'70 Zenith 12" tube type B&W
 

I picked up this animal from a member on ARF. I think it's a model A1331; but, can't be certain because the model tag is messed up. I think I remember Doug H. telling me a long time ago what years the model suffixes matched with and I think "A" was 1970. This is a fully tube type set and there's no mention of "Taiwan" on the back (big plus). All I did to this was clean the VHF tuner, user controls, and tube sockets. The only thing wrong with it is a very touchy UHF tuner. I'm not too worried about that since UHF is about to be history in my area. This thing still had all original Zenith tubes and I suspect that I'm the only person that's been inside this TV.

Oh yeah, for five extra points, tell me what TV program is displayed on the screen. There are several clues in the pictures.

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...nithTV0001.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...nithTV0002.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...nithTV0003.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...nithTV0004.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...nithTV0005.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...nithTV0006.jpg

Wish I knew what program it was, but I like your new TV a whole lot! American made Zenith portables--doesn't get much better than that, for me at least.

The program is "Emergency" which is one of my favorites along with Adam 12 and the color episodes of Dragnet. Nice Zenith!
-Tony

Who could miss Julie London? :)

That's it! I get all of those shows on RTN. I also get Knight Rider, Kojak, Rockford Files, and Magnum PI. I really wish I could watch the A-Team; but, it comes on at 7 PM, the same time that FOX programming takes over. I think it would have been better for RTN and FOX to be on seperate channels. I guess I shouldn't complain because we're doing good to have any old programming at all. Speaking of medical shows, I'd like to see "Trapper John, MD" again. I'll take that show and "Emergency" any day over the week over "ER" and "Gray's Anatomy"

Of the shows mentioned, I only know the color episodes of Dragnet (which I really enjoy!) and Knight Rider.

Nice TV. I love those old 12" Zeniths. I have an early Seventies Zenith similar to that awaiting restoration. They are definitely worth preserving. I remember watching Emergency as a kid although for some reason I remember the show being called Emergency 1. Memory isn't perfect I guess. I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes to collect 12" B&W sets.

I had a Zenith 12" all solid-state B&W portable, model J121Y, which I bought new in 1978. Worked well the next 22 years, then I had to get rid of it because I moved to a very small apartment in 1999; no room for three TVs (I had already bought a new RCA CTC185 XL100 and had brought my Zenith Sentry 2 with me from my former home). The only thing wrong with my little Zenith 12" set was that the detent mechanism on the UHF channel selector had broken some time in the '80s. However, when I got rid of it, the set was working every bit as well as when it was new--bright, sharp picture and all. Typical Zenith.

Yes, that show on your 1970 Zenith is, in fact, Emergency, which ran on NBC in the seventies. I remember when the show was new, and watched every episode. Had a ball watching most of them all over again on DVD a year or so ago (I have a subscription to Netflix).

Unfortunately, none of the Cleveland television stations carry RTN on subchannels; why, I don't know. However, I read somewhere that one of the local stations here in the Cleveland area (WUAB-TV, the MyTV affiliate) is now carrying ThisTV on a subchannel once used by the (now defunct) The Tube music service.

One way to get your favorite old TV shows if, like myself, you live in an area where none of the local television stations carry RTN on digital subchannels is to watch them on DVD. (The only station in the entire state of Ohio that does carry RTN is NBC affiliate WNWO-TV in Toledo.) In addition to my Netflix subscription I have several movies and the first seasons of Kojak, Quincy, and The Odd Couple on DVD.

I don't know why Cleveland's TV stations don't have much of anything (yet, if they ever will) on DTV subcarriers. Channel 5 (ABC) is the worst in this regard, having absolutely no programming on subchannels at this time; the others have some programming on the subcarriers, but not much. Channel 3 (NBC) had NBC Weather Plus on one of its DTV subchannels, but when the latter went off the air on December 31 last year, the subcarrier was reprogrammed with (I think) The Weather Channel, which is actually owned and operated by NBC.

I have a very similar set in a black and woodgrain cabinet. It is a USA built set, with hand-wired chassis, probably one of the last B&W portable sets Zenith made here before moving to Taiwan. There are many foreign parts in the set I have, the yolk, some transformers, tuners and some of the tubes (the set has the only French made tube I've seen).

Your memory is just fine. It was once commonplace to alter the name of a show once it went into syndication, particularly if it was still running in prime time so as to distinguish the reruns from the network product. Thus Emergency! became Emergency One. Prime examples in the late 70s would be Happy Days Again, Laverne & Shirley & Company and Jim Rockford, Private Investigator although the practice goes all the way back to the 50s during Dragnet's original run when reruns were seen on local stations as Badge 714.

I like to watch Emergency! when I can on my days off.

Come on, pop the back and show inside!

I had a TV EXACTLY like that in the early '80's! A friend of mine was cleaning out his basement and just gave me a 12" and a 15". There were some vertical lines in the 12" set's pic, but the 15" was dead. I swapped out the tubes from the 15" into the 12" set and the lines moved to the left. I slapped the set about a dozen times, and the lines went away. For good!

I used that TV for the next ten, fifteen years as a bedroom set and monitor for my Texas Instruments 99/4A computer. When the picture started to have the CBS eye look like an egg, I tossed it. In retrospect, I shoulda kept it.

Very nice catch! :yes: Just do NOT use Windex on the channel knobs. The ammonia will dissolve the numbers!!

Tom

I found out about the windex on an old radio dial scale. I'm glad it wasn't one I really cared about!

When I was younger, I had a 12" Zenith that was 3 or 4 years older than this one. It had knobs on the front rather than the side and it said "all channel" on the front. All I did to it was replace the horizontal phase detector diodes. That was back when a 12" B&W was worth $25 on the used market and I let it go. Now, 19" color sets are barely worth $25; and, that's only if they are remote.

I have pretty much the exact set with the original stand . Mine needs a new power cord but works and has a small burn on the top . I was trying to give it away free a while back but had no tackers . Just cant keep weverything . I saved it from being crushed .

You didn't necessarily have to discard that TV if it had vertical height and linearity controls on the back (if I remember the layout of my own 1978 Zenith). If yours had a vertical oscillator and output tube, a replacement should have cured the problem. However, if the tube was one of those oddballs they don't make anymore, and with vacuum tubes being so difficult to find these days, or if the problem with the set was caused by a chassis fault such as an off-value resistor or capacitor, it wouldn't be worth trying to repair. Today, a TV repair shop (what few of them are left) will charge an arm and a leg just to look at the set; the repair charges (parts, labor, overhead, etc.) on top of that could be high as well. I once took my Aiwa bookshelf stereo system in to a local TV repair shop for repair of a problem with the cassette decks. The estimate for repairs was $175. I got the unit back from them the next day, not wanting to spend that much money on a stereo system that was already obsolete (my system was already six or seven years old at the time). I would not dream of spending any more money on this system today, as it is now nine years old and definitely not worth repairing. I bought a used stereo cassette deck a few months later (after the decks in the stereo quit completely) and patched it into the system. Works great. I don't use it much except to transfer cassettes to CDs, but it does what I want it to do. I only paid $20 for the deck (got it from John Kendall's Vintage Electronics: http://www.vintage-electronics.com), which beats paying $175 to have the stereo's internal decks repaired.

I also got one exactly like this, missing the power cord and there's a big hole in the back cover, but it works just fine!

I wonder where I can find more of those interlock type cords...

jfrog, go to a TV repair shop and ask about the cord. They'll have a bunch I'm sure.

Or any old electronics supply house. I think www.tubesandmore.com has them; but, check with the TV shop first. They may just give you one as these have not been used on TV's in close to 30 years.

Remember that some are polarized; good chance this one is. At the set end, one hole will be bigger. I have at least one of these in the stash, Taiwan though, I think.

I have a couple of comments.

1. Most vacuum tubes (especially small TV tubes) are not hard to get. Antique Electronics Supply (and others) carry them. You may also be able to find them at hamfests, etc. There are few oddballs(eye tubes for radios, 1L6 tubes for Zenith radios, etc.) that are difficult to get. Also certain audio tubes command a high price. However, in general, TV vacuum tubes are very easy to find, much easier than some of the integrated circuits used in later TVs. Some of the integrated circuits are unobtainium now.

2. I have found that on some radios that I have restored that even plain water will remove numbers from some dials. Be very carefull when cleaning.

That's right. They usually can't give most TV tubes away. Especially the oddball filament voltage tubes used in series string sets. The only exception is most color TV horizontal output tubes. It seems like those go up drastically every year. You can thank CB'er's and HAM's for that, as these tubes are used in RF amplifiers. I wonder when the Russians and the Chinese are going to get on the horizontal output tube bandwagon? I'm sure they could make some money if they started making HO tubes, as well as some of the hard to find radio tubes.

I just bought a few of them to have on hand, they ain't what they used to be, very stiff and hard compared to the older ones and difficult to stretch over the original mounting rivets.

Well, what can you expect for $1.25 I guess.

They were non polarized BTW.

The Chinese are already making 6DQ6, PL36, PL500, PL504 and PL509 tubes for HAM radio RF amps, but in my experience they're poorly made and they don't hold up well if used in TV deflection circuits which are a lot harder on output tubes than RF amps, especially European sets with 110 degree CRTs which need a horrible amount of power for their deflection circuits.

I've once bought a brand new Chinese PL36 on Ebay for a 1964 Phonola set, as the original one was tired and produced a narrow raster, the Chinese tube worked fine with a full width raster for a few hours then it shorted H/C, luckily the breaker tripped before wiping out something else in the set.

I then replaced it with a Telefunken PL36 from a junked CCTV monitor and it worked fine.