RCA Victor7T174K TV

[compucat]

This is my latest acquisition. It is in a limed oak finish. The lacquer is shot and I plan to strip the remaining lacquer off and recoat. The veneer is in good shape with the excepton of a small chip in the top. i can live with that. I like this set for its compactness and very profound early TV style. Is is complete with all the knobs, none of which are broken (unbelievable). I found out from some research that this model is called the Kendall. It has a 17 inch screen and features four IF stages. I bet it will be quite a performer.

The set had previously been working but now there was no picture. Upon removing the back I discovered a brightener hanging off the 17QP4 glass picture tube, never a good sign. I put my crt tester on it and it started out on the red but slowly came up to green. I ran it at 7 volts for a few minutes and it went well into the green area. It seems to be a good tube after a little wake up with no shorts or anything. I'm not sure what the brightener was doing on there to begin with. I found one electrolytic in the voltage doubler that was getting warm so I disconnected it and temporarily clipped in a new cap. This time I got white noise from the speaker and nothing else. The neon bulb tester told me the horizontal stages and flyback are working. The high voltage measures only 8KV when the Sams says it should be 13.2KV. I know the power supply will have to be rebuilt since the selenium rectifiers and electrolytic cans are original. I have not looked under the chassis yet. The set is reported to have been recapped. There is only a small pile of wax at the bottom of the high voltage cage. Overall the chassis looks to be in good shape. There is no sign of 1950s yoke cover disease. I did notice that in addition to having a lighted tuning dial that there is a pilot light mounted at the center bottom where the legs are. I assume this is so you can tell the set is on if the doors are closed, very interesting feature. My question is this. is there supposed to be some kind of lens in front of the cabinet pilot light? I just have a small hole visible from the front of the cabinet. it almost looks like there might have been nothing there, especially seeing the way the lamp fits into the hole from the back. I am really looking forward to restoring and using this set.

It does lack one feature that most of my sets also lack and that I need to install fairly quickly. It is the WAF or Wife Acceptance Factor. It rarely comes pre-installed on any vintage set. Here are some photos of the set as I received it.