My first color roundie
 

I picked this up in Upper Michigan at an estate sale today for 5 bucks. I also picked up one of those gold colored triple cone lamps, and a funky blue chair. The Zenith is model number 5540 chassis number 25LC30. IT says Service Saver Hi-Fi Chassis. No uhf on this one. I do not have cable or a decent antenna so I used this modulator and my dvd player with a recorded copy of Mannix. Hot dog it works! It seems my modulator is not the greatest tho I am getting some hot signal in there somewhere (The whites cause buzzing). My camera wasn't working so I had to use my cell which is not the best. The set has good sound to it. Bass, treble and Two speakers!

Nice score,, I too am after a Zenith color roundie. I am also a big Mannix fan.
Dan

Kewl !! Nice pic on the Roundie.

Very nice Zenith and the price was certainly right. Looks like a '64 model built in late '63, prior to the mandatory UHF.

-Steve D.

Your Zenith is a good set, probably made before 1964 since it doesn't have UHF (as Steve D. mentioned). You should be able to pick up your area's local stations even with a set of rabbit ears, or with whatever type of antenna you have. Where are you located? If you are in a suburb of a good-sized city, your set should get at least one channel.

The buzzing you are hearing is likely caused by the AGC threshold control being set too high or too low. The signal from your DVD player's RF modulator is stronger than any standard TV signal you would receive over the air, so if the AGC is incorrectly set it can cause the RF and IF stages in the set to operate at much higher gain than is actually required. Back it off until the buzz disappears. The only drawback is that you may have to readjust the control if you eventually get cable.

BTW, I like Mannix as well. Watched the show every week when it was new, and for years after that in reruns. I have a subscription to Netflix, so I'll be able to get those old shows on DVD eventually.....Can't seem to get enough of that show, or any other crime drama of the 1970s. (I ordered the entire first and second seasons of Quincy, a late '70s crime drama formerly on NBC, from Amazon.com and am awaiting the arrival of the disks in my mailbox.)

I grew up in the 1970s and feel that television was a heck of a lot better then than it is now. Thank goodness for DVDs. A lot of old shows have left cable (TV Land has replaced a lot of the old programs it used to show with Movie Land and several so-called TV Land Originals), so DVD is about the only way we can see these old classics.

Your cell-phone camera takes fairly good photos, IMHO; I just looked at one of the thumbnails you attached to your post, and it doesn't look bad at all. I also have a somewhat cheap digital camera (Radio Shack Flatfoto, the first model with a standard optical viewfinder; later versions of this camera have a small color LCD screen for image previews); mine is only 1.3 megapixels, but it takes surprisingly good pictures.

I'd hang on to that Zenith TV as long as it works well for you. That set is an example of very fine workmanship, as Zenith was still handwiring its TVs and stereo gear in the 1960s. In any event, they don't make them like that anymore.

The audio section of your set is very high-end as well, for a TV made in the mid-'60s. Two speakers and bass/treble tone controls were not usually found in TVs of this vintage, but apparently yours is one of Zenith's better consoles. I had a 1963 Zenith b&w 23" console years ago with a 6x9" oval speaker, tone control (only one), and a 6BN6/6BQ5 audio system. Mine sounded so good that I eventually patched an old FM tuner into the audio circuitry; the sound was excellent. I have two Zenith radios today that sound just as good (maybe even better, since the radios have larger speakers and true tone controls), but still I wish I could have held on to that 23" Zenith TV longer than I did. Wasn't a good feeling at all to put that set out for the trash after having restored it with all new tubes.

Great score!! That thing looks nice! I also like that cabinet style, looks like it don't have a scratch on it. And for 5 bucks!! Congrats!

Contrast setting on older color sets
 

Remember that when the earlier color sets were manufactured, the contrast setting was never intended to be maxed out. I see photos of some of the restored sets and driving the contrast level too high really takes away from the beauty of the color image. Keep in mind the early sets weren't made to run head to head with today's technology, but rather to produce superior color pictures when set up properly

I will be doing some cap jobs this winter including this one. I probably had it maxed out, not that I cared for it but when backed off it has a veiling effect to the picture. So I just backed it off a bit.

I have replaced the crappy modulator with a vcr and that has helped with the hot signal and then I adjusted the AGC which helped more but on titles it buzzes a little. I messed with the color adjustments on the back and got it a little better. There is a switch on the back of the chassis for setup, how does that work?

My background has been guitar amps, and radios, audio stuff so tv is a little new to me. For equipment I have a Fluke 77, an old navy signal generator, a couple tube testers, a variac, and a Heath 10-18 scope that I just picked up for 10 bucks. I plan on getting a better scope soon ,plus a rf generator, and a sweep marker generator. Any other equipment I should pick up? I was thinking for a scope something like a Tek 465 or 475. As far as the generators I have no clue.

Couldn't he put an atttenuator between the source and the set? Seems to me that would tame the signal quite a bit.

You would think that I would have saved some pads from when I worked at Charter, but I didn't. I did try using a splitter and a filter I had but I couldn't get the drop right.

older color sets look better with contrast backed off
 

Sometimes I see photo's of color sets that the contrast seems to be maxed out. Keep in mind some of the earlier color sets look much better if you back the contrast back a bit. If you try to run head to head with today's technology, you circumvent the reason for restoring some of these old guys.

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even my sylvania (from 78), i feel, looks best with the contrast set back a decent amount. everything looks more natural. i could run it all the way up with no color bleeding but it looks rediculous i think.

I'm guilty of it. It tends to look better to my eyes. But I will give backing off a try.

I received the sams for this set recently and the other night I started to make a list of parts to buy for some winter projects including this set. When looking at a sams parts list the Electrolytics are listed, and then the rest of the caps. Some caps have voltage ratings some do not. Generally are the ones with voltage ratings the wax/paper caps? And the rest mica's and ceramics?

In the not too distant past,CRT televisions sold in the big stores purposely kept the contrast (white level) maxed out to draw customers in. "Brightness sells" was their mindset.Forget picture quality.

A good general rule of thumb is to set contrast at midpoint,then make the necessary adjustments. Test patterns are available to actually dial this in,along with brightness (black level). One of them is the Pluge pattern.Another is the needle pulse.As Andy mentioned,once you get used to the "darker"picture and dial in the color,tint adjustments,you'll never want to go back to torch mode.

Regarding the caps, yes, for the most part that is true. I don't think you'll find many paper caps in that set at all-they had mostly switched to orange drops or similiar. Wholesale replacement of the electrolytics isn't mandatory on these, but sooner or later it will need it so it just as well be sooner.