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Quote:

Originally Posted by jstout66

I have a buddy that needed a newer console tv (remote,stereo,cable ready) and at a thrift store I found an RCA Colortrac 2000. Man was that set loaded with features. 3 antenna inputs, 2 video inputs, and dolby stereo, with bass and treble controls. The screen has a flat "Trinitron" look about it, and the picture was amazing. For those of you that are familiar with these, was it a true RCA? What chassis is likely in it, and how did they hold up? Also, were they RCA's "high-end" set? I thought it was a good deal for $50.00. The set that it replaced was a 1984 Zenith System 3 that had issues. I think the picture tube was going out. It had a greenish cast to it, and a big pink splotch on the screen that got worse the longer the set was on.

I have a pair of Colortrak 2000 RCA television sets. Both use the CTC-121 chassis. Of course, they are fully solid state and not quite old enough to be considered antiques but given that parts are becoming hard to find one could say they are collectable. I'd give them another 30 year before I'd place historic vehicle plates on them. I bought my first one in 1986 and a second one came to me one day when a friend was moving in 1987. The picture tube faceplate is slightly spherical - not quite flat in both axis (traditional trinitron tubes used cylindrical glass (vertically flat but horizontally curved). Yes, they are amazing sets but cannot, in my opinion, produce as bright a picture as a trinitron and do require carefull corner convergence tweaking the get the picture perfect. However, on the upside these sets are more reliable than Trinitron TV's from the same era and the picture tubes are weather beaters ... extremely reliable. The only problem I've found is that one set had a bad picture tube socket contact...if anyone has a spare CRT board then please let me know 'cause I need a replacement socket!

I think RCA did a nice job designing the Colortrak. The sets I have both use a 25VGRP22 picture tube charged to 27KV on the ultor. However, bad solder joints sometimes appear in the tuner and can cause the video signals to fade suddenly causing the picture to mute (go to black level). However, it's an easy fix to resolder the joints.

The Colortrak 2000 sets I have were high end and part of RCA's SelectaVision series. I also have a matching SKT400 video disc player. Cool device that plays back a movie on something that looks like a vinyl LP.

For fun I took some still shots to show the picture quality of the 25" 1986 Colortrak compared to my 27" 1952 Philco. I restored the Philco 5 years ago. Nice chassis to work on. back then, in the early '50s the Philco was state of the art with separate chassis for video/sound/ and power/sweep output. It included a UHF tuner (one of the first). The Phiclo works surprising well side by side to the RCA and has excellent video response. You can see the CRT on the Philco is quite large for its day. Slightly larger than the RCA but, of course, more rounded on the corners. I think the black and white pictures actually look better on the old Philco compared to the modern color set :D

The Philco is great set to watch Turner Classic movies on in the evening...that and a large bag of kettle corn .plus some liquid refreshment... :banana:

Oh, ...by the way, the instrument to the right of a few of the pics is my Cambridge Instrument S-100 Scanning Electron Microcope. A great tool for examining electron gun assemblies and other such stuff that blows away my time, my wife's patience and definitely lots of space. :thmbsp: