What was the first TV you ever fixed?

[zenith2134]

in the year 2003 only . My grandparents' 'signature series' POS 19" color. They replaced a beautiful zenith color console with this bargain-aisle clunker. Anyway, it was from '85 and it intermittently shut down after a while no matter what. I got in there with a soldering iron and radio shack solder spool...knowing just enough to get the job done(with zero knowledge of the circuitry or of the precautions to take)... Well it got fixed and lasted til they died and my family threw it out (oh, it's so old..) Was probably a Sanyo or similar Japanese brand.

[Glenz75]

About the age of 10 or so I was bringing TV's home from the dump and just used to pull them apart - was too scared to plug them in!
One day I got daring and bought a small Philips black and white home from the dump, it was a transformerless series wired tubes etc. I popped the back off and found a blown fuse, replaced the fuse turned it on and the filaments lit up, so I stood there and waited....After about a minute or so I could hear off station noise from the speaker...things were looking good so far...then there was almighty shower of sparks from the flyback section and the fuse blew again!
Gave me a hell of a fright so I left it alone for a few days until I plucked up enough courage to have another go at it. Second time around I looked in the area where the sparks came from an noticed this round thing (capacitor) with a burn't hole in one side of it. Ironically I had a junk box full of parts I'd pulled from other TV's and found something that looked near enough, somehow soldered it in, powered the set on again and it worked! That was it I was hooked on old TV sets and have never looked back

[Komet]

I had two vintage TV b / w with tubes when I was 12, an Indesit and a Philco. I have never repaired due. Two years ago I started to collect TV, I was in a house with a client of mine to fix his boiler (I'm hydraulic) and I see two sets, one from '90s and a b/w from '60s. I ask if I can take the tube set and the same evening I started to test it. Is a Sinudyne b / w 24'' 1969-70. He had no vertical deflection, the yoke was broken so I bought for $ 10 a yoke made for a Brionvega set and I fix a TV for the first time

http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/7258/dsc03377p.jpg

[AUdubon5425]

I guess it would be my early-70's 9" Philco-Ford B&W. The horizontal hold pot popped out the circuit board on one side. My Uncle West (who repaired audio equipment all his life) showed me how to solder, and when I went home I couldn't figure how to get the chassis pulled. The bottom of the plastic cabinet is covered with vent slats and Uncle West said "hell, just use the iron to melt off the slat right below the pot and resolder it through the bottom." So that's what I did, and the darn thing still works today.

[Spinning Head]

My story is similar in that I would drag home curb sets and strip them for parts, but really not daring enough to plug them in. Then in December of '83 when I was a HS freshman my sister brought home her 12" Zenith Hybrid B/W. I found that it would produce a raster but no picture. I used my cheesy radio shack transistor tester to find an open video output transistor. I replaced it with something out from radio shack and it was fixed! My sister didn't share my enthusiasm as she felt she should have a color set. I think her and her room mates ended up renting a color set for the next semester to watch their MTV on. Later the transistor opened again and I had moved out and I think my mom gave the set to the Salvation Army.

[old_tv_nut]

Well, if replacing tubes counts (I think not!), I can't remember. First set I fixed involving a slobbering iron was my Aunt's & Uncle's 21 inch Zenith B&W upright console.

[DavGoodlin]

After my parents FINALLY got a plain floor model 23" Zenith color in 1971, the "old set" went to the attic, where I would run a cord to it and watch Rod Serling's Night Gallery and other scary stuff after everyone went to bed. When they found out, it was donated to various relatives as a spare.
5 years later, I was happily re-united with this TV, a 1962-vintage 19" Motorola BW. The only issue was an open line thermistor, which I was given the sage guidance on "just jump across it". I was afraid 'cause I never saw THAT component before. It lit right up but was snowy on even the strongest channel. I sent the tuner via mail to someplace in Chicago. 6 weeks and $25 later, it was good as new. Those tuner places never did tell you what they replaced, but I certainly tested all the tubes first. I still have both sets in my attic.

[Celt]

I had a 25" RCA XL-100 console who's audio went out. Seems I had to replace an IC to fix it and while I was in there I replaced the crap 4x6" speaker with something better. Other than that I remember tinkering around with a early 70's Quasar 19" set to improve its picture.

[Jeffhs]

I remember the first TV I restored by simply replacing tubes. (I do count replacing tubes in an old TV as repairing it.) The year was 1969; the set was a 23" 1963 Zenith b&w console, trash find, with all but two tubes (CRT and 1J3 HV rectifier) missing. Replaced all the missing tubes and was greeted by an excellent picture on all three Cleveland VHF network stations. Sadly, I had to give the set up when I moved in 1972. After all the work I had put into it -- new tubes and so on -- I felt terrible having to leave the set behind, but I had no choice in the matter (long story and OT).

As for the first TV I repaired by replacing parts rather than tubes, it was, IIRC, a 1964 Silvertone color TV with both a defective power switch (push-pull type, mounted on the volume control) and a defective circuit breaker. Well, I guess I shouldn't say I actually repaired this set properly, as I jumpered the on-off switch and bypassed the breaker. However, what the heck -- I got the set working, not the best way to do it by any means, but the TV did work after a fashion for three years afterwards. I didn't worry about the bypassed circuit breaker, however, because I would use the AC line plug to turn the set on and off; I figured if anything went wrong with the set that would ordinarily trip the breaker, I'd know it immediately and could quickly unplug the cord from the 8-outlet power strip it was plugged into at the time.

I definitely would not "repair" a television or any other electronic device that way today, even if I could; in fact, I wouldn't dream of trying to repair a recent-vintage CRT or flat panel set, as I'd be too afraid of overheating or otherwise damaging a circuit board -- or worse.

When I did those admittedly temporary fixes (?) on my Silvertone, I was a 14-year-old kid just starting out in electronics. Today, I would repair an old set the correct way, by replacing a bad circuit breaker with one of the correct rating, and replacing burned-out or broken power switches with proper replacement parts or approved substitutes -- as well as finding out (in the case of a so-called "burned out", i. e. welded, AC switch) the reason the old part failed in the first place, to avoid having to replace the same part twice.

[wa2ise]

I don't remember which set was my first, but one that comes to mind was a friend's from high school. In the day 1971, it was an older RCA color roundie. Replaced a couple of tubes. His father couldn't believe that we got it working again for only around $5 of tubes.

[wkand]

RCA B/W "portable". Changed a few tubes.

First circuit level repair was a Midland 16" B/W set. Vertical section needed rebuilding - caps and resistors were bad. Shotgunned it and got it working.

Regarding Jeffhs's Silvertone with the bad power switch. I've seen TV shops do this as well to save customers money and downtime (bypass the power switch)