Picked this set from a gentleman tonight down in Sacramento,
he owned it for about 2 years. He got it from the original owner that worked for NASA. Pretty cool. Looks very low hours and works great. Minty condition! Chassis appears dusty but can see glowage from the tubes. Awesome little set! Unfortunately no model number decal on the back and haven't opened it up yet.

Was powered on a variac by him, and again by me. He ran it for a bot so wasnt worried about something blowing up. Good color. Gave it a try and let the kids play some Nintendo on it. Any ideas? I'm guessing 1968-69.

I doubt it's a CTC-36 it looks a little older.

I have one of these and it's a CTC53

Lol yep just found out. Couldn't resist opening it up. What did you think about yours. Good solid set?

I owned one of those twice. I got it from a out of business TV repair shop , someone bought it from me, fixed it up and resold it cheaper to someone who resold it to me for about what he had in it. Then I resold it again because the color never worked when I had it and I didn't have time to fix that.

The fellow who sold it back to me told me it never had color after he bought it and that's why he sold it to me so I assumed the guy that worked on it must have never got the color going and when I resold it I posted in the listing here the history as I understood it....The flake that fixed it writes this angry post claiming he did get color working and that it was working when he sold it to the fellow that sold it to me (if it was he must have never ran it for him and it must have broken in transport) and demanded I edit my description in this 'I'm going to sue you for slander' type tone. :no: That flake has on a scale of 1 to 10 negative 3 social skills and tact...

Wow that's a story to remember! The color never worked the both times you had it? I noticed how extremely touchy the color control is on mine. Needs some dexoxit on the controls. How was the focus? I heard these low focus CRTs have issues. Mine still appears razor sharp. guess I'm lucky?

Wow that's a story to remember! The color never worked the both times you had it? I noticed how extremely touchy the color control is on mine. Needs some dexoxit on the controls. How was the focus? I heard these low focus CRTs have issues. Mine still appears razor sharp. guess I'm lucky?

First time I had it it was dead. The close shop I bought it off of had apparently used it to take a few parts off of...I never tried to work on it or examine it before I sold it the first time (only thing I did was take it apart once and give it a garden hose-down to get the mold smell out.

Second time it had decent focus and a good monochrome picture...I didn't have the sams for it and had too many projects so after thinking it over I flipped it again.

Yeah with missing parts sometimes it's a crapshoot.. Mine is dusty inside. not horrible, at least appears to be a non smoker set.

I liked when we got these in the shop, way past due for an upgrade to an '81 XL-100 one-knob-job. It was only one or two parts, cleaning and a setup.

No wonder motels loved these RCA's, even the lighted signs RCA gave motels were cool. The boss wanted the motel sets fixed and customers sets condemned.

He said "find something major" so they would buy a new TV. Too bad if it was minor - a tube and clean pots/tuner/service switch, just make it look good as possible for a low-focus CRT set. I always gave them a good going-over as I hated to see tube sets junked, even then.

Damn. Sounds like used car dealerships today.

Damn. Sounds like used car dealerships today.

If you straight up told the customer you didn't want to work on something you might get a reputation for being picky or a bad tech and loose business from people not wanting to go to the effort of hauling in a set you may or may not want to touch....

Also many repair shops also sold new sets so there was an incentive there too. Hotels tended to be bread and butter clients that you wanted to keep happy and the less reliable the set the more you could milk them...Also hotels could not book a room with a bum set and not get demanding like a customer wanting their living room set back in time for the game...

I liked when we got these in the shop, way past due for an upgrade to an '81 XL-100 one-knob-job. It was only one or two parts, cleaning and a setup.

No wonder motels loved these RCA's, even the lighted signs RCA gave motels were cool. The boss wanted the motel sets fixed and customers sets condemned.

He said "find something major" so they would buy a new TV. Too bad if it was minor - a tube and clean pots/tuner/service switch, just make it look good as possible for a low-focus CRT set. I always gave them a good going-over as I hated to see tube sets junked, even then.
I have an Untouchables episode that shows a motel scene. There was a hand-lettered sign that stated "TV in every room!". A pretty good trick as this was staged in 1935. That scene was less than a second and real easy to miss.:scratch2:
Ma Barker and her sons, bank robbers.

First time I had it it was dead. The close shop I bought it off of had apparently used it to take a few parts off of...I never tried to work on it or examine it before I sold it the first time (only thing I did was take it apart once and give it a garden hose-down to get the mold smell out.

Second time it had decent focus and a good monochrome picture...I didn't have the sams for it and had too many projects so after thinking it over I flipped it again.
I can own another one. Another trip to God country.

I can own another one. Another trip to God country.

I meant, you can own another one.

I can own another one. Another trip to God country.
Not sure what you are saying...
The one I had was sold it you are asking to have it...If you have one that you would like gone I may consider it in a month or so once I have shifted my garage sets to the basement and have a better idea of what I can and can't fit in what miniscule space I may have left.

Not sure what you are saying...
The one I had was sold it you are asking to have it...If you have one that you would like gone I may consider it in a month or so once I have shifted my garage sets to the basement and have a better idea of what I can and can't fit in what miniscule space I may have left.
What I meant is You can have another one if you want it. Same terms. :D

I've owned a number of them; the first was in the early 90's and, guess what, it had no color! I took it to the local TV shop who had always been a GE dealer. When Thomson took over they added RCA. They had a strict policy at the time that they'd only work on GE or RCA, but I don't think they'd counted on the "classic" that I brought in the door! They fixed it and that night I fell asleep watching David Letterman in color...and woke up to the morning news in black and white :(

The shop also had a policy on tube sets: once and done, in other words, we'll give it one try but no warranty and don't bring it back, ever again. So, I took it to the shop in the next town. This time it was fixed for good. Their bill was itemized and included a resistor and a GH8. I eventually sold it to someone.

Later I found a very clean example at the flea market; the seller had a bunch of newer sets and I can still remember the surprised look on his face when I told him I wanted to buy THAT one! It works okay but the vertical requires constant touching up as it drifts with temperature. I've replaced almost everything in the circuit but something still needs to go. Not uncommon with these as components really get baked with that vertical chassis.

There is something about these that I just like, and the picture isn't bad (just a little soft). RCA sure sold carloads of them.