1965 Motorola Black and white TV, curbside find
 

Hello VK'ers. Man has it been 5 years? Glad to see membership here is free now. I really liked this forum but couldn't afford to renew... I still have the CC II that Strawman gave me.

Well I'm back with a curb find, a Motorola black and white tube TV, made in 1965. I found it curb side, not sure if it works, don't have a variac to plug it into.

I think the set might have low hours on it. I say that because I took the tubes out to clean them up one by one, and some of the tubes are Motorola tubes, maybe the original ones.

Trying to find out a bit more about this set, see if there's anything interesting about it.

Nice find !! All tube set--cold chassis too. Motorolas are NOT all that common after the 1950's..
A keeper for sure

"All 82 channels". Man, that's gold. Great save.

I'm debating whether to put in the time to restore it or find somebody to just give the set to. I don't have things like a tube tester or a variac, and I don't really have much use for a Black and White tube TV. Yeah it's a good conversation piece but I have enough of those.


If I went the restore route, would it be worth the time and besides the wax capacitors, what work would need to be done? I think the UHF dial hasn't been used in decades, it's difficult to turn and it takes several turns before the channel numbers move. VHF dial feels normal.

The set's new enough to have Mylar capacitors, instead of wax and paper capacitors.
I would try the set and see if it needs further work. The sets were as good as the Zenith offerings of the time. :thmbsp:

I sure like the looks of that, inside and out! Great save.
Kevin

All right... Say a prayer. I'm gonna plug it in and see what happens...

OMFG!! It's alive!!

http://i.imgur.com/kcGwIWn.jpg

(Apologies for crap picture. My phone died, so now I'm using a much cheaper phone with a much cheaper camera.)

So, turn it on, channel indicator lights up, about 30 seconds later sound comes on, another 30 seconds and I got a picture.

So does this mean I can run it for a bit? Maybe hook up a video source and see how it does?

If nothing smells hot you should be Ok, just dont leave unattended.

Amazing catch! It'd be a good idea to feel that big filter can in the upper right-hand corner to be sure it's not heating up.

Right. I'm going to run it for a few minutes. It's connected to my power strip so if it starts doing anything funny I can cut the power instantly.

Gonna go hook my DTV box to it.

Edit: Well, it works better then I expected a 50 year old TV that I found on a curb to work. Vertical hold knob is either missing or broken.

http://i.imgur.com/VjEoYSp.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/T6bsUkn.jpg


And the camera in this phone is so cheap that green horizontal lines randomly appear in some of the pictures it takes. :thumbsdn:

Knobs need deoxit badly. Sound is fine, except the audio gets randomly scratchy... again, probably due to dirty knobs, and I need to see what's going on with the vertical control. Other then that it works.

So yeah... 50 year old TV. Likely hasn't been used in at least 20 years. Sitting on a curb, and it's 90% working.

Edit 2: I'm an idiot. The vertical hold is on the front. the missing knob on the back, well I'm not sure if theres supposed to be a knob there or not.

I'm going to open it up, apply deoxit to the knobs, let it sit a bit, then I'll try it again.

Getting into this TV, I now believe it's been used recently. The VHF knob is fine, it rotates fine, like new even. However the UHF knob barely turns, and the fine tuning knob also barely turns. Both of those knobs haven't been touched in decades.

Also there's electrical tape wrapped around the twin lead wire that's connected to the VHF tuner. Somebody's kludge repair attempt. The tape looks new and is still sticky.


Edit: Cleaned the pots and switches, took apart the tuner and cleaned it. Fine tuning knob works good now. Sound is perfect. Can't seem to get the horizontal working. Adjusting the knob for it did nothing far as I can tell. The rest of the adjustments seem to work fine now.

Decided to test the camera on this cheap phone. Best video setting is 720p, which doesn't look that great but it's better then 640x480 I guess. Here's the video:
http://youtu.be/hmlqe0YwsPg

I'm not sure I want to put more work into this TV as I have no real use for it. I'd much rather give it to someone whose better acquainted with tube electronics.

Almost new camera barely works. No surprise.
50 yr old TV one easy step from working. No surprise.
Speaks volumes about todays quality.........

73 Zeno:smoke:

Great find !..

The CRT looks really bright. Most of those sets needed a CRT, 40 years ago.
A lot of the Motorola sets used National Video CRTs and were rather short lived. That set might have a different sourced tube.
BTW, there was never a knob on the horiz hold shaft. You seldom had to reset them. :scratch2:

I really should stop working on unfamiliar TV's at 1 AM. The horizontal knob I thought didn't work was another knob entirely. Going to give it another try...

Okay. I readjusted the controls, this time paying attention to just what I was adjusting. vertical and horizontal controls work fine, but I can't get horizontal or vertical to lock in place.

Here's a video of it now:
http://youtu.be/2agduuDwDL4

The control on the back that's missing a knob is labeled 'VERTICAL LIN". Not sure what it does or if it's related to why the image won't stabilize. Perhaps there's a weak tube inside the set.

If it's something easy that I can fix, I might give it a go, but again I'm more interested in giving this set to somebody more familiar with tube TV's.

Not the lin control. Go for the sync separator tube 1st.

73 Zeno:smoke:

Swapped around the V7 and V8 tubes and that almost stabilized the image. Now wondering if I have a weak tube or a component that's drifted out of spec.

It's the V11, you're interested in. 6BL8. Next to the IF strip.
Don't use the horizontal osc tube, in case the tube is dead. The horiz output tube could get damaged by lack of drive. :sigh:

Swapped V8 with V11

Picture collapsed to a line and no sound. I think I found the culprit.

So I need a 6BL8 tube. They're pretty common on eBay, but no $ to spend on one right now.

Anybody in the Detroit area want to donate a tube?

It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but it might be the kind of variable pot that you adjust using an insulated screwdriver. Or maybe the shaft was broken off. If that's the case, and if it's plastic, you might be able to melt into the shaft stub a phlips head screwdriver, to make a philips head you can then adjust with the screwdriver, once it's cooled.
http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...6&d=1432232778

Haha, exactly.

Funny thing is I just swapped the tubes back and the picture stabilized. I'm still sure that 6BL8 is bad or at least very weak.

they're pretty cheap on eBay. I might buy one unless a VK'er near me happens to have one they;d like to donate.

Or dirty / loose socket or tube pins. Try this. Works real pissah sometimes.
Get a small pair of dikes ( as in wire cutters ! ). Grab the tube pins one
at a time & run the dikes down a few times on each pin. You are
just gently scraping the pins clean. Spray a little cleaner or even WD40
on the socket & put the tube in & out a few times.
There are ways to tighten a socket but with risk.
BTW you can usually tell a bad tube from a socket or pins by GENTLY
pushing on the tube & watching the pix.

I dont know about you but I am having fun working on this old
big M :banana:

73 Zeno:smoke:

I'm having fun myself. It's something, getting the chance to mess around with a 50 year old TV. Much less one that basically works.

Curbside find... half a century old... In good shape, and it didn't blow up when I plugged it in and turned it on, and it only has minor problems. I really want to know how lucky I am here.

The tube sockets feel nice and solid. They don't feel loose. I'll try cleaning the pins on the tubes and spray a bit of contact cleaner in the sockets.

You nailed it Zeno! It's working! Horizontal and vertical lock in perfectly now! TV's playing beautifully!

Check it out:
http://youtu.be/n3hg0GpWqVs

Methinks You're a GOOD Man, Charlie Brown ! Something kinda GRAND & NOBLE about bringing a 50 yr old obsolete, valueless-Practically-veteran back to life... Would that I could do this...But I ain't got Bat Sense when it comes to fixin' this stuff.

Well even if it's worthless, it's still a piece of history and I didn't want it to suffer the fate of being ripped apart by scrappers. Or end up converted into a damn fishtank.

It's entirely possible this TV displayed the moon landings in 1969.
It's possible that it displayed news of the Vietnam war.
The oil crisis of the 70's, the technology boom of the 1980's, the rise of PC's in the 90's. Who knows how long this TV was in operation.

And for it to end its journey at the hands of some scrapper looking to score $2 worth of copper? No. Not if I can help it.

Perzacly ! We toss the touchstones of our lives too easily in this society...2, 300 yrs from now, I'm thinkin', HOPIN' things like this will be worshipped kinda like Michaelangelos & that sort of stuff is..

Now you're talkin'.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was Ann Margret's character in Grumpy Old Men who popularized the idea of ruining TVs to make fish tanks.

I decided to make another video... just because I could...

https://youtu.be/rQiWICi4-3k

And the camera on my phone, for some reason records in a 16:10 aspect ratio, yet scales the video to 1280x720 which is 16:9, resulting in a squashed aspect ratio. It also records in a resolution much lower then 720p, so in this video I've corrected these faults as best I can.

Now that the TV works, I should find out its secrets. I'm still hesitant about keeping this TV around, and would *much" rather give it to somebody whose more familiar with tube electronics then I am. However I'm starting to think this is a situation where the thing's adopted me. As far as I know the set's virtually worthless, so selling it isn't happening. Any vintage TV collectors near me likely haven't got the room for a set that's nothing special, and I don't want the scrappers to get it...

So if I'm stuck with this thing, I want to know what I'm dealing with. To that end I plan on replacing the filter cap at the very least. The voltages inside these tube TV's are no joke, and the thought of fifty year old components still handling and regulating these voltages scares me. All I need is for that filter cap or some other high voltage component to go "WELP! I'M DONE!" and cause the set to explode into firey shards and burn my house down...

So, I've grabbed some pics of the chassis. These are the best images that my current camera can take. I'd like to know if there's anything in this TV that should be replaced, and if there are any "OMG replace that now before your set catches fire" components.

Update: I found my old digital camera and got better pictures. Funny how my ten year old digital camera can take better pictures then the camera on a phone I bought a week ago.

http://i.imgur.com/ar5TjBc.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/nGqLGE8.jpg


I've suspected for awhile that the CRT wasn't original, due to the fact that it's not mounted straight. Now I have confirmation:
http://i.imgur.com/uRIFEJy.jpg

It looks like someone cared about this TV enough to replace the CRT in 1978. 2 year warranty. We're well past that now, but the CRT is in great shape regardless.

That chassis is super clean. At most I would change all electrolytics.
As far as going up in flames NEVER give up freedom for safety. The
odds are you will choke to death on a hot dog before this set will kill you.
It may not be worth any money but it comes from a different time &
country when quality & pride ruled. Display it with pride......

73 Zeno:smoke:

I found a power cord that will fit it, so now I can run it with the back off. I got brave enough to do that for a few minutes. I'm pleased to say the filter cap remained nice and cold. I only ran it for about five minutes, but it didn't do anything weird or scary.

I still plan to change the electrolytics. Only problem is I'm not sure how many there are. The filter cap for sure, and that big one that connects to it. What about all those brown things that look like they might be capacitors? And that white thing in the first picture, right below where the power cord plugs in?

Also worth noting is I opened the flyback cage and had a look inside. The flyback looks like it's coated in tar and I saw a few cracks in that tar. Probably nothing serious and I saw nothing flaking off, but thought I should mention it.

Great choice of a video to play on it! Love it!

Thanks. I thought it fitting given that I brought it back to life.

In time I plan on ordering new caps for it. In the meantime if someone spots something else that should be replaced, let me know.

Also, how often should I run this set to make sure nothing in it goes out of whack from sitting too long?

From the moment where you changed all caps , set & tune all the adjustments, you're ready to run your set daily MRX37..

Great work for a guy who says he does not mess with old TVs much :) I got my start on a similar Motorola 2 years older

It was not long after 1965 before the quality of most monochrome sets trailed off, this one is a keeper.

I didn't say that. I said I don't mess with tube gear often. I've fixed a lot of solid state TV's and recently touched up the convergence on my Chromacolor II, easily the best set I've owned for displaying ruby reds and emerald greens.

Tube gear is still pretty new and pretty scary to me.