CTC5 Special

[Ampico-kid]

After a long and drawn out restoration, my CTC 5 "Special" is finally ready for it's official unveiling.

I picked up the set last November from a very nice lady who lives just outside of Detroit. She was liquidating what was left of her father's TV shop items. The TV was actually used by he and his family until the early 1980's. It has the optional base to make it look like a console model rather than the table top set that it really is.

From what I can tell it still has the original RCA 21AXP22 crt as I can see the code date on it of Dec. of 1956. The tube was a little slow to come around, but it made a great recovery and seems strong on all guns now.

The actual restoration was pretty straight forward with no real surprises, but for me the most difficult part was figuring out the correct methods of setting it all up after the restoration work was finished. Lucky for me I had the RCA set up and servicing manual that spells it all out. And it's a good thing I had that manual because the CTC 5 is very different from the more modern later sets that I'm used to working with.

Trying to set up the color temperature was the first obstacle. And directly related to that was the difficulty I had with the brightness and contrast controls. They seemed to interact with each other. I just couldn't get it right no matter how hard I tried. I decided to take a break and pushed the project off to the side until I saw the article posted by Bryan (bgadow) recently regarding that very problem. I made the recommended modifications and it worked like a charm. The brightness now controls brightness and the contrast controls the contrast, the way it's supposed to work. And with that I was also able to get a handle on the color temperature set up as well.

The only other sticking point was the convergence. It's very different again from the more modern sets and takes some real patience and good old yankee enginuity. I've spent a lot of time working with the convergence and it's not perfect, but it's quite acceptable as it now sits.

I've taken some screen shots. They're not the best, but can at least give you an idea of what the "Special" color receivers are capable of doing.

Bob