philco-ford roundie score - pics
 

I finally got around to taking pics of the ford roundie that I picked up from the next door neighbour.

Judging by my arm, you'd think i was sacha baren-cohen... that's not really the case. :D The door won't stay shut. Have to work on it. I think the gray bar above the tuner dial used to have something that said "colour television" or something.

Didn't fire her up 'cos I was only going to take pics - the garage is too stuffy for roundie-watching :)

nice score! that is exactly like the first roundie my dad bought in 1966. he didn t
go shopping very much,but when he did,he bought the best.this set really worked well and we had much fun with it.the philco ford crt was so bright it was amazing.worked well until he bought a d-16 sylvania in 1972 or 3.the philco was given to a poor family on our block and they had it until the mid 90s.congrats on your find post pics in operation.

ours had the green tuning bars.everything else is the same though

I remember them touting the tuning indicator (EM84/6FG6) tube, and featuring Red Buttons on an actual screen shot.

Fix Or Repair Daily indeed.

So, after having watched a strong spanish station with no antenna for 15-20 minutes when the lady had it plugged in next door, a few weeks ago, today I go out and buy one of the matching-VHF transformer thingies and plug it in to teh TV to maybe play Kingdom Hearts II on it in Roundie Colour for awhile.

The POS won't show a picture now. It'll show snow, but when you make it "lock on" to a good source the picture goes blank. I tried picking up the strong spanish station again, the snow tears out and the picture goes black and the audio comes in. I connected a sony VCR with the OSD on the screen, it showed a faint snowy outline of that but when you adjust the fine tuning it goes black again. Also, the tuner indicator lamps are dead,

I tried messing around with it for a while, maybe thinking it was the fine tuning, or the switch was partly in service mode, no dice. Then it started being pissy and I heard the characteristic snap of HV, so I decided that was that and turned the thing off. Now I have two dead TVs around the house.


*SIGH*

Any chance the AGC adjustment got diddled with while you were moving it? Sounds like the AGC is getting overloaded with strong signals. Also, check all the tubes and make sure none have wiggled loose. Any time that you move one of these old sets, there is the potential for minor mishaps.

-Ian

I'll check that maybe later. Don't think it got messed with, it's an adjustment hidden on the back IIRC. Would it still get overloaded even with an off the air, normal station (with no antenna connected)? I don't live right next door the tower or anything; it's just a decent, solid signal you can pick up while in a garage. If you turn everything up to full blast you can sorta kinda see a wavy, distorted image flying by (almost like hsync is lost)

Sometimes the signal doesn't have to be all that strong, just stronger than it was before might be enough to push it over the edge. Yeah, the agc is the first thing I'd check 'cause it's real easy. I had this issue with my Zenith roundie and found some bad tubes in the IF & video circuits. It behaves much better with those tubes replaced.

:D

Should I just pull them and replace them all? I've gotten a bit rusty in identifying discrete sections of the TV :)

Gah
 

ok guys, sorry to dredge up such an old thread. I dug the philco out of storage and powered it on. I tried attenuators in various strengths and combinations, from 6db to 20db... is it possible to spin the hell out of the fine tuning so much that channel 4 is now channel 3 and vice versa? When adjusting the fine tuning to get a somewhat acceptable picture (even at full strength) I noticed that I was on channel 4 selected, but channel 3 was on the VCR output!

I've attached some pics of the chassis, all the tubes have 1967 as the date and say Philco Cool Chassis TV. I'm almost afraid to touch any of that dust for fear of being zapped... there's a local TV shop that's been around since the 50s that only charges $40 for a diag and may be able to help me. I'm guessing a retube is probably not out of the question, eg replace tubes in the chassis since I have no way of testing them, but finding NOS tubes will be a PITA.


I can very occasionally get a "watchable picture" with smashed highlights and exaggerated colour. Seldomly it will flash and give hints that the 21fbp22a it has will give a glorious picture, but most of the time it has fits and won't lock on the picture. When it does, it looks like a weak signal, noisy and blurry.

It displays snow just fine! LOL

It's Alive!!!

I bet if you go through the horizontal adjustment proceedure in the Sam's manual for this set (maybe replace the paper caps in the horizontal osc. stage beforehand), and tweak the front adjustments carefully you will have a very good picture.

Tom C.

Your horizontal frequency is off a bit, tweak the hold control till it comes in. If you can't get it, the pots will need to be cleaned/replaced as required. Mine did the same thing, I'd just replace the front panel controls since they are very low quality. After that, you'll probably get a very watchable picture. Mine didn't even need a recapping job, it works just fine with original parts.

Did you tweak the AGC? Yes, it isn't hard to mistune so that channel 3 shows up on channel 4. Easier on some sets than others.

A wholesale tube change is overkill. For the most part, those aren't hard to find. A number of us on here could set you up with any you need.

Yes, I tweaked the AGC back and forth thru its range of operation, it doesn't seem to have any effect. The H-V hold pots on the front of the TV have limited effect. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and spend the $40 to have the local TV shop take a look at it... with my level of patience I don't trust myself to do anything beyond twist knobs to this set, and especially because I don't know which parts are hot with voltage.

Especially since i don't know how to get the tuner back into alignment or check and see how well it IS tuning... i'd rather leave that to someone who knows what they're doing. I wish I had the knack to get old beasts like this running again.

Hey guys! It's been a little while...

I took the TV to a local shop which has been in business since the fifties.

After a month and a half of waiting in line the old man figured out it was the tuner which is completely shot.

He wants $300 to either:

A) rebuild the tuner
B) sell me his beat up 70s "subtuner" (which is what he calls it)

now, i was able to find a TV tuner bypass/substitute unit which apparently hooks right into the IF section on ebay for $20. It has manual gain control. Are there any modern alternatives to those old units?

He kept promising he would find something that would be automatic but then finally admitted he couldn't.

And btw what is the official term for those tuner bypass boxes?

wow, cant fix the tuner? its just not that complicated assuming its even at fault.

So a tuner subber was tried and we KNOW its the tuner. I would be looking at AGC voltage, tuner tubes, and voltage checks to know for sure its the tuner (I guess this was done by the shop). One last place to check is the balun, I had a smoked one on a set that killed the pic.

Did you ever clean the tuner? its not that hard.

I'd sure look into cleaning the tuner. It's not hard to do... $300 for a tuner repair? Sounds like he doesent want to work on it.

hmmm looking closer that may have a solid state tuner, so even less likely to be the prob.

cleaning involved removing the knobs, removing a few screws that hold the tuner/controls (it comes out as an assembly), removing the metal cover on the tuner (prob the hardest part of the process), remmoving a few tuner strips by pushing them back so they can pop off (do 8,9,10 stay away from 3 and 4), then using some tuner cleaner on a q tip wipe the fingers that run on the strip contacts, use more q tips to clean the actual contacts, put it all back together, and replace the cover (again the hardest part).

while its out examine closely the ant balun for any hints of burned wiring, check with a meter for continuity.

The Most important part of working on any old set is to not force things, (like screws and plastic parts). Ham hands will def do more damage than a light touch. Those plastic tuner strips have small coils on them, that's why I recommend only removing those channels that are not used for gaining access to the take off fingers.

if its a snowy weak pic that can be momentary fixed by careful movements of the tuner (not the fine tuning but the actual channel changing knob help partially between channels) then its no doubt just cleaning required. I agree
with the other poster, he prob does not want to work on it.

These old sets are somewhat labor intensive, that and the fragile nature of hard to get parts would make most folks want to steer clear.

here is a pic of the tuner on my philco, with the cover off

under the heading of "assume nothing", are you sure you have the ant hooked up to the VHF leads and not the UHF leads?

:no: UMMMm , , , , My Spidey senses are screaming "RUN FOREST , RUN !!!!"

That the price for either , vastly different "solution" , just happens to be the same $300 , , , Sure makes it sound from here that the repairman needs $300 to pay some bill or another , and thats why he's now finally willing to finally tackle the job ... I'd be bringing my tv home from there PRONTO , , finding a more honest shop , , , or be learning the nuances of tuner repair myself , were it MY tv .....

Yea , Really .............

It isn't very difficult to clean a tuner, I've done two tuners (both 50's Zeniths), and it was easy. The first one I did was much more complicated than yours (my old 53' Zenith has a super complicated mounting scheme compared to most newer tube sets including yours), but was still at worst only time consuming. It is not rocket science, just care, some finess, patience, and a bit of common sence.

If a repair guy told me it cost 300$ for a tuner cleaning I'd have to invite him to try my 100$ a job car wash.

At least it's a turret strip tuner and much easier to deal with than a wafer switch type.

I'd follow DaveWM's approach with the addition of using a little vasoline on the contacts. Put the cover back on to minimize attracting any dust/dirt and the petrolium jelly will help prevent the contacts from tarnishing.

Precisely, because he had been pushing the idea all along when I'd call to ask about the progress, that he was "looking" for a replacement tuner or another solution. When he called to say that he "had bad news" I said, "OK, $300 for rebuilding the tuner; now, how much to just drop in the tuner sub box?" Erm, well, $300, due to the expense of finding another sub tuner box and the labour of putting it in! is what he said. So then I knew he was full of it.

OH. OH. I called in today and played stupid, i said "well, if i ever find another one of those tuner boxes like you have, how much would you charge to wire it up?" and he said "$150 for the labour" LMAO! It didn't look THAT complicated, just a RCA-style type connector that connects to the IF section, pulled off the tuner.

I visited the shop and saw the TV running with the tuner subber box, it has a thrift-store-TV kind of passable picture, and needs a convergence. after that it will definitely have a watchable picture. It was an old box but could generate a crosshatch, shows severe misconvergence in the lower right hand part of the screen. the focus on it is a bit soft, however. the convergence doesn't really scare me as I have an old Sony PJ that converges with pots. it does suffer from a bit of overbrightness.

One thing I noticed is that when I would change the channel on the tuner sub box, I'd have to retweak the gain on the box and the colour settings on the TV to get it looking "good" again. I had him reassemble the set and put the tuner back in the way it was.

I really don't want to have anything to do with the tuner; I don't have cable and would prefer to feed it a component source, since that's all I really watch TV for is laserdisc or dvd movies. and to answer other questions, yes, I did have it connected to the right place :P

There are ways of feeding component video to these sets, and bypassing the tuner.
Miniman82 has a somewhat decent scheme to feed component video in to his Philco roundy. I believe that he had/has a timing issue that he plans to butcher an old delay line from another set, and build an amp scheme to compensate for the timing issue at some point. If I were him I'd try playing with different lengths of coaxial cable on one or both of the channels to resolve the timing issue (maybe I should suggest this to him at some point if he doesn't read this post).

Fuji, I don't know if he's still in business, but there was a guy here in Texas that was popular for rebuilding old tuners for a reasonable price. I think there may have been someone here on this site that used his services. Hopefully someone here will read this and know who I'm talking about and speak up.

For giggles, I did search and found this guy...

http://godard.delhi.la.us/qualitytun...le.htm#pagetop

This may be the person I'm thinking off. Give him a call... might be worth it.

Also, I think you may find it beneficial to get those circuit boards cleaned. Your photo shows a lot of dust in there. My Curtis Mathes had a good coating of dust like your set... wouldn't show a picture at all. I got in there with a small paint brush and a vacuum to get most of it cleaned up, and then some compressed air for places I couldn't reach. I was really surprised when I turned on the power and there was a pretty decent picture (had a weak green gun so that didn't get fixed till later).

I figure if there's enough dust in there to hide the color codes on resistors, then it's time to do some cleaning.

Had a similar issue with an old radio.... I could only get static from it. Put all new tubes in it and still only static. Pulled all the tubes again and cleaned out the dust around the tube sockets... then the stations came in just fine.

Gonna need a pretty long run of coax to make up for that delay,assuming that's the fault. hey also, haven't seen you at ak or vk in ages, fujifrontier. Dont get overwhelmed; these things sometimes turn out to be minor fixes like adjustments.
I personally would NOT suggest that you perform the mods necessary to inject component video into it yet. Reason being, if tuner troubleshooting makes you bat an eye this will be much more involved (to do safely on a tube set)

Forgot to mention... I have a spare Philco roundie chassis.... I think the tuner is still on it. I'll check and see what the number is... I'm sure it will be the same as yours. I don't know the condition of the tuner; I never tried the chassis. Just had it for parts since I have a Philco roundie that uses the tuner with the green bar indicator (I don't think the spare tuner has this). I'll look for it tomorrow. You're welcomed to have it if you like. But hopefully, you can get somewhere with that guy I mentioned earlier.

one last thing, depending on the set, you may be able to just connect the composite video directly to were the video detector diode out is. there should be a test point there (used for scoping the video out for test purposes).

this will give you a pic, you would also need to connect the audio to the correct place (on the audio pot). this bypasses the tuner and IF completly.

the only issue may be the the direction and power of the composite video.

if its too weak you may get a weak snowy pic, and if its reversed from what the tv wants you get a negative pic.

Before trying it I would check the voltage at the test point (to ground) just to make sure its at 0 potential, it prob is, but would not hurt to check before putting the composite video there.

I just checked my philco, it looks like you want test point B and it 1.5v pp which may be more than what your DVD comp video puts out (think they are about .5v pp IIRC).

the test point is on the sweep/sound board at looking at the 6MG8 chroma amp/video cathode follower sync amp tube, right by the tube at the 4 o:clock posistion, near the side of the board.


this is where a nice adjustable video amp (with a phase invert option) would come in handy.

The ant balun was brand new.

At this point, because of my zero expertise with actually working on the electronics part, doing tests, etc (I don't have a VM or any schematics or repair books; this TV apparently seems to be rare because I can't find any info) I want to be rid of the tuner and just use the tuner sub box, I'm a little frustrated with it at this point.

The channel quality did NOT improve with slight twists of the knob or going back and forth quickly. The audio was always solid, and it would occasionally tune in an unwatchable picture if you kept twisting the fine tuning in either direction for awhile. I'll try taking it apart and cleaning it when I get the set back. I use external speakers so no audio would be fine if I went that route of injecting composite.

I suppose right now I kind of feel like the blonde pointing at the car with a blown radiator hose and saying "but it doesn't goooooo!!" and I have the you guys the mechanics telling me "well it has a blown radiator hose" and what I need to do to fix it. I really do appreciate the shared expertise, I'm more of a visual learner and apologise for not comprehending immediately what needs to be done. If I had a diagramme or something that actually illustrated these points where to measure/test, etc I'd be a lot more at ease.

the tuner subber is prob the easiest solution, they are on ebay all the time, however worst case is you get a bad one, so dont spend more that 15-20$

I think most are battery operated (to allow use on hot chassis sets). but still not a huge deal.

Fuji: I checked further into that site. If you click the color banner at the top of the page, it goes into more detail. Sounds like he does a tuner exchange (if he has yours already) for 25 dollars. That sounds like an awesome deal to me. Look on your tuner and get the part number and see what he has in stock.

If you send me your email, I can give you a copy of the diagram for my set. Mine is the 19MT79 and will be damn close to the one you have. My set is just a little newer and uses the tuning eye... most of what's on the chassis will be the same.

that sounds like a great solution. You would still have to install it but there is not much to that.

Many tuners only have three wires asside from the coaxial one with the RCA jack. the wires usually are B+, AGC, and a 6.3 source for the tube heater and any indicator bulbs.
The outer lead of the coax serves as a common ground for the entire tuner, and it's center lead caries the IF a/v carier signal to the IF amps that feed the signal on to subsequent stages.

^that was a great, accurate explanation:yes::thmbsp:

united tuner service is still in business here in columbus,ohio.martin is fully operational at his facility.not sure of pricing but he did a tuner for my sylvania gt matic a couple of years ago for 25.00.it might be worth it to ship the tuner here.we have all dealt with him for years and his work is top notch.

Does United Tuner service also do Mallory Inductuners?

Well I'm feeling a bit more confident today. Got the set back, and unmounted the tuner without the set killing me :p Took some pics!

And you guys are right-on with that solution of the guy that charges $25 for a tuner exchange. I'll first see how satisfied I am with the tuner subber, if I ever overcome my morbid fear of soldering (I've never been able to successfully solder a connection in my life) then I'll totally disconnect it and send it in to the guy. It looks like I might have to, to get the set working on its own without the subber, because one of the wires broke off (I suspect it's the one that provides the 6,3v to it [it's mounted with 2 other wires on a board with a small cap on it]). It's chassis 17MT80. It also has an interesting logo underneath the glued-on metal plate, says "S[]S COLOR" on it.
So, what kind of signal is output exactly from the tuner to the RCA-connection that goes into the IF? How does it differ from the composite connection output by, let's say, a DVD player?