Found a '74 RCA XL-100 in the garbage
 

Last week I found this set in the rain and thought I'd save it. I am glad I did. I haven't had much time to play with sets lately but aftera week of sitting in the garage I figured it was safe to try 'er out. This thing works great! I am going to clean it up and find it a new home. IIRC it is a CTC-72 I'll double check when I get home.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...1/100_2589.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...1/100_2593.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...1/100_2588.jpg
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...1/100_2595.jpg

I have not been into one of those in years. I always liked the picture on those. About as good as a Zenith. That's just another example where someone threw it out because it was old, had knobs, and was not HD.

What a find! Nice!

May not be HD, but jeez look at those internals! All metal I bet it weighs a good amount.

Nice save! You almost never find anything newer than 1980 in the wild anymore.

I had an XL100 similar to that way back when, had to put a tube in it but it worked great.

Is that the shallow 110 CRT?

it seems like it tunes in some really great programs-- have you tried all the channels?

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Hey Eric, it is the shallow 110 degree CRT.
And Andy, that is weird how those phosphor stripes are arranged. This is the only tube I've seen like that. I wonder why they did it that way, but heck the picture is great even though I could touch up the convergence a bit.

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great score,mark! i remember working on those sets. yoke is bonded on ,the however,you can cut the adhesive with an exacto knife. convergence should be pretty simple to touch up. picture quality is as good as any set ever made. thats a keeper! put it beside that ctc9 ..........................

RCA XL100s are still great TVs
 

From what I've read about them, RCA's XL100s (the originals from the '70s, such as the set being discussed in this thread) were great sets. It seems as if Thomson must have decided to honor this tradition, as I have an RCA CTC185 XL-100 19-inch table model (1999 vintage) that also makes a very good picture on cable, almost as good as my 13-year-old Zenith Sentry 2. This set (my XL100 RCA) is eight years old and has had only one repair done on it (the RF port snapped off the tuner PC board not long after I bought the set). Inline CRT (still the original). Will have to look on mine to see where the red phosphor is. I read the post addressing the repositioning of that phosphor on some inline CRTs; now it has me wondering. :scratch2: However, despite the problems with the onboard tuner in RCA TVs from the late '90s until the CTC203, the XL100 series, I'll say it again, were excellent sets; once the problems with the onboard tuner are addressed and corrected, these TVs will run for years. I expect to be watching digital TV on mine come February next year.

BTW, I agree with the poster who mentioned that TVs are often put out for the trash these days because they do not have remote control, are not set up for high definition (though quite a few defective or unwanted HD flat panels and rear-projection sets, the latter having been superseded by FPs, are showing up on eBay as of late), or simply because their owners got tired of them and wanted something newer. I'm glad Zenithfan1 found that 1974 XL100 and decided to restore it; it's one more set saved from a certain death in a landfill. :thmbsp:

People are such lazy dumbasses these days. Throwing something out like that is a shame.

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Today's CRT TVs can weigh the proverbial ton as well, if the set has a large-screen tube. I've seen 25" table model sets on eBay listed as "pickup only" because they weigh upwards of 100 pounds. Much of that weight, again, is the CRT. My own 1999 RCA CTC185 weighs some 64 pounds; blame most of it on the tube, as almost the entire set is built on one large PC board. There is very little metal in modern sets, which is why I wouldn't want to have a Magnavox-branded portable color set; I understand these TVs are so light that even the simple act of pressing one of the front-panel control buttons will push the set off the table, stand, etc. on or in which it is installed. It is probably best, IMO, to operate these sets with the remote. RCA/Thomson sets, OTOH, are built much more solidly (again IMO) than "Magnavox" branded TVs. My own set cannot be pushed off the stand simply by pressing the front-panel buttons; one would have to make a genuine effort to move this set even a fraction of an inch--if the set is to be moved, it must be physically lifted off the stand and carried.

Hmmm. I wonder how many "Magnavox" branded color TVs have shown up in repair shops (during the warranty period, of course) with smashed CRTs or PC boards because they fell off or were accidentally pushed off their stands. :scratch2:

That looks like an RCA TV I had years ago, with the plug in circuit modules. I still have a few of those modules kicking around if you might need 'em.

The newer large screen sets are indeed still fairly heavy. The really hefty ones are the flat screen CRT sets. The 32" and 36" sets are very hard to deal with. Even though I've picked those large sets up myself; it would be better (and safer) for two people to do it.

Even though the newer CRT sets still have some weight to them; they are not as heavy as those steel cabinet 25" RCA and Zenith table models from the '70's. But, as we all know, those sets were full of metal on top of the heavy CRT.

I too have seen those cheap TV's with the paper thin cabinet. They are very easy to bend and the front buttons will break without too much effort. I think the worst quality cabinet I've seen in recent years was that of a Sharp set. Those cabinets seem to be very brittle and will break very easily.