Stay away from??

[Zenith26kc20]

We fixed many of the gate switch Sonys. The key to getting them repaired was to break the set "in half". Using a square wave generator to feed a signal to the power supply enabled you to get it working. The horizontal stage failed repeatedly due to the horizontal drive IC starting slow. Somewhere are the rest of my notes but you had to use a variac on the set with the power supply disabled (jumpered) and at 18 volts of B+, the chip HAD to start producing horizontal drive. If it needed 20 or more it was bad. These sets had another problem. The 330 pf across the gate switch loved to short out.
I always wonder why Sony made such an insane TV.
The Zenith 9-160 modules could drive you nuts sometimes too. We had harness problems galore on those sets. THe 9-181 sets with "kick start" were somewhat fun. If the twist lok electrolytic opened up on the 181, the kick start would burn up after a few seconds.
And don't forget the Magnavox "Star" system with a AA battery in the tuner.....