Tonight - March Online Meeting

[Steve McVoy]

Tonight - March Online Meeting of the Early Television Museum Community

Saturday, March 18 at 8 PM EST

Our March Meeting will feature four segments: first, Steve McVoy will update news of the Early Television Foundation, followed by a look at the Olympic RTU-3H Duplicator in the museum's collection. Then, several respected experts in the field of vintage television restoration will participate in part two of a panel discussion about the various philosophical and technical approaches to diagnosing and servicing a vintage television receiver. Chuck Azzalina, Bob Andersen and Dan Jones will discuss their various and occasionally differing philosophies about dealing with recalcitrant TVs (and occasionally also with customers.) Join us for what promises to be a fascinating, informative and freewheeling look at this aspect of the vintage television collecting world. Finally, we will have an open topic discussion. Feel free to introduce any topic you are interested in.

https://earlytelevision.org/monthly_online_meeting.html

[dtvmcdonald]

I'd like to comment on this. I watched the replay yesterday.

The round table participants seems to be suffering from color TV phobia. Yes, I know there is a .sig around here that is something like "restoring a TV is like war ... restoring a color TV is something like a ground war in Asia."

But I got thinking: "How many B&W sets did I restore before I tackled my CT-100".
The answer is: two, a Pilot TV-37 and an Emerson 600, i.e. one 3" and one 7" electrostatic set. I also had trouble shot a horizontal linearity problem in an otherwise properly working RCA 9T246. (Hint for any job: first make sure every tube is the proper type ... the horizontal output was the wrong type, it had perfectly fine and similar specs, and worked OK except linearity.)

I had no experience in restoring TV sets, just several radios and decades of experience fixing designing and fixing solid state electronics, some with high power tube (widowmaker) final stages, and have the equipment. "If the only tool you have is an oscilloscope, every problem looks green and wiggly."

You can read my whole CT-100 journey on this forum. The only genuine nightmare was an intermittent horizontal oscillator that finally required a complete replacement of every resistor in the whole horizontal system including sync. I still don't which part was bad. But I went very slowly and methodically. The 9T246 could have had the identical problem, since its the same circuit.

A CT-100 or a 21CT55 or a Westinghouse or any of the even rarer sets is worth the work.

Electronic Memory: what's your comment on this topic? You've done many.

[bhegges]

I am only on my 3rd TV. 1st was a 7" electrostatic set, 2nd a color hybrid set, and now 3rd a color roundie, before these came dozens of tube radios. Level of difficulty was never a concern to me.

How much of not working on color sets is just in general no interest vs being too difficult to work on? There was a lot of comments about later B/W sets being just a boring box, do color sets fall into this category for many?

[Electronic M]

Color difficult depends on the era of the set, what's wrong with it and the knowledge, or lack there of, of the person working on it.
Different collectors like different things. There's some guys that only collect pre-war, others that are only interested in late 40s sets, some who only want TV station broadcast monitors, some who only like early color, some who only like soild state sets.

I personally collect everything I can afford and can justify saving over something that takes up similar space. What that translates to so far is mostly tube sets and hybrids from 46-75. I tend to favor early post war, interesting looking portables of the 50s and 60s, color, remote sets, and sets that represent interesting technological advances, hight points and failures, as well as transition such as the hybrid sets. By the late 50s console design was fairly standard between color and monochrome consoles and the circuits in monochrome were well standardized so if I can get a cool Danish Modern Zenith as monochrome or color why not save the color set and have something that I can watch modern content on without missing color?
My interest strongly tapers after the end of hybrids. I've got some early SS Zenith sets, some handheld sets, the SS sets Ive had since new and was using when analog cable ended, and a 34" 1080i HD-CRT Sony with HDMI in as a daily watcher (it also represents the peak of technological development CRT TVs experienced) and that's it.

[bandersen]

We were specifically talking working on a color set for customers. Simply put - I've never had a customer bring me a color set. So, my workshop is streamlined for B&W TVs.


Personally, I have several vintage color TVs I've worked on from my own collection.

[dtvmcdonald]

Specifically, I had got the impression that at least one member of the panel indeed had
what another replier in this thread described as "color TV phobia". I was pointing out that
I had successfully done a CT-100 as my third TV restoration. But while I was never
an official TV repairman, I did have, back in the day, lots of experience with tubized
stuff, and already had the necessary (and it really is) equipment. I am absolutely positive
I could not have done it without a first rate dual trace 100 MHz scope, and would never try without one (well 60 MHz would do.)