New Project - RCA 8PT

[maxhifi]

Today a package arrived, containing a very nice little TV, the RCA 8PT, black, with a swivel stand. It's in excellent physical condition, and my goal is to get it into excellent electrical condition as well.

Opened it up, cleaned out dust, tested the tubes... it needed only one tube, a 6U8, curiously the only non RCA 6U8, a Japanese Channel Master, was bad.

Turning on the TV it gets a nice bright raster, and good sound, but the horizontal hold can't be dialed in.

One symptom worries me a bit, probably due to ignorance. With the Horizontal frequency control at a low frequency (I can hear the flyback), the out of sync image is nice and bright. As I turn up the frequency, it hits a point where the image horizontally collapses into what looks like a modulated vertical stripe, and the screen gradually goes dark. I think I can hear zapping sounds in the flyback, or maybe the frequency is just all over the place, but whatever it is appears to be killing the high voltage. Turn down the horizontal frequency, and the image comes back, full brightness, and the high voltage appears to be restored, but sync is impossible.

I am going to replace all the capacitors in the TV before I worry too much about the lack of horizontal sync, but the possibility of a bad flyback is a bit worrying. I wonder what the experts think.

I have to say, it is a nice contrast to my other vintage tv, in that moving it around can be done with one hand!