I operate as an early color TV Performance Enhancer rather then an early color TV restorer. This fact was clearly demonstrated by my "trashing" of the 21CT55’s floor model cabinet to make it a table model so it can rest on my bench top. No big deal?
I constantly seek to demonstrate the potential of the RCA 21CT55 basic electronic design by pushing circuit implementation to the max without the constraints of convention.
Operation of the 21CT55 as a video only monitor allows all the performance advantages of modern digital baseband video to be displayed without the constraints of over the air video RF bandwidth limitation. RCA's 21CT55's inherent low level chroma demodulation and CRT drivers have been used as control room direct video camera monitors so they must be good. My great volume of resulting modified 21CT55 screen shots compared to top of the line crt tvs and crt monitors should be apparent.
All of this TV Performance Enhancement terminated March 21, 2010 at 3:30 when the
original 55 year old 21CT55 fly back transformer primary shorted out. It had been running unintended for about 10 minutes and cooked. Horizontal circuit current had been running approximately 200 ma but was fused at 1 amp by mistake. Disaster, these transformers were non obtainable! I was dead in the water.
After much agony and research I decided to substitute the horizontal circuitry from a RCA CTC-20, the last of the 21FB22 roundys. Horizontal transformers and circuit components were still available. Sounds simple but the interface circuitry was radically different between the 1955 CTC2 and CTC-20 series, 14 series later of evolution later!
Notebook and photo records indicate that after many circuit evolutions and hardware hacks later I got my first stable full screen photos on the original 21FB22A CRT on October 28,2010 after seven months of part time effort. So have there been other successful attempts of 21CT55 horizontal transformer replacement? Anyone?
What amazes me is the refusal of some members to accept this reality. This was dramatically demonstrated by the “pile on” of a few members to scold me for not following the dictates of a few super restoration members. These included elimination of paper caps, restuffing of electrolytics , never exceeding the original specified max RCA ratings etc. Sorry, these limitations do not apply to my personal 21CT55 performance enhancement charter. I can live with their rejection.
Complaints of my posting of “hundreds of screen shots” during my “Photo Bucket’s $400 ransom extortion” attempt jnvestigation was justifiable to prove my photos were recoverable using previously recorded texts........
Nobody is obligated to view my Tomcomm stuff, right? No one got hurt, eh? So what’s the problem here?
I am truly grateful to those members who finally got me connected to FLICKR. It’s a great posting sight. I promise to use it with constraint………Tomcomm