Thanks. I'm glad some folks here like it. I managed to get a good deal on a wooden-cased Montgomery-Ward AA5 radio at an antique mall, so I have my guinea pig for a first-time recap. Now, as spare funds permit, I need to secure some soldering tools and build a dim-bulb tester, and maybe also go ahead and get an isolation transformer. I'm eager to get to work on the television but want to have an adequate feel for soldering beforehand, and have all the basic tools and equipment I'll need.
I'd like to see the tuner (especially the UHF) working as well as the internal antennas, so I'll be springing for an agile modulator sooner or later (and probably more than one to provide multiple channels, and an output combiner for testing...). My employer recently moved into a new building, and allowed me to take home the fairly compact rolling telecom rack cabinet from the old office that was sitting outside waiting to be discarded, so I'll be able to rack-mount the equipment as it was designed to be. It wouldn't be cheap to buy a cabinet like this new, so I couldn't be happier even though it's a little rough and dirty.
I feel like a bit of a dunce now, because it was only just last night as I was looking at the photos again that I noticed the TV's layout diagram says it's a 4
9A4 chassis, not 46A4. Maybe that's why there was no mention of UHF in any of the service info I acquired. Per the Sams index, the Photofact I have is still the applicable one (these chassis apparently being similar enough), but as it turns out, Rider Television Manual Vol. 14 has the exact Trav-Ler schematic for my chassis, tuner included. As luck would have it, that happens to be one of the few Television Manual volumes available as a
free PDF download online from World Radio History (schematic on page 1036). The image quality in the PDF leaves a bit to be desired, so a hulking and crumbly Vol. 14 should soon be rejoining the hulking and crumbly Vol. 13 I purchased from the same seller. When I have the paper schematic in my possession, I'll share a photo of it.
My mistake is serendipitous in a way, though, because some relevant info found in Rider Vol. 13 (including the bit about the "O" suffix) is not in 14.
Per the Sams and Rider indexes, the full model number for my TV with the 49A4 chassis is 321-48OU9 (or 321-480U9). Looking at the photos again, I'm guessing that is a faded "U9" stamp on the left side of the model label.