Picture tubes--rate them...

[rca2000]

Originally Posted by miniman82

He said Sylvania or Westinghouse, which means he was probably thinking of this set not the Saratoga:

http://earlytelevision.org/westinghouse_h22t155.html




Sylvania did however make 21AXP22's, my Saratoga has the original Sylvania branded CRT in it with great emissions.

The top set Is the one I was referring to--with the 22" tube---that did NOT take off. NOT a well-made set--hot chassis and such and VERY few are around evidently.

[davet753]

IMHO, Zenith deserves the award for best tube, and the worst. You can't hardly kill the delta gun tubes Zenith produced.

Then, in the early 90's, Zenith started producing tubes that would hardly make it past the warranty period. I remember replacing these tubes (especially 25" and 27") under warranty, and having them come back a year or so afterwards (after the warranty expired) with bad tubes again. Whether a rebuilt tube from the factory or aftermarket, these tubes just wouldn't hold up.

I also remember working on a lot of the old Motorola "Works in the Drawer" consoles and never did note a bad picture tube in those sets.

[rca2000]

I mentioned the 21CYP22. It is considered the 4th gen. or so of roundies. I have one in a CTC-7 that am pretty sure is great. They seem to hold up fairly well, maybe not as well as the FB types--but then--they made a LOT fewer of them too. Fair chance of finding one good today.

[David Roper]

The 19VP22 was only used in 1954-55 sets. By 1957 those sets were already getting the 21AX conversions.

Wherever the 22" rectangular color tube came from, only Westinghouse ever offered it in a production set.

[andy]

...

[DavGoodlin]

Originally Posted by andy

I've never been a fan of the low focus voltage CRTs that were popular in many of the early color portables. A really strong tube looks decent (still not as good as a normal CRT), but they lose focus very early in life. Sets using them usually don't even have a focus control. There were usually 3 voltage taps that you could plug a jumper into. The settings were blurry, less blurry, and more blurry. Fortunately, they stopped making them by the mid 70's. Even the late model Portacolors switched to a high focus voltage CRT with a voltage divider connected to the anode.

Yes! I almost forgot how difficult it was to get good sharp focus on the 11WP22 used in GE sorta-color and 15LP22 used in the RCA CTC22.

[Alastair E]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

Yes! I almost forgot how difficult it was to get good sharp focus on the 11WP22 used in GE sorta-color and 15LP22 used in the RCA CTC22.

Ah--Reading That takes me back a bit! Years ago I had an American built for the UK market a set called a 'Teleton' It was a 12 or 14" set with a delta type CRT and full of valves although it was actually a hybrid set, with a modified NTSC to sorta simple PAL decoder--Had horrible colour rendering too
(I think these sets gave the UK based TV Trade joke--Never Twice Same Colour--NTSC....!)

--I have no idea who actually made the set, but that had one of those horrible unipotential CRT's that were popular in the 70's no focus-control-The CRT was tired and dark with terrible focus when I had it, even re-juvenating didnt help much....

There were a few UK made and Japanese sets that used them too, Horrible focus on 'em.

I did actually modify an Hitachi set that used a unipot CRT and fitted a Mullard A56-120X, a 22" Delta gun high-focus tube and IMO probably the best European CRT ever made. The picture difference was astounding!
--I took a HV diode from input to tripler and used a Grundig 'Metrosyl' focus-control, Worked brilliantly.

Sure there's an American equivalent to the A56-120X with a number like 560HWB22,--or summit but forget the actual number--I do remember the '560' and the '22' but forget the important type letters....

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Alastair E

Ah--Reading That takes me back a bit! Years ago I had an American built for the UK market a set called a 'Teleton' It was a 12 or 14" set with a delta type CRT and full of valves although it was actually a hybrid set, with a modified NTSC to sorta simple PAL decoder--Had horrible colour rendering too
(I think these sets gave the UK based TV Trade joke--Never Twice Same Colour--NTSC....!)

--I have no idea who actually made the set, but that had one of those horrible unipotential CRT's that were popular in the 70's no focus-control-The CRT was tired and dark with terrible focus when I had it, even re-juvenating didnt help much....

There were a few UK made and Japanese sets that used them too, Horrible focus on 'em.

I did actually modify an Hitachi set that used a unipot CRT and fitted a Mullard A56-120X, a 22" Delta gun high-focus tube and IMO probably the best European CRT ever made. The picture difference was astounding!
--I took a HV diode from input to tripler and used a Grundig 'Metrosyl' focus-control, Worked brilliantly.

Sure there's an American equivalent to the A56-120X with a number like 560HWB22,--or summit but forget the actual number--I do remember the '560' and the '22' but forget the important type letters....

I would like to see a picture of the U.S. built set with the pseudo PAL decoder.
Maybe it was a Japanese firm, that wanted a place in the European, British market. Japan uses a form of NTSC.
The Kuba Porta-color that everyone refers to, has no resemblance to the U.S. model, outside of the cabinet, CRT, yoke, convergence assembly and flyback transformer.
BTW, that's what makes this hobby interesting.

[Alastair E]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

I would like to see a picture of the U.S. built set with the pseudo PAL decoder.
Maybe it was a Japanese firm, that wanted a place in the European, British market. Japan uses a form of NTSC.
The Kuba Porta-color that everyone refers to, has no resemblance to the U.S. model, outside of the cabinet, CRT, yoke, convergence assembly and flyback transformer.
BTW, that's what makes this hobby interesting.

Sadly, My Teleton is long gone, but here is a thread on a UK forum of the same model set, there's a PDF link that explains the weird decoder they had....

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/s...ad.php?p=72223

Maybe I'm wrong about it being a USA made set--Possibly it was some Japanese or maybe even Chinese origin set!

--It just sorta Looked USA made to me at the time years ago, Steel cabinet etc,--, Has all USA designation valves, like 17JZ8, 3AT2 etc....

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by andy

I've never been a fan of the low focus voltage CRTs that were popular in many of the early color portables. A really strong tube looks decent (still not as good as a normal CRT), but they lose focus very early in life. Sets using them usually don't even have a focus control. There were usually 3 voltage taps that you could plug a jumper into. The settings were blurry, less blurry, and more blurry. Fortunately, they stopped making them by the mid 70's. Even the late model Portacolors switched to a high focus voltage CRT with a voltage divider connected to the anode.

I like the way you described the focus settings.
I owned an early model CTC22, that was only a few months old, when I got it and was amazed, with the picture. It was razor sharp!
I never was impressed with the picture on the CTC36, or the CTC53.
As said before, When the CRT's aged, it was harder to get sharper focus.

[Electronic M]

The first numbers on US CRTs are screen size in inches so there would be no American tubes ###XXP22 unless that failed 'convert to metric' movement managed to hit our electronics industry.