Big TV find in Detroit area, continued...

[truetone36]

Hey Carmine, send me a PM, that Philco "Briefcase" is calling my name!!



Dumont-First with the finest in television.

[peverett]

I still have quite a few of the sets from the Athens TV shop. I have repaired several, given some newer repaired ones to an animal shelter store, given some un-repaired ones to other TV collectors.

Sad to say, several went to the dump as I could not keep them all and neither could the other TV collectors that I knew at the time.

[Bobby Brady]

Makes me wish I could move up there and start restore'n them!

[Radiophile2001]

Carmine,

How about the Quasar? What year is it, anyone know....?
If you're willing to part with it/sell it, I may be able to pay a visit if you're in town. I'll be in Rochester over the holidays (about 18 miles from St. Clair Shores) with the wife & kids visiting the folks/family. We're driving, so I can get it back to DC with probably no trouble at all in the Cherokee.

What a collection!

[captainmoody]

Oh man, you should have spoke up sooner. I gave away the Quasar about 2 months ago..
It needed a crt, and used the very hard to find 16" one. The only gun I could get to register on my B&K rejuvenator was the Red one. It was pretty cooked. BTW, the set was a 1972.

[Radiophile2001]

No problem, Cap'n.....wanted one that works anyway (my skill set is limited to soldering and replacing tubes and simple parts, wiring). My troubleshooting abilities are pretty poor and I have no troubleshooting gear as of yet.

If you come across any color Quasars, I'd be interested...!

Thanks again,
Carl

[captainmoody]

Carl, if you want a Quasar Works in a Drawer, I have one. It's a 25" small size console, but the legs unscrew and it should fit easily in the back of an suv.
It works great, and I would give it to you free of charge.

[Radiophile2001]

Wow...thanks....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know much about that set, but did google it. What year is this one?
I hope you will let me see some of your collection while I'm there (Dec. 23-29). I bet it is nothing short of incredible.

Carl

PS. Does anyone have a list or link of all the UHF stations (full power) that used to be on channels 70-83? I found some on the net, but mostly just New England ("The UHF Morgue")

PPS. For Carmine & The Cap'n: Found this a few months ago and have sent it to many a Detroiter. Unreal photo journalism that details a once grand(er) city.
See: http://detroityes.com/webisodes.htm

[Chad Hauris]

I have a Quasar Portable that you can have if you're ever out this way. It is just like the one Captainmoody had but the CRT is good. Just had to replace the circuit breaker with a fuse. I will not ship it as it may be damaged that way.

[MarkWilson]

I know this is probably gonna stir up alot of comments, but that Admiral set... I need the CRT out of it if its good. I have an Admiral Combo that I'm trying to bring back to life. Needs a CRT in a bad way. Although alot of people are saying to replace it with a Zenith if I can find one.

[Chad Hauris]

You should be able to replace with any 23V" delta gun tube. I have not found Admiral tubes to be the best in either performance or long life.

[MarkWilson]

Hey chad, thanks for the info. Any more details you could give me regarding this swap would be greatly appreciated. not sure what u mean when u say "delta"

[Tony V]

Basically what Chad is saying by Delta is that older tubes were called delta because they have three guns in the picture tube to create beams for color. They are arranged in a triangular pattern therefore being named Delta. One for blue, red and green. The newer tubes are inline tubes which means the three beams are created inside one gun or housing. I agree with Chad that the Admiral branded tubes werent much and never really produced the best picture that the rest of the set can be capable of. Zeniths seem to be the most rugged and as long as they have good emission will produce a fantastic picture. RCA tubes and others will work too but might not give you as good of a picture or reliability. Most color tubes that are more rounded on the corners like the 25X or AP22 or similar and the later 23V**P22 (23 inch viewing area) tubes will work in your Admiral. The later 70's and early 80's Delta color tubes (example RCA XL 100 and early Colortrak or later Zenith Chromacolor 3's and System 3's) wont work as they are slightly larger and more square on the corners so wont mount in your Admiral and with the more square tubes its hit and miss whether its a delta or inline tube. Their still to be had its just you have to keep an eye out for a set that uses one or somebody local to you might stumble across a parts set with a good crt. I got a low hour black matrix tube off of Ebay not too long ago for $95 shipped. I've done business with the seller in the past so knew he packed well so i wasnt worried about it getting shattered in shipment. They pop up on there once in awhile and the guys on here usually let us know when they do so you have options, it just takes time. Good Luck.
-Tony

[Jeffhs]

I had a 1961 Philco Briefcase 19 portable in the early '70s; it worked great, as soon as I got it home (it was a trash-day find in my old neighborhood). Didn't have to do a thing to it but plug it in. Used it as my daily watcher for quite a while, especially after my 1964 Silvertone roundie color set bit the dust in 1973 or so (cracked video output PCB). That Silvertone was in bad shape anyhow; just before the video PCB cracked I had hum bars in the picture, on-again-off-again color sync that could almost always be brought back to normal by turning the tint control from red to green and back again, the convergence was terrible (I didn't have a dot-bar generator at the time; I tried to set the convergence by using the vertical line produced when the service switch was in the service position, but no luck--I think I just made things worse), you name it. The sound was still good, although when the PC board broke I lost that too. When I eventually moved in 1975 I left that set behind for my then-stepmother (whith whom my dad and I had been living since 1972, before she divorced him three years later) to deal with.

I kept the Philco a year or two after returning to my home town (it still worked for a while), but the set eventually died and was put out for the trash. What goes around comes around.

As for Zenith, I have a Sentry 2 color set made in 1995 that still works great, and still has its original CRT. I only use it these days to cross-check when I'm having problems with my cable service, though it was my daily watcher for four years at my former residence. Never had even so much as one repair done on the set. Considering how troublesome Zenith CRTs were in the 1990s, I think I was very lucky to have gotten a set with a good tube. This one has 11 years on it and is still going strong; since the Zenith TV doesn't get much use in my apartment (I bought a new RCA CTC185 when I moved here), it should last at least a few more years--I sincerely hope so. At least the lightning-bolt Zenith logo on my set actually means the TV was manufactured by Zenith, even though the company's color sets were being built in Mexico for Zenith Electronics Corporation in Missouri at the time.

My point is that 1990s-vintage Zenith TVs weren't all bad. There were a few that went years without developing CRT problems or severe chassis troubles as many of the newer Zeniths (after Gold Star bought the company and moved it offshore--grrrrrrrr) had, such as the video circuits going up in smoke when the CRT eventually shorted.

I all but swore that I would never buy another GS-manufactured "Zenith" branded TV immediately after Zenith sold out to them; heaven knows I'd never buy an LG flat-panel for the same reasons. I really shouldn't knock LG, though, as I have a cell phone made by them that still works great, even after falling to the ground front first when I tripped on a sidewalk in my old neighborhood and fell in 2005 (the phone was in a case on my belt, which is probably what saved it from being smashed to bits when it hit the ground; I was not nearly so lucky, but that's another story).

[Radiophile2001]

Chad, thanks for the offer. I have been to Monahans Sand Hills, El Paso and Odessa. Maybe if I ever make it back that way, I'll give a holler.

Carl

Originally Posted by Chad Hauris

I have a Quasar Portable that you can have if you're ever out this way. It is just like the one Captainmoody had but the CRT is good. Just had to replace the circuit breaker with a fuse. I will not ship it as it may be damaged that way.