Ctc9f
 

After being gone on the ship for 3 months and freezing my nads off in Alaska, I finally got to come home and start playing with this CTC9 that was in Houston. The guy that had it bought it as a package... he found a 50's Philco b&w set that he wanted (just for the looks) but the people that had it said he had to take the color set as well... it was a package deal. So, he really didn't know any history behind the set.

Everything was there... the set was super clean. There was only a thin layer of dust in there. The owners must have had a super-clean home.

I got really sick after getting the set home. The channel selector knob came off during the drive home! There was just a big hole there when I got out of the truck. I never thought to take it off, or to see if it was loose. In the meantime, I found a knob from an 11 that works, but it isn't the right one.

Someone had already changed the CRT. The 21CYP was replaced with a 21FBP with a date code of 1966. At first, it didn't test very well, but after cranking up the heaters a little bit, the meter jumped way up into the green and all was well. I let it cook like that for 30 minutes, and the tube woke up just fine. The blue gun is a little slower to come up, but it does and the emissions are almost as good as the other two guns.

At first, I found a blown fuse on the B+ line. I suspected the rectifiers, but they seemed okay. I tried to find any shorted lytics, but they seemed fine as well. I only have one spare fuse (pulled out of another CTC9), so I connected my meter across the fuse terminals and brought the set up and monitored the current. After two hours of slowly bringing the mains up, and monitoring the current, everything seemed okay. The current on the B+ never went above .7 amps (with the HV disabled). I wasn't able to get any sound thru the speaker... only the static associated with a unused channel. So, already it seems there are problems in the front-end.

After several hours, I plugged in a fuse and enabled the HV. Everything seemed fine. I got a bit of crackle from the HV starting up, but no raster. The B+ voltages were only 10 volts shy with HV running. I have not comfirmed my HV reading yet due to can't remember where I put the damn probe... been a while since i last used it.

Checked all tubes and all was good except one of the tuner tubes had serious grid leakage. Swapped it out. No change of any sort.

At one point, I had pulled a color amp, and later forgot to put it back in. It was the G-Y amp. When I turned on the set, I got a green raster! What the hell? Then I realized the tube was sitting there on the floor. Plugged it back in and the raster went away. For giggles, I pulled the R/B-Y amp... I got a purple raster. Plugged it back in... the raster went away.

I'm assuming I'll find a bad cap in there somewhere. Of course, they will all get changed. I'd first like to find the culprit that keeps me from getting a raster and why I get one when I pull those color amp tubes. If anyone has thoughts or ideas on the subject, speak up.

Also, if anyone happens to have the pretty channel selector that goes on this set, I'm willing to sell my soul for it!

That's a very nice looking TV. Weird how that the tuner knob didn't show up in the bed of your truck - turbulence rolling off the cab must have sucked it right out. Best of luck with your restoration.

A great find. Good luck on the restoration. I'm having a ball with the 2 I recently got.

Play w the service switch. If that doesn't get your video going start by checking the dc voltages around the video amp and moving fwd to the crt. A problem w the blankiing amp are can cause that too. Checking dc voltages is the best way to nail these issues fast

That set is awesome, too bad about the knob.
I hate that sick feeling you get when something like that happens.

Did you stop anywhere where someone could have swiped it? Seems strange that it didn't just fall straight down.

The front of the set was against the side of the bed. There was two pillows in there to protect the glass. The pillows stood a little taller than the side of the truck. If the knob worked loose, vibrated, wiggled, jiggled, shimmied, or simply jumped off the set, it would have landed on the top edge of the pillow, and then right down the side of the truck onto the road. No matter. I should have taken it off being it was above the side of the truck.

I did stop at a little store to get a drink. I cant imagine anyone would swipe it. I wouldn't think a channel selector would be a high theft item. I guess it's always possible that some punk saw it and thought it would make some cool bling to hang around his neck. He's certainly have something that none of his other homies had.

But, I think it came off going down the road. Probably got smashed by a Peterbuilt. :sigh:

I found that I'm short a few caps, so will have to put in an order. I can get started on it and hopefully far enough that brings the raster back online.

I'm just glad the CRT is good. The tracking is almost dead-on with each gun.

Below is the knob that it's "supposed" to have... just in case someone finds one in their knob drawer.

That's a real nice-looking set; the cabinet should just respond to a cleaning and a little Old English maybe in some spots. And a good CRT means you should be fine after a recap. I saw a woofer and cross-fired tweeters in there so it should sound great. Then just to shuffle stock around and find a place for it!

swap out the video amp tube. If the CRT is cut off it maybe that tube plate voltage is too high due to some defect. I think its a 12BY7.

PS Glad you're back.

Nice looking 9! I have one and I really like it. It has tons and tons of hours on it and it's on it's 6th CRT but just keeps plugging away. lets see any LCD or Plasma do that in 53 years from now.

I have been accused of being a few capacitors short of a whole chassis myself a few times. :)

That CTC-9 looks nice, very similar to my CTC-7 Southbridge. I hope you find a replacement knob without too much trouble.

I've seen knobs like that at the MARC Extravaganza meet in Lansing. There is a regular that always has TONS of TV knobs......If you can't make it I may be able to look for what you want at the same time I ferret for stuff I want.

Can anyone post a clearer picture of the knob? I'll be at Kutztown this coming weekend and a lot of knobs are for sale there, mostly radio, but there are some TV also.

Tom, sure.... if you happen to see one, grab it for me. I have a pretty good selection of RCA knobs here... some still in the package... but just don't have this particular one.

Got some progress going here. I've managed to get a pretty healthy raster. The brightness has to be turned up nearly 3/4 of the way before you start to get it, but hey at least it's a start.

Not so cool: The HV shuts off after about 5 or 10 minutes... just goes away... POOF. If I shut the set off, wait a minute, turn back on... everything is fine. However, I haven't left it on for the second round to see what happens... I just shut it off because I'm sure something in there is stressing out and I'll find it later when I pulled the chassis out again.

Still no signal. I did happen to notice that the AGC pot is reading way off spec. Sams says it's supposed to be a 1 meg pot, but seems I could barely get 90k out of it. I will go back and double check that later. I can also make comparisons with another ctc9 I have that does play.

Still plenty to do in there, but have to set aside today and do other things.

Inside the IF area is a small bumblebee. Change it! Mine drove me a bit nuts with that cap leaking for awhile and it's not easily visible even with the IF shields off. The RCA schematic makes life easier than SAMS. SAMS does not use the parts location numbers on the boards. They make their own numbers up. Also, SAMS has the screen voltage too low on the schematic. Keep us posted on the high voltage problem. I would monitor grid drive to the HOT to see if the oscillator is dropping out. That may explain the blown fuse (too much HOT cathode current).

I think this is what that channel knob looks like? The one pictured below is off my CTC-10A. Possibly they came with various colored channel inserts.

good luck with the set Charlie, nice find.

Looks like the same exact knob for a 9. This is my 9 knob to compare

Yes, that's the knob. God it made me sick to lose it... and it was really nice looking.

Okay, I will check out that bumble bee on the IF board. I haven't taken the cover off the IF section yet, but will get in there and swap it out.

I've noticed how some of the info in the Sams folder seemed questionble. Thanks for the heads up on that. I am well stocked with original Zenith and Motorola color set schematics, but no RCA's.

I am in the process of helping a friend move, so the set is on the back burner for a couple of days. I'll post what happens next time I get into it. I found my HV probe yesterday, so I will get a reading and see where I stand there. I will probably tackle the caps in the cage next as well and check to see what kind of current is going thru there. A quick glance in the cage showed a nearly perfect looking flyback. Typcially, many of the flybacks I see in RCA's look really tired with wax all over the place. This one looks good (and also looks original).

Hey Charlie,

Sorry to say there was a cardboard box of vintage RCA TV knobs in original packaging at the ETF last weekend. It ws a bit buried but I noticed it. I have know idea who the vendor was.

-Steve D.

oh well... that's the way it goes, Steve. THere's been times in which I wish I would have grabbed something when I had the chance. There's another one out there... it will come along soon. It's a shame that I have so many replacement knobs still on the card... but not one for this set.

My new orange drops came in the mail today. They've all been changed except in the color section. All I can say at this point is I have a really good raster. No signal, still. Kinda disappointing. I might break out my B&K Analyst and see if I can figure out where the problem is.

When I got my HV probe out, I was "shocked" to see that a had 30KV!! Holy high voltage, Batman! This was discovered before changing out caps. I found the HV adjust was turned all the way to the stop. When I backed it off, I was able to get it down to 25KV... which is still a little too high. I haven't noticed the HV shutting down like I did the other day... but then I haven't let the set run too long at once so far since I haven't checked the HO current yet. Just for giggles, I changed the HO tube because it looked like it had been road hard and hung dry.

Mine made about 32kv with the regulator disconnected, so you're in the ballpark. lol

Seriously though, I'd have no problem letting it run at 23-24kv. 22.5 was factory spec, the extra kick will just make a it a little brighter.

Had the B&K hooked up to the set tonight. I got video a signal in all IF and video circuits, so it looks like I have a tuner issue (which I don't like toying with). I will take the tuner apart tomorrow and see what I can find.

Check the tubes in the tuner. I did not check them in my maggie. It worked for a minute and completely faded to a blank raster. The Nuvistor had zero emissions and the other had a short. On those 9's, the wiring can get brittle and break off easily. I had a few on mine. The wiring for the CRT socket kept breaking off to the point that it's no longer long enough to reach the CRT. Recently I found a NOS replacement for it locally

If it's like the tuners in my CTC-11s, cleaning may be all that it needs. I'm not a fan of those tuners. Despite being cleaned at least twice, the tuner in my 11 is still funky.

When cleaning, avoid spraying all over the place. Don't use anything abrasive on the contacts. I use Q-tips (or whatever) dipped in DeOxit. Some people use a different brand of cleaner, some follow the cleaning with something else to rinse. There are many theories and practices to choose from, when it comes to cleaning contacts.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

I have determined that I have a shorted 10mmf capacitor going from pin 9 of the osc to ground. Resistance readings for pins 9, 8, 6, and 3 should be infinite... and yet I get 200 ohms on 9, 6k ohms on 8, 7k ohms on 3, and 8k ohms on 6. After studying the diagram, it seemed pretty clear that the little cap at pin 9 must be the culprit.

However, the damn thing is so far in there that I can even get my little cutters in there to get the cap out. I think I can manage getting a new one in, but getting the old one out seems to be a challenge.

For shits & grins, I tried calling Louis Stangle in Longview, Texas... he's the guy that repairs tuners and I've heard good comments in the past from people here at VK. Unfortunately, all the numbers listed on the site are disconnected, and there is no email address listed in the site. From what I understand, this man is in his 70's. I certainly hope he hasn't expired.

On a longshot, I tried calling Moyer's to see if they had a tuner for it. They can really surprise you with some of the old stock they've got, but didn't have what I was looking for. He said most shops sent tuners off to be repaired instead of ordering new ones.

Sooo... I'm back to trying to figure out how to get my fingers in there to do what I need to do. If I could at least get one side of that cap disconnected, I could verify my suspissions about it being shorted.

After jacking around with this tuner for a while, I was able to get one side of that little capacitor disconnected. Unfortunately, it did not correct the problem I was having with the resistance readings on pins 9, 8, 6, and 3. So, either I have something else in there that's shorted/grounded, OR, the imformation in the Sams is incorrect (and we've all found that to be more common than not from time to time).

Here's a thought.... I have a CTC11 chassis out in the garage that I know functions. Physically, I believe the tuners to be the same. Electronically, they are a little different. There's a 5 volt difference for the B+ between the two. I'm thinking about seeing if I can put the 11 tuner on this 9 chassis and see what I can get.

I welcome any input regarding this swap.

If you're in a pinch, a tuner out of an 11 will work in a 9. The body of the 11 tuner was a little shorter, so only one screw hole lined up for mounting on the chassis. Other than that, it fit pretty good.

THere were a lot of cob webs in that thing from being on the floor of the garage for the past several years... I just did a quickie clean up and stuck it in there. It actually works better than I thought it would.

Took a lot of adjusting to get a decent stable picture. Had some squiggly lines to deal with. I suspect most of it is from being dirty. I will take it out and give it a good cleaning.

At least this shows my problem was definately the tuner.

For the original tuner, I hope to find out something about the guy in Longview... I could send it to him to fix up (if he doesn't already have one on the shelf). Until then, I will likely poke around in it to see if I can figure it out myself.

If necessary, I suppose I can leave this CTC11 tuner in there, but I'd really like to get it the way it's supposed to be.

Here's a few shots after the install. The only adjustments made were the user front-panel controls. I didn't need to touch anything in the back yet. I'm surprised that the convergence is somewhat decent.

Convergence looks pretty good. Nice color. I noticed that in the first picture a "Market Basket" ad. Is that a chain of grocery stores? There uses to be some in the Los Angeles area but went out of business 30 years ago. Just wondering if it could be the same chain.

Wow, that looks great, Charlie.

Thanks. It's far from finished... picture is still a little fuzzy and the screen needs to be degaussed. I'm kinda afraid to turn on the degaussing coil here in the living room... I need to first move all my reel-to-reel and VHS tapes to the other side of the room. I might just use my soldering gun to try to demag the screen. I used to have good luck with that before I got a coil.

I think it will be far better once I get the tuner cleaned up really good.

I haven't changed the caps in the color section yet.... that can be for another day. Also, the horizontal is a little touchy. I think there's still two caps too be changed under the chassis in that department.

The sound is really good. No buzz or static.

I am curious about one thing... why is it my photos do not show up as tumbnails in my posts?

Market Basket is a locally owned grocery chain to this area. They're celebrating 51 years right now. My younger siblings and I all worked there when we were in high school and college. I worked there 8 years before I started going to sea.

It's been a few days since I last played with this. Last night, I pretty much finished up (or at least as far as I'm going to take it at this point).

The tuner from the CTC11 is doing okay... but like Phil described his, this one, too, is kinda funky. I found that the best picture response shows up when I get the channel selector between channels 3 & 4. It really is kinda sloppy. I can't change the channel and come back without having to doing a major re-adjust of the fine tuner. But, until I can do something with the original tuner, this will have to do. The picture is a little grainy... not too bad. Tried repacing the nuvistor... no change.

HV is set on 23KV. Tried to adjust the current in the horz section... was reading about 210ma. When I tried adjusting the coil to bring it down a bit, I found it was frozen in place and wouldn't budge. Damn! Typical. After trying to work it loose for some time, I finally gave up in fear or breaking the damn thing.

I ran the set for some time and monitored the current. Stayed solid at 210. About an hour later, I felt the flyback and found it to only be slightly warm... about what you'd expect from it operating. I guess it will be okay... probably been that way for years.

Does anyone have any tricks for loosening frozen coils without breaking them? I'd still like to get that current down just a little if possible.

I never touched the convergence board. I felt it was acceptable as is. There are a couple of areas that look a tad off, but not so much that it bothered me. Perhaps later, I will touch up convergence if I go back in to swap out the tuner for the original.

Something I found interesting... the place where the "stereo speaker" input is located... this chassis instead has a red screen control there. My other CTC9 actually has the speaker input. The back of the cabinet labels that spot as stereo speaker, and it lead me to think someone removed that input jack and stuck that red screen control there. However, when you look at it from the inside, it does appear to look like a factory job and not an add-on from some shop.

Another question for thought... the red background control... why even have it??? In the set-up instructions, it clearly states to turn it fully counter-clockwise and leave it there... do not adjust. Even at the end of the instructions, it again says to leave it alone. Why have it if it's not to be adjusted? If i remember correctly, the later chassis did not have a red background control.

As mentioned earlier, the CRT was replaced during the mid-late 60's. I noticed that the label has an "HR" prefix on the 21FBP. I wonder what the HR stands for? I don't think I've seen the HR before on any others. High resolution??? :lmao: Yeah, I kinda doubt that. :)

RE: cathode current

If the slug is frozen, put a hairdrier on it till it frees up. Then you should be able to adjust it faily easily. It's usually old wax that gets into them, so once you break it loose it should be OK. I was able to get cathode current on my CTC-9 down to 180ma, pretty low as it turns out. It's a careful balancing act between drive, horizontal tuning and the HV control. They all interact with each other, so play with it til you can't get it any lower. If you can keep it reliably below 200ma, the set will play for days without getting warm.

Could the HR prefix mean Hi-Lite remanufactured?

I will try the hair dryer next time I pull out the chassis. Certainly can't be any worse than the heat that gets generated in that cabinet!! :D

The HR... I was always under the impression that Hi-Lite tubes were not rebuilds. Even if the tube was an actual rebuild that started out as a Hi-Lite, the old Hi-lite labels would have been removed during the rebuild process.

According to yr 2nd picture, that Bad Boi's got a pretty good picture on it, Charlie.

B+ Surge
 

It's pretty common that older sets with surge supression resistors (or thermistors) are found to have the component burned out, broken, or bypassed. This CTC9 was no exception. Someone had twisted the leads together like twisting the tie on a loaf of bread. I'm pretty sure I'm stressing those filters everytime I turn the set on.

I'm assuming that the auto-degaussing circuit in the newer sets also serves as surge supressor for the B+.

With that being said, would it be acceptable to use a degaussing resistor in a CTC9 for the B+ surge supressor? I have a small handfull of these resistors for the degauss circuit... was thinking about plugging one of those in on my 9.

Would depend on if it has similar characteristics to the B+ device. However, since you don't have one in there now, won't hurt to try one & monitor how B+ comes up on startup.

No. That device has low resistance at first that increases when it warms up (as a degauss circuit should work). What you need is a device that does the opposite: High resistance at first that decreases when it warms up. Newer RCA sets such as the CTC-16X that I just looked at have one of each device.