[Charlie]

Dammit!! Turned on the set today and had extremely weak video and audio. The set has been playing perfectly.... and now this!

I am leaving early in the morning to fly to Singapore to join the ship. I am supposed to be packing and preparing to leave... I don't have time for this crap... however I can't turn my back on this. I am easily distracted... especially when it comes to TV's.

I pulled the back off. After pulling some tubes along the picture chain, I found the 1st IF to be bad... think it was gassy. I put it in the tester... couldn't see the heater light up, but felt heat from it. Never moved the needle on the tester. Also, found the video output tube to be very weak (these tubes were alll good a month ago) and replaced it.

Now, I have good audio, but video is dark with horz lines. I find if I slowly turn down the AGC, pic will fall into sync, but poorly and with no color. The point in which I get a picture on this adjustment is well below where the setting was previously. Also, if I slightly pull off the antenna lead, picture gets better.

At this point, I feel that the picture detector diode crapped out. Current sympton is the same as Fujifrontier had on his Philco... we changed that diode and fixed the problem. I think I've got the same problem now. I'm not happy.

I don't really have time to pull the chassis to comfirm. Like I mentioned, I'm supposed to be getting ready to leave before the sun rises. Looks like I will have to wait till I get home in early-September to check and change this diode.

Why do these things happen at the worst possible moments?