Got a lead on an early DuMont TV locally

[vortalexfan]

Hello everyone, I was looking through facebook marketplace a week ago or so and I saw someone locally had an early DuMont TV for sale that I thought about getting but I wasn't sure about the price they were asking (they were asking over $100 for the set and I wasn't sure if they were going to budge from the price) so I didn't pop on it, well a week later and I saw the same tv posted on an antique TV group on facebook that someone was posting about the TV on there to see if there was any interest on there even if it was to just make it into a fish tank, and I had commented on the thread mentioning that I was local to the TV (and the relative that the person was posting the TV on behalf of) and that I was interested in the TV but I wasn't willing to pay anymore than $50 for the set because it was going to likely need more than that just to fix it up, and the guy sent me a PM telling me that his relative was willing to go down to $100, but he said that if it didn't sell for $100 after a week he would take my $50 offer. I told him that I thought that the $100 would work and that I would come pick it up either Friday or Saturday. It is a console DuMont.

What would be the best way to transport this TV? Take the Chassis out of the cabinet and load that into the car separately from the cabinet and then load the cabinet in separately? I'm asking because I would be moving this TV myself and I know quite a few of you guys on here have experience moving old console TVs by yourselves.

Thanks for your help.

[Electronic M]

In terms of weight removing the chassis and CRT from the cabinet will make it easier to carry. Make sure it'll fit in your vehicle before you go to avoid wasting gas.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

In terms of weight removing the chassis and CRT from the cabinet will make it easier to carry. Make sure it'll fit in your vehicle before you go to avoid wasting gas.

OK, that's what I was figuring. I have a Honda Pilot from 2006 Which I think should be able to fit the TV fine, especially if i fold all of the seats down in the back.

[vortalexfan]

I picked up the TV today, Its a Model RA-108A Bradford, the cabinet is in kind of rough shape but it seems to be all there including the orginal back cover.

The tuner seems to have that all too common "white mold" that is often times on early plastics which should just come off with bleach water, or dawn dishsoap.

I was expecting this TV to be extremely heavy but me and the guy I bought the TV off of were able to load the TV into the back of my Honda Pilot pretty easily without any issues, (I didn't end up disassembling it like I thought I would because I wasn't sure how to get the back off without damaging anything.)

[kf4rca]

Are you interested in a Royal Sovereign? It's pretty big. Four feet high and about 5 feet across. Near Atlanta. You would need a pickup or an Econoline van.

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by kf4rca

Are you interested in a Royal Sovereign? It's pretty big. Four feet high and about 5 feet across. Near Atlanta. You would need a pickup of an Econoline van.

No Thanks, that would be too far away for me to drive, and also I've already got two other console TVs besides this DuMont I just I just picked up, and I'm already just about out of space for anymore TVs, like this, as my house is only a little over 900 Sq Ft of finished living space, I will be getting rid of one of my consoles eventually (a 1974 GTE Sylvania Color TV that has some issues with the tuner, but otherwise is like brand new because it was never used by the original owners of the set that I got the TV from, because they used it as a piece of furniture to decorate their basement with.)

[Chris K]

The Dumont Doghouse I bought is the first tv of all of the ones I’ve collected that broke me. Could not handle carrying it alone. Beast of a machine.

[kf4rca]

I always removed the two chassis's and it's a lot lighter that way and 2 people can carry the box that way. I picked it up from a station I worked at in Charleston in an Econoline. And then I transported it to Atlanta in a Ranger pickup.

[vortalexfan]

Well I got the two chassis out of the cabinet and the TV brought inside, with some help, this TV had an interesting modification in it, somone at some point in time had added a 5v filiment transformer to the side of the inside of the cabinet for some reason and the filiment transformer was wired in with the main power transformer which is a beast of a power transformer, its at least 6" tall and probably a good solid 20# of iron.

The TV does use 2 5U4G rectifier tubes so I wonder if the TV might have gotten hit by lightning at some point in its life which may have fried one of the 5v filiment windings in the original transformer so they had to install a new 5v filiment transformer to replce the dead 5v filiment winding in the power transformer?

Also another weird thing is that the picture tube had a dual stage picture tube booster (brightener) attached to the picture tube and I'm wondering if the picture tube was really in that bad of condition to warrant the use of a picture tube brightener; or if it was meant to be used as a way to boost the voltage for the picture tube because perhaps that 5v filiment transformer was actually being used to replace a bad 6.3V winding on the transformer and it needed an extra voltage boost to get the picture tube filiment voltage to where it needed to be voltage wise?

Just spitballing some ideas here, not claiming to know what's going on here, but would definitely like to hear what you guys think could have happened to the TV in its past to warrant these odd modifications (which I'll admit the picture tube brightener in of itself is not an odd modification, but that along with a replacement filiment transformer, is an odd modification.)

[bandersen]

More likely the 5v is for the damper tube. Can you trace out what tubes it is going to?

[Yamamaya42]

2 5U4Gts would take about 6A (3A x2), so if the 5v secondary winding was out, it would indeed take a beefy replacement to light the tubes safely, but keep in mind, the cathodes are always going to be at full LV bias potential, and thus isolated from all else, so the booster on the CRT must be for some other reason, cause it most likely is 6v and not tied to that line.

[Yamamaya42]

Originally Posted by bandersen

More likely the 5v is for the damper tube. Can you trace out what tubes it is going to?

That too!

The RCA 630ts types have a 5V4GT that use 5v, but don't need as much power as 2 5U4GT, but have more HV on the circuit, so as he said above, find out where they wired it to!

[Yamamaya42]

perhaps T2 failed at one point, and the extra one is a replacement for it? :O

Edit, perhaps not.. This set is, confusing! :P

https://www.earlytelevision.org/pdf/...5b_sams_95.pdf

[Yamamaya42]

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[vortalexfan]

Is the 19AP4 CRT Tube a tube that I need to worry about having issues with? I know some picture tubes have a metal bell that can go to air without any notice which can completely ruin the tube, is this one of those tubes?