Hey Veg-O-Matic,
I'm especially fond of those 16" RCA's too, and I like that screen size...it's just right for personal viewing, not too big & not too small
And you can't beat the styling. Some other makes are slimmer or have more chrome, but there's something about the RCA's. I wonder if Vassos was still designing the cabinets at that time? And you're right, they do run hot. I think that's the reason RCA introduced a new chassis for '65 (KCS152) to replace the original (KCS146). The KCS152 uses a half-wave rectifier circuit producing 150V B+ instead of a doubler. Several new tubes were used that worked at lower B+ voltages to cut down on heat. Even so, the channel selector & fine tuning get pretty warm to the touch and the speaker cones sometimes warp because they're right in the path of the rising heat. I get the impression that RCA was late in realizing the potential of the 16" B/W market. Zenith, GE, and a couple of others had introduced 16" TV's by late 1962, but RCA didn't put out their "Sweet Sixteens" until June 1963. The KCS146 chassis was basically a cut-down KCS142, which they used in some 19" sets. The great thing is that there's 18KV on the CRT. The brightness on a new one is amazing...you can't turn it down completely!
Doug E.