Black and white tv picture tubes

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by maxhifi

Hmm console it is then. I was afraid of that, table top sets are easier to accommodate. Subjectively, What's the best black and white picture from your collection?

Hard to say for sure... Perhaps the best monochrome picture I've seen was on my RCA CTC-4 color set. When the focus and fine tuning were dialed in to optimal it looked fantastic...Add to that there was almost no overscan (meaning the entire image signal appeared on the face with no cropping) and it was a type of detail and contrast I had not previously thought possible in a tube set.

I have had a number of good monochrome sets in my possession, but I can't say I've ever put them side to side to see who is the best.

An unlikely performer is my early 50's Majestic. The CRT is not super bright in it, but despite that it holds it's own well... The picture was from before I fixed a lingering vertical issue.



Another brand and era to consider are the Philco split chassis sets from about 1951-55 (they came in table models too). They are cheap, common, easy to work on, and capable of superb focus/video detail and good contrast. Mine had a weak CRT so I compensated for it by replacing the seleniums such that the B+ and HV ran high. It resulted in a LOT of overscan (which reduces perceived video detail), but even despite those handicaps it still left a VERY good impression...Wish I had a better photo of it.



I fixed this RCA this year and it performs quite well. It has a RCA video jack (presumably as a test point) and a phono input on the back that I hope to convert to an AV input when I get some time.


This 17" Setchell-Carlson is working un-restored and the noise is due to dirty contrast and brightness pots, but still it is the most impressive set it's size that I own and displays a very crisp picture when it feels like it.



Early 60's Zeniths not only work well, but also seem to be somewhat immortal this ~19" set with UHF option and it's space command equipped brother below it are still going on their original caps. Sunlight is shining directly on the CRT face in that picture IIRC.




This Zenith is the only monochrome console in my main viewing room more for the cabinet (which is my favorite of the monochrome consoles I own) than the picture, but it does have a nice picture.



Lastly to drive home Zenith's immortality. The set below is working, fantastically well/better than it has any right to, on all original parts aside from some tubes and about 5 paper caps that were replaced with brown drops sometime in the 60's(I'd guess)! This may be the only Zenith porthole left that can claim such a feat.



Edit:A good idea if you want a set with a bright picture is to take a CRT tester with you during pre-purchase inspection and only buy if the CRT tests reasonably strong.

I watch mostly Anime, and it does not look as good without color so I rarely use my monochrome sets.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by zeno

What a trip down memory lane !
For the newbies a GVG or SGVG ( Super Gold Video Guard ) tuner was a Zenith built tuner with gold contacts. Once you have seen one you can spot one in a second, it had a different shape than any others. Most other
tuners were built by Oak & S-T also RCA built most of there own.
Always used on top of line ( TOTL) Zeniths & when combined with
a 6BZ6 IF strip it was WITHOUT question the best in sensitivity
& selectivity. And you could repair it instead of sending it out
to a rebuilder.
It always amazed me that Zenith could build a set as high a quality and
stay in business. I guess thats why I am a radicalized Zenith lover,
as good as some old TV's were built from the 60's-80's Zeniths are
the survivors more than any other. Anyone remember the old commercial
" NO PRODUCTION SHORTCUTS HERE " ? True...........

73 & GB Zeno

I had a strange occurrence with a SGVG tuner, used with IIRC, a 12B14C52 chassis. The stationary contacts had a problem with metal fatigue and they were breaking off. That tuner, generally didn't have a contact problem.

[jstout66]

My camera doesn't capture it very well, but my 66 RCA Slimline has one of the sharpest pictures I've seen on a B&W set in awhile.....

[maxhifi]

That zenith console has an Awesome picture, the contrast is fantastic. The RCA slimline looks similar to my admiral 19" in terms
Of picture quality, pretty good but not on par with a good colour tv

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by maxhifi

Come to think of it I have seen excellent black and white performance on CCTV monitors...

-Max

That may be for one or both of two reasons:

-CCTV monitors often DO have DC restoration.

-CCTV monitors, unlike perhaps every B&W TV set made since color TV was introduced in 1954, have high video bandwidth and therefore a very detailed picture. Once color was added to NTSC TV signals, tiny dots or other artifacts would appear on parts of the screen of a black-and-white set unless its video bandwidth was limited to about 3 MHz or so. I saw this difference clearly (pun not intended) at a recent meeting of TV collectors, where several restored early sets were all displaying the same signal. The late-1940s sets had the artifacts (and razor-sharp pictures), but the Predicta set did not (and it was not nearly as detailed, either).

[Olorin67]

Ive had a few 60s b&w zeniths, nice quality, easy to work on. Most of the ones ive run across still worked OK as found, but that was back in the 80s. Last time i fired up my 21" early 60s zenith tabletop was on sept 11th, 2001 to watch the news.. At the time i was living way out in the sticks, and my modern tv and vcrs could not pull in a single station. Pulled the Zenith out of the closet, and i got 2 stations clearly, and a couple more with a little snow. Great performers.

[Olorin67]

I have a round tube CCTV monitor from the early 50s in my stash, GE if i recall right, that i snagged out of MSOEs trash when I was a student. Maybe I should restore that one, bet it gets a great picture. i was reading a Setchel Carlson brocure where it listed an educational model, that would do up to 700 lines resolution on CCTV mode! Wonder if you could hook it up to a Blue ray in 720 mode?

[ChrisW6ATV]

I used to install Audiotronics (formerly Setchell Carlson) large B&W monitors with 23-inch CRTs, and I believe that 700 lines number. Those monitors, when new (or with a new CRT), were razor sharp.

No, you could not connect a Blu-ray player or other device in 720P mode, because that is a different scan rate. If you hooked up the "Y"/green signal from the component-video output of a Blu-ray or DVD player in 480i mode, though, you would get an amazing picture, I am sure.

One thing I've noticed is that modern programming just doesn't look as good on B&W sets. Today they use graphics and backgrounds with subtle color changes that just don't look good in B&W. To me, vintage sets look best with vintage programs.

Another thing to remember is that in the 40's and at least early 50's you were lucky to get a decent signal. The charm of getting a picture from far off places was still in effect and people tolerated a lot less in picture quality. Even TV stations didn't always transmit a sharp, well focused picture.

Something else, Bob Andersen talks in some of his videos about the change in bandwidth and the use of the luminance signal for monochrome sets when NTSC color came in. It would be interesting to see him chime in on this discussion. I will say from watching his videos that he gets some really nice looking pictures on his early Admirals.