[Chris K]

Hi Everyone. I'm so happy to be here and a little intimidated! I posted a thread in the Introduction section describing my background and experience with this hobby. While not quite a novice, I am still pretty low on the learning curve. I've restored a dozen or so tube radios and moved into TV restoration about a year ago and have restored 3 so far.

I had an opportunity to purchase a single family owned RCA TS 721 in virgin condition. The cabinet is in excellent shape and the owners still had the RCA matching 721 roller stand and a magnifier stand for the 10 inch tube but, sadly, a couple of years ago the magnifying lens fell and broke. I'm not sure the owners knew what they had. I got it for around $130.

Tested the CRT on a B&K 465 and got good emissions with no shorts. I ohmed out the power transformer, flyback and VOT and they were all fine. All of the electrolytic cans were problematic...open sections and I replaced all of them with Rubycon caps before initial power up on a dim bulb series. Went through 75, 100, 150, 200, 300 and 500 watt bulbs with no issues so I went bareback! High voltage is fine at around 9kv. Brightness control ohmed out perfect with negligible resistance at the full brightness position. CRT socket voltages all checked out fine and in spec. No light from the tube. Filament is glowing ok, and the high voltage anode is connected fine. No sound yet but that's going to be addressed down the line. I checked and rechecked the installation of the electrolytics and their point to point wire runs (the Riders actually has a wiring diagram...made my eyes hurt!) and as far as I can see, I didn't mess that up. Any ideas? Did I miss something basic? I thought getting high voltage on a CRT that tested fine with a VOT chirping away at 30hz was all you needed for "first light". I'm stumped!!!