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My family has 3 or 4 Sentry 2's in use, of various vintages. They replaced
Zenith tube sets that none of the shops would touch, after I graduated
college and moved away in '83 and was no loger around to maintain them.
There's an '84 Sentry 2 19" in my former bedroom at my parent's house that
gets almost daily use as a second set. First time the back was opened was
about a year ago because the set had developed an intermittent "blue
screen" problem. I confirmed it was a short in the CRT as I could get it to
flash blue by tapping the neck of the CRT. I tweaked the gray scale while I
had the set open, and it still has a great pic & sound whe the blue gun isn't
acting up. I have a late '92 27" console I inherited from my grandparents,
must have been made just before the bad CRTs, as they used the set daily
for 6 or 7 years until they passed away. The blacks were always greenish
on that set since new, probably just needs the green G2 adjusted. That set
is currently stored in my shop. There is a '96 or '97 19" in the back room
at my wife's store. This set was stored unused for 3 or 4 years before being
put into service. This set was made during the "bad CRT" years, but so far
has a good pic. Tinny sound, though, - it has one of those little oval
speakers below the CRT. The fourth Sentry 2 is a mid 90's 25" console
that belonged to my other grandparents. One of my cousins inherited that
set, last I saw of it was about 2 yrs ago, they had it in the basement for
their kids to play video games on.
So 4 out of 4 Sentry 2s still operational. They didn't have the great
picture like on the Chromacolor IIs, just average pic quality for their day, but
still seemed better made than the cheap sets that were beginning to come
on the market.
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