back in the day it was a constant battle between the big two Rca 1st and Zenith 2nd. those days are now long gone Today's rca and zenith are both a piece of junk. Rca consistantly tanks on the consumer reports reliabilty issue. Please appreciate the quality built into these classic pieces. You'll never see it again

Yes it is sad. Zenith was probably proved to be the best brand but even they succumbed to competitive pressures and went south. Seems like everything else in the U.S. is going the same way too unfortunately. Lets face it, our manufacturing industries are in a shambles. We lost the electronics battle long ago, Ford and GM are no longer that big (compared to Toyota anyway) and Chrylser is now a foreign company. We are no longer number one in the aircraft industry either, Boeing has taken a back seat to Airbus. Airbus just came out with a jumbo jet that is going to put Boeing's 747 completely out of the business.

Other than computer software (Microsoft) and farming, I can't think of anything else the U.S. does well anymore, its really kind of depressing if you think about it.

Having worked at an independent tv shop in the late '60s, I would generally concur with the thread's title. When it came to roundies, Zenith by far was a better set: picture wise and ease of service. A lot of our business came from the poor side of town, and I was astonished by what used to crawl, fly, slither, or jump out of tv's when the back was removed. Cockroaches in Zeniths would generally cause a short between soldered points (lugs). Use compressed air to blow them out of the set, fire it up, and it would usually work. I remember one set had a horrible (horrible) smell to it. When The back was removed, the source was traced to a dead/decomposed mouse stuffed underneath the electrolytics. The boss gave me an extra hours pay to clean it up. I got everything out, fired it up, and by golly, it worked! No damage done. The RCA sets usually sustained more damage when exposed to similar foreign objects. The exterminator was a regular to the shop. I know there were cases where we had to call him in after a set was opened. It was incredible how many cockroaches could hide inside a set!! The boss wasn't afraid to tack on the cost of the exterminator either.

<<Zenith was probably proved to be the best brand but even they succumbed to competitive pressures and went south.>>

There is more than meets the eye to this statement from RVonse. The last time I saw a TV set with the Zenith name on it, it was made in Mexico. Very sad.

I think RCA may have been tops in sales back then but I would hardly say the technical quality was astounding. Now, I really like the styling of RCA's but there were a lot of problems where it seemed they cheaped out on materials on their tube sets leading to burned wiring, flyback failure, etc.
Zenith was more conservatively and solidly built and had more features for ease of service.

Let's not get into the politics of USA/vs. foreign manufacture, that subject is really beyond the scope of this forum.

as a tv shop owner for over 15 years, unfortunately, Rca buttered my bread much more than any other brand on the market. I watched my beloved Rca stoop to levels i never thought possible. When they went to the surface mount tuners, almost every one of them failed due to solder problems. I guess i'll keep my two ctc 9's running and finish restoring my ctc 5 wingate model.

Stupid question-Why would cockroaches want to live in a TV ? Did they eat the insulation on the wires? -Sandy G.

it is warm in the back of a tv. we to have had our share of roaches come into my shop. i have been an rca dealer for over 25 years. rca is still a good set. they build some of the best crt,s anywhere. but you have to think about how many tv,s rca sells. that is why you see many of them in the shop. they sell millions. i will still put a properly adjusted rca up against many high priced sets.
and yes rca has made me a good living through the years. and that dont count the dss we sold. i was one of their first dss dealers.

While RCA had its share of clinkers mostly they built a good product. I have had personal experience with RCA's from every decade up until the 90s, mostly good. I can't say if anything was as well put together as a 60s Zenith but my background is limited. At this time I don't know of any RCA dealers left anywhere around here. The biggest independent shop around is now with "Brand Direct" so he carries all kinds of makes. The little shop in town has some Zenith & Magnavox sets but I don't think he's a dealer per se, just buys them from another shop to resell.

Buying public wants cheap sets and doesn't appreciate in large part, something built to last. I remember last generation of wood console tvs in Gemco before they closed (around 1984). You paid a premiun for the quality and the cabinet. I saw a nice working RCA Colsole Tv 27" with wood cabinet(1983)in my area just sit in second hand store with no interest in it for only 50 bucks. I'm sure that's why there's a disposal charge for TVs in CA since TVs are throw aways now.

:worried: :worried:

Not to defend manufacturers who prostitute quality for profit, but the tv business has changed radically in the last 20 years, even more so than during the shift from tubes & point-to-point wiring to solid state.

TV's used to be very expensive, and were meant to be kept for a long period of time and repaired. The technology remained stable for, essentially, decades.

Now, the technology changes so rapidly, (think s-video in/out, component video connections, cable/vcr/dvd/picture-in-picture, not to mention HT, etc.), that a tv that's only a few years old doesn't have the features that new tv's have, so if it fails the customer will naturally choose to buy a new tv with all the bells & whistles and toss the old one.

Thus, tv's have become disposable items, like computers & printers, which means price drives everything, and manufacturers build them with the understanding that many, many of them will be junked instead of repaired.

Bottom line, current manufacturers are perfectly capable of building sets that will last, and are repairable. That would make them more expensive, which means that you need to keep them for a while to amortize that up-front purchase cost, which means you'll have an old tv that won't have what every new set will have in 2008, which means you'll be unhappy, which probably means you won't do that again.

Doncha just love stream-of-consciousness run-on sentences! :D

Anyway, that means all the lovers of vintage tv's really should keep and cherish their babies, because we probably won't see the likes of them again.

man, the last time I seen a Zenith TV, i took a sledge hammer to it.

one of those mid 90's piece of crap rotten picture tube models. EWWW, the most disgusting picture I ever seen. They really do need to revise thier slogan "The name goes on before the quality goes in".

its a wonder how some of those newer picture tubes are. I took a TV set that had color bleed badly, left it outside in subzero temperatures all winter, go to plug it in recently, and it works great. Go figure.

I have a Thomson-built RCA color TV which I bought new in 1999. Works great on digital cable (through a set-top box); also makes a great picture with my VCR and DVD player. No problems at all with the set itself as far as chassis faults are concerned, although I did have some problems in the beginning with the RF port snapping off the tuner PC board. The technician resoldered the ground points all around the tuner shield after replacing the connector; no more trouble with anything else after that, and it's been about three or four years since the repair. The TV still has its original CRT as well. I see this set working well for at least a few more years at this point, even after all analog TV has been abandoned in favor of digital (at the end of next year, if we are to believe the stuff we read in the papers, on the Web, and in the news). Speaking of digital TV, I'm waiting for the larger flat-panel sets to drop below $500 before I get one. I realize I can get a Magnavox 15" LCD FP at Circuit City or Best Buy for $350 or so now, but I'd just as soon get an LCD flat-panel at least as big or bigger than my present CRT set when I finally do replace it. Until then, I'll likely be using my RCA with a set-top box; there is, IMO, no sense in chucking out a perfectly good TV with an excellent picture just because Hollywood is making so much noise about the end of analog TV in 18 months or so.

Back in high school, my junior year history teacher (Bill Hector) worked for zenith. In fact, his father was the VP for zenith in the 1960s-70's. When he was in high school, he worked on the assembly line for the color TV chassis (around 1963). The sets were built so good, the employees had a little gag line, "The quality stayed in before the name fell off" I got a good laugh at that.
He told me his father the former VP would have be discusted to see what happened to the name. He was glad his dad wasnt around to see it happen.

He was a cool teacher, whenever he had a story about how american companys were, it was always about zenith because they were the absolute best. Treated the workers great and produced a great product. What could be better? True quality with out compromise!

Looking at the design of this last Zenith I brought home ('68 color console) these guys were just miles ahead of the competition. Just a dream of a chassis compared to some. Around that time they were overtaking RCA in sales & things would only get better with the Chromacolor. Sadly,not enough folks are willing to pay for an overbuilt set anymore.

Lets face it, our manufacturing industries are in a shambles. We lost the electronics battle long ago, Ford and GM are no longer that big (compared to Toyota anyway) and Chrylser is now a foreign company.

Yeah but it's not like Ford and GM are pure red white and blue anymore. they are mostly GREEN. Big worldwide multinational corporations.
Found it funny that when Mercedes bought Chrysler, at first they got all huffy that the Chrysler unit was losing money while Mercedes was moving up and raking it in. Now it's the opposite, the Chrysler end is making tons of dough and Mercedes is the money loser. Well I thought it was funny anyway...Frenchy

My 1994 vintage Zenith 35" is still hanging in there - I wasn't educated when I bought it - it was the year AFTER NAFTA, and of course it's made in Meh-he-co. Actually, when it was new and working properly I thought it had a wonderfully good picture - I had compared it's picture to several other 35" models in the store at the time, and chose it because it looked best to my eyes. Yes, the build quality is not great. A friend of mine had bought a Zenith console for his family in the late 90's and it only lasted 2 or 3 years. Now he has a Toshiba and it works great. :(

My set still has the sporadic problem that I mentioned in another thread where the green gun evidently doesn't fire (started doing that a couple years ago when it was only 9 years old) But it has another odd problem since new - there were days I'd turn it on and have big patches of reddish color (noticeable only on certain backgrounds). I'd have to turn the TV off, and then turn it on again to make them disappear. I never called a technician because it was too sporadic. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that she hangs in there until October when I plan to purchase a new flat panel set.

I probably won't buy a Zenith again - I expect a television to last more than 8 or 9 years without problems.

Maybe I'm lucky. I purchased my Zenith console in about the first month of 1997, and aside from (thankfully very minor) service after a lightning strike, it has held up under daily usage with no problems.

The last main daily watcher TV set we bought was in early 1983, a 25" Zenith System 3 made in December of 1982. Still in use as we speak, got local Pittsburgh news on as I type this. We had it serviced in 1999, back then, our repairman said the CRT is showing it's age a little but the picture is still good. I remember every once in a great while, it did have a little bit of a red screen , I remember posting here about it but except for those few times, it behaves quite well and hasn't done it for a couple of months. :naughty: All I can say is "from my keyboard to God's monitor" but I'll keep praying, I love this set, been watching it since my sophomore year in high school and will be celebrating it's 23rd birthday this year. I look on the back and is says, "Zenith Radio Corporation."

Those old System III's I made alot of money fixing them! I repaired alot of modules out of them, too!

My dad bought our first color TV in 1968. RCA 25". Ran about 2 days, and burned. I mean burned. The wall got scorched really good. My mother almost killed the dealer over repairs to the house. I never found what happened. The dealer tried to bring it back to us after its repairs, under warranty, of course. Mom said NO! We bought a 23" Motorola with lots of tubes. It ran great for 2 years, then we had to replace the kine. Then another. Then another. The set had a bad kine socket. That was all. I got the set in 1972 and played with it, while learning TV service, until 1974, when I got my RCA CTC-10--discussed in another thread.

I worked on RCA and Zenith from 1979 to 1994. Made alot of money repairing them, too. Also did warranty service for Phillips from 1981-89.

I'd rather work on a 40 year old TV anyday over this new junk.

When Goldstar bought up Zenith, they told us that things would stay the same. Yeah right.

Like was said before, when RCA went to that goofy tuner on the chassis, CTC-175... soldered hundreds of them. AND Thomson ACTED LIKE I WAS THE ONLY ONE having to solder up the tuner! Like I said, stopped in 1994.

I will never stop working with tubes.

I have a ten-year-old Zenith Sentry 2 19" table model TV, which was a birthday present in 1995. The set still works great; I have had absolutely no trouble with it in all that time--not even the CRT. This set was made during the period when Zenith was having quite a bit of trouble with the CRTs in the sets of that vintage, 1992-98 or thereabouts, but I have since found out that the defective tubes were made in Zenith's USA plant in Melrose Park, Illinois. My set was manufactured in Mexico; at the time the CRTs coming from that plant were better and much more reliable than the ones from the Chicago-area facility. Why this was I really don't know. All I know is, as I said, my own Zenith's CRT is as old as the set and still makes as good a picture as when the set was new. The only problem I can see right now, if one can call it that, is that when I plug the set in (I keep it unplugged when I am not using it), I hear a slight crackling noise for a second or two, almost like high voltage crackling on the CRT, but this noise only occurs when the power cord is plugged into a wall outlet and before the set is turned on. I don't recall when this started, but I'm not concerned because the picture, sound and everything else are excellent, considering the set's age. Considering as well that Zenith was still Zenith (but going downhill fast) in the mid-'90s (I don't think Gold Star bought out the company until near the end of the decade), I'm not surprised my set still works as well as it does. I do feel, however, that it is unrealistic to expect today's Zenith-branded Gold Star TVs to last anywhere nearly as long. At this early stage of their development, plasma and LCD TVs still have flaws and bugs, not the least of which are short display life (I've read on RCA's/Zenith's websites that most LCDs/plasmas only last two or three years and have a projection lamp which must be replaced, at great expense, every so often) and in some cases lower brightness and detail problems (some owners of FP TVs have reported artifacts and slow response times of their sets' pictures) that CRT sets just don't have. The reason: CRT televisions have been around well over fifty years and are an established, tried and true if you will, technology, whereas LCD and plasma flat-panel televisions have only been with us a few years. By the time these FP sets have been around a few more years, I think the bugs will have been worked out, but until then I really wouldn't trust an LCD or plasma FP to give me as good a picture as either of my CRT sets do today. The year 2009 is still a ways off, but if either or both my CRT-based sets are still working at that time, I'll still be using them, with digital cable (I've had digital cable on the RCA set in the living room over a year and like it a lot, especially the additional channels I get such as the National Geographic Channel and NBC Weather Plus among others). I'm not cheap, but then again neither are today's large-screen FP TVs. If and when the day arrives when I can get a 25" FP set for well under $500, I'll consider buying one, but not before. I realize small screen FPs (13-15") are available today for under $500, but I don't want a digital set smaller than my CRT sets.

BTW, to the person who mentioned his family's 1968 RCA that burned: Wow! That must have been something, especially if the fire scorched a wall in the living room. And after just two days, yet! What the heck happened? That TV must have had one or more very serious design problems (or some nitwit at the factory jumped a fuse or put an overrated one in the power supply) if it caught fire that soon after it was put into service. I had relatives who bought a Zenith Chromacolor II 25" console in 1967; the set worked, and well, for about six months, then the CRT screen cracked diagonally. They had the set repaired under warranty; that was the last problem they had with it until some time in the '80s, when it was replaced by a GE 19" table model with remote. They kept the Zenith as a second set.

Jeff: Your Zenith is normal when you plug it in and get the rush of high voltage. They all did that.

In 1968, we got that new RCA New Vista TV. I remember them bringing it to the house in the RCA box, which I kept for ages. The two techs spent about 2 hours setting it up. I remember the dot/bar generator they used. The first show I watched in color was SPIDERMAN... This was a Saturday. I heard the set make some odd sounds and the pic pulled in on the sides, and popped back out. Things were fine until Ed Sullivan came on on Sunday night. Set just blacked out, with sound, and burned. My mom was adamant about not getting this set back, and we didn't have an RCA tv again for years. Thinking back, ever had an electrolytic blow on you? It was that kind of smell.

In the 1980's I got a CTC-39 25" set. It was given to me. Had intermittant color. I resoldered the entire color circuit board in my spare time, and cured its problem.

I could be wrong, but its possible that the set that burned was a CTC-39 chassis.

The one I had in the '80's had a beautiful picture. I used it in my living room for years. Then, I sold it to some friends. I think they still have it in their basement.

Thanks for the info on my Zenith Sentry 2 TV. I didn't know they all made the sound I described when first plugged in.

It sounds like that RCA New Vista set had a power supply problem, such as a shorted input filter capacitor, if the picture pulled in from both sides, then returned to normal (I've seen this before); that or else the thermistor which controls the degaussing coils was shorted such that the degausser stayed on all the time (if it had one--I don't know if RCA TVs from the late '60s had this system). Even so, I'd be surprised if the degausser itself would draw enough current to overload the power supply, causing it to overheat to the point of causing a fire, unless, as I mentioned in my post, the main power supply fuse was overrated or had been jumped. Even then I'd have expected the house fuses to blow immediately in the event of a short like that, and certainly if an electrolytic was dead shorted.

In any case, you were lucky all that happened was the living room wall got scorched; it could have been much worse--the set could have burned the whole house down. I don't blame your mother one bit for not wanting that TV back after it was repaired. A problem such as that set had, causing as much of a fire as it did (and in a brand-new set), would be enough to cause anyone to think at least twice before buying another TV of that make. Once burned, twice shy, as the expression goes.

A 1968 set would likely be a CTC-31 or maybe a CTC-38. I think the CTC-39 came out in 1970 or 71 and it was the same as ctc-38 but had Accutint.

I had a CTC-31 burn up on me in about 1988...the set was on, I lleft the room and came back and smelled smoke and the picture was out but the sound was still going...the entire inside of the HV compartment, rectifier tube and socket was melted and burned. Luckily no other damage was done. I think by the time they got to the CTC-39 the flyback was improved somewhat to be a little more durable.

I doubt it was the degaussing circuit. They make a bunch of nasty smoke, but I don't think they would actually burn the walls or anything.

Some of those 60's rca degaussing circuits have a thermistor and a varistor. I don't remember which was which. One was a thing that looked like a fridge magnet with a couple of leads barely attached, one to the center on each side. The other looked like a giant ceramic disc capacitor dipped in soft gooey plastic (think tool handles).

When one of the leads falls off of the magnet looking one, the plastic one burns filling up the room with smoke. I used to disable these, because if it happened, it was a death knell for the set. It's not hard to fix, but nobody wants a set back when they think it just almost burned the house down.

John

I have a spare Glo-Bar resistor set for my CTC-16 that I have not gotten to use yet. When I got this set years ago, the degauss is what had killed it. The then-owner had me remove the innards from his georgeous cherry cabinet... with doors, and haul it all away. The FJP22 tube went to a good home. I rode by the former-owners home one afternoon and saw the cabinet sitting by the street soaked in water. I pulled the front mask out of it. Easy to do. Just pulled on it.

The guy that had it wanted it for a bookcase. Guess he never got around to it. Why didn't he just give me the whole set? It would be running today. As is, the chassis is waiting. I have it hanging in my garage from the rafters. Its tuner is installed on the service mounts. The mask is there, too.

as i recall, consumer reports tested color consoles in the late 60s & their rca caught fire, too.

holmes, glad you made that save! someday it will live again.