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Old 04-21-2016, 03:16 PM
RCAZenith RCAZenith is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by radiotvnut View Post
I've seen many Zenith's in cabinets like that, in both knob tuned and electronic tuning versions, and that particular style was around from the mid '80's until the early '90's. Some of them were labeled "space command" (for remote models) and some were labeled "custom series." It's been my experience that the "custom series" sets were often bottom of the line and lacked features (such as remote control) that the more upscale sets had.

When I was in school during the '80's and '90's, there were a lot of Zenith "Custom Series" sets floating around; but, there was nothing really special about them that would make me think they were commercial TV's. The ones they had were 25" table model sets in a big rectangular particleboard cabinet. They had an on/off/volume knob (non-remote) and a numeric keypad for channel selection. The only jack on the back was the 75 ohm coax input. These sets were on metal rollaround TV carts and were usually connected to a VHS VCR. In my earlier school days, some of them were connected to a U-Matic 3/4" tape machine.

The Zenith sets from the '90's and newer that I've seen were labeled "healthview" and all of the hospital models had 3-wire power cords.

The Zenith motel sets usually didn't have any wording on them to indicate a motel set. Depending on age, they either said "Chromacolor II", "System 3", or "space command." The only exception is some of the '90's Zenith motel sets were labeled as "new horizons." On the older Zenith motel sets, many of them had a built-in AM/FM radio and some had a built-in alarm clock with red LED readout.

Looking at your set, it probably used a 9-470 main module.


Radiotvphononut, just wanted to let you know I enjoy your YouTube videos. Even though I lack the soldering skills to actually do most of the repairs, I like to at least learn what causes common problems and if something is salvageable or not based on that.

I was in public school between 1996 and 2009, and the school system I went to had a bunch of the TV sets that you described on VCR carts. I would be curious to know if the 25" Particle board sets were sold to consumers. They even had one or two 19" that looked identical to mine, IIRC. Mine has a push in/push out power button (not a on/volume knob, and a random access keypad

BTW, is there any real reason you dislike the RCA CTC-177 sets besides them being from the 90s? I have one that was a real low hour set that I use to play video games on and it is probably the best tv I have ever had. (Granted, most of them have been BPC Funais CRT and LCD, except for an old, Knob tuned GE 13" table top color set and a knob tuned 13" table top B&W Goldstar both from the mid 80s).
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Game Room TV's:

1997 RCA Colortrak 27" Console
1987 Zenith 19" V3912W
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