Nice CTC-16 on eBay

[domfjbrown]

Originally Posted by frenchy

It works great, doesn't really make any noise to speak of. Found at a Salvation Army for 25 bucks and haven't touched anything in it. Fun to watch the disc spin up to speed thru that window in the lid. I only have a handful of Star Trek episodes and the old NBC production of Peter Pan to play on it. Thing is freaking heavy too....Frenchy

Excellent - the only British player that might have had the option to view a disk spinning was the original Philips one from 1982, but since it was based on the Maganavox you guys had in 1978, they'd had to change the design due to fears over laser radiation, so the bit that would have been clear was blacked out. Boring!

$25 is a STEAL for that beast! Did you get the remote for it too??

[frenchy]

Yup!

[domfjbrown]

Good work!

I thought £30 for a Pioneere CLD-310 with 4 discs was pretty good going here in Blightey (until I accidentally got an NTSC Duran Duran LD); I then got a 1750 (Pal analog audio AND NTSC - yippee!) for a whopping £75, but it was mint with LOADS of LDs. Apparently one of them (Blonde Ambition tour, Madonna) is worth around £150 on the collector's market here in the UK, so fair play!

There's something very cool about a 12 inch videodisc - it's the same reasons I prefer vinyl packaging over CD - as a registered Partially Sighted person, at least I can read the sleevenotes!!! DVDs seem wussy compared to LDs in operation as well!

[frenchy]

My glasses are twice as thick as the safety glass I pulled off the tube in this set so I know what you mean by partially sighted : (
Frenchy

[domfjbrown]

I bet they're not as thick as mine! My ASPHERICAL lenses on my glasses (for when I'm not wearing contacts) are about 8 mm thick - and VERY heavy, even though they're plastic. I wear +13 on both eyes! BTW - I was also one of the youngest people in the UK to be fitted with contacts - at 3 months, in 1975

[frenchy]

Hey what is the 'expected' operation of these CTC-16s? In particular - I notice that if I really crank the contrast up, if there are really bright or super-white details on a drab background (worst example - menu display for a VCR with blank blue background), the details (the letters) seem to really bloom up/defocus. Background never blooms. Turn down the contrast down below about 70% up and the letters de-bloom. Doesn't really matter what the brightness is set at, even does it when it's cranked way down. Color saturation control doesn't affect it either.
Is this just normal modus operandi and you just know to not have the contrast set that high? Or is this totally defective operation? thanks!

[frenchy]

Thanks to Polaraman for sending me free CTC-16 Sams copies. Set has been recapped (electrolytics only), converged and working like a charm. Thanks to everybody else for the tips on getting that mold crap off the pic tube. Now I'm gonna go watch something on it! Still going to order a couple of tubes that tested with some slight leakiness/weakness and I don't have any extras. I'll post another pic of it in the gallery the next time an old 60's Lawrence Welk show comes on (Sundays around these parts)....Frenchy

[blue_lateral]

Is this just normal modus operandi and you just know to not have the contrast set that high? Or is this totally defective operation? thanks!

I think it's normal, though I can't wait to see what everyone else says. My ctc15 based Silvertone has always done this. Since the phosphors were never as bright as everyone wished they were, the difference between white and black was always run at the ragged edge. You always wanted just a little more than you could get. If there was too much light in the room, it didn't really work out. In short, the darker you can get the room, the happier you will probably be.

I just run as much contrast as I can without blooming, and turn up the brightness until the black areas are just black or very dark grey. These sets can produce "jaw dropping" picture quality, but brightness was never their strongest point.

jc

[andy]

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[frenchy]

It's not a problem of general blooming, where the whole screen just expands, blurs up etc. My CTC-5 will do that just cranking the bright too high. On the 16, it's just the 'highlights', like pure bright white letters on a blank screen (I can't even MAKE it do the general blooming, this is one bright tube!) I can tweak around on the AGC and contrast and the video peaking switch to basically make it go away. Anyway, I sort of came to the conclusion it was normal looking in one of my old repair books from 1964 and it said in the real world, the desireable setting of the contrast control was full OFF! I will be getting into tuning it up better in a little while here as far as the HV/efficiency settings. Could use a new HO tube anyway.
One more question - the 'kine gain' switch. If I can get a decent picture with this at it's lowest setting ('up' position) and brightness on full, would this be good for the life of the tube vs. the next switch setting and turning the brightness down? That same book says "keep the kine gain as low as possible for maximum life on the big bottle!". thanks....Frenchy

[Chad Hauris]

The way I set the kinescope bias control is to set up the screen controls with the service switch in the service position...if one of the controls doesn't produce a line, then increase the kine. bias control (or switch) till each color screen control can produce a dim line with the tuner tuned off channel or the IF lead removed from tuner...this is the procedure I have seen in the RCA service books.

The kine. bias control allows you to compensate for crt aging...on all controls such as screen, bright, bias etc. I would think that the lowest setting that produces best results is best for crt life.

I have seen bad resistors in the 6BK4 cathode/grid circuit cause a problem with improper 6BK4 current. It's a good idea also to check the setting of the HV control as many times people have messed with it causing improper regulator current.

[blue_lateral]

It's not a problem of general blooming, where the whole screen just expands, blurs up etc. My CTC-5 will do that just cranking the bright too high. On the 16, it's just the 'highlights', like pure bright white letters on a blank screen

Thats where I would expect it to happen. The regulation Andy is referring to goes on dynamically as the beam scans a line across the screen. On the black parts of the scan line, the 6bk4 is drawing a bunch of current, and the CRT is drawing not much. On the white parts, the 6bk4 is drawing little current, and the CRT a bunch. The total current is about constant. If part of the line is "too white", the crt by itself will draw more than the normal total current. The high voltage goes down, and the CRT goes out of focus. as soon as the line is back to white, grey or black, normal regulation resumes.

If you set both sets up for maximum difference between white and black without any blooming anywhere in the picture, does the ctc5 do better?

One more question - the 'kine gain' switch. If I can get a decent picture with this at it's lowest setting ('up' position) and brightness on full, would this be good for the life of the tube vs. the next switch setting and turning the brightness down?

I dont know, but the higher the brightness control is with a normal picture, the more DC restoration you get. IMHO these sets never had enough.

jc

[frenchy]

<<If you set both sets up for maximum difference between white and black without any blooming anywhere in the picture, does the ctc5 do better?>>

The ctc5 just has a limit on total brightness it wants to put out before it starts overall blooming, you have to keep the brightness and contrast down to reasonable levels, but within the watchable levels it has good regulation and with none of the 'highlight blooming' I can make happen on the 16. But the 16 still probably has more advanced regulation circuitry in it.
So overall as long as you keep both on reasonable settings the pic looks very similar on both to me...other than the 16 can really be cranked a lot higher on brightness.

[frenchy]

Ok here's a shot from tonight's Lawrence Welk rerun... what, you didn't think I was gonna back it up?! : )
I noticed on these Welk shows, once in a while Welk will say something like "For those of you without color sets...." and then he'll point out which girl is on the left (cuz one has red hair), or mention what color suits the dancers are wearing. And yes, it's even hard to take a still frame off THIS show without getting motion blur!
8 ()
These are really the only currently broadcast shows that make use of a lot of old TK-41 and later color cameras and old color videotape from the mid-60's, so watch for 'em on your public TV station!

Tank you boyz, anna wonna, anna two-a......

Whenever I visited my maternal grandparents I had to watch ol Larry. My understanding is that he self taught himself English and that accounts for his accent.

Takeit awhay gurlz....

Anthony