Channel master crt

[iong]

Did channel master make a high quality CRT like Zenith or Rca or was it a cheep tube

[Gunslinger]

They had various tubes with different quality. The better ones had a 3 year warranty.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by iong

Did channel master make a high quality CRT like Zenith or Rca or was it a cheep tube

You had to wonder!
I preferred to use factory rebuilts, rather than the local rebuilders tubes.
Every so often, I wasn't impressed with the picture quality of the Channel Masters. It seemed like they used odd-ball phosphers, where the red was orangey. I think they sold the new ones as rebuilts, when they didn't quite pass QC standards. They stood up a little better than the cheaper rebuilts.

[sampson159]

we used channel master crts for years.it was the luck of the draw.some were excellent and some looked pretty bad.they were good about their warranties and replaced any that wasnt up to par.never saw a bad channel master roundie crt.they werent quite as good as the vdc,magnachrome,or sylvania rebuilds but they were good.

[holmesuser01]

I bought C-M rebuilt tubes for years, and never had issues with any of them.

Bought several from VDC, and had to return them under warranty.

[Tom S]

I used Sylvania and Channel Master. No probs with either one.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Tom S

I used Sylvania and Channel Master. No probs with either one.

Did you have to get them shipped from G.M Popkey in Green Bay?
They had a store in Milwaukee, that's where I bought mine! The Sylvania CRT's were named "The Competitor" as the price competed with the local rebuilts. I don't remember having trouble with either C-M or Sylvania rebuilts.
But after two years, they just about had it.

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by Gunslinger

They had various tubes with different quality. The better ones had a 3 year warranty.

Nope. I sold Channel Master CRTs in the 80s, at Cain Electronics here in Norfolk. The best Channel Master CRT was the "OptiChrome" Lifetime Guarantee CRT. I have a buddy with a CM LT 25EGP22 (CM's 23EGP22 replacement) in the original carton - it checks like a brand new one to this day.

Channel Master sold out to Video Display, and quit the Lifetime CRT business in 1987, several years before giving up the CRT business. Roundies were never offered in the OptiChrome. Only 23V/25V, and a few 19V (no bonded yokes) were offered. Opti-luxe was the 2 year, the only other CRT they offered. I dunno the details for those holding LT CRTs.

I still have a padded CM Optichrome LT cabinet protector from 1979, but the foam padding has degraded and is sticky.

[Tom S]

Matter a fact yes Popkey and Satterfield out of rapids in my area. Jack Bruner was our rep from Popkey and Bill Shulzime for Satterfield.

[ohohyodafarted]

Tom S. and Dieseljeep....

I got a hoard of CM tubes from Bushland Radio Supply in Eau Claire a number of years ago. I believe he may still be in business. Did you guys ever deal with Bushland. I used to deal buy from Taylor Electric the RCA distributor and Popkey in the Milwaukee area.

Bushland in EauClaire was a Channel master distributor. He no longer had any customers for a large number of crt's in his inventory, so I was able to haul them away. Loaded my trailer and Ford Van and made 2 trips from Milwaukee to Eau Claire and back to get them all. I hauled away about 100 tubes. Many were duplicates for late model, table model B&W sets. I hauled many of the duplicates to the ETF museum and donated them. I kept all the color crts and a lot of the B&W. I got 3 rebuilt CM 21FJP22's, a GE rare earth 21FJP22 and a CM rebuilt 21AXP22. And a lot of rectangular color crt's. Bushland wanted the space to store Channel Master brand antenna's, because a lot of people in northern Wisconsin were putting up UHF antennas to receive the digital stations at the time of the switch to digital.

I have used and sold a number of the tubes and so far everyone including myself has been very happy with the quality of the CM tubes.

I have all the tubes for sale on my web site, except for the 21" roundies. Allthough all the crt's are NOS CM rebuilts in original cartons, the color tubes with bonded safety glass all have cataracts to one degree or another from having been stored for so many years prior to my receiving them.

At some point I may consider selling the rebuilt CM 21FJ's on ebay because so far nobody has offered me a decent price for them. I guess that is because of the cataracts that would need to be removed.

[Electronic M]

I can't speak for all Channel Master CRTs over the years, but the one I got from Bob works quite nicely. I just wish I had a good display space for that set, and the time to replace the destroyed convergence coil form.



I've been considering getting another (23V" color) CRT, to replace the dead one in my Admiral, from you Bob, but the price is just high enough that I always tell my self to wait till I have more money or a cheap junker with a good jug shows up.....So far neither has happened.

[kvflyer]

I hope that you don't mind me going a little OT here. I have an RCA CTC-28 "Tonsberg" that was my family's first color set. Needless to say, it has had to have work done on it over the years. It was taken out of service in the mid 80s and has been sitting ever since. The original RCA CRT 25XP22 (I think) tests very weak and has the usual cataracts. I bought a 25AP22 NOS Channel Master. Of course, it has cataracts as well. So, I have my fingers crossed that this Channel Master tube will be good in the set. I look forward to getting the set back into service. Hope the new CRT works out too.

[oldtvman]

Originally Posted by iong

Did channel master make a high quality CRT like Zenith or Rca or was it a cheep tube

I was service manager for an RCA parts distributor and I found the CM crts' to be ok, but not the same quality as the RCA tubes.

[bgadow]

Aside from rebuilds, some old literature I've read stated that CM also built all-new crt's from scratch. For a time there were Channel Master branded tv sets and I'm guessing the ones built domestically would have used their own tubes?

[old_tv_nut]

Channel Master building new color CRTs from scratch sounds kind of doubtful to me, unless they bought a plant at distressed prices. The tooling was not cheap, plus the light houses for patterning the phosphors had to match a particular yoke design.

Can you dredge up the references that say they did it?