Older Sylvania 19" color TV on CL

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by compucat

That set looks almost exactly like one I had that was purchased new in 1983. Mine was branded Wards but it was definitely a Sylvania. The set had a metal chassis to which the circuit boards were attached. The only thing that really bothered me about it was that the picture tube had such a heavy tint to the glass that it always looked kind of smoky, like watching it through sunglasses. It was well made, though. By the mid 1980s the quality of electronic products took a nosedive, except perhaps Sony.

If someone can get it, it would be worth saving.

That '83 model with the plug in boards was probably an E51 chassis. I've had a couple of hospital TV's that used that chassis and those had single knob motorized varactor tuners that could be set to receive OTA VHF/UHF or cable VHF and midband channels. One of those sets had some power resistors in the power supply that had gotten so hot from use that they came loose from the board. The other one had a bad countdown IC in the deflection circuit. When fixed, they both had amazing pictures. I've also had a few mid '70's 19" delta gun Sylvania hospital sets (E08 chassis, IIRC). These were also good sets and were heavy as lead. And, I've had some E32 chassis Sylvania hospital sets that had full cable ready digital tuners with a red LED readout. I'd love to find some of these old hospital TV's again.

NAP got a hold of Sylvania in '81; but, some of the GTE designed chassis (E3x and E5x series) stayed in production until the mid '80's. By then, all Magnavox, Philco, and Sylvania TV's had the same NAP designed chassis in them.