Picking up this beauty on Sunday.

Very clean. And no cataract. Very odd. Time capsule like.

Any guesses on which model, chassis? Almost looks like a CTC-16 with those channel knobs to me, but the grey screen bezel is odd. Usually I thought it was green.

If it's amenable to being rolled around, it'd hafta have auto-degauss. That would make it a '16. The '15 has no auto-degauss, and would be losing purity every time it's rolled around, requiring a service call to degauss it.

If it's amenable to being rolled around, it'd hafta have auto-degauss. That would make it a '16. The '15 has no auto-degauss, and would be losing purity every time it's rolled around, requiring a service call to degauss it.

Good call! This will be my second CTC-16! My avatar is a snapshot of my first CTC-16.

Perhaps a 20? :scratch2:

jr

Doug Harland drh4683 has a CTC-16 metal table top on his YouTube channel. It's a CTC-16.
Looks alot like this.

Perhaps a 20? :scratch2:

jr


Looking at pictures of the 20, it's possible you are right it looks as if the 20 had the same knobs as the 16 and the placard on the top is more antiquated to a 20 ..

It's probably a 16...I don't recall seeing a 20 with a separate UHF tuning knob. CTC20s usually had the single knob tuner some later 16s had the single knob tuner too.

The UHF tuner was an option on my CTC-15E. Congress mandated UHF tuners be included on sets starting with the 1965 model year.

If there are any photos of the back of the set you could tell the difference between a 16 and a 20 even with the back on. The 16 has a slide switch with a vertical opening for the peaking control, the 20 uses a round control shaft.

Congress mandated UHF tuners be included in 1963, NOT 1965.

I thought it was June or July of 64' that the UHF mandate took effect on new sets...

April 30, 1964.

https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/OSEC/library/legislative_histories/612.pdf

jr

Yup, and the 1965 model sets hit the dealer stores in fall of 64.

That's right. In the 15, wasn't there a plug in the hole of the UHF tuner if it was optional?

I suspect that there were some late 64 sets with mandated UHF tuners, but indeed, all 1965 model year and later sets should be so equipped.

jr

An excerpt:

Television and FM tuners? What's next? Will all smartphones have to come with little TV dinner trays and beer bottle openers, too? But seriously folks, what's intriguing about the article (aside from that reference to "the broadband elite") is that it cites a number of precedents for the TV tuner move—first among them a mostly forgotten mandate from the early 1960s.
"There is precedent," the essay notes. "In 1962, Congress passed the All-Channel Receiver Act requiring UHF tuners in all TV sets."

The “All-Channel Receiver Act” was passed by Congress in 1961 and mandated by the Federal Communication Commission. It did not take affect until 1964 and the 1965 model year receivers were first affected. It is true that some manufacturers had UHF tuners in their sets prior to 1965.

My CTC-15E has 1963 date codes but was marketed as a 1964 model. It has a space for the UHF tuner on the front model.

On the subject of UHF tuners, I remember seeing when I was very young, UHF to VHF adapters , for TVs that did not have them built in. :o

On the subject of UHF tuners, I remember seeing when I was very young, UHF to VHF adapters , for TVs that did not have them built in. :o
Ah yes. The Blonder Tongue one and two-tube (two and three knob) models pictured here were the most popular in our neck of the woods...
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=blonder+tongue+uhf+converter&qpvt=blonder+tongue+uhf+converter&FORM=IGRE

Picked up! More to come.. Found out it was a road find sitting with a bunch of BPC tvs in Oakland. The gentleman I met that grabbed it from near certain doom is a fellow AKer. Nice guy. Our kids got along great and met up at a Rock and mineral store.. One of my other passions.

FG 551W = CTC 16XH

jr

Interesting, the last CTC 16 I had used the XAE chassis I believe. Should be the same? I took a peek in the back. So far it look like RCA red label tubes

Good sign. Next is a Picture tube check. Coming soon.. It's a 21FBP22A RCA Hi Lite. Matching serial number to the chassis and no brightener!!

Well... Results are in..

Red and green bias were 3/4 turned up, blue halfway. Kine bias was on medium.

I'm going to let her cook at 8v overnight. have a feeling shes a bit sleepy (hopefully)

Overnight results. Not horrible but that green gun may be a little on the weak side.
Good thing is, the needles don't drop when using life test..

Had a quick look at the flyback.. there's some wax. Doughnut is not too crusty and no obvious carbon tracks...
Looked for obvious issues and everything seemed like it was ready for the gold..


Disconnected HOT plate cap, used my light bulb variac cord... instant circuit breaker trip. Have filament glow to all tubes. Light was not showing a short. reset breaker, tried once more.. bright light and circuit breaker trip again.
2nd can lytic is quite warm to the touch. Obviously a short in the b+ filtering.

So to recap, it needs a recap.. :D

A very nice find indeed! The back is in excellent condition with a crisp ID label.

Thank you. First order of business is to replace all those 80uf 450v lytics. Kinda feels like 2007 all over again. haha. (I had a helluva time with my first CTC16).

http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=133917&highlight=ctc-16

Btw, if you look at the 2 sets of pictures on the CRT tester, you'll notice the first time I had the meter set to 6v range, next time was 8v range.. At the 8v I'm still able to achieve 6.3v so I left it there.

With a B+ dead short, the rect diodes took quite a hammering. I would change those just on general principles.

:oOOPs! Double post

Ah yes. The Blonder Tongue one and two-tube (two and three knob) models pictured here were the most popular in our neck of the woods...
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=blonder+tongue+uhf+converter&qpvt=blonder+tongue+uhf+converter&FORM=IGRE
Milwaukee, as being a UHF town way early, there were many makes sold here. It seems Mallory and it's clones, Alliance, Silvertone ,CBS Columbia, Sylvania and Arvin, all made by Mallory. Then there was Granco, Blonder Tongue, Regency, Radio Receptor and Dewald (same).
I've seen them all, the Regencys the worst and the Radio Receptors, close to the best.
I got a lot of them as freebees, when people bought new all-channel TV's.:thmbsp:

Overnight results. Not horrible but that green gun may be a little on the weak side.
Good thing is, the needles don't drop when using life test..

Had a quick look at the flyback.. there's some wax. Doughnut is not too crusty and no obvious carbon tracks...
Looked for obvious issues and everything seemed like it was ready for the gold..


Disconnected HOT plate cap, used my light bulb variac cord... instant circuit breaker trip. Have filament glow to all tubes. Light was not showing a short. reset breaker, tried once more.. bright light and circuit breaker trip again.
2nd can lytic is quite warm to the touch. Obviously a short in the b+ filtering.

So to recap, it needs a recap.. :D

is wax loss like that something to worry about?

It looks significant. I dont think I've had one with wax loss that much. I had a '66 Magnavox color once that had a ton of wax loss and a burned up flyback.

I haven't found any shorts on the filters. But a shorted fly I dont believe will cause excessive wattage upon powerup immediately. I believe the Horizontal output plate cap removed should shutdown HV? Am I correct?

I'm grabbing my watt meter tomorrow.

Those old electrolytics have always been a weird beast, no telling how will act once they get 100v-400v on them, that's why they made those old leakage testers, may not see a short with a meter, but once they get up to voltage, they crap out.

I'm surprised my CTC-16XL did not pop breakers after sitting in storage for so long.

not sure what you mean by c2, but if it's C2 via the SAMS on my CTC-16XL , then it might be C2a, that has the highest V, right off the choke.

or you may be thinking of C1a SAMS placed C1 in the middle of the 2 :/

As far as flybacks, i think you are right, with the HOT removed, the load should be removed.


that is always the fear with mine...
Even though there is no wax seen under mine and it looks fine, I'd feel beter having a spare.

In a turn of events, I will be replacing all the lytics in the power supply. Some of the 80 micro farad are pretty excessive. Ill be cutting off the cans and restuffing them. The reason the circuit breaker was popping is because it is apparently bad. When I wiggle it I can watch the resistance go from to 250 down to about 8ohms.

Just not worth the chance that I may stress the flyback more than it looks already by running a worn out power supply.

This tv should be fun! Haven't even got to power it up yet to see how many gremlins it has and it already under the gun..

I lifted the chassis out tonight and brought it upstairs to my workbench to start the process but too dang worn out from Taekwondo with the kiddos so I'll be ordering caps tomorrow and cutting the ol cans right off to prep.

The reason the circuit breaker was popping is because it is apparently bad. When I wiggle it I can watch the resistance go from to 250 down to about 8 ohms.
Are you measuring this between the circuit breaker's two contacts, or between a contact and ground?

Between the two pins on the breaker.

It looks significant. I dont think I've had one with wax loss that much. I had a '66 Magnavox color once that had a ton of wax loss and a burned up flyback.

I haven't found any shorts on the filters. But a shorted fly I dont believe will cause excessive wattage upon powerup immediately. I believe the Horizontal output plate cap removed should shutdown HV? Am I correct?

I'm grabbing my watt meter tomorrow.

On second thought, after looking over the SAMS a bit again, removing the damper should de-energize the FBT completely, it gets is voltage via the damper through the horizontal linearity coil & L35(ctc-16 ) L36 (ctc-16xl)

So if by any chance, there is a short in the primary, removing the damper will take the load off the main bias.

Good call. I found C136a and C136B, the 450v 80uf and the 350v 2uf on the shortest can filter bad with high ESR. The other two cans seem ok thus far. One goes to the deflection yoke, and the other is part of the RF AGC.

I'll be replacing those tonight and maybe fusing the bad circuit breaker and attempting a powerup. First I'll test the shunt reg, HV rect, and H output tubes for shorts. That fly has seem some hard use it looks.

I quickly dialed in the bad from the checkable by the old speaker test.. both C136s off the short can produced no audio.

Well after replacing the 3 450 80uf and a 350v 2uf heres what I got.

So looks like a vertical recap and something not right about the IF stage. Blank raster.

By the way. The circuit breaker was doing its job. Was tripping at 985w!!!

Well after replacing the 3 450 80uf and a 350v 2uf heres what I got.

So looks like a vertical recap and something not right about the IF stage. Blank raster.

By the way. The circuit breaker was doing its job. Was tripping at 985w!!!

check the 150k resistor on the vert height Pot, they are almost always bad.
(the one to the 390v)


and the 180k and 150k in the IF section ( r48 / r50 on CTC-16xl ) off of bias point 3, they always go out too, they were out on mine.

Have you DeOx'ed the service switch? It can cause blank raster.

Not yet. I'm going to check all the tubes. I'll DeOx'ed the switch too first.

So I have most the chassis electrolytics recapped along with the white wax ELMENCO caps. Also found the usual drifted 150k off the vertical height pot.. 1 bad 6GM6 found thus far. Probably contributing to the near blank raster I was getting. Also going to replace that yellow dry 40mfd or so axial dry cap on the vertical board for good measure.

More to come.


Edit: those ELMENCO are apparently ceramic mylar according to the internet. is that true? They test good.

Cool! A shorted 6GH8 burst amp (what's new), a bad 6KZ8 on the tuner, and a bad 6KA8 AGC, and some bad sound IF and audio output.

That explains the blank raster. Still looking over vertical board at the moment. Also going to remove the cover on the IF and have a look at those resistors.

Off topic, my daughter's painting of the NBC living color by RCA logo she painted. Quite the artist.

She was watching me go over the chassis last night and decided to copy a portrait I have on my wall I'm my workshop area. The Joy's of children.

Well I have the chassis power supply recapped. also changed out that 150k resistor on the vertical height pot and the 150v 50uf yellow cap on the vertical board. Still have a nasty vertical issue to deal with.

What are the odds of this. Last electrolytic needed. I dont have one and it's on order. This could be the cause of my lack of vertical deflection. all orange drops around the oscillator and output stages test reasonable.

This 30uf also is shared with the horizontal oscillator. pin 6. Even though I can't get anything but a Gray raster I can hear the horizontal oscillator lock at the end of the dial.

If you have a new 22-47uF of the right or higher voltage rating it is better than an open or shorted cap for medium term troubleshooting purposes.

Well this is looking promising. swapped out a bad 100k on the blue drive pot. Recapped lytics. waiting on 6KA8 and 6KZ8 tuner.

What you are seeing here is the signal pattern generator showing color bars except a bad AGC and a bad tuner tube will not allow for a good signal.

Horizontal frequency is off too. You could use a battery or external bias supply to force the AGC line to a better level (alignment procedures often included this practice).

On my BK HV probe, it was off by a mile. Tested it on the Sony KV-2643R. thou HV should be 29kv, it read 20kv. Luckily the probe has an adjustment potentiometer so I set it to what I believe that Sony should be running at 29KV. I tested a few other sets around the house and high voltage on my CTC39 was it 24KV.

On the CTC16, we were at 21kv. I bumped it up to 24kv.

If this high voltage has been running low for quite some time I wonder if this can put undue stress on the fly back. I'm sure I'm answering my own question but I noticed the other night when I ran the set for about 30 minutes the fly back cage felt warm. After I adjusted the high voltage up to 24KV I noticed after a 30 minute run the high voltage cage stayed cool..

My question is, has anyone else had to re qualify a high voltage probe like this with a known good high voltage set So you could use your meter to check other TV's? Is it's a good way to re qualify a high voltage probe?

Inside the probe there is a very long 600 meg Barber Pole yellow and black resistor that was only reading 530 meg. But sure after time and age these things have a tendency to drift.

On my BK HV probe, it was off by a mile. Tested it on the Sony KV-2643R. thou HV should be 29kv, it read 20kv. Luckily the probe has an adjustment potentiometer so I set it to what I believe that Sony should be running at 29KV. I tested a few other sets around the house and high voltage on my CTC39 was it 24KV.

On the CTC16, we were at 21kv. I bumped it up to 24kv.

If this high voltage has been running low for quite some time I wonder if this can put undue stress on the fly back. I'm sure I'm answering my own question but I noticed the other night when I ran the set for about 30 minutes the fly back cage felt warm. After I adjusted the high voltage up to 24KV I noticed after a 30 minute run the high voltage cage stayed cool..

My question is, has anyone else had to re qualify a high voltage probe like this with a known good high voltage set So you could use your meter to check other TV's? Is it's a good way to re qualify a high voltage probe?


which probe you got?

It's a BK precision HV-44

It's a BK precision HV-44


I also have the HV44A, I know about the adjustment to zero the meter, I did not know there was any other, or that it could be opened up to see a big resistor. :o

Yes if you're looking down at the meter needle it'll be on the handle right side. It's a very small hole that you can insert a flat head into to adjust the calibration.

It didn't take much to move the needle so I'm concerned that excessive jolting around of the probe or possibly a drop could cause the calibration to go out of whack

Yes if you're looking down at the meter needle it'll be on the handle right side. It's a very small hole that you can insert a flat head into to adjust the calibration.

It didn't take much to move the needle so I'm concerned that excessive jolting around of the probe or possibly a drop could cause the calibration to go out of whack

that explains it...

the BK HV44A and the HV44 are not the same. :scratch2:

Mine is newer, all sealed, no adjustments factory calibrated.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/BYYAAOSwWl5di2gE/s-l640.jpg

Interesting.. So I replaced that 6KA8. My assumption was correct. I couldn't get horizontal lock. The control was all the way to one side and needed to go more. I adjusted the oscillator coil. Now I can achieve lock. Left it at the end of the dial. Color oscillator is off freq. Cant lock color. Got splotchy rainbows crawling up the screen. So probably need to adjust the oscillator coil.
My question is why are these so far off? I doubt anyone got in there and messed with them. I've seen other threads about this as well.

Haven't had a chance to go over the IF section for out of tolerance resistors that are known to go flaky but this wouldn't cause the lack of color would it? Isn't this chroma?

Interesting.. So I replaced that 6KA8. My assumption was correct. I couldn't get horizontal lock. The control was all the way to one side and needed to go more. I adjusted the oscillator coil. Now I can achieve lock. Left it at the end of the dial. Color oscillator is off freq. Cant lock color. Got splotchy rainbows crawling up the screen. So probably need to adjust the oscillator coil.
My question is why are these so far off? I doubt anyone got in there and messed with them. I've seen other threads about this as well.

Haven't had a chance to go over the IF section for out of tolerance resistors that are known to go flaky but this wouldn't cause the lack of color would it? Isn't this chroma?

I have this terrible feeling of deja vu

Haha yea. Which one is the color oscillator again? Brainfart... oddly if I go through channels, I have no snow. Just a blank raster. AgC has no effect whatsoever. thinking I might have to go over the IF board a bit.

Haha yea. Which one is the color oscillator again? Brainfart... oddly if I go through channels, I have no snow. Just a blank raster. AgC has no effect whatsoever. thinking I might have to go over the IF board a bit.

A16 is the chroma ref osc coil. Controlled by phase det, via burst amp.
You say you still have blank raster, so there is nothing for the color circuit to lock on to.
In fact, you should NOT be seeing any color at all, color killer should be clamping it down and turning it all off at this point with no video to work with.

i got my test sockets now, so I will be poking around my IF as well this weekend.

I have a raster and an image. Just no snow flipping through the channels. it seems odd.

The raster acts as if there is no AGC but the control obviously is working while watching my pattern generator.

I'm going to have a look at the sockets to the burst amp and demod tubes. Have a feeling something is going on here..

Lol pardon my ignorance but where is the A16 coil exactly? I have the rca schematic but no sams..

Obviously I would think it's by the 3.58 burst osc.

Lol pardon my ignorance but where is the A16 coil exactly? I have the rca schematic but no sams..

Obviously I would think it's by the 3.58 burst osc.
you can get the SAMS here
https://www.earlytelevision.org/tv_schematic_diagrams_color.html#rca


It's not just a matter of adjusting 1 coil, there are 3.

there is a color AFC setup procedure to go through to get the circuit to lock on correctly.
It's in the SAMs how to do it.

Ok I'll attempt this tonight thanks for the link! I noticed that the horizontal oscillator L38 coil was slug was loose. Not tight like you would normally find.

Well.. We have color! I had to turn A16 clockwise about 8 turns..
Go figure.

Oddly I still have so snow are white noise on dead channels.

BTW, AGC is working, so is color killer. Oddly, the slug in A16 feels like its almost at it's end of travel. Could this be drifted components?

BTW, AGC is working, so is color killer. Oddly, the slug in A16 feels like its almost at it's end of travel. Could this be drifted components?

Yes, any number of out of spec resistors in the area can cause the freq to drift, to a lesser degree, the caps.
I had the same trouble with mine, getting the osc on the right freq, as I mentioned in my thread, almost all resistors on my color PCB had already been replaced by someone, ( not all of correct values ), I went and replaced many with 1% tol metal film ones.

Yeah this is what I figured I am most likely going to check resistors around the circuit anyway. That may bring me to dial back on the coil When I find some out of spec that need to be replaced..

Another thing I noticed is that this TV seems to have a very soft picture, I mean it looks good it just doesn't pop like I had seen in other 16s.

It's the best way to describe it is like a watercolor painting.. The brightness is there it just doesn't have the vibrancy to it. This could be the CRT. If you remember green was just barely touching good on the tester. Although it seemed to have excellent tracking on all 3 guns.

Yeah this is what I figured I am most likely going to check resistors around the circuit anyway. That may bring me to dial back on the coil When I find some out of spec that need to be replaced..

Another thing I noticed is that this TV seems to have a very soft picture, I mean it looks good it just doesn't pop like I had seen in other 16s.

It's the best way to describe it is like a watercolor painting.. The brightness is there it just doesn't have the vibrancy to it. This could be the CRT. If you remember green was just barely touching good on the tester. Although it seemed to have excellent tracking on all 3 guns.



Remember, until you put real video on the screen ( fleshtones and such ) it's a bit hard to tell if a17 is set right ( affects the range of TINT) , not very easy to set with color-bars, unless you know EXACTLY what it should look like range wise on a good adjusted set. I had to touch mine up once I got a DVD source.

I was running some video through it last night. Seems like fleshtones and color processing is spot on.

At 1st I noticed with the coil barely on peak, greens were not being processed correctly so I gave it a 1/2 turn more in and it popped in

Just realized that video peak has no effect. There is a slight shadow to the right.. I wonder if a peaking coil is open. Going to look at the SAMS later.

Just realized that video peak has no effect. There is a slight shadow to the right.. I wonder if a peaking coil is open. Going to look at the SAMS later.

Video Peaking has nothing to do with a “peaking coil” to quote Electronic M...
VideoPeaking...it is basically a video treble control. It changes the level of the high frequency portion of the video. Lead dress of the CRT socket wiring and differences in video chain tubes and alignment will affect high frequency video. Peaking is a compensation to allow fairly uniform video detail.

The switch hangs off contrast control, and switches in/out various capacitor values.

if you had a peaking coil out, you would tend to lose luminance, and it did not look like that.

So video peak has to do with the amount of "pop" contrast between the whites and colors in the background? I have to look again, but I thought it ascs more like a sharpness control.

So video peak has to do with the amount of "pop" contrast between the whites and colors in the background? I have to look again, but I thought it ascs more like a sharpness control.

Visually it can have a sharpness effect.

An important thing to have right to get the most out of good alignment/peaking is focus. If focus is less than razor sharp fine detail is lost in a spot size greater than the size of said detail bleeding it's edges into adjacent phosphor. If you take a basically working set with lousy focus and fix the focus that alone can unlock performance you weren't expecting.

Some peaking coils were wound on resistors in the 10k ohm ball park (they made for cheap forms with integrated leads. I haven't looked at the CTC16 recently enough to see if this is the case, but in some circus it is possible for the coil wire to go open and the resistor to still be okay...in some circuits it is possible for the video chain to limp along like that with reduced contrast, brightness, and or detail....Sam's should list peaking coil resistance (it is usually not more than 2 ohms) and there is no harm in taking a DMM in ohms mode to your peaking coils if you think one is bad.
Stuff like that I see wrong more often with 50's sets especially ones with those elliptical chalk blob peaking coils that RCA and Motorola liked.

If I recall correctly some manufactures called it a detail control, which probably makes more sense to most folks watching the set.