1961 RCA 19" b/w with remote
 

It's the KCS 137 chassis, one of those series string sets with the weird tubes. It has not enough vert size, and nothing but snow and static when I hooked it up to the dvd player. 19AYP4 is pretty weak, 30/1000 on the old B&K 420, so if anyone has one let me know? The power tuning works, but the remote doesn't work at all. It's a mechanical one, until I saw this one I thought all the RCA remotes were electronic. It might be a while before I get to working one this one, but I think it's a cool set, the only 19" b/w RCA I've ever seen with the remote.

Lovely set there. :)

I get -8 volts when subtract all the filament voltages from 120. Is this a design choice, the extra resistance is supposed to work, in conjunction with the caps, as a sort of regulation?

I added them up to 115V? I pulled the sams folder, and it shows it adding up to 117V by counting the HO tube as dropping 19V instead of 17.

That is a really thin plastic cabinet.

Not so weird (450 ma series string) tubes, but note the Nuvistor (2CW4) in the tuner.
Interesting project for sure, hope you find the correct good CRT. Good luck!

P.S.: Also look at those four tubes on the lower left portion of the diagram: they
are for the remote control receiver, and have their own heater circuit!

Really like that style of TV. Hope you find a fresh CRT

Well, yes, they aren't listed in the diagram in picture four, and weren't counted.

Is rejuvinating the picture tube out of the question?

It's odd that remote chassis uses a filament transformer, and the main chassis doesn't. There's also a single transistor in the remote receiver in addition to those 4 tubes.

I'm going to try rejuvenating it, but I've never had any luck rejuvenating tubes that were this weak to begin with.

I cleaned up the cabinet, this is a good looking tv, even if it's not working. I've always thought all the RCA sets labeled "new vista" (like this one) had the nuvistor tuner, but there may be exceptions?

It uses a filament transformer so the remote receiver stays active when the set is off otherwise it would not work to turn the set on.

Also if there was a non-remote version it would be a pain to change the whole chassis heater wiring from version to version.

It's there, look for the 2CW4 tube in the tuner. Looks like a big transistor, about the size of a thimble.

I was just wondering if RCA had ever used the new vista name on any sets that didn't use the nuvistors.

That makes sense that they would want the remote receiver to be on when the set was off, and they don't really have enough tubes in there to make another 117V series string. ... I never leave my remote sets on like that though, figuring it just wears out the tubes in the remote receiver faster.

I grew up with a set just like that one but it didn't have a remote... facing the front, the UHF tuner was on the lower right side where the remote circuitry is located on the OP's set. My guess is that you could have UHF or remote control but not both.

We owned it until ±1968, even after I tipped it and its stand over right onto its screen.

Now that's durability!

Imagine UHF channel surfing with a remote that has a single button for UHF tuning. Yikes! Actually saw that on an old Sharp remote.

I have three sets that appear to be very similar to ADAMs, but with the kcs138A chassis. Two of mine are restored and working, but one is a parts set. They use a 19AXP4 CRT. Luckily, the two that I have restored have pretty good CRTs. Not sure about the parts set. I have a RCA ad for these sets, the were called "Sportabouts" The different models available were the "Travel-mate", "Trimette" and the "Urbanite". The first two look like the set ADAM has. The "Urbanite" which looks different, was the most expensive model and I have it also. I had it working, but the horizontal has gone off frequency. As an example of the upgrades, the "Urbanite" has a power transformer and a 6BQ5 audio output. The others are series string sets with 6AQ5 audio outputs. The sound buzzes a lot as these warm up, so my wife call them the "buzzers".

Mine do not have remote controls.

[QUOTE=OvenMaster;3072862]I grew up with a set just like that one but it didn't have a remote... facing the front, the UHF tuner was on the lower right side where the remote circuitry is located on the OP's set. My guess is that you could have UHF or remote control but not both.

The set uses a Standard Coil tuner with UHF strip capability. The rectangular opening near the bottom of the tuner is where the UHF strip antenna contact assembly mounted.
Very few RCA's used Standard Coil tuners.

You can sure see how they used newer color TV technology in this chassis. The Nuvistor, and the IF section tubes, for two...

I love seeing these old babies being found and restored.

I made some progress with this set. It looks good with a new CRT. Every tube in this set was good, except for the CRT which wouldn't even budge the needle on the tester even at 8v.At first the sound was going in and out, that turned out to just be a gunked up tuner. The remote changes the channel (at close range only), but the remote vol control still doesn't work.

This is an unusual set up for controlling the volume. It's neither set up like the Zenith with it's 3-position relay separate from the volume control, or the other RCAs I've seen with a motor turning the volume control. Here there's a relay that actually physically turns the volume control in small increments. I realigned the remote receiver, and replaced an open resistor, now the volume will go down with the remote, but not up. But it's a mechanical issue, not an electronic one. The relay is actually moving, but the volume control is not.

I fixed the remote problem. Looking at the first picture, it works by turning that gear attached to the vol control. There's one relay on each side which each rotates an L-shaped piece of metal, one turns the gear one way the other one the other. Someone had sabotaged the mechanism by slipping one of those clip-on nuts in there keeping one of those L-shaped pieces from turning all the way and making contact with the gear. (I tried to show it in the 2nd pic, but you can't really see it) But I guess someone wanted the remote to only be able to turn the sound down?

I had one more unusual problem with this tv. When you turn the channel, not when you go to a channel with no signal on it, but when you get first back to a channel with something on it, the picture would dim and then slowly come back up to full brightness in about 30 seconds. There was no problem with the brightness under any other circumstances.

I circled in the picture a resistor that was open, and causing the problem. I'm not sure how it was happening, as that resistor being open didn't cause any problems when I wasn't changing the channel. And it looks like all that is going through that circuit there is vertical blanking pulses. Something to do with that .0047 cap in parallel with it getting charged up when the vertical frequency changes, and then not being able to discharge through that resistor?

This set is done...

Next I finally scored that new 17DQP4 for my 1960 Zenith that I've been looking for. Otherwise, the only set I still have that needs work is my Zenith porthole console, but that needs cabinet repair in addition to the sound problems it has, and I don't think I'm going to deal with it this summer.

That's 19/20 sets working. The last time I had only one tv that didn't work, it was back in the summer of 2000 and I only had 3: a '71 Zenith 19" color set with the 4-tube hybrid chassis, a 1991 RCA ctc-168, and a big honking 1959 Magnavox 24" combo. It was the Magnavox that wasn't working.

1960 Zenith with new 17DQP4...