RCA 18" Color Portable, 1973!

[BigDavesTV]

Last weekend's estate sale find! An RCA, CTC-53, 18" Color Portable, from 1973. This is a remote control set, VHF channel tuner in clockwise direction only, and on-off-(volume in 2 or 3 steps). Unfortunately, the remote hand-held unit was nowhere to be found. This set has all it's original tubes, with '73 date codes, and the CRT tests as new! Cosmetically it's in excellent condition, just a little dusty, it was from a large home, so it apparently had very little use, and it was the oldest and only tube type set there, for sale. So far, the only repair (I believe the back had never been removed), was that the tuner remote motor, was frozen in the "engaged" position, so you couldn't manually tune the VHF Channels. I removed the motor assembly, which says it was made in France, and cleaned and removed the old grease, re-lubed the motor and gears, now it works fine. I plan to try and find the proper type of RCA sonic remote for this set. I did discover that the channel UP button, on my Zenith SC600, will advance the channel, but nothing works for the on-off-volume, except the manual controls. The volume pot is not motorized, the volume is in steps, there is an added remote control circuit card. I will add a screen shot soon!