once you set the color sync with any given source, be, be it a color bar generator, DVD, or what ever, you should NOT have to change it again. the fact that it is still giving problems is an indication that the IF is still off alignment.

Well I feel it can’t be that far off being if cable worked the dvd would work to but right now it’s just the dvd. Back to the dread. The colors on that pattern is still off alittle so if I get that pattern perfect maybe then it will be good on cable

Unless the modulator on the cable box is the same brand and model as the one on the DVD player there's no guarantee it will perform the same or even try to implement the NTSC standard to the same level of strictness or laxness. Consumer gear isn't broadcast gear so it doesn't all try to implement NTSC to broadcast standards....It usually does the minimum to not get a lawsuit or excessive customer complaints...How far (if at all) beyond that "don't sue me" threshold a maker goes is their discretion.

Does the cable box have a composite video and audio out? If it does why not connect that to the modulator you use for the DVD player if that modulator works better. If all the cable box has is RF and HDMI use a either a VCR to convert the RF to audio and composite video for the modulator or an HDMI to AV converter.
Analog composite audio video switch boxes are cheap at the thrifts if you need to have multiple video sources feeding the modulator.

So what it comes down to is the IF strip is out of alignment.

Probably. It could also be that the cable box has such a lousy modulator that some sets don't work well with it. I typically only use Blonder Tongue modulators to feed my sets because I've had cheaper consumer modulators so lousy that they would only work properly with some SS era sets...I know the BTs are professional enough that I don't have to worry about "don't sue me" level design becoming a problem with them so I try to stick to using the BTs.

Literally some of the cheap built in modulators in consumer cable boxes, VCRs, etc are so cheap they don't suppress the unused sideband of the video carrier causing interference with adjacent channels and issues with older sets tuning the wrong sideband, issues with audio RF level being wrong, incorrect output frequency, cascaded single osc modulators allowing over modulated video to create unfixable video buzz in the audio etc.

It could be either the modulator in the cable box or the alignment or both...It's up to you to figure out which. The run the cable box through the good DVD modulator idea I mentioned in my last post can help you determine which it is.

The DVD player is plugged into an old rf modulator and ant out to the tv then I’ll disconnect and put the cable wire directly to the antenna terminal with the matching trans I don’t think cable signal could be that bad could it. I have a distribution amplifier that is 36db gain adjustable I could try that maybe the cable box signal is very weak. Well I just tried the rf amp no difference so back to the diddle stick.

This is confusing sentence structure and word choice. Are you trying to say you have analog cable from the wall and are connecting it directly to the TV?

A consumer cable box isn't necessarily going to have a good modulator let alone a broadcast quality modulator in it.
If one modulator works good with the TV and another doesn't, then just stick with what works and stop bringing extra variables into play.

I have a cable box and with a splitter I run a cable and with the matching trans on the back of the set that’s how I use it and all my b&w sets work fine and the only time I use a rf modulator is to run the DVD player I’m not running cable in the modulator only for dvd. I have always used a cable from a box but this is the first time for this tv here since I only just got cable I had direct tv befor and all my color sets worked now I only have this one Motorola color. So this cable box may not be compatible with this Motorola.

Ok so I understand that the cable boxes are digital now so to try to rule this out I need to find an RF modulator that is for old TV sets where it has cable in and the correct signal out for an old tv I guess an analog signal. Does anyone know what they are called or where I can get one. Years back it was on the news warning people the signal was changing and there tvs won’t work.

You say all your black and white sets work fine. Those sets are analog. So, whatever you are plugging into the antenna terminals of those sets should work with your analog color set.

When you are describing the hookup, please be specific and step by step, like:
1. coax from wall to cable box.
2. cable box output (say what it is called on the box) to coax cable to matching transformer
3. matching transformer to TV antenna screw terminals

Ok when I got cable I realized that there is no cable out just HDMI I could have just plugged it into the flat tv but I needed to get signal to my other TV sets so I did with 2 small units HDMI plugs into from the cable box and changed it to I guess the analog signal and that’s what I use to run my old sets with a few splitters. So ok then it’s not the cable signal but rather the tv IF must still be out enough not lock in color but yet the IF accepts the signal from a DVD player using a modulator for games and DVD players.

Wait a sec...
HDMI output only?
are you using something like this?
https://www.amazon.com/GANA-Composit...ct_top?ie=UTF8

something like this will NEVER work on vintage TVs I have tried, they are JUNK
you will get NO color or barber pole effect due to the sloppy colorburst it puts out, solid state TVs work MOST of the time, but tube, NEVER will.
you must have a Cable box that outputs composite video (ntsc) for it to work correctly

This picture is what I’m using to run my flat tv but then I put a splitter in and one goes to the flat tv and the other to my b&w sets. How and what do you use for your color sets if you have a HDMI box output only. What do I have to do or buy to get the correct signal to this tv.

+1. I've had mixed luck with those. I've had that same box with a couple different brands on it. First one worked great for a few months (of occasional use) then lost video completely, the replacement would get and loose color randomly and have other issues.

I've got an older metal box HDMI to AV adapter that's out of production that works better. Though my go-to is an HDMI to ATSC transmitter and a DTV converter box for my tube sets...It's expensive but gives me the best quality and aspect ratio control I've been able to get from HDMI sources.
This video gives an overview of that stuff. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hKjt3x4WtWU

but it's pretty clear that the HDMI to AV adapter is the source of the color problem, Timmy has the same as I had, looks the same, I spent over 2 hours screwing with it and color never worked on the stupid thing, so it was thrown in the garbage.
the review i left for it
VERY poor quality.
But that is not surprising for the amount spent on the unit, I was hoping it might work, but like many others who got it, I was disappointed.
I got this unit to try to convert HDMI to composite for a vintage TV, if you are expecting black and white only, then this may work for you, but if you want color, get something of better quality, because the colorburst freq this puts out is WAY OFF, meaning that any vintage equipment can't lock on meaning NO COLOR at all, or barberpoleing if it tries to lock in color.
The only way to get this to work correctly is to run it through a time base corrector to correct the colorburst phase errors and get TRUE NTSC color out of it, which makes getting the thing rather pointless.
Bottom line, get something better.

Finally no more with the diddle stick in the IF didn’t need all the alignment tools took long enough but it’s here. And it was the cable box I went and exchanged it. I’m still going to go over things like purity and convergence and color adjustments and try to get this set buttoned up. The pic is regular television.

Hooray! It's good to see it working properly.

congratz!

If you didn’t read that post on how I had things hooked up and if you had not mentioned you had the same problem I would probably never had thought that it was the cable box as all the didling I did in the IF I got to a point I couldn’t get the picture or the pattern any better which looked really good for not having alignment apparatus so I left it alone and hoped for the best since it was said it cannot be done visually. So thanks for that valuable info on the cable box and HDMI crap.

I know these old color sets are not perfect but why is it that convergence is set up and good one day then a few days later the convergence is off alttle bit. Is there a cause why this happens.

Perhaps your local line voltage is changing a bit from day to day. B+ isn't regulated in these sets so changes in line voltage can change deflection and dynamic convergence...I've seen these effects in slow motion day to day change, and fast motion multiple sets running at the same time rapidly blooming in sync to dips in line voltage from the neighboring industrial park doing sketchy stuff.

Ok makes sense since I have an electric heater on the same line but the voltage don’t seem to change.