radiotvnut
05-13-2022, 10:50 PM
This weekend, they had the annual "Antique Alley" yard sale that runs from Meridian, MS up to somewhere in VA. Last year, there was a very low vendor turnout (likely because of Covid) and the year before that, they cancelled it because of Covid. The year before that, I could not go because of a scheduling conflict, so it's been a few years since I've actually been to a real one that was running wide open.
In a little community in AL, we went in a junk store and it turns out that the owner had bought most every building and house in the area, for the purpose of storing all of the junk that he collected. He said he stopped collecting about 20 years ago and it was now time to unload some of it.
As far as TVs, I saw a big honkin' B&W floor model from the early-to-mid '50s that had cabinet damage and there is no way I could have gotten it in the back of the Toyota Camry that we were in. Even had I been able to get it home, I have no where to put it and would have caught the devil.
There was a 17" GE color set with a rotary tuner and I could not get a good look at the back, but it was either a 17AC chassis (real GE chassis) or the 17BC chassis (Matsushita sourced chassis that I really didn't care for, they always blew flyback transformers). So, that one got left behind. He said we could come back anytime and if it's still there next time, I'll try to get a better look and if it's a real GE, I may grab it.
Which brings us to this little RCA 12" set. It's dirty as heck, but I think it will clean up OK. I also noticed that the VHF tuner was frozen (likely because of dried grease).
When I asked him for a price, he said it worked (yeah, it probably did when he put it in there, 30 years ago) and he wanted $15. I felt like that was a little high, so we eventually agreed on $10 (and I bought a couple of 5-tube radios from him for $10/each).
It's a 1974 model and I believe that was the last year that RCA made a tube TV. From what I remember, RCA had loads of tube sets for '74, but the '75 line was all solid state. Looking in the back, it's dirty, but does not appear to be an ashtray. This particular chassis is mostly tube, but I think there was an older one that used a solid state IF module and solid state audio module, with the rest being tube-based.
As long as the jug is good, it should not be too hard to get going. The main problems I remember with these was dirty tuners and controls, bad soldering, and bad capacitors.
In a little community in AL, we went in a junk store and it turns out that the owner had bought most every building and house in the area, for the purpose of storing all of the junk that he collected. He said he stopped collecting about 20 years ago and it was now time to unload some of it.
As far as TVs, I saw a big honkin' B&W floor model from the early-to-mid '50s that had cabinet damage and there is no way I could have gotten it in the back of the Toyota Camry that we were in. Even had I been able to get it home, I have no where to put it and would have caught the devil.
There was a 17" GE color set with a rotary tuner and I could not get a good look at the back, but it was either a 17AC chassis (real GE chassis) or the 17BC chassis (Matsushita sourced chassis that I really didn't care for, they always blew flyback transformers). So, that one got left behind. He said we could come back anytime and if it's still there next time, I'll try to get a better look and if it's a real GE, I may grab it.
Which brings us to this little RCA 12" set. It's dirty as heck, but I think it will clean up OK. I also noticed that the VHF tuner was frozen (likely because of dried grease).
When I asked him for a price, he said it worked (yeah, it probably did when he put it in there, 30 years ago) and he wanted $15. I felt like that was a little high, so we eventually agreed on $10 (and I bought a couple of 5-tube radios from him for $10/each).
It's a 1974 model and I believe that was the last year that RCA made a tube TV. From what I remember, RCA had loads of tube sets for '74, but the '75 line was all solid state. Looking in the back, it's dirty, but does not appear to be an ashtray. This particular chassis is mostly tube, but I think there was an older one that used a solid state IF module and solid state audio module, with the rest being tube-based.
As long as the jug is good, it should not be too hard to get going. The main problems I remember with these was dirty tuners and controls, bad soldering, and bad capacitors.