Daily watchers
 

I know there has probably (most likely) a thread started here about this but Just wanted to chime in again. I really dont give my set any 2nd thought but you know what.. It is a great set and I just wanted to post a pic of what a magnificent set it is. It is our daily watcher and has been for the last 8 months. I figure if you got it, and you know you can fix it, why not use it. And this Zenith just keeps plunkin away day after day. (with the help of a pusher fan to keep the heat to a min.)
This is the set I picked up off JpDylon back in December

67 Zenith 25x4517

http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...P1010009-1.jpg

My 13" RCA XL-100, model EC333W (6/78): I found this set covered in 2 inches of dust in a building my boss was prepping for demolition. I took it home, cleaned it up, and surprisingly it has the best picture of any set in the house! Clear, sharp, wonderful colors. Will hook it up to a cable box when signals go digital next year.

The orange 9" set is a solid-state Philco Ford model 311BTG, chassis no. 3BH15. Bought it from a thrift store in Fargo, N.D. for $1.75 in 1998.

Unpictured is a 3-year-old 25" Durabrand TV in the living room. A family friend gave it to us when we moved in our house last year, as they "upgraded" to a plasma/LCD type set. I also have a 13" B&W Zenith from the mid-60's that has a beautiful picture but loses audio when you focus in on the channel.

Sure would like to have the CTC-40 console I grew up watching, it was a 1970 model that swiveled on it's legs.

my daily watcher is a zenith chromacolor II from 1975 and the xl100 from the etf auction. i have a ctc 15 roundie that gets watched about an hour a month.working on a ctc 16 with a 25axp22.it may become my new watcher. will post pics.

I have a CTC-12 in my workshop that gets used almost every day. It's conncted to a Replay TV box.

I also use my CTC-38 most days to watch a little news at lunch, and while I'm making dinner.

My daily watchers are a '79 Zenith 25" system 3 with space command and zoom. And in the bedroom is my 82 GE with the AC chassis.

Like that 13" RCA! Those are good performers.

It sounds like the tuner is out of alignment on your Zenith B/W, I've had a few do that from that era. The XL-100 you have is indeed a great set, I have one that I found in the garbage. Someone busted a 1" by 1" hole in the back vents and routed the wires for the deflection yoke outside the set for some reason. I repaired that, but the hole is still there, it's a shame because the rest is mint. I have heard about trying to power fluorescent lights that way ect....stupid. But anyways you are right about the picture on those, it is wonderful. One of the best I've seen on an XL-100. To stay on track, my daily watchers are a '73 Philco-Ford 18" hotel model set, a '74 GE Porta-Color and lately but not permanently a '63 Zenith 21" roundie with the 26KC20 chassis that I just restored. Also, that is a very nice Zenith you got there Shawn. And Ron, when we were talking at the convention you were trying to decide whether or not to get the XL-100, it is a very good thing that you did. You're lucky to have a NOS XL-100! I wished I had the room in Bob's van for the other one, but the 9 was way more important.

Thanks Mark, I must say that your collection is looking good! Im somewhat envious! :D

The only thing I find interesting is that every time I have to move the set it requires a bit of realigning of the pincushion and purity rings. Im sure this is normal on most older sets anyway.

Currently my '60 Zenith 16D25Q (17" b/w SC300) on my desk and the '56 RCA 8-pt-7014 (8" b/w) in the bedroom get the most use.

Heres my sylvania that you all have helped me keep going, its my only TV thats hooked up, its in my bedroom but i have a very small appartment so my stereo is in what you could call the living room, so i dont really need a tv there. I have a zenith hybrid B&W but thats a backup. I picked the sylvania up at a yard sale in '98 for 5 dollars with a blown speaker, fixed that since then ive replaced the contrast and brightness pots, had someone replace the tripler, you all helped my diagnose and replace the video detector IC and HV cup. So far so good since then. Anyway got a couple good action shots from tonite. Thing looks amazing, ive had many many people give me a hard time about it (cause its old and dated looking, blah blah blah) but once they see the picture they get why i keep it.

Here's my daily watcher. An excellent performer, it runs at least 8-10 hours a day. Although probably not too special to look at, or even rare for that matter.

David

Is that zenith a b&w? Looks like it. Cool!

Keefla that Sylvania has got some nice picture!

nice set! i have the same one only wearing a philco label.during the 70s,sylvania was always the choice for best picture by consumer reports.here in central ohio,there was a large dealer and that was the house brand. also they were a wholesaler-factory seconds,one leg shorter than the other,mismarked controls,etc.regardless,they were nice sets to watch and relatively easy and cheap to repair.a good sylvania stood beside zenith as far as picture quality.but zenith beat em up in every other way.great set and i am happy for you!

Anyone out there using an early 50s or 40s set for a daily watcher? The '56 RCA is the oldest of the sets I have that ever really sees daily use. For a while I was watching my '54 Westinghouse on a somewhat regular basis, but I really only turn on my 40s sets maybe once a month or so.

Talk about ironic - at the same time I found my XL-100 I also took home two Zenith sets identical to yours! One had a mediocre picture and no sound, the other had sound but no picture. They were pretty beat up. I put them on the curb, as I had no room to store them in my rental (9 mos. after Katrina). If I'd have been online back then I'd have mailed them to you - I remember they were fairly light.

Thanks for the tip - I am just beginning to learn about TVs (thanks to y'all) and look forward to putting her on the bench in the next few months.

Shame about the cabinet on your XL-100 - really, all that to power a light fixture? Just doesn't make much sense.

Somewhere online I came across an old newspaper ad for an appliance dealer advertising an EC333W - the price was $279, very reasonable for such a good set in the late '70's. :thmbsp:

It just makes my Zenith rarer. :smoke:

I've never had any sort of problem with it. It was practically brand new when I got it a couple of years ago from Adam. Originally my bench television was a Portacolor (also from Adam). But my boss freaked out when he saw that it was a vacuum tube based television, so it had to go. I only had the Portacolor to act up once, and it was getting the same daily use. But the Zenith is small, very light, solid state (boss likes that), and it works for what I need it to do.

David

Picture of the Portacolor when it was my bench television:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/att...3&d=1186555107

Wow! That Portacolor looks great! You still have that set hopefully right?

Oh yes, I still have it. After I moved it out of the office it came home. Currently its sitting next to my Tascam M312b mixing console not doing much. I keep looking for a place for it, but its so hard to find a place. I really need like many thousands of square feet worth of house to indulge properly in all my hobbies. 1200 sq ft just isn't cutting it.

David

Nice GE. Tell your boss that the Zenith could burst into flames too since it has a CRT which is definitely not solid state, lol.

Think about it: These GEs are plentiful, and most of the time work as found. They must've been using pretty decent heat insulators/cabinet materials because they do get mighty hot when in use. But, I don't recall hearing of any burning up. People worry too much.

Great to see a picture of Hal Fishman on a tube again... I think it's been about a year now since he passed away. I stopped watching the KTLA News At Ten when Hal was no longer the anchor :(. While Stan Chambers is still the best part of KTLA, Hal WAS News At Ten. No replacements possible.

Charles

I agree that Hal Fishman was an outstanding news anchor, however, I found his commentaries in his later years to be annoying. There's just too much commentary and propaganda on the so-called "news" programs of today, which is why I no longer watch any of it.

As far as I'm concerned, the Los Angeles TV stations began going downhill in the late 1980s, soon after Rupert Murdoch bought KTTV. Even the Rose Parade, starting around that same time, became stale and boring - with fewer and fewer good quality floats and more and more bands. Your Youtube video of the Rose Parade being shown on your 1952 Kaye Halbert TV set is the only Rose Parade footage I've seen in years. By the way, are you going to do it again in 2009?

My RCA CTC185 19" XL-100 gets the most use of the two TVs in my apartment. It's a very good set, bought it new eight years ago. Haven't had any major repairs done on it, although the RF antenna/cable port snapped off the tuner PC board shortly after I bought the set. Unfortunately, the warranty didn't cover the repair. :no: Had the same problem (!) a year later, again had the local TV repair shop look at the set; same thing, the warranty didn't cover it.
However, after that the set worked well, and has been working very well since. It even survived a fall off its stand about two or three weeks ago while I was installing a new DVD player--the TV fell face down on the carpeted floor in my apartment, but, thankfully, it wasn't damaged. Had a slight problem with color splotches on the picture immediately after the mishap, but a minute or so of work with a magnet from an old loudspeaker cleared up the problem. Picture is now as good as when the set was new.

My other TV is a Zenith Sentry 2, SMS1917SG 19" table model. It is 13 years old, but it has few hours of use as I only used it four years at my former residence, and I only used it about two weeks after moving to my present apartment when the RCA was in the shop for repairs. (It has been in my bedroom ever since, now used only to cross-check when I have problems with my cable service.) However, the Zenith is in line to replace the CTC185 when the latter finally goes belly up. I'm not expecting that for quite some time, though, as the CTC185 just keeps going and going, like the Energizer battery or Timex watches (it takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'). Amazing, when one considers that the set fell flat on the screen; this would and has ruined many modern TVs. I've heard and read here in AK of sets that were damaged irreparably when they fell off or were pushed off their stands or makeshift stands by mischievious cats, etc. Today's Magnavox, etc. CRT TVs (what few, and I do mean few, if any, of them are even available these days) aren't nearly as rugged as either of my sets or any TV made before about 2000 or so. I understand the last Magnavox CRT sets were so light it was possible to push them off the table or stand they are on simply by pushing the buttons on the control panel below the CRT. The recommendation was to use the remote to control these sets. I sometimes wonder how many Magnavox (and other) small CRT TVs wound up in repair shops for warranty repairs involving smashed CRTs or circuit panels, when the sets were accidentally or otherwise pushed off or fell off their stands. :scratch2:

I have seen a heck of alot of these newer RCA/GE sets with that same problem. My uncle had one about 10 yrs ago and he installed a sat dish and the coax connector hust snapped off the board when he screwed back in the coax cable! I also had seen 2 Sharp sets from the late 90's do the same.

One of my first TVs was a 13" Samsung from about '81 or so....one time when I was like 5, me and my mom were having an argument about something immature and the set fell to the floor (carpeted). Anyway, the coax snapped off since it was connected to an archaic Sharp vhs deck with wired remote. Bet the 'rents paid a nice sum to fix that in the early 90s.....

Chromacolor II 25KC45
 

This set is currently my daily watcher, replacing the '65 Admiral that I haven't had the time or the bench space to dig into. It's in the living room, plugged into an Insignia DTV box and DVD player, and gets a few hours of use a night.

It was a thrift store find before I began playing with tube sets, and was in the basement for a while before I drug it back upstairs and set it in its current spot. Didn't require much except some contact cleaner and a good scrubbing of the module contacts to chase out a few intermittents. Set up the convergence and the greyscale, and was rewarded with an excellent picture that rivals what I've seen on newer sets. The only problem is that the width is a bit much, with no apparent way to adjust it.

No other old sets currently in circulation; there used to be an Admiral B/W portable on the bedroom dresser, but that got voted down by the wife as having no remote and sleep timer. I wasn't crazy about the possibility of falling asleep and leaving it running either.

It's not just the RCA's. It's all of them! On most newer sets, the coax connector is "made" onto the tuner. They are just crimped into place, and, not very good at that. They are very easy to rip off. Just the other day, I was given a 19" Duracrap (oops, I meant Durabrand) set that was found in the trash with a busted off RF connector. In some cases, I am able to reattach the connector to the tuner (I always solder, rather than crimp, the connector to the tuner housing). This was not the case here. The tuner was pretty much destroyed when the connector got yanked out. I just pulled a tuner from a junk board and that was that. My friend at the TV shop makes a good bit of $ by replacing busted off RF connectors.

My company had a field office in a state building, where I was stationed for a year. One afternoon, the facility manager looked at my Zenith K731 radio and asked if it ran on tubes. I said yes, and he told me those were prohibited because of a fire hazard, but not to say anything as no one else would even know what tubes were (he was in his 50's.) I thought it funny there were written policies about tube radios/TVs considering it has been forty years since you could buy one off the shelf.

Its funny you mention that. That picture was made the night they broadcast their memorial to Hal. In fact the original reason the image was uploaded to Audiokarma was we had an earlier thread about him when he passed away, and I figured that people in the rest of the country who hadn't seen him before might like a picture of what he looked like. So that was basically the last time he was on the tube. And you're right its not the same without him. KTLA was my favorite news through the 80's and early 90's, but unfortunately he was from a different era, no way will it ever be the same.

Yes, unfortunately I was hit with it. And yes, it does no good to let them that a CRT is a tube, no one cares, its just the rule.

David