Scored a rare, huge, and HEAVY DuMont.....

[bandersen]

Originally Posted by rca2000

I JUST SO HAPPEN to possess that deflection chassis and perhaps the signal chassis too !!...

I was wondering if you still had that I snapped a photo of it when I was out your way to pick up some sets.

[rca2000]

Except for missing the middle chassis (audio amp, P-p 6L6's) still is intact.

one or more tubes on the deflection chassis HAVE gotten broken over the years..but that is aabout IT.

[init4fun]

Originally Posted by Kamakiri

Shot some pics while I was on lunch. The coffee cup in the blueprint diagrams is to illustrate size.

This is a rare find indeed.

Nice Score !!!

Funny , the first thing I noticed after seeing those two awesome 807's in there was the small tube (a 6SN7 perhaps) next to them appears gassy ..

PS , the 807 is one of my all time favorite tubes , I once built an audio amp using 8 of them ! ( 4 per channel in a 2+2 push pull configuration )

[Tom Albrecht]

rca2000,

Looks like what you have is part of an RA-101 Custom, which would also be incredibly rare. Maybe the only survivor. You don't have the CRT for it?

The audio chassis has PP-PP 6V6's (4 tubes), not a pair of 6L6's, unless yours was different than mine.

[Kamakiri]

And out of the clear blue, looks like sale is pending on this set!

[Tim]

Originally Posted by Kamakiri

Did you ever manage to get yours working?

I have not been able to make time to restore it. I recently retired so now I will have the time get to this and other sets that have been waiting.

Regarding the brute force HV supply, the engineers (or the lawyers )put a toggle switch on the chassis to turn it off during service.

I noticed in one of the photos that your set has a date written in pencil on the chassis. Mine does as well, 12/13/47.

[earlyfilm]

Originally Posted by Kamakiri

Another thing that's interesting to note is that Buffalo didn't get television until mid-1948. Since the stations on the pushbuttons indicate that this set is native to the area, it must have been purchased long before there was anything to watch, and from out of the area (presumably).

Tim, In your initial post, you just answered your own question:

Originally Posted by Kamakiri

"....immense theater.....6th floor..."

For you youngsters who grew up in the cable TV age, in the early antenna TV era, the height matters and long feed wires sucked up the signal before it got to the TV, so you wanted the TV near the highest possible antenna! With almost no TV stations on the air DXing was not only possible, it was fun!

Back when your set was new, most interference came from pre-1930's light bulbs still in service and from any thing with motors that used brushes. When I was young, you could count the Fords driving by, just by watching the flickering thin black streaks on Howdy Doody, but at the same time from our hill 80 miles north of Memphis, we often could pickup Mexico City during the summer like it was a local channel!

I'll wager a plug nickel that the owner of this TV was whoever, in 1947, had an office on the top floor of that theater, most probably the manager of this theater or the building owner. This 1947 TV cost more than a new Chevrolet at the time, so he was well heeled!

Hmmm. I wonder which could pull in the weakest signal, this Du Mont or the same age RCA 630TS.

It'll be close, but my vote is for four video IF RCA on 300Ω twin-line over the five video IF Du Mont on 72/75Ω coax, but the coax will reduce a lot of the stray noise that plagued us back then. Now, if one had modern coax, it should beat the 1947 vintage stuff. It looks like your set owner used twin lead with a primitive matching transformer.

You wrote: "I also have what appear to be the engineering blueprints of the schematic of the set. Each foldout diagram is a couple feet in length, at least."

Are these actually blue prints (dark cyan, and not prone to fading, unless in the immediate presence of sulphur where they turn brown, as in contact with rubber bands) or Mimeographed (Dark blue-purple when new and fade to pink over the years)? If these differ from the copies on ETF, it might be nice to take good photographs of them.

I was surprised to find that the original uncrating instructions that came with my RA105 was Mimeographed instead of printed and it is now has almost completely faded out.

First, congratulations for saving the set, but am sorry that you had to sell it.

It will be a real fun toy for your potential buyer! With a pristine RA-105 Colony (newest tube is one 1956 5U4) sitting in my living room waiting for restoration, I'm completely out of the market for big antique TVs in the foreseeable future. I'm not allowed to touch it until I get my to do list done.

James.

[stromberg67]

Originally Posted by mstaton

did they use Stromberg Carlson record players in Dumont's?

That looks like a Garrard in the 101A. Stromberg did not manufacture record changers.
Looks like a multi-speed, maybe a retro-fit?
Super good chassis. I've looked at the schematic for both the 101 and 101A many times and had to control the drool LOL.
Kevin

[Dave A]

Are the three large transformers for each of the possible chassis'...tv, radio, phono? The wattage sticker shows four wattage listings. Two for radio only. Or did I miss another transformer? What a great catch. Is it going to one of us?

[rca2000]

IIRC, the amp chassis had it's own power tranny. not sure if the signal chassis has a power supply or not--or if it is fed from the amp or perhaps the deflection chassis.


And some of the iron on the deflection chassis are chokes I think. That "can thing" connected to the pates of the 807 tubes if the "horiz.out tranny" IIRC--behind it between those big oil caps is the HV power transformer and the rect. tubes next to it.

Up front is what I THINK is the main power transformer--maybe. I think the other iro9n are chokes....again, maybe. I have never really sat down and taken a real close look are my setup. ( I nearly got my HAND crushed by the top chassis, after getting to my old garage and getting a cursory look at it--the chassis was loose and almost crushed my hand..but THANKFULLY, missed by about a SECOND !!) the And do--I never got the CRT or any such hardware---no one seemed to have any idea of it's whereabouts. Likely LONG ago landfill fodder. That is where I feared that would be--had i not gotten it. It intrigued me with that line HV power supply.

[rca2000]

Dumont sure did it different in those days--didn't they?


Our sets....4 chassis..probably 6 power trannies between them...enough metal to make a DOZEN contempary sets of the time period...more than double the tubes of many sets...more than about ANY color set !!

Someone likely paid as much as a CAR of the time--a DECENT car--would cost for that set--and mine too.

[Tim]

Originally Posted by mstaton

did they use Stromberg Carlson record players in Dumont's?

Webster-Chicago model 56 was the supplied changer.

[rca2000]

Originally Posted by Tim

I have not been able to make time to restore it. I recently retired so now I will have the time get to this and other sets that have been waiting.

Regarding the brute force HV supply, the engineers (or the lawyers )put a toggle switch on the chassis to turn it off during service.

I noticed in one of the photos that your set has a date written in pencil on the chassis. Mine does as well, 12/13/47.

BUT--did that switch simply remove power from the HV supply--and not discharge those big oil caps--because if there was no bleeder there--those caps could hold a HELL of a punch--all by themselves!!


I never really messed with mine. Like I said--I once tried to sell the amp, but it got stolen--along with most of my other amp and hi-fi stuff in the robbery. Mine DID use a pair of 6L6 tubes--of that I am sure. Seemed to be an AWFUL lot of "stuff" on that amp--for just an audio amp though, as I remember. WAY more tubes and iron than a normal amp would use. It (the rack of stuff--at LEAST 200 pounds of it) is in the new garage now--safe and sound again--minus that amp chassis.

[Kamakiri]

Originally Posted by earlyfilm

First, congratulations for saving the set, but am sorry that you had to sell it.

It wasn't a matter of "having" to sell it, it was a matter of recognizing that it needed an owner that's much more advanced in repair than I, and has a greater appreciation of what the set *is*. Here, it would be appreciated but not raised up, and would most likely never be restored.

I myself tend to gravitate to the reliable, workaday televisions of the late 1940s and early 1950s that I can get to the point where I'm able to watch them on a daily basis if I want.

The person that came to me and offered to buy it is the same that bought the recent RA-101 on eBay. His is missing the radio face and other cosmetics which would be otherwise unobtanium. His plans are to remove them off this set and have exact reproductions made, and have the rare sets next to each other in restored condition and celebrated for the unique and special things they are. Now to me, there's no better place for this set to be

The most important thing about a collection of any sort, I think, is recognizing when something is truly deserving of a different surrounding than you could ever give it.

[Steve McVoy]

The rack mounted set is a RA-101 "Custom". We have two of them at the museum:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/dumont_ra-101.html