CTC 156/157 any good?

[radiotvnut]

The CRT could very well be tired after 20 years. The best thing to do would be to obtain a good CRT tester, like a B&K 470 or 480, and test the tube. I've tried to rejuvenate a few of these; but, they usually didn't hold up well. Fortunately, the RCA/Thomson tubes were much better than the Zenith tubes.

Also, there could be some bad caps in the video and power supply areas.

Years ago, I was given a 27" set using this chassis by a TV shop. After replacing the flyback, HOT, and the large fusible resistor in the power supply; it worked fine for several years until I ended up selling it.

That chassis is much better than any recent RCA offerings. RCA started going south with the tuner problems of the CTC17x and CTC18x series of chassis. These would have been reliable sets except for the tuner problems. Many do run trouble free for years after the tuner is fixed. Starting with the CTC197 and newer sets; flyback problems became very common. I get a lot of 2-3 year old RCA's from the repair shop with toasted flyback transformers.