On the bench: 1953 Raytheon Vu-Matic 21" TV

[Kamakiri]

Welp, I came home with it. It was marked at a ridiculous $195 at the estate sale. I figured hey, no harm in asking, so I asked if it worked. The lady said that the screen lit up, but they couldn't obviously get any stations.

I said, if I plug it in and the screen lights up, I'll give you $40 for it. It did, and I bought it. Full raster, but dim, with some bottom vertical foldover. Figured at least I'd have something to work with though. Cabinet's about as perfect as they come.

Got it home and powered it up. Raster came up, and I figured I'd see if I could tweak anything out of it. Raster started to shrink on the left slightly and it smelled as if something was heating up, so I shut it down.

Opened the back and saw a brightener. Wonderful. Removed the brightener and went to test the picture tube. The tube lit up WAY too bright on the tester and showed a dead short...so something either happened when I removed the socket on the picture tube or something's really amiss....but I shut it down fast. Not even sure what picture tube is in the stupid thing.....it's an original Raytheon tube but all the decals are missing on the inside.

Someone on the FB TV group mentioned that it should have a 21FP4, so I tested it as that, standard 6.3V filament and socket. It's a Raytheon model C2113A.

And yep, some rearranging down here is needed. Getting a little crowded lately.....