Entropy, a product of the second law of thermodynamics, was the slow, irreversible process of breakdown and decay whereby a complex, organized system inevitably degraded into more chaotic ones.

The process is simple: unsolder positive lead(s) of capacitor connect cap to Heathkit C3, check capacitance and if not open check leakage indication on tester at 50V if good select next higher range,if bad wait 2 minutes for signs of improvement if no change in reading or improvement stops change capacitor, if leakage drops to acceptible select higher voltage test range. If a capacitor tests as having acceptible leakage at full working voltage it gets ran in set for several hours and checked for temperature and possibly leakage again later.

Any more than this is well in excess of my patience, and after doing this process for a few years worth of restos I have stopped as I have come to the conclusion that it is a complete waste of my time over changing all capacitors of a type I know are prone to failure....on any chassis mount lytics once the positive is unhooked it is quicker to solder in a new part, the new parts are cheaper than the time I spend on a reforming, and the guarantee that a new production part isn't going to take out unobtainium for better than 25 years is worth more to me than original parts. I'm keeping the original tube circuits in and not shit canning them to install a flat screen and I usually keep the original removed caps in a bag with the set with a copy of the schematic and enough documentation that any future historian could analyze the original design and parts and put it back to stock if they wanted. That is as original as a working set has to be for me.

I agree, Tom.

I don't get why everyone is giving OP so much grief. He's doing an experiment, it seems to be working so far, and if later that turns out not to be the case, well, lesson learned, it's a hobby and he enjoys it so...what's the big deal?

I learned something about what it means to reform electrolytics in this thread.

And I said what I needed to, I will always replace ALL paper and electrolytics in anything 70s and older w/o exception, ceramic disc and mica etc are immune from this.

I'm not trying to give him grief, just replying to comments I agree with or think deserve comment. If he wants to interpret that worse than that is or get defensive that's on him.

I'm sure he likes his process being collectively admonished by most respondents as much as we like him trying to convince us we're doing it wrong...his good experiences directly contradict my experience (and those of other members I'm sure) when I tried the same approach with the same goal years ago (granted for me it was more trying to save scarse money during college than putting maximal originality first).

It's interesting reading about some approaches to reforming for some rare case where it might be preferred, but I won't be convinced my experience of vintage caps failing is wrong.

My method for reforming electrolytics is to use a low current high voltage supply and place a 10K resistor in series with the cap being reformed. I monitor the voltage across the cap which will slowly rise if the cap is a good candidate. I'll monitor the voltage as it rises to the cap's rated voltage then remove and gently discharge the cap and reconnect to the test rig. If the cap is decent it will much more quickly charge to it's rated voltage the second and subsequent times. Interestingly if the process is stopped before the cap reaches it's rated voltage, discharged and reconnected to the rig it will quickly rise to the voltage it got to when it was disconnected and then proceed slowly to it's rated voltage, sort of behaving like a zener diode! I have a 1956 B&W PYE set I've restored and managed to reform all of the multi electrolytic cans. The set has done countless hours with these but it is only used by me. If I was restoring it for someone else I would definitely re stuff the can's. I still have a healthy disrespect of all old electrolytics.

:) Hi Alan ,

;) I am someone , and as such , I am part of the "everyone" who has posted to this thread , and I for one have been totally supportive of his experiment .

As has been well established every case is different with regards to how well the "luck of the draw" has treated old caps and yes there are going to be the ones who reform and live on to perform their cap duties just as there will be ones that will crash & burn as in the photo* I posted in my first post to the thread . I do not believe I was giving him grief when I stated that as a fun experiment sure , I'm right with him and want to see him get 100s of hours out of his reformed caps , but my personal preference especially with daily drivers is to replace all Ecaps as a precursor to the return to daily service .


* I lifted that photo from someone's Ebay listing for an old 1960s guitar amp that was listed as "working perfectly" , and have no relation/involvement in the rectifier flambe depicted there .......

I have been silent the last couple of days. I estimate the set has 75 hours and the electrolytics are fine.

I take exception to the comment Tom made. If the capacitor has sat unused for 60 years, the reforming takes hours. It is an electrolysis process you cannot hurry. In this case the capacitors as would be expected would initially test an almost dead short because in the sixty years the dielectric would have disappeared. That is why even applying a Variac is murdering the capacitors. The key is a gradual process that will take about 24 hours.

I limit the current to no more than 5mA at the start. By the time the 450v was reached, the leakage was about 200uA at full rated voltage. Then test capacity and if it is within 20% of the rated value, it is good to go. The important thing is patience.

So I dug up the crusty old space Fada 630TS clone chassis I had and removed two electrolytics. This set sat in a shed for years and the cabinet was shards. The chassis had a lot of rust and the capacitor were pretty grubby when I removed them. There appears to be a date code which suggest the capacitors were made within a week of each other in August 1947.

I put them onto the Sprague TO-6 capacitor analyser power supply to reform them. After 24 hours each of them reached filled rated voltage with a leakage current for each section below 100uA. And tested capacity and all were within 10%. I have never won a lottery and I do not think this is sheer luck. The success is patience and not using the Variac!!

I am going to punish one of these capacitors by running them at and for good measure 5 to 10% above rated maximum voltage to see if I can get it to fail. The other I will keep it at maximum rated 450 volts and then dissect it. Certainly we should not expect to see a picture similar the Banderson's which was apparently insufficiently reformed before applying normal operating voltages.

Here are the candidates. And remember, this is not one off's or luck. I am finding a consistency here.

My understanding is that the paper insulation is the weak link in saving these. Once that insulation deteriorates allowing adjacent foil layers to touch, I don't believe any level of reforming will assure a new anodized dialectic to form on the foil in those areas. I'm assuming the paper insulator material deteriorates because of contamination and exposure to atmosphere rather than improper re-forming practices(as witnessed with paper coupling caps). As far as keeping old electros healthy, I'm inclined to believe that the survivors were more likely used more often and to a later date than those that didn't make it, which likely helped maintain their dialectic layer on the aluminum foil. :thmbsp:

Anybody here have electrolytic caps that are >3 years old that are failing? I have a few recapped radios that started randomly humming, I'm gonna check those 'lytics tonight when I get home......

The ones that the leakage didn't drop fast on got replaced with new capacitors... meaning some potentially reformable caps got changed.... despite that the best of the original caps still eventually failed. If the ones that don't have measurable leakage on my C3 from the beginning are going bad then the ones that were leaking sure as hell are not going to last.

My Philco 60 started hummng 3 years after a total rebuild. Bad output tube..

John

Back when I became a full time bench tech (70s), I was changing can caps almost daily, and these coming from TVs with a quarter of the years on them that we have now and despite having a fully formed oxide layer from daily use...

Every parts store back then had a full line of Cornell-Dubilier, Arcolytic, Mallory, or Sprague drop in cans.

NOS, used stock, reformed.. they're all time bombs - even back then when they were only a few years old. It's not a matter of if it's a matter of when.

John

The 721TS had only another 7 hours this past couple of days reaching about 80 hours. No sign of the capacitors failing.

Have been running one of the 630TS capacitors I had reformed at its full rated 450 volt rating. Will leave this for a week and monitor the leakage current.

One consideration: the late 40's RCA sets had full wave power supplies with capacitor of relatively low capacitance e.g. 40uF to 80uF at 450v. There are a number of factors in the design that put less stress on the electrolytics in these early sets: ripple current in the full wave rectifier, low deflection angle tubes which required less defection power etc. In the fifties, the designs pushed the limits of components to keep the consumer purchase cost down. The electrolytics were stressed with higher ripple currents, increased capacity in the same form factor. I know the RCA CTC11 color set I have has had to have all its electrolytics changed. The voltage doubler capacitors have been changed twice!

So there are various factors at play here. There is no one size fits all solution and I am only citing the specific capacitors used by RCA in their sets in the late 40's in this instance.

As this is a hobby endeavor and I am speaking from a hobbiest point of view with regards to conservation as opposed to wholesale rebuilding, intelligent assessment of the components is advised. The 1949 RCA 8T243 television which I am still running on its original capacitors I have owned for 50 years and the set still performs fine.

I have been servicing radios, TV sets, and hi-fi/theatre/jukebox amps for 50+ years now; the problems with electrolytic capacitors were well known, even back then. Today, that stuff is 50-90 years old, and those old caps are like a time bomb. The survival of a "dry" electrolytic capacitor is largely due to the integrity of the rubber seals on the case. Once the electrolyte dries up and corrosion sets in, it's dead.

When servicing for a customer or commercial account, reliability is of the utmost importance, to avoid the dreaded "callback". Hobby work is different, of course, but when a reformed capacitor fails anyway and has to be replaced, it's time wasted.

Except for commercial theatre-sound and jukebox amplifiers, most consumer equipment back then did not have an AC fuse, and a shorted capacitor can take out the power transformer. New capacitors are cheap insurance, and I add a fuse in the AC line for more protection.

And update on the 721TS running its original capacitors. It has now reached 350 hours. I am writing today because I pulled the chassis to make a minor mode e.g. reduce the value slightly of output transformer primary parallel capacitor at the plate of the 6K6. This is provide the audio with a bit of a treble boost. I find they liked muddy audio in the '40's.

I looked at all the original electrolytics and they are remaining cool. I disconnected two to measure leakage and they are well below 1mA.

I haven't spent much time on the two electrolytics I pulled from a junked 630TS chassis. I had been running these capacitors rated a 450v on a 450 volt supply. I left them 48 hours and the leakage remained about 0.2mA. I had put them aside the last few months and will continue my test on them. Ultimately I planned to tear them apart to look inside but they have held up well.

I think the key is the patient reforming. Never run even a variac to a set 70 years old until reforming the capacitors. While reforming, monitor and limit the current to no more that 10mA at the start and monitor regularly as the dielectric reforms. At the start of the reforming process on the 721TS, the voltage remained at about 10 volts at 10mA for about 10 minutes until it started to climb. In about 6 hours the current at 400 volts was about 1.5 mA and leaving it overnight brought it down to less than 0.5 mA. Testing today the couple I tested the leakage remains the same.

The key is patience. My background is electronics engineering and I have been repairing vintage electronics since the late '60s. In the last 50 years, I have done my share of electrolytic replacements. I am only pointing out that I do not immediately condemn the capacitor until I test it out. I recently restored a 1954 HP High Voltage 0-600 volt Regulated DC power supply and found four of what I would have expected to be quality capacitors bad and had to restuff them. So I insist this doesn't always work. But if good quality Sprague or Mallory electrolytics are used, it is worth giving them a chance.

I have an 721TS update. It's not about the filter capacitors this time. The set has about 350 hours since my minimalist restoration and the filter capacitors are still fine).

This is about a nagging sync problem. I am surprised how well this little set works despite it being a pared down design. The sync separator is very basic: a sync amplifier fed from the video amplifier (12AU7) plate to a 1/2 6SN7 Sync Amplifier followed by a 6AL5 sync clamp to1/2 6SN7 sync separator. The set is pre-AGC with the contrast adjustment controlling gain in the RF/IF section of the receiver.

The problem stems from a relatively narrow adjustment range affecting horizontal sync. This set features the earliest version of RCA's classic a later widely licenced Synchroguide Horizontal AFC without the stabilization coil. I checked pin 6 (cathode follower sync feed) as I varied the contrast control and found that the sync separation diminished either side or a very narrow range of contrast adjustment. In other words, the sync separation was not very good.

This is not suprising considering the limting factor of cost in the design. The sync clamp or limiter works well as it keeps the sync tip at at fixed DC level. I tested and swapped the 6SN7 with no improvement. And the capacitors all tested good resistor values good.

I was tempted to swap the low amplification factor (20) 6SN7 with a (70) 6SL7. But this would require further redesign as the amplifier gain would be too great.

Picture 1 is the Sync Section of the 721TS with the modification applied.
Picture 2 Is the 621TS Sync Separator included for comparison.
Picture 3 is the separated horizontal sync.
Picture 4 is a picture off air of TVO this evening via an RCA branded set top box. The set is running behind where I am writing this.

I ultimately considered altering the cut off of the sync separator portion of the 6SN7: by applying a pull up resistor of 510kohm as depicted, the clipping action would remain wider with video gain changes. The result is that the waveform depicted was maintained at a somewhat wider range of contrast adjustment. This will be displayed in the video as less video pulling of the horizontal sweep as the contrast control is adjusted.

The sync separator cathode after adding the resistor, showed less ingress of video (in the range depicted with the white arrow) over a wider range of contrast control adjustment.

I would be curious how other with the 721TS finds this problem with contrast adjustment. I have included the circuit of the 621TS which is very similar to the overall design to the 721TS. The 621TS uses the earlier 6H6 as opposed to the 6AL5 for the sync clamp. And the 621TS is still pre-Synchroguide and would be curious how the contrast adjustment affects it.

I have added the resistor and am happy with the overall result.

Below:
Picture 1 is the 721TS sync separator diagram with the modification made.
Picture 2 is the 621TS sync separator included for comparison.
Picture 3 is the 721TS sync separator output horizontal sync waveform with the range depicted where you will see video ingress when the contrast control is adjusted.
Picture 4 is the set sitting behind me as I write. It is receiving this evening TVO (TV Ontario) via an RCA Branded set top box.

II know I am winding everyone up by posting this. But the set has I expect past 400 hours. In my pandemic office at home where I work, I have been runni g the set about six hours a day. CHCH-TV runs old sixties,/ seventies shows all day.

I had the set apart at about 350 hours to check the electrolytics. The two I tested (rectifier output) leakage was about 400uA at full rated voltage which is normal.

The only electrolytic which was bad was a tubular axial mount 25uF at the audio output supply. This,was replaced as it failed my original test. All others have remained original. And about half of the original paper capacitors I left if they were in the circuit shunted by a resistance of 100k ohm or lower. All the other paper capacitors have been changed.

A couple of resistors,were changed as they were out of tolerance and affected performance.

Here,are so.e snapshots from this afternoon oat via an RCA ATSC set top box.

I work from home these days. I switch on the set and tune it daily to an OTA station via my little RCA STB to a local channel that runs 60's -70's shows. It is on about four hours most weekdays. I run it for a few hours on the weekend as well. Still running on the original "properly reformed" electrolytics. Must be in the region of 700 hours now.

This set is a good little performer. A problem occurred a few weeks back when the video went away. Traced it to the last video IF plate load resistor opened.

Recall this was a set I only changed the paper capacitors that I deemed stressed. That is with a high DC voltage across. I left a bunch of original capacitors used for bypass that have only a few volts across. I also left the vertical integrator caps. One electrolytic did not reform: it was the radial lead electrolytic bypass to the audio output screen grid. It had to be replaced all other electrolytics reformed to low leakage at full rated voltage, so I left them to see how long they would last.

Two resistors have been replaced: the aforementioned last IF plate load and the plate supply dropper to the Horizontal Oscillator.

Needed to touch up the video IF alignment after the IF load resistor replacement. Did it by eye by checking to see the carrier is at 50% by taking note of the brightness and the detail and rocking the fine tuning back and forth. A half turn of the last IF coil slug did the trick. Helps that it does not have AGC.

Well, kudos to whatever electrolytics RCA used. Personally, I just want my sets to run reliably, so I just replace the electrolytics seeing as though they may not be whatever brand/spec that RCA used. Not all electrolytics are this marvelous.

It seems like during the course of this you have had a number of resistors fail. Maybe I should be replacing all the resistors for reliability, LOL.

Curious I found RCA electrolytics have been vey reliable. I had a 1949 9TC275 set with a slew of bad electrolytics it was stored in a wet basement in Chicago which may account for it. I have four other late '40's RCAs and all have original electrolytics. As I pointed out, the slow reforming did the trick: limiting the maximum current during reforming to no more than 10mA. And never applying power to the set until it has first been thoroughly vetted. Variacs and direct power application after sitting dormant for 50 years is a sure killer.

As for overall reliability over the last 6 months, the little 721TS has only had the one resistor failure in service. It just suddenly opened up.

The 1947 RCA 721TS is still chugging along on it's original electrolytics. As I pointed out earlier, if the capacitor dielectrics are slowly and carefully reformed and the capacitors are afterward tested to confirm low leakage, they will last and last. This set had sat dormant for nearly 60 years in a house near Schenectady NY. So it must have been purchased to receive WRGB in those days.

It must be well over a thousand hours since I did the minimal rrevival, replacing only the paper capacitors which would likely fail. I left in the paper capacitors which are shunted by resistances 1Meg ohm or less.

The set is frequently run the set for hours at a time. had it on this evening when I recalled this thread.

I will check in the next year or so with another update.

I don't know how I've missed this thread this long. It's been a good read though.

My 1954 Crosley is running on the original electrolytic cans. I tested them in 2006 and they all sections checked out fine so I never bothered to change them. I have no idea how many hours I have on that set, but it was used daily fom fall of 2006 to around 2011 and less frequently after that, and have had no issues with the electrolytic can. I tested it in the winter of 2015 while I had the chassis out working on a intermittent lose of horizontal oscillation and it still tested out fine. It's also running on the original selenium rectifiers too.

The electrolytics in your TV are nothing short of amazing, if they have lasted 67 years and are still going strong -- especially if the set was used daily from 2006 to 2011. In most TVs, these capacitors would have failed (shorted, leaky, etc.) by now. What is the secret, if any, to your set's original electrolytics having lasted this long?

That your TV itself is still working is amazing as well, especially after 67 years. Are you using this set as a video monitor for games, a computer, etc., or, if you are still watching TV with it, are you using a DTV converter or a cable box?

It may appear unusual that the Crosley or RCA electrolytics have survived 70 years. I think it should be less surprising if the electrolytics are made by Sprague or Mallory.

I used to use it for OTA TV back when analog was still on, then I switched over to just the VCR and DVD. I don't know what the secret is, I just let them charge on a capactor tester and bump the voltage up when they test no leakage at that voltage.


Most of my test equipment is running the original electrlytic cans as well and it's all 1950's early 60's gear.
The newest gear on my bench is a B&K Television Analyst 1076.

Sets I've pulled out of damp garages and basements seem to be the ones that have bad electolytic cans. They'll start gassing around the terminal pins. I guess the moisture gets in there with time.

Wrong message, how to delete this message?

Well it is over a thousand hours now. I have the set in my work office and leave it running through the day. The electrolytics show no sign of failing.

The KRK2 tuner has however a problem with the fine tuning capacitor. The rotating capacitor shaft is loose making it awkward yo find tune. Purely a mechanical problem I will investigate next week.

How are the CRT and receiving tubes faring after 1000 hours? Just putting this into perspective, we've put 1000 hours on a riding lawnmower over a period of 8 years and consider that it's fully depreciated. Likewise it's a remarkable amount of TV time and quite a testament to late 40's electronic technology. In so many ways this has been one remarkable TV. :yes: :thmbsp:

That is a good question. I tested the tubes on my AVO MkIII tranconductance tester when I was resusitating this set. The set has required a touch up of vertical height and linearity. Curiously I had to reduce width slightly. As far as RF sensitivity or the quality of video and audio, no noticeable degradation.

A few carbon resistors discovered drifted when initial restoration and troubleshooting were replaced. I only tested and changed resistors which obviously would affect performance. An example was insufficient horizontal drive due to the oscillator plate supply resistor drifting upward. I intentionally replaced the resistors with period new old stock carbon resistors.

Recall I only changed the paper capacitors for which leakage would cause bias problems. That is if leakage was acceptable in the circuit, I left it in. That accounts for about a quarter of the original paper caps remaining. All of the original electrolytic chassis mounted cans after 1000 hours remain healthy which is remarkable after 75 years.

The CRT was a late 50's replacement shortly before the set was put into storage and so the emission remains good. Typical of late 40's CRTs, the focus isn't perfect across the entire CRT but the set does provide a decent picture.

In summary, I think the greatest concern for reliability back then and now is the paper capacitors. In order to make a reliable yet as original as possible set, a lot of thought was given to the restoration strategy. This included understanding how the circuits functioned and anticipating problems. Certainly during the initial extensive bench test monitoring a close eye was kept on the original electrolytics for failure. After 1000 hours they are still fine.

It is a daily runner: I had the set on today for about 5 hours. It will probably be on for about 10 hours this weekend.

The RCA 721TS has been running continuously for 10 hours today. I switched it on at 8:30am and it is now past 6:30pm. It keeps me company while I work at home.

It is still running on it's original electrolytics and I am still waiting for them to fail after 1000 hrs plus.

Last night an electrolytic died in my RCA CTC-5 Whitby shortly after switching it on. I had reformed all the electrolytics and replaced all the paper capacitors when i restored the set in 2012.

The capacitor that died was a Canadian made Mallory on the 25Hz subchassis! The additional subchassis weighs about 35 lbs And contains a massive B supply power transformer, choke and two 80ufd 450v capacitors. The additional filtering was to help minimize the 25 Hz ripple.

The set itself was manufactured in Camden NJ and must have gone by Montreal for the modification. I found that the modification was not well done initially: I found the power lead to the chassis interlock socket was never soldered. It had been like that for over 55 years and there was signs of arcing. Amazing as it must have been bothersome although the set had low hours and I expect the original owners gave up on it.

The Camden capacitors are all Sprague and were very healthy when reformed: the leakage after careful reforming was below 100 uA at full rated voltage. The Mallories were much more leaky at about 1 mA at full voltage. I was tempted to replace them in 2012 but as they did not get warm in operation, I decided to give them a chance. The set subsequently has had a fair bit of use over the last 9 years so I won't complain.

The short took out one of the 5U4 rectifiers and a 15 amp household fuse and nothing else. As you can see the auxillary B supply and the replacement chassis mounted filament transformers are massive and escaped unscathed.

From the photo, the replacement capacitor is in the short can (the old can cut open and restuffed) and it's original companio for testing. After running the set for an hour, it is fine. However I think I will restuff the other Mallory as I have now no trust in it and it may fail in the next 5 to 10 years.

The 1947 RCA 721 TS is still soldiering on with it's original chassis mount electrolytics. It is coming up to a year and 7 months since my minimal rehabilitation. The axial lead 20ufd electrolytic used for audio output plate and screen bypassing was replaced as it failed my leakage test after reforming. To remind all, two resistors, three tubes, fourteen paper capacitors. Recall I left some of the paper capacitors in if they did not upset any DC levels.

I expect it has close to 1400 hours now.

CHCH TV channel 11 went on air in 1954 and their daytime peogramming in HD are retro programs from the 50's thru the 70's. Oddly, the stations do not multiplex up here probably due to the Canadian media monopoly which favors cable and satellite over terrestrial television. Even the CBC tried to abandon terrestrial TV but failed and only run minimal services over the air.

Anyhow CHCH which appears to be about the last independent terrestrial broadcaster in Canada uses the original 1950's logo mascot. I captured a snapshot off air on the 721TS a few minutes ago with a snapshot from the web.

That is pretty cool to have that old station broadcasting vintage shows. Are you feeding the TV with luma only from a converter box?

No the box unfortunately has composite video out. Even though this was a cheaper line RCA set with only three video IF stages, you can still make out the color dots on saturated colors.

The tubes are doing well. I never actually tested them but I see no appreciable aging. The CRT was a replacement CBS Hytron from around 1957 and has low hours. I bought the set from just outside Schenectady (it must have received first WRGB which claims to be the oldest TV station in the U.S.) from the original owners. I mentioned earlier in this thread how the family retired the set to the attic around 1960 where it sat for 55 years. It was in remarkably good shape apart the laquer finish flaking and from mice nesting under the chassis. (When I pulled the chassis, it was filled with cotten. Only the focus wire was partially nibbled). Most of the tubes are original RCA and so this set must have had a fairly light life.

I have four TVs using this chassis I haven't gotten to restore. a 721 I just picked up, two 8T241s and a 9T240.

This thread is encouraging because I dread replacing the dozen or more electro's these particular RCAs use.

Among my 21" sets, whatever Zenith used in '66 and 67' had reformed well.
BUT the two CTC-11's, 12's, 16x and 20c ALL needed the electrolytics replaced just to get rid of all the lingering issues caused.

I suspect the common ground fails and other things happen to these cans, creating high impedance connections internally due to corrosion from humidity, freezing and other factors.

Interesting as I have found similar. Mt RCA CTC-11 all of the original electrolytics were bad and had to be replaced. I replaced all apart from one supplying the B+ to the Vertical output and after a month it failed. The failure mode was opening up rather than shorting.

I have besides the 721TCS, an 8T243, 8TC271 and 9TC275. Each of the chassis mount capacitors reformed okay except for the 9TC275 under chassis mount capacitor. And my CTC5 had one electrolytic fail at turn on. But is was on the 25Hz subchassis added by RCA Montreal. The Camden mounted capacitors were excellent. (I suspected the Canadian electrolytics would fail as the leakage approached 1mA after reforming at full rated voltage whereas the Camden capacitors were at or under 100uA.

I think the takeaway here is after reforming, testing at full rated voltage or 10 % above, leaving it connected for aat least 30 minutes at this state (to check for thermal runaway) and ensuring the leakage remains no higher than 200uA. And of course after this it retains it's specified capacitance. If it can survive this punishment, then it will be okay in service.

Do you get any American TV stations OTA (or are such stations available on cable) where you are, or is it all Canadian? I would think you would get a few American stations there, as most American cities close to Canada will receive at least one U.S. station (for example, in Detroit, Michigan, viewers can get CBET-TV channel 9, formerly CKLW-TV). I mention CBET because it can be received in my area near Cleveland, when the atmospheric conditions are right; the station is also available in Detroit, which has channels 2 (Fox, formerly CBS), 4 (NBC), 7 (ABC), 50, 56 and 62 (the last being CBS; this station took the CBS affiliation from channel 2 some time ago, in the same manner as CBS-TV in Cleveland was moved from channel 8 to channel 19 (!) in the late 1980s; this was a very stupid move, in my opinion, since channel 19 is a UHF station which is not received well in some parts of northeastern Ohio unless you have cable, satellite or YouTube TV).

In the analog tv days, it was relatively easy to receive OTA from Buffalo NY from the Toronto area. I am to the west of Toronto on the Niagara escarpment and from here you could receive Buffalo NY, Erie PA and Cleveland OH. witha 50 foot tower and a good antenna.

Those were the VHF days. Now that most of the stations have moved to UHF, reception is more difficult. But can still pick up a few US stations but not as before.

It is frustrating because the Canadian media monopolies of Rogers-Bell-Shaw have no interest in OTA television as their primary interest is the ever diminishing revenue from their cable and satellite monopolies.