RCA Success!

[joeseattle70]

On Tuesday, I got the 1971 RCA CTC-44A chassis console tv back. YEAH! It was determined that the picture tube had a short, which ultimately went through and nailed the high voltage (PW400 board), and cooked up a lot of the capacitors, etc. on the video and chroma boards. I was able to get a new-rebuilt tube for it, and was able to find a NOS PW400 board online. The awesome technician (owner) of the TV repair company in Seattle worked some miracles, let me tell you. You should see the picture now - very impressive. Too bad Comcast cable, even with the higher end converter box doesn't have as good of a picture as before HDTV took over, but with a DVD or VCR it rocks. We also got a NOS Q102 audio driver for it and the sound is amazing.

I sure have appreciated the help and advice along this 6 month journey. Just wanted to let everyone know it's working beautifully. THe majority of the set has been gone through (the following has been done: convergence board rebuilt, video board rebuilt, chroma board rebuilt, new High Voltage board (PW 400), tuner rebuilt, freshly rebuilt tube with correct greenish/grey glass). So hopefully it will be good to go for some time.

[wkand]

HI Joeseattle70,
I live in Everett. Which TV shop handled the repairs. Where did they get a new/rebuilt CRT?

Congrats on the repair. May we see some pictures, please?

[joeseattle70]

Here's a picture of the set.

[old_tv_nut]

Very nice - if you aren't satisfied with Comcast, you should try a digital converter box (assuming you can get antenna reception).

[Jeffhs]

The cable system here in my area near Cleveland was Comcast for quite a while, then they became Time Warner Cable. I was not aware that Comcast's signal quality has gone down since the DTV transition -- even, as you say, with the high-end HD cable box you have. I would think that if that box is indeed Comcast's TOTL HD cable box, it would actually produce a better picture (not worse) than analog or pre-HD digital. Have you tried having the box replaced? There might be a problem with the box they originally installed.

I agree with old tv nut in the Chicago area. If you can get Seattle/Tacoma TV stations over the air where you are, by all means go with the ATSC->NTSC converter box/antenna combination; you may and likely will get a much better picture than you would on cable, especially, as you mentioned, if Comcast's HD quality is worse than that of its analog service. I understand that in a lot of cases OTA DTV actually looks better than DTV on cable, due to compression and other modifications DTV signals undergo on many cable systems.

[wkand]

I agree with Jeffhs. Call Comcast. I had an issue with my Internet service that was causing me to not be able to use my VoIP phone issued by my employer. The Comcast phone intake people were very helpful, and did not spin me into a bunch of delays. They sent somebody out next day, and he was very effective in troubleshooting the problem. In my area the Comcast signals were too hot causing signal degradation, and jitter on the Ethernet side if their modem. He put a passive attenuator on the modem, pulling the signal to the modem's optimal level, VoIP service restored.

[Username1]

very nice cabinet!

[sashasuman]

Was running fine. I'd turn it on maybe twice a year just for fun....but it's now getting REAL dim, and takes longer to come up to a picture. I've not yet gotten into it to see what may be up with it. Have a 305 as well. That one just needed a real good cleaning up and I repainted it's little black control panel. I just FINALLY found one of those Sony power cords on ebay so I can actually run all the Sony sets. The 305 came without one. Now would be nice to find one of those cords (the funny little 4-pin one)... so I can have one on my coffeetable/workbench for WORKING on these.


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[damen]

Nice looking set! They are very good sets.

[mpatoray]

The problem with cable going digital is that they keep trying to cam more crap down the pipe, 500 channels and now in some areas 100 mbps+ internet along with 00+ on demand channels, so to make it fit they start compressing things more and more.

When we dumped the dish and went with OTA reception the difference was night and day, especially on stations like KDKA that do not have any sub channels so the full bandwidth gets devoted to the 1080i signal.