CTC 51K find

[Chad Hauris]

Although the 38/39's have been very rare, I have found a lot of the RCA portable tube color sets at second hand stores and flea markets (CTC-36, 52, 53). I bought one that was turned on and playing at the salvation army.
The HV/flyback system on these sets seems to be more robust or run under less stress than the 31/38/39. Only real big problem I've seen on the portables has been some burned yokes on 2 ctc-53's I have.

If RCA had just changed to a solid state tripler or better flybacks on the CTC-39's there would probably a lot more around today.

[nasadowsk]

I saw lots of 39/39s in the trash years ago. I suspect they ALL had toasted flybacks, i know the one my grandma had toasted one, and I suspect it toasted another the last time it died. What junky sets - they were great if they worked, but made so cheaply they didn't work much...

[polaraman]

I have added two new RCA color portables to my collection. Bottom is a CTC 52 and on top is a CTC 32. This will add to my CTC 51 and CTC 63 color portables.


polaraman

[Chad Hauris]

You mean bottom one is a 42 and top is a 22 right?

[polaraman]

I can only hope to find another CTC22. Nope 32 and 52. The 32 is dead in the water. The 52 comes on but does not produce a picture. I will have to play with them later.


polaraman

[Chad Hauris]

OK I was just going by the looks as I have models that look exactly like these which are 22 and 42.

[andy]

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[polaraman]

I know you were kidding. What is the purpose of the little window at the top of the 32? I really thought the same when I first dug it out of the pile. I had to dig through 30 plus years of stuff to get to this set. I am helping a man clean up his TV shop. He never threw anything away. Most of the sets are missing parts. He would not buy new parts but use parts from another not worth repairing set. I am saving what I can. Most of it is just junk. No real smoking guns in the shop either. No 50's color Tv sets. I will be bringing home 5 new roundies. All are minus picture tubes.


polaraman

[Chad Hauris]

The little area should be where the color changing logo goes, where you look at it one way and it's green and another blue, etc.

[Whirled One]

Well, it's after Easter and so it's "officially" Garage Sale Season once again in the Midwest.

It was a nice warm sunny day today, so I I'd go "sale-ing" to see what might turn up.

Earlier in this thread, I posted a picture of a later-version CTC-52 scanned from a SAMS folder, but I had never seen one that looked like that before. In another thread, Polaraman posted some pics of that interesting CTC-63 that he found..! (the last-gasp RCA tube hybrid chassis which had a solid-state tripler)
[ http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=34190 ]

Well, today I encountered a CTC-63 with a control panel similar in style to that late-version CTC-52. It's an ES435W, which is a 1974 model, and the CRT date code is late 1973. By the way, I see that the switch to a solid-state tripler really made a big improvement in the "warm-up-time" compared with a CTC-51/52/53/55..!

The cabinet is in okay shape (though a bit dirty and grubby in spots, but that can be cleaned up), except for two perfectly circular areas on the top where something hot must have been kept on top of the TV and melted the plastic. [See that round "dent" in the center-front of the top of the cabinet...? There's another one exactly the same size elsewhere on the top, but it's not nearly as bad.] It's obviously not a cigarrette burn; perhaps it was a candle holder or a small lamp or something? There are no tubes or other heat-producing devices directly underneath the 'melted' areas, so that's definitely not it.
The flaw looks worse in person than it does in the photo, though.

Anyway, I think it looks pretty modern for a mostly-tube TV, and just thought I'd mention it in case anyone else was interested or finds one of these things.

[jstout66]

Nice set! I like!