

Rob

Eric,

That is a good find. I haven't run across any of that model.

Rob

I think the front is painted wood, i nudged it with a fingernail and it felt soft.

The top does come off, this seems to be the same basic set as the 830-TS but in a taller cabinet. Kinda cool the way it curves down at the back.

The CRT tested weak at first but seemed to wake up after a few minutes so I think it will be OK.

Plugged it in (with a new cord) and it just hummed, it looked like some of the tubes wern't lighting but I didn't really run it long enough to be sure, it started to smell hot. I will try it again with the light bulb hooked up to it.

I got the vertical working on my 721 tonight and hope to have the rest finished soon. (it has no video or sound but I haven't finished recapping that section) Maybe then I can start on this one, though I would like to get going on the Hoffman too.

OK guys, the good deal just got a little less good.

I hooked it up in series with a 200 watt bulb and it was bright like there was a dead short, pulled the chassis back a bit and sure enough, the transformer is toast!

I had suspected this prior because there was a stain on the corner of the chassis that looked like transformer spew.

It actually looked like there had been a small fire underneath but I think it was just smoke damage. I think this is vintage damage because there are no fresh smoke smells.

Sooo... anyone have a transformer out of an RCA 630 series chassis? :D

P.S. the front is wood. It comes off just like most of the other RCAs of the era. Remove two wing nuts and the knobs and the whole thing tilts right out.

Originally posted by Eric H
OK guys, the good deal just got a little less good....the transformer is toast!

Sooo... anyone have a transformer out of an RCA 630 series chassis? :D

Eric,

So why do you want to restore a perfectly good parts set? :)

Rob

Eric,

Before you sign off on the transformer, make sure the AC bypass caps aren't shorted. Then pull the 5U4 and see if the short is still there.

Remember your 721 - look for the simple things first.


Chuck

Hi Chuck,

I'm pretty sure on this one. The 5U4 is blown, no heaters and debris rolling around inside, probably a shorted filter somewhere. The transformer has smoke tracks around the opening where the wires come out. :(

Eric

Eric:
That doesn't sound good! I have a '48 Zenith (see the second page of this thread for photo) that fried 2 5u4's in front of my eyes. I had to rewind a choke that had burned. 2000 turns and 4 hours later cranked up the variac and it did it again! After a week of digging I found the width coil slug had rubbed through the paper form and was touching a solder tab on the inside, thus grounding it through the slug frame. Talk about hard to find! Works fine now. Mind you the tranny may still be bad, maybe caused by something else and maybe not. I think I have a good one in a scrapped chassis, I will dig around to see if I can find it and check it for shorts. Once you are sure it is dead send me your address and I will send it to you gratis. As Rob says "I'll drop 'em in the mail no charge for an AK buddy". ;)

Also, I picked up the sams for the older octal 13 channel T-54 for a buck at our Fall swap meet/auction Sunday, naturally now that I am nearly done with the D___ thing! :dunno:

In the mean time here is a bad photo of the $5.00 T 505:
http://home.earthlink.net/~marlinmackley/7halwood.jpg
Photo is careful to NOT show that the case was used to mix paint on! It does show that somebody drilled a hole in the front above the tuner. Maybe for headset jack?! By the way, the speaker was missing on this set. The speaker out of the same scrapped RCA LOOKS like a direct replacement, just in case anybody is facing that prob.

Marlin

:rolleyes:Me again, I just realized, Eric, that I have a similar RCA to the one you have tranny probs with. A little different case, cloth fronted, and an AM radio (!). I got it with the matching antenna stand. The radio dial is missing unfortunately. This case is about the same size as yours, it looks. No top access panel, but realistically they did not need it in that oversized box. On closer comparison of the two photos it looks like they raised the CRT to allow for the radio chassis. Maybe yours was available in a radio equipped model.
http://home.earthlink.net/~marlinmackley/rcanradio.JPG

Hi Marlin, thank you, that is most kind of you to offer. I will pay for shipping of course, that transformer has to weigh 25 lbs!

I have a 16" floor model that has a radio, the knob layout looks the same as yours. The radio chassis is removable and mounts between the controls, otherwise it is the same 630 style chassis as all the rest.

The 16" version has a few extra tubes like two 1B3's in a voltage doubler circuit to make enough HV for the big tube, and two 5U4's to handle the extra load.

It also has a horribly complex wafer switch for AM/FM/Phono/TV... it will actually turn off the heaters for the tubes not needed for the radio.

Eric;
Hmmmm, I wonder if mine was AM and FM? I have not dug into it to see. Does it look to you that the radio dial slot would be the same size yours has? If so I would love a photo of your radio tuner dial/bezel for possible reproduction. Interesting info about the heater killer circuit. Makes sense of course but how many bothered with the effort to do so?
Thanks!
Marlin

I can't tell if the slot is the same or not, this one was made to mount into a flat panel and yours looks like it meets the grille cloth but who knows.

There is a picture of your set on the ETF Site: http://www.earlytelevision.org/rca8tr26.html and it looks the same as what I have.

No way you could reproduce this thing, it is a big chunk of molded plastic, reverse painted, sort of a prism actually. you are welcome to have this one.

Here's a photo, note the "scratches" are actually dirt on my scanner :D

I couldn't see any way to attach two pictures so here's the back of the dial.

Originally posted by Eric H
.... you are welcome to have this one.
... :D

If that one is an extra that would be great! It does sure look complicated. Now I gotta get off my duff and find that RCA transformer...

Marlin

The 721 is looking much better!



I put the last two filter lytics inside the can today (I was able to hide ALL the can lytics because they had paper covers) changed out the rest of the bad resistors, cleaned and oiled the tuner, replaced almost all the 6AG5's because they were weak or shorted, a couple of the 6J6's are weak too but I can't find my new ones just now.

Anyway this is channel 7 ABC using rabbit ears. The sound is weak and drifts a lot but I am loath to try and align it, never done that before and I'm not sure I can.


Eric

Eric,

Looks like you found another use for duct tape.


TV is looking good.



Chuck

Eric,

That's a terrific picture! I wouldn't touch the alignment unless you have the test equipment and know what you're doing.

Rob

Eric and friends:
Thanks for showing if Duct Tape can save Apollo 13 it can help with a TV restoration! Somebody ought to do a site on the myrid uses of this 20th century marvel. Red Green fans unite!

While we are on the subject, more or less, of tv's with integrated radio tuners, anybody seen this Dumont before? I found it with badly damaged cabinet in an antique mall. Paid $40 which probably was too much but the radio dial arrangement interested me. It is the same sorta dial the RCA has.
Marlin
http://home.earthlink.net/~marlinmackley/dumont.JPG

Getting back to my 721 for a moment.

I cleaned up the cabinet, and reassembled it, made all the little adjustments and so forth.

As always some little problem had to rear it's ugly head.

When I was working on it I used a small test CRT and a scratched 10BP4, but now I put the original CRT in and it
Seems it has a H-K short when it warms up. :mad:

I'm getting streaks in the picture and it alternates between a normal and dark picture, tapping on the neck also aggravates it.

The B&K tester seems to verify it although it only shows a very small leakage.

An isolation transformer should cure this shouldn't it??

I forgot, here's a new picture of the set. The white marks on the top of the arch are a camera distortion.

About the 721's alignment, don't try it without a scope, sweep generator, marker generator, frequency counter, VTVM and special radio/tv-alignment screwdrivers. If you're within a reasonable distance (an hour's drive or so) of Warren, Ohio then you could drop the set off at my shop. I'd do the alignment for 1/2 the price I normally charge and have it ready for pickup in about a week.

Radio Shack still sells a small kit of alignment tools, but you'd do better to find a "pro" set on eBay. They're insulated for safety and made of a "low-capacitance" material so the proximity of the tool won't affect the circuit. Once you've got the correct tools and test gear, do some reading about "stagger tuned" television IF systems in an old textbook and follow the alignment instructions in the Sams packet.

Eric,

I know how hard you worked on the cabinet restoration alone and want to congratulate you on a gorgeous restoration. This set looks just like new! You can come and restore my sets anytime. :) That RCA label on the front at the bottom of the glass, is that a new repro? If so where are they available?

Rob

Rob, actually I haven't done anything to the cabinet except clean it with some Pledge Orange Oil cleaner. I did use a fine Scotch Brite pad to clean off the top a little.

The front is in very nice shape and all original including the RCA logo, I removed the glass and cleaned behind it.

The main cabinet has a couple small veneer chips at the back and the bottom where it doesn't show and there is a lot of crazing in the Lacquer that doesn't show up in the photos but overall it's pretty nice and I think I will leave it alone.

As for alignment, it's doesn't seem to need it after all, it works great hooked up to the DirecTV satellite box!

I might try aligning my Olympic as a learning experience, it is fouled up anyway.

Eric

Eric,

I got this RCA confused with the other set with the curved top, the Philco 7" that you had all that veneer experience with. Brain fart. Cudos still apply! :)

Rob

Originally posted by Rob
Eric,

I got this RCA confused with the other set with the curved top, the Philco 7" that you had all that veneer experience with. Brain fart. Cudos still apply! :)

Rob

Oh yes, the Philco, the TV from Hell.

I still haven't finished that one. I started Lacquering it and it wrinkled and cracked and basically I have to restrip it and start over.

It also doesn't have any audio/video and the non-original HV supply likes to die now and then... :puke:

Eric,

That RCA is really nice looking! :cool:

Let's imagine for a moment, the look on the origional owner of that set back then, if you were to tell him or her that some day down the road, someone would be able to choose between several hundred TV stations due to a service such as DirectTV! :confused:

It's kinda funny to think that when these sets were made, one was lucky to tune in one station.... and they thought that was sittin in high cotton!

Charlie,

I always wonder about the original owners of a set this old.

I imagine it was an exciting day for them when their new set was delivered. Probably the whole family and half their neighbors were there!

I wonder what the first thing they saw was? A test pattern I suppose :)

OK, now that the 721 is off the bench (kitchen table) I had to start a new project. I picked a 1956/57 RCA 14" portable model 7070G.

Here's a pic of the almost recapped chassis running an 8" test CRT. I gotta get a couple 1000v caps to finish the job.



Eric

I was cleaning up the TV room and came across this photo I got off eBay.
I have this exact same model set, it had depreciated about $635.00 by the time I got it though :)

Hey folks, I had to raid the charge card to pay for it but a friend told me of an RCA projector set Tuesday and I stumbled all over myself to go get it today. It was only about 10 minutes from home! It is complete except for the back, and even has the REMOTE CONTROL!:D I got this and two floor 12" Admiral 3 ways, two boxes of old tubes, and a Heathkit tube stereo amp. Whew! I am tired! The RCA has 40 tubes, plus CRT, on FOUR chassis's! Cabinet's in good shape too. It never fails when I am out of hobby money that is when things start popping up! I think it is :beerchug:PARTY TIME :beerchug:in the Mackley household! http://home.earthlink.net/~marlinmackley/rcaproj.JPG

Marlin,

Great score finding a nice 9PC41. I'll bet you're tired. That set has to weigh 250+ lbs. I put hidden castors under mine so I could actually move it by myself on the carpet...highly recommended mod by ROB-TV!

The 9PC41 was the last of the RCA projection line that used the same set of four chassis. That is why this 1949 set still has the channel 1 tuner.

If you wanna sell that Heathkit tube amp send me PM with details.
I'm looking for tube amps to 'play' with right now. :)

Thanx,
Rob

Marlin,

Nice RCA, I have a couple of them, actually 4, no room to bring a couple of them home, yet. The biggest drawback to the projections is the front surface mirrors. They get sort of a dull grey from being exposed to the air after 50 years and it cuts the brightness down a lot. HL Clausing in Skokie can re silver the curved mirror in the "bell" , it runs between $150-$250 depending on the quality of the coating you want. I had the one for my Berkshire done a few months back. The flat mirror you can probably get by with a thin back coated mirror. I picked up some new projection TV mirrors that I'm going to try and cut to size for a couple of my projection sets. Oh yeah, I was told that the flat mirror would be too expensive to have re-silvered.

Chuck

Rob, I was wondering about that channel one and the date - thanks for the info. I will get back to you shortly on the amp as I do not need it and I can maybe recover some of the $ spent on this adventure. :)
Chuck, FOUR? Just thinking about that would give me a retroactive hernia! Thanks for the mirror info. I had not given that any thought yet. I have not even cleaned out the spider fuzz balls! Also I use to hang around the do-it-yourself telescope builder types (never did it myself) and may also ask them for leads as telescope mirrors are surface silvered.
:) Marlin

While on the subject, has anyone seen or have one of the test lamps that was used to set the mechanical focus on these sets?

Chuck

Chuck,

I worked for many years on Schmidt optical systems setting up and servicing big events projectors for closed circuit boxing, etc. On the larger commercial projectors that utilize this optical system to create pictures up to 15x20 feet and larger there are adjustments to converge the entire relationship between CRT, its depth towrds the main spherical mirror (focus), the centering of the CRT in the main mnirror, and the centering and plane of the corrector plate lens. I don't know how many of these adjustments are available in the RCA as I haven't dug into either of my 9PC41's yet.

If focus is all you are worried about you could get pretty close by shining a powerful flashlight down through the corrector plate to illuminate the CRT face from a bounce off the spherical mirror. You'd want to stretch a couple of black sewing threads in a cross against the CRT face with tape or a rubber band around the bell of the tube. In a darkened room you will see the image of the cross on the screen.

In actual operation the focus setting will change a small amount because the image actually occurs on the inside of the glass faceplate, not the outside. When you are at this point and have optimized the mechanical focus on a working projector you will also see a color shift as you rock through best electrical focus from yellowish image to bluish as you play with the focus control. This is caused by varying the focus plane of the scanned raster so it falls on the backside of the phosphor, in the middle of the thickness of the phosphor or deeper in towards the faceplate of the tube. The opacity of the phosphor causes this yellowing. I find the best picture when the e-beam is focussed towards the blue.

There is a procedure for correctly setting the geometry of the corrector plate lens with the CRT removed. If the corrector is adjustable laterally (side to side) this needs to be done. With one eye about a foot from the front of the optical barrel looking into and coaxially centered on the CRT hole in the corrector plate you will see some circle images which represent the hole in the corrector plate and its reflection in the spherical mirror. One of these is a virtual image and it takes a bit of staring sometimes to see it properly. By moving the corrector plate lens laterally you should see this virtual circle shift in the opposite direction you moved the corrector lens. You want to lock the corrector plate in place so that its virtual image is precisely concentric with the hole in the corrector plate. Inotherwords all these circle images will be aligned perfectly with each other.

Some Scmidt assemblies move the primary spherical mirror towards or away from the CRT face for mechanical focus. Adjustment procedure for the corrector lens will be the same.

Rob

Rob,

Thanks for the optics training on the projection system. I wondered why the focus control shifted the hue of the picture from blue to a brownish color. One of the units I have is really out of adjustment I'll give your adjustment method a try.

Chuck

Here's a couple pics of the Capehart now that I have it inside the house, what a monster!

http://www.vintagetvsets.com/images/capecab1.jpg

The finish is pretty rough, also there is a piece of the lower door that needs to be glued back on.

http://www.vintagetvsets.com/images/capecab2.jpg

The original owners must have been pretty proud of this back in 49, they must have been fairly affluent as well!

Eric

Wow Eric!

The wood of that monster is gorgeous! Makes one wonder how one of the best inventions of all time has now ended up in a black plastic box!

Charlie

here is an admiral 19A11 set that i have downstairs,perfect working chassis and perfect 7jp4,has a cracked cabinet and got tired of seeing it sit around.. so i removed the 7jp4 and installed a 7gp1 (green screen) and adapted one of my crt clocks,nice large numbers..i used a 5 volt regulated supply for the filament to make the 7gp1 will last awhile..different,as i like to be different.:)
this will go on top of my other 7" electrostaic sets..
terry

Terry,

That clock is preetty neat! So do I understand you correctly that you have this little circuit that makes a CRT into a clock and you are not running the 19A11 tube chassis to drive the 7GP1 CRT? What is the 7GP1? I have a 7JP1 and it works in the original 7JP4 circuits AOK of course if you don't mind green.

Is this how you got that time display on your heathkit Vectorscope? I wanted to ask about that.

Rob

the 7GP1 is the same as a 7GP4,used a bit earlier before the 7JP4 or 7JP1, I did not want to use the 7JP4 that the set has because it was a N.O.S tube,and want to keep the hours on the tube low,(the 7JP4 with a white phospher is neat to watch with the clock) no part of the admiral is used,just to hold the CRT in place..the little clock board is not so tiny as it is a kit from david forbes website,if you are creative you can make this board drive any electrostatic CRT,the drive board is pretty intense to build,and it only draws about 7W..!! the board will not drive the filaments on the 7gp1 high enough,so i made up a regulated 5 volt dc power supply just for the filament,still just cool to watch itself,the digits are drawn (simple so to speak) and formed from circles,lines and arcs..aligning the board is a real trip!! you can make the H/V X/Y totally out of phase and in phase to make some interesting patterns on the CRT during the "DRAW" process.
it is safe to leave alone itself running as it draws less current than a lot of bedside clock radio's draw,(all mine have been running 24hrs a day for almost 2 years)..
CRT's are fun to play with..:)
terry

I usually go to the estate sales here in Minneapolis-St. Paul every weekend, and once in a while I find something really cool. Today I found this beautiful Emerson 12" TV from 1949, model 644. After I finish working on my Zenith Porthole, I'm definitely going to begin restoration on this beauty...

Today I found this beautiful Emerson 12" TV from 1949, model 644

Ohh Ooh Ahh!! Oh man, I am intensely envious of your find! :D

Gorgeous set!

Eric

That Emerson is really cool lookin! I wish I would have better luck finding goodies like that more often. Perhaps I am not waking up early enough in the morning!

Just got home from being on the ship for 50 days. Hopefully I'll get lucky with something like that! Guess tomorrow I'll grab a newspaper to find the garage sales for this week.

Uni,

That is one awesome score! Beautiful Emerson. The stand really works well under it too.

Rob

Originally posted by Charlie
.... I wish I would have better luck finding goodies like that more often. Perhaps I am not waking up early enough in the morning!...

Charlie, you need to consider the Marlin method of finding goodies. First, spend all the money you have. Second, spend all the credit you have in the charge cards. Third, now walk in to any garage sale or antique store, or just answer the phone, and I promise you great things will fall on you, now that you would not be able to pay for them!
Marlin:confused: :D :dunno:

Here's the newest addition to the "family". A Sparton 4940, nice bright pictures on it (I was to lazy to run the antenna over for this picture).

Chuck

Chuck,

That's the nicest Sparton 4940 I've seen. My cats would like like it, that huge expanse of grille cloth to sharpen their claws on.

Rob

Hey Chuck, great Sparton! I have one that looks like Rob's cats got hold of. Also mine is missing the knobs and the chassis mounting rails.:mad: I hope to get a look at those knobs and rails someday for duplication. Right now I can't put the chassis on the cabinet.
Marlin

Marlin,

If you need pictures of anything on the set let me know.

Just got back from a TV run, brought home 4 more projection sets, 2 RCA's (9PC41 & 8PCS41), an Emerson (609), and a small unit I can't remember the name of right now.

If anyone needs parts from an Emerson 649 projection set let me know, I have a junker that's going to be reduced to parts. The cabinet is to far gone for a reasonable restoration.


Chuck

Chuck,

You are headed towards a real vintage TV museum with a projection technology annex fast! Nice work.

Rob

The fourth set is a Norelco (Philips) Duo-Vue, a small table with a Protelgram projection unit inside, you set a normal 10"-12" TV on it.

Connect the Duo-Vue to the horiz, vert & video circuits of the TV.

You can view the program on the 10" set or if you want a big 3'x4' screen roll the unit away from the wall, turn the switch and the picture is projected on to the wall.

Guess I'll have to move this one to the fast track for restoration.

Chuck

Originally posted by ChuckA
The fourth set is a Norelco (Philips) Duo-Vue, a small table with a Protelgram projection unit inside, you set a normal 10"-12" TV on it.

Connect the Duo-Vue to the horiz, vert & video circuits of the TV. ...

Chuck

Chuck,

I passed on one of these a year ago at Rochester AWA for $25 because I didn't have the room for it in my small car along with the CTC-4 early color set I bought. It looked like it was missing a lot of circuitry to be a TV receiver. With your explanation it makes perfect sense.

Rob

Rob,

Luckily I got all the paperwork with this one. All I have to make up are the 2 connecting cables and sockets.

Chuck

Here's a couple of pictures of my Emerson 609 projection set. Finished re-capping it today.
Pictures are pretty good on it, even though the flat mirror is a bit hazy, they sure didn't hold up well over the years, the mirrors in the projection box (Protelgram) faired much better.

Here's a closeup of the projection screen. I still need to make a few adjustments on the mechanical focus.

Chuck,

Very impressive! That is so cool to see an old set like that working so well. The cabinet looks great. Nice work!

Rob

Chuck: That 609 is terriffic!

Eric posted a Crosley on a different thread so thought I would put one up here. It has vernier tuning, and a cool clear overlaying dial which gives the FM stations in the intermediate range of the dial. It is a 10" and the CRT has an odd blueish hue. AM is tuned with the right vernier. Record player in the right drawer and storage is behind left door. Not working right now (story of my life!). No tuning eye though.
Marlin
http://home.earthlink.net/~marlinmackley/crosley.JPG

Marlin,

That is a great looking Crosley!

My weakness is consoles, just can't find enough of them. Especially in that condition.

What phono is in that?

Chuck

Chuck;
There are no markings on the turntable, but it is a 3 speed changer with flipover crystal cart. Here is a closeup. You can see dusting doesn't happen around here much, single life being what it is. This is a good example of the results of networking. I went to a radio hamfest, no TV's, and just asked around. I wound up with three good buys, the Crosley costing $75.:) :)
http://home.earthlink.net/~marlinmackley/record.JPG

Marlin,

Not only a nice piece, but a great buy too.


Chuck

Marlin,

Nice flocking! ;) Hasn't seen much wear.

Rob

Marlin, gorgeous set!

But ain't that a tuning eye on the right, above the knob?

BTW, I subbed a shorted cap on my Crosley and got it to fire up! Amazing since it looks like it spent the last ten years in a field somewhere. The original DuMont 12JP4 too.

The tuning eye was working but is a double square not a circle.

Eric

Eric: Wish it was, but it is a tuning dial, similar to the left tuning dial.

Rob: Flocking? I thought it was mold! (Just kidding).:D
Marlin

I finally got this Sylvania all back together! Refinishing the wood was a real pain! Sand, varnish... sand, varnish... sand, varnish! I thought it would never end! The cooler weather we've had these past few days didn't speed the drying up either! I know the fabric covering the speaker isn't exactly 1950's vintage, but I was so ready to finish this that I went to Walmart and found something that would accent it well. Later I will probably look for some vintage fabric.

Notice the clock-radio on top... it's also a Sylvania from about the same time. Also have another like it in GREEN, but that one didn't look right with the tv.

:D

Here it is turned on. The Halolight works a lot better since I cleaned the control for it... doesn't flicker anymore.

:cool:

Charlie, that set turned out fantastic!
That grille cloth is well, err, um, yessiree that's grille cloth all right :D

Eric

That Sylvania is gorgeous! What years were the Halo-Light made? Were they strictly the fifties (I have seen a promo for one on an old episode of "Beat The Clock" on the GameShow Network), or did they continue into the early sixties? How reliable was the light feature. I'll bet it was a real electricity sucker!

I found that the Halolights went into the 60's as well. Last week I stumbled across a Sam's from 1962 that covered another Halolight set.

I might soon see how reliable these lights were. There is another Halolight set in that old shop where I found this one, but it is in a metal cabinet. I might go and get that one as well... I hope it has a good light also.

When I took apart the light bezel, I found the bulb to be like a neon light sign bulb. If this one ever burned out, I bet I could have one made. I don't think it uses much juice.

Charlie,

You did a beautiful job on restoring the halolight. Putting that tablecloth over the grille to protect the original grillecloth was a good idea too! :)

I'd grab the second halolight. Parts for these are very scarce nowadays. I'm sure a neon sign shop could duplicate that lamp, but it wouldn't be as cheap as grabbing that other set.

Rob

Thanks guys! I am glad it's over! It took me a lot longer than I had planned on! Now I can put the back cover on and crack a cold one! :beerchug:

As far as the "tablecloth" goes, it is just a temporary cover. My biggest critic (my mom) was here this morning to see it. She loved the way it came out, but when she saw the speaker cloth, she raised one eyebrow kinda like Mr. Spock and said, "You couldn't do better than that? That doesn't look very 50's to me!" :saywhat: She says there is a fabric store in town that has vintage looking shiny gold weave material. If I can't find something more fitting there, I can order some on the web.

I probably will go back tomorrow to find the other Halolight. I think there were two in metal cabinets. I am not sure if they had matching chassis, but I do know the chassis are different from this one. No use in letting it sit up in that old tv shop attic. It can be a project for later.

Hey everyone,
I picked up this booklet from Harry Poster on eBay.
It is a souvenir booklet from a Norfolk VA trade show.
There are tons of pictures of old TV sets including a two page(newspaper size) pull out filled with ad's

Here is a picture of it, wish I could show it full size, it's really cool:yippy:

Wow! That's a cool piece! Man! Look at those prices! Back in those days, it's surprising anyone had TV at all! Hell, today they sell color sets for those prices or less!

I'm really bored so I think I will use up some more of AK's disk space and post a picture of this Sentinel chassis I have been recapping these last couple days.

This thread has been a little quite.

Here's my latest local auction find. An RCA 9T246 in as close to mint condition as you can find.

Chuck

Chuck, that's very nice!
What is the little knob above the channel selector?

Eric

ChuckA,

That 9T246 is the nicest I've ever seen too! Nice score.

Rob

Eric,

That's the fine tuning control. A litle different setup than previous RCA's

Chuck

Great Forum!
This is my first post. Here are a few screen shots of my 1948 Admiral 30A14-UL (I Love Lucy) and 1949 10X12X (Honeymooners) I've re-capped and re-tubed both sets. Been very lucky with 10" Admiral sets, I've restored 3 to great working order just by changing a few resistors and all paper and filter caps. Never had to do an alignment of any kind.
Jim

Cabinet photos.
Love those round screens!
Jim

Here's my favorite vintage TV set, A 1950 Zenith 12" Porthole. This is the "Saratoga" Model. Nicely restored example of this eye-catcher and is complete with a 1954 TV guide atop the cabinet. Someday I'll find a 1950 TV Guide.
Jim

Hi Jim,
wow, those are some nice sets. I really like the Bakelite Admiral, and how fortunate you were to find one with the door intact!


Eric

Hi Jim,

Welcome aboard! Always nice to meet another active collector who restores his own sets too. Very nice Admirals, terrific Zenith porthole!

Show us more! :)

Rob

Hi Jim!

Great looking sets you have there! Your programming taste is excellent as well! :cool:

Thanks to all for the kind words.
and RE: "how fortunate you were to find one with the door intact! "
Yes! very fortunate. Not only is the door intact, the hinges aren't broken and work perfectly. The original back is also in place. This is my Shop TV and always broadcasts vintage programs of the 40's and 50's. Does anyone know if knobs were on the adjustment shafts behind the flip door originally?
Jim

I don't think that there were knobs on these. We had an Admiral when I was a kid. Three of your pots are original, it appears that one has been replaced.

Dave

Well,
Here's my latest E-bay find, A Sylvania halolight model 527-M.
The set was working OK when I picked it up but I went ahead and re-capped it anyway. A few caps in the Horizontal circuit were already replaced and the picture tube is dated dec.1968.
The set plays better than ever since I changed the electrolytics and remaining caps. The halolight is nice and bright with no flicker and the sound is amazing for such an old set. I was told the year on this model is 1954, Can anyone confirm that? (Sam's folder is 229) Photos attached. The record changer on top of the TV is a Holiday model by Webcor.
Jim

Hi Jim,
is that the one that was on eBay with a super "Buy It Now" price ?
I wanted that bad but alas it was too far away :(

Eric

Yeah, That's the one Eric.
Lucky for me it was local, Only 20 minutes away and I picked it up one hour after I used the Buy it now option. The seller was very nice and invited me to pick up the set right away if I wanted.
Jim

Jim...

Cool! Your Halolight is almost like mine... other than my Halolight not having the doors. Mine is Model 376MU and also uses Sam's 229-15. Does yours have the UHF tuner?

You were lucky only needing to change a few caps. I had to change all the caps, a few resistors, a power transformer, and refinish the cabinet! Oh yeah... and I had to put a "tablecloth" over the speaker!:D

Yours looks great! And super picture, too! :cool:

Charlie

Jim,

Fantastic picture on that set! Did you do an alignment? The response looks perfect.

I was lucky with this one and didn't need to do an alignment. After changing out 27 caps, 9 electrolytics and 4 tubes the set only needed a slight turn of the vertical hold control. This is the 3rd B/W set I've restored in a row without incident, The nightmare set must be lurking around the corner....

Charlie,
That's a cool set you got there. I actually like the look of your set better without the doors. I'll leave the doors open on mine as they need room on the sides to open and close and space is always an issue with this hobby. No UHF tuner on my set. I do have an original hang tag booklet for the halolight that outlines it's features and operation. If you or anyone would like a xerox of it let me know.
Jim

Space for TVs is never an issue... but space for all of our other household furnishings is a huge issue! :lmao:

How right you are!

Here's a few shots of the hang tag.
Jim

My Philco Predicta "Holiday"

Great Predicta!

Did you rework the insides yourself? Or have it done by someone else? (They are such a pain to take apart!)

I bought the Predicta off e-bay already restored. Most of the hard work was already done. All I eventually replaced was the electrolytics. The only electrolytic replaced was the easy one under the chassis but the board was taken apart and caps installed properly.
Jim

Today my RCA Berkshire Regency came to life.

If you remember my original post from a few months back the Berkshire is a HUGE entertainment center from 1948, 25" projection TV, AM/FM, 7 SW bands with auto-tune, record changer, and 40 watt amplifier driving a RCA 15" LS-1 dual cone speaker. I spent the better part of a week fixing the power supply/amplifier. Then another week recapping the receiver and then doing a complete RF / IF realignment on it, another week on the TV chassis'.

I have a resilvered spherical mirror in the projection unit, still need to replace the flat mirror, still the quality was suprising.

Chuck

Another shot of the screen and the set. My collection room is getting a little cramped so I couldn't get far enough away to get a full shot of the set.

Chuck

ChuckA,

You sure have done an outstanding restoration job on that Regency console. I can really appreciate all the hours you have put into the chassis work alone. BTW, I notice that it is HUGE! With all that extra radio stuff, bigger power amp and turnable it has to be 150 lbs more than my 9PC41?

Are you using a 5TP4 or a 5AZP4 in that set?

Nice job. I wish I could get some of my TV projects finished.

Rob

Chuck, that is the most amazing looking thing!!

Imagine that, a 25 inch flat, fully rectangular screen in 1948 :eek:
and it looks incredible, perfect for watching those old movies on.

Eric

Chuck,

That's really something to be proud of... especially with all the work you've put into it! The picture quality on that set is amazing! I'm sure the origional owner never saw a picture near as good as the one you have on it now! Congradulations!

:bigok:

Rob,

The set uses the 5TP4 projection tube. The original was a little tired, this set must have been used hard and long as I found tubes with date codes into the 60's, so I put a new CRT in.

Actually this outweighs a 9PC41 by 300lbs, it tips the scale at 550lbs.

Chuck

Originally posted by ChuckA
Rob,

Actually this outweighs a 9PC41 by 300lbs, it tips the scale at 550lbs.

Chuck

Yikes!!! I put hidden castors under my 9PC41. You might consider that. It is cheaper and more convenient than a forklift.

Glad you were able to find a good 5TP4. You can use a 5AZP4, or a 4820A as a replacement if you ever need to. You will have to make do with a potted-on HV ultor lead, or remove it yourself, and possibly have to change a resistor in the HV focus circuit.

Rob

Wow Chuck!
That's one fine looking TV. I've never seen or heard of one before. Any more photos of it? I'll bet the back busting weight limited sales back in the 40's
Jim

Jim,

I have some pictures of it from right after it was delivered: http://www.myvintagetv.com/rca_berkshire_regency.htm


Chuck

Thought I'd contribute to the B&W thread. Here's a shot of my roundscreen Truetone (trust me ;) ). I have the operating instructions which have a date of '51, although internally I'd say the design was dated then. It uses a continuous inductuner with a dial cord to a seperate tuner for the built-in AM radio. I'm not entirely satisfied with the results, I replaced the dud metal cone crt with a brand spankin' new all glass substitute and I don't think the horizontal circuits like the change. Also odd is the number of capacitors in this baby, and individual electrolytics. Of course I have no schematic for this set, bah! If anyone has any info, give a holler! :)

What's the Truetone set's Model or Chassis Number? Since I have a complete Sams library, perhaps I could locate the literature for it.

I believe it's model number 2D-1195A. Any info you can dig up would be appreciated (it's a factory jumble under there), but no rush! :)

Here's a pic of my latest set.

Got this beauty off eBay for $20, it looked much worse than it was, just extremely dirty and some mouse rust on the gold trim.

I took it completely apart, washed and waxed the cabinet and repainted the gold screen trim. (the picture below is after repainting the trim but before the wash and wax)

The tubes wouldn't light, I traced it to a bad tube socket on one of the 6CU8's, a bear to change and to make matters worse I had to completely disassemble a parts set to get a replacement socket:mad:

It fires up now, has raster but no picture and some hum bars on the screen, time for a recap but I have other projects to finish first.

It's either the Walnut or Mahogany finish, not sure which, and is otherwise identical to this RCA:
http://www.vintagetvsets.com/rcaswiv.htm

Eric,

I really like the design of that set; very sleek and functional looking. Is it hand wired, or does it use PC boards?

Well both actually, the main circuitry is on a PC board but the "Doughnut" that goes around the CRT has some hand wired parts on it.

The PC board is mounted vertically and has a metal shield soldered on the bottom hence the difficulty in recapping it and replacing tube sockets.

I'll take some pictures soon and post them.


Originally posted by wvsaz
Eric,

I really like the design of that set; very sleek and functional looking. Is it hand wired, or does it use PC boards?

Here are the pictures, I linked to them rather than making four different posts.

This is the PC board

http://www.vintagetvsets.com/images/kcs109chas.jpg

The Back (as viewed from the back of the set)

http://www.vintagetvsets.com/images/kcs109chas2.jpg

The front

http://www.vintagetvsets.com/images/kcs109chas3.jpg

And the CRT, 17" 110 deg and very short neck, not quite as short as the predicta though.
The tube is tired, I have a NOS I will replace it with.

http://www.vintagetvsets.com/images/17cdp4.jpg

I'm guessing that slapping on a swivel base was RCA's answer to the predicta? This came out the same year AFAIK.

Eric

Looks like you have your work cut out for you with all those wax-dipped paper caps! It will be interesting to see a picture of the picture when it is completed.:)

Hey guys, lookie what I found!

OK,this one isn't anything to write home about but wait till the next post :D

Here's the big prize :D

A Philco! Nice! :) Where are you putting all these? You seem to buy two a month! Not that there's anything wrong with that. :)

:yippy:

Rob

Eric,

Kewl! Do either one of them play? Let me guess... the one that looks like it was "well used" plays great, and the one that looks almost new is shot?

Eric,

Nice Philco, hope you got a bargain! I think I bought one of these a couple of weeks ago, haven't seen it yet. A friend told me about it, and that it was in great shape and price was right, so I told him to pick it up for me.

I have 3 consoles and a table model I bought and haven't seen yet, don't know where I can put them when the sellers don't want to store them anymore and I have to bring them home.

I think I'm over the edge......


Chuck

I think I got a good deal on the Philco and the Hoffman was practically a giveaway at $20.

I had to go to West Covina today to pick up a CRT I won on eBay, well I was somewhat loath to drive all the way down just to get this CRT but when I checked my E-mail this morning there was a message from someone in Ontario (Calif) asking if I was interested in some sets.

Ontario is right on the way to W. Covina so I lucked out and got a dual purpose trip!

Neither set plays, the Hoffman will show a slight flicker on the screen the Philco just hums.
Gee, I wonder what it could be, maybe the caps could be bad? :p:

Both CRT's check like new though I don't know if they have ever been rejuved.

The Philco isn't perfect, there are a few chips and marks here and there but nothing I would refinish it for.

The Hoffman... well I suppose it COULD be restored, someday, after everything else has been fixed and I have nothing to do I might take that project on.

The Philco has an 8 channel tuner and an electromagnetic Ion trap, it also has a Polarized interlock connector, looks just like an interlock on a modern set but about twice as big! Cool set.

The back is missing along with the special cord needed to interface with this connector so I will have to make do.

Eric

:) GEE, what a nice cabinet on that Philco!

Getting back to the 17" RCA portable mentioned a few posts back, here is a photo of it working.

The vertical is a little shrunken, there is still one Lytic to replace and I haven't tested any of the tubes yet. Don't know how the sound is, I didn't connect the speaker.

Looks good! Is that the CRT that came with it, or did you replace it?

Eric,

That CRT looks very bright. I wonder if there is a problem with the DC restoration. The backs don't try to stay black.

Rob

Rob,

Most b&w sets of that era didn't have DC restoration, and washed out blacks, especially on night scenes, are the norm.

wv,

I agree mostly with your statement. True, many early sets didn't have DC restoration. In my collecting experience this is true of many of the 40's sets with round CRT's, but it was my understanding that by the mid 50's, not early any more IMO, that TV's pretty much all had this very simple diode circuit installed. Expecting this to be the case with Eric's RCA here I thought there must be a prob with the circuit.

Eric,

Does this chassis have DC restoration or not? Inquiring minds want to know. :)

Rob

I had posted this info on dc restoration back in August.

The dc restoration is an interesting issue. I have not played with many pre 1950 sets, but from what I have seen, some of the early sets included the restorer diode, but once the larger-screen sets of the early 50s appeared, the dc restorer had been abandoned (for cost reasons I assume). I don't recall seeing a B&W set with dc restoration until I saw a Sylvania circa mid to late 60s perhaps. Some later sets, including color, had partial dc coupling. It wasn't until Consumer Reports Mag. made an issue out of dc restoration in about the early 70s that all of the manufacturers got on board and put the dc restoration back in the sets. The CR article was prompted by Sony (and perhaps Sylvania) being the only manufacturer having 100% dc restoration at the time. The picture quality of the Sony was rated the highest of the sets tested. I had just purchased a 1973 Zenith, and that or a similar Zenith was rated as having only 10% dc restoration. I bought the Zenith (hybrid) because I liked the way it was built, and would not have touched a Sony. Shortly after I read the CR article I set about eliminating all of the coupling capacitors in the video signal path and adding appropriate level-shifting transistors to achieve 100% dc coupling, which give the same result as restoration. I have done a similar operation to a number of other sets, including a vintage CBS Columbia that I used in my bedroom for many years.

I don't know if this set has D.C. restoration, don't think so.

It looks too bright mostly because I had it cranked up to take the picture but as wvsaz mentioned it is impossible to get a black level to stay put on these sets.
Also this set uses a tinted safety screen that's not in place here, that would help the contrast somewhat.

That is the original CRT, a 17" 110 deg tube.
It was really tired and I rejuvenated it.
It works good for now but I have a NOS tube that will be installed when I'm done.

I checked all the tubes, it had about 7 weak ones including the 6AQ5 vertical output, installing a good one filled out the vertical and the picture is looking really good, the sound seems to work good too, at least on channel 3.

One tube was really stuck and I busted the tube socket getting it out :( fortunantly I have an extra chassis for a parts donor.

Eric

Originally posted by DBerning
It wasn't until Consumer Reports Mag. made an issue out of dc restoration in about the early 70s that all of the manufacturers got on board and put the dc restoration back in the sets.

:mad: This wasn't the first time Consumer Reports made an issue of the lack of DC restoration in TV sets. In the late fifties they complained about it, but at that time no manufacturer used it, except in the color sets. The excuse? According to the manufacturers, the TV broadcasters were not bothering to control the DC level at the transmitter, so why should the set manufacturer attempt to control it at the receiver? While this may have been true in a few isolated cases, most broadcasters did control the DC component correctly. In fact, FCC rules require correct control of black level at the TV transmitter. It was simply an excuse to cut the cost of the receivers.

Prior to 1953, most of the better quality receivers, such as RCA and DuMont, used DC restorer circuits in their designs. The DC restorer seems to have disappeared about the same time the 21" rectangular picture tube became standard, around 1953, as DBerning mentioned.:(

A confusing factor for the consumer is the use of the term "brightness control". In a set with DC restoration, this control is in reality the "black level" control, and should be used to set blacks at the correct level. The "contrast" control is in reality the "white level" control, and is adjusted to provide the desired picture brilliance, followed by setting the correct DC (black) level with the "brightness" control (in some early sets the contrast control was called the "brilliance" control).:confused:

In a set with 100% DC restoration, once black level is set, it will stay correctly set through all scene changes, including the difficult nighttime outdoor scenes.:)

Originally posted by Eric H
One tube was really stuck and I busted the tube socket getting it out :( fortunantly I have an extra chassis for a parts donor.

Eric

Eric,

I have done this too, but then I discovered that by squirting WD-40 around the pins, and rocking the tube slightly in a circular motion, the stuck tube will usually pop right out leaving the socket unharmed. This is especially true with old radios using loctal tubes and cheap wafer sockets. Also improves electrical contact with the pins.:)

Here's a shot of my 9T246 after the recap & realign. My photography doesn't do the TV picture justice. This is the first 40's set I've done that actually works well on a cable signal, no adjacent channel interference at all, maybe it was the IF realignment.

This is another chassis with the 5 ohm resistor in series with the 6AL5 discriminator which was open and I didn't catch it due to the tube shield.


Chuck

Chuck,

Great picture & good alignment job! I wonder if more of these '40's sets would work on cable signals with a proper IF alignment?

Hi Chuck, great job, it looks like new!

Eric

Originally posted by wvsaz
Chuck,

......I wonder if more of these '40's sets would work on cable signals with a proper IF alignment?


If I was a glutton for punishment I'd try another set, but it's easier to use a cheap cable converter for the signal source and I get REMOTE CONTROL!

Chuck

Actually, most of the postwar sets work fine on cable, if properly aligned. Cable TV has been around since the late 40s. Cable systems operate the audio carrier about 15 db below the video carrier to minimize the interference from lower adjacent audio.

Originally posted by Steve McVoy
Cable TV has been around since the late 40s. Cable systems operate the audio carrier about 15 db below the video carrier to minimize the interference from lower adjacent audio.

Steve,

I don't think the problem is just the adjacent audio, the early cable systems carried just 12 channels (maybe). Now we have 80+ analog video carriers and 40+ digital carriers being pushed into a tuner that was designed to "see" one channel at a time at its input terminal.
I've seen modern sets that can't handle all that power.


Chuck

The selectivity of the RF stage was almost always good enough to deal with lots of channels. Some sets would overload, but if input levels were kept within normal range, there wasn't usually a problem. Early transistorized sets did sometimes have difficulties with lots of channels, and were more of a problem than early tube type sets.

Many cable systems had difficulty keeping levels constant, and often had significant "slope", with lower channels much stronger than upper ones. This often caused problems.

Chuck, that's a great looking RCA you've got there! Wonder what it is with those 6AL5 filament resistors :p:

Here's a shot of the 17" RCA put back together. I'm waiting on a few small tubes and the picture is a little snowy because it's only running on rabbit ears.

This is the NOS grade A Sylvania rebuilt CRT with "Silver Treated Phosphors" it really has a brilliant picture.

Eric,

I like that swivel stand! No such luxury with today's sets.:)

Chuck:
Impressive looking 9T246 restoration! Your photo reminded me of one I saw in Alsip Il, outside Chicago, about 3 years ago. I had dropped in on a supplier I use to pick up an order I was in a hurry for (600 mile drive in one day - ouch!) and of course asked if they knew of anybody that might have old TV's. I was given directions to an OLD repair store nearby, ran over and discovered a 9T246 in the window. Turns out they have had it since it was NEW, always in the window, always kept working, and presently left on at night using a timer! Man, this thing looked terrible, all faded, cloth sun rotted and hanging, but it worked a treat! I'd like to see a modern set survive that long in that environment, even with TLC!
Marlin

Haven't been any posts added to this particular thread in over a month, so, I will add one to get it cranked up again.

I got this '58 Zenith two-toned grey portable from a friend a while back. Uses chassis 15A26 (Sam's 407-3). Naturally, the sleeve that the photofact goes in was empty! Curses! The set is in nice condition, but looks like the flyback and deflection yoke bit the dust! This set has a three-position knob on top for the antenna... similar to the adjustment on a set of rabbit ears I suppose. Even if it doesn't get fixed soon, it will be a nice display piece.

I believe I saw a similar set in the background of someone's photo recently.

Charlie, i have a similar Zenith with a bad CRT and a rusty cabinet. If the Fly and yoke will fit your set you are welcome to them.

Eric

Charlie,

That is a nice Zenith. They made a number of those 50's boxes with that theme of the main controls in the top corners. One even had them in pods hanging off the sides. Very stylish.

I hope your C.T. problem is getting better!

Regards,
Rob

An oldtimer tv repairman once called these "bug eye Zeniths". Can't imagine why.;)
Marlin

i found one of those "bug eyes" zenith sets on the curb a while back.
it has a good tube and fly but i need to change a gazillion black beauties:puke: to get it working right.

Here's a 1955 Motorola I just picked up off ebay for 15.00. The only reason I bid on it was of it being only 15 min from my house! Actually it turned out to be a nice set, Although large, (24" crt model.) The crt is a replacement RCA Silverama that is like new still. All the set needed was the peaking coil replaced.

captainmoody,

Congratulations. That Motorola is in really nice condition, and the large 24" tubes aren't found very often. Can't beat the price either. You did good. :)

Rob

I just got back from picking this one up.

It's very clean, there's a mark on the plastic surround from the cord having laid on it at some time but it should buff out, inside it's incredibly spotless!

The 14AJP4 CRT is a bit of an oddball, it has a small neck and may be 110 deg but it still has an Ion trap! said CRT is also really really dead :( but I may have a line on one.

I wonder if more of these '40's sets would work on cable signals with a proper IF alignment?
With proper alignment of the RF and IF circuits, each channel's response curve would have the correct shape to pass only that channel's signal through to the detectors. Accurate, precise and stable marker frequencies are essential for proper alignment. I allow my alignment instruments and the chassis under test a 45-minute warmup period before beginning alignment and verify each marker frequency with a frequency counter.

Eric -

In answer to your comment about the meaning of the term "Golden Grid": This referred to the tuners in top-of-the-line Philco TVs of the 1950s, which were designed with what were known as "cascode" RF stages (generally using 6BQ7 and/or 6BZ7 RF amplifier tubes). These tubes were actually two tubes in one envelope with, in Philco sets using this type of tuner (if I remember correctly) gold-plated grids. The cascode tuner, with its 2-stage RF amplifier, was designed for extra signal amplification in television fringe areas, far from the nearest TV station. (In the early 1950s, television stations, which were mostly VHF at that time, were not nearly as powerful as they are today, hence the need in fringe and even some suburban areas for boosters and other methods of signal enhancement such as cascode tuners).

Philco also produced a line of TVs in the 50s it dubbed "Microgrid 390". (I had one of these sets about 30 years ago, which worked well until the CRT gave up; then I moved and it went out with the trash.) :( If I remember correctly, these sets were extensions of the Golden Grid series, using the same type of tuner. What the 390 stood for, however, I couldn't tell you.

BTW: You have done an excellent job of restoring your set's cabinet; it looks wonderful in the picture. I wish my old Philco, and several other old wood-cabinet consoles I had in the late 1960s-early seventies, had looked that good!

Good luck. I sincerely hope your Philco gives you many more years of enjoyment. I'd hold on to that set if I were you, since Philco is out of business (has been for some time) and no one makes TVs (or anything else, for that matter) like that anymore.

Several other manufacturers (Admiral was one) also used the 6BQ7/6BZ7 cascode tuner circuit, but did not promote it as "golden grid". Gold plated grids were a feature of the 6BQ7 & 6BZ7 tubes used in those tuners.

I finally picked up this Philco 48-1050 I bought about a year ago. Turned out much better than I imagined.

Chuck

ChuckA,

Took you a whole year to prep youself to pick this set up? Must be heavy! :)

I've never seen this model before. What a beautiful center piece of attention for the living room of yesteryear. I are impressed!

Rob

Rob,

It doesn't weigh much more than the table model 48-1000.

Even had the original owners manual stuck inside.


Chuck