Miniman82's CTC7 on NBC News

[IsthmusTV]

I happened to see this on Tuesday's NBC Nightly News and snapped a photo. It was a segment on how new internet delivered TV services are threatening the networks' bottom line. I remembered Nick's posts about lending his CTC7 to the broadcasting museum in Chicago, and I recognized his excellent cabinet work.

That's a nice Philco consolette, too. It looks a lot like my 49-1150. Very cool. I'll have to check out the museum next time I'm in Chicago. Congrats, Nick!

-Clark

[old_tv_nut]

I'll have to get down there some time - I think it's still sparsely populated, but having working sets is a huge plus.

[miniman82]

Miniman in the media strikes again! lol

Nice to see it's still working, hope the CRT is still good when I get it back. Last time I spoke to them they said it was being run pretty much any time the museum is open, so it's going to accumulate some decent hours. Good thing I put that fan on the HV cage to keep it cool.

[old_coot88]

Noticed the Blonder-Tongue UHF converter sittin' on top the Philco.

[IsthmusTV]

Originally Posted by miniman82

Nice to see it's still working, hope the CRT is still good when I get it back. Last time I spoke to them they said it was being run pretty much any time the museum is open, so it's going to accumulate some decent hours. Good thing I put that fan on the HV cage to keep it cool.

I was wondering how much playing time it was getting. It's very generous of you to offer up a nice roundie with a good CRT that may get run into the ground! All the more reason to hope that the ETF rebuilding project is eventually successful...

[miniman82]

Nah, I could care less to be honest. Even though it's got an NOS 21CYP22 in it, it's one of my 'expendable' sets. In other words if it goes down in flames, at least it wasn't a CTC-4 or something more rare. CTC-7's still pop up in the wild from time to time, and I really wouldn't be bothered to much if it failed. In any event, I have the screen controls set up so that when brightness is at max it's not riding the CRT too hard. Screens are only high enough to get a viewable picture with normal room lights, they go much higher than where they are currently set. That should keep people from running it completely into the ground. It's been there more than a year already, and it looks exactly like it did when I left it. I don't think it will have any problem going 'the distance', however long that ends up being.

Coincidentally, this should be proof that these old sets can in fact be run pretty much 24/7 by a novice without so much as a mouse fart- provided that they are set up correctly. People who know me will tell you that unless a set outperforms the factory standards, I'm never happy. So it was with this one. I got it to run less than the service manual calls for on horizontal output tube cathode current at max brightness, got more HV than the manual calls for, and even lent the museum my variac so it would always run at the rated 115vac called for in the schematics. I don't think I even degaussed it when I dropped it off, color bars looked perfect.

If anyone feels like swapping out my set for theirs, I doubt the curators would mind. Could be a neat way for the WI/IL crowd to get some vintage TV exposure for their sets, and who knows maybe some airtime as well? Even if it's only 'digital' airtime...

[Steve D.]

Nick,

The image looks quite bright considering they always add more light for these news standups. The set is a real trooper.

-Steve D.

[zenithfan1]

That is really cool! I should go see it. Maybe after you get yours back, I'll loan 'em a set so I can get some room in my bedroom lol! I'm not loaning out my Anderson though.....