Happy Birthday USA! (on CTC-5)

[old_tv_nut]

[matt.caputo]

Awesome display! Great to see America 250 on an American made television.

[etype2]

Very nice! Happy 4th.

[timmy]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

Nothing like the true beautiful color from those round tubes.

[SpaceAge]

Spectacular! Happy 4th!

[old_coot88]

Just a warm, mellow "authenticness" to the pic vs. the glary harshness of the digital stuff.

[user181]

Looks great! I always enjoy your holiday displays & decorations.

[old_tv_nut]

Thanks!

[kf4rca]

A test signal for you.

[old_tv_nut]

Resolved the colors in the text better than I thought it would.

EDIT: a close look reveals the phone camera is adding phony lines between the bars and around the logo to "sharpen" the picture.
Also, the fine tuning was a bit off.

See a much better picture posted on July 18 in the second message below.

[kf4rca]

Thanks. Looks good! Is that the original CRT or a replacement?

[old_tv_nut]

That's a GE-branded rebuild. The saga of this set and its original CRT are here on VK: https://videokarma.org/showthread.ph...hlight=blessed

To summarize:
The original tube had gone to air.
Scotty rebuilt it and sealed all the usual suspect glass metal joins, but it went back to air quickly after it was done.
I donated it for testing the helium leak detector at ETF, which required necking it again. The leak was found to be a tiny ding in the metal/metal weld between the faceplate assembly and the bell.
When last seen, it was in storage at ETF, marked "Wayne's tube," in hopes that we will have a rebuilding facility some day.

I replaced it with an all glass rebuilt tube bought from Scotty just before he closed down, until this 21AXP22A came along years later.

---
I should take another picture, as the fine tuning was a bit off, causing the off-color edges on the bars. I didn't notice it that much but the phone camera really emphasized it.

[old_tv_nut]

I took a closer look at the phone photo and realized it tried to add edge lines separating the color bars and the 250 logo from the background.

Here's a pic with the fine tuning readjusted, using a real camera that doesn't try to make the picture "better."