Motorola "Works in a drawer" Find
 

I lucked out out the estate sales today. Passed on a Zenith & RCA B&W stereo combo. The RCA had no sound and the Zenith was in the garage and was a tad beat up. It did have a cobramatic turntable and I almost got it. Anyway.... Went into the den and saw a Motorola solid state color console. It's the "works in a drawer" It has a beautiful "craftsman" style cabinet (2 tone mahogany) and it has a "cabinet by Drexel" emblem on it. Works perfectly and has a damn good picture. Better than I remember those sets having when going on house-calls. The 25ZP22 picture tube has a 1968 code date. I love this tv! Will post a picture in the next few days.

Sounds like a great find!
I am glad that someone other than me is collecting them now!!

Hey...I collect them too! :) However I have only found 1...the works in a drawer are very rare around here. I did find a Quasar 17" Portable w/tubes this weekend, though.

Hey Dwight, I had a question for ya on this one. I see 2 resistors on the antenna screws. (where you hook up rabbit ears or antenna lead. Each one tied into the VHF/UHF screws. This looked odd. Is that a Motorola "thing" or did someone do this later? And why are they there? Thanks! James

Well... Post some pics guys! Let's see some Motorola/Quasar stuff!

see my post in the swap forum. The "H" module I suspect has gone out as it has a non-stop vertical roll. I would like to sell this to one of you if interested, for the price I paid which was $20.00. You would have to arrange your own shipping. I am in Omaha, Ne.

A vertical roll can't be but so hard to fix, right? Change one bad cap & you're in business (famous last words...)

Dwight is so cool! He is going to fix my module for me! I had just gone in a panic mode because I couldn't figure out anything on this set. I never did get to work on solid state stuff. When I worked in my Uncles shop I only did tube changes and adjusting, along with the occasional picture tube change. Anyway.... I'm going to hold on to this one and hope all will be well after Dwight works his magic on it. I also want to thank everyone who gives me advice on my various posts. You're all appreciated! Also, I don't know if it's like this where you live, but were you guys aware of how downright unfriendly service shops can be once they find out you want an older item repaired? I'm in Omaha and called 5 shops, one that has been around since the 50's, and they wouldn't even work on this. They just couldn't comprehend why I wanted this fixed so badly...... James

Picture of Motorola
 

Pic of Motorola

Picture of Motorola control panel
 

Control Panel pic

Nice set. I talked to a service guy a while back and he said he made most of his money on waranty repairs. Which is more like swap a bad module out I think in most new units. So for them to actually spend hours working on a unit that is that old would keep them from fixing 3 newer units, thus cutting down on profits.

James, I live in a small town some 30 miles outside Cleveland, and have found the same thing to be true. I once tried to get my Zenith H511 radio repaired at a TV shop in the next town (the only TV shop within say 10 miles of here), but they said no--they wouldn't so much as look at anything that old (the H511 dates to 1951), let alone repair it. The chances are good they wouldn't touch my Zenith K731 (1963 vintage) with a ten-foot alligator clip lead, either.

The thing is about the Quasars, the flyback transformer, horizontal output and damper tubes are in the rear of the set, not on the works in the drawer...I don't know if the totally solid state models have the deflection components on the "drawer" or not.

yes, deflection componets are in the drawer. This one was made in 1968, and is solid state, so I don't think any true "works in the drawer sets" were hybrid. The power transformer and some caps are not in the draer tho.....

Re: Picture of Motorola
 

Hey. What's that 4th slider from the left? Looks like "Interlock" or something like that?