My flea market friend was at a yard sale this morning when someone gave him this TV. He didn't want it and he knows that I like old knob tuned sets; so, he gave it to me. It's a General Electric from September, '87 and uses the CTC136 chassis. I've also seen these sets with the RCA brand and I've seen many of the electronic tuning (MTT tuner module) versions. The knob tuned version does not seem to be nearly as common as the remote controlled, cable ready version. On the back, the address is listed as the old RCA address and there's no mention of Thomson Consumer Electronics. This set must have been made during the transition period between the time GE bought RCA and when GE handed the whole RCA/GE consumer product line to Thomson.
When fed with a signal, all I get is a rushing sound from the speaker and the CRT does not light, except for a light flash when the set is turned off. I checked the CRT and it is good; so, this set is probably worth fixing. I didn't have a whole lot of trouble with this chassis. 95% of the problems I had with the CTC13x series TV's were with the MTT tuner module. The chassis itself seems to be very reliable.
After this chassis, the CTC14x series TV's came along and those sets had electronic tuners that were soldered to the chassis. As far as the major companies, I think '87-'88 was about the end of the line for knob tuned sets. I have, however, seen some cheap off brand knob tuned sets that were made up until the closed caption mandate in '93.
11-05-2011, 07:17 PM
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