[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by YamahaFreak

I still have a Zenith Space Command 25" console, and it has one of the best pictures of any TV's I own. It's at least 25 years old. I play my NES and SNES on it.

It's difficult, in fact almost impossible, to say why your SC is still going strong after 25+ years, while my friend's folks' System III console gave up after 15. Theirs went West because of a power supply problem, I think, but that can happen to any TV, even brand new ones. They had even worse trouble with the RCA Guide Plus set that replaced the Zenith (CRT burned out after just two years), but that's so easy to explain it's ridiculous. By 1990 RCA branded TVs were being manufactured by Thomson, using CRTs of questionable reliability. My own CTC185, bought new when I moved here six years ago, still has its original CRT and makes a beautiful picture on the cable system here in my town. I guess it depends on whether you get a set with a good CRT. I have been told, here at AK, that in general the CRTs used in Thomson-built RCAs are very troublesome, but if you are lucky enough to get one with a good tube, it will last years without giving one bit of trouble. However, the 1990s-vintage RCA/Thomson sets had quite a bit of trouble with the ground points around the on-board tuner. If these were not resoldered properly early on, the jungle IC could lose its programming due to noise getting into the chip, which in turn would have been caused by shaky connections at those ground points. I had my RCA repaired for a tuner problem shortly after I purchased the set; the work was done in my apartment, so I was able to see what the technician was doing. He not only fixed the problem I called him for (RF port snapped off the tuner PC board), but he also resoldered every joint around the tuner. If he hadn't done the latter, my TV wouldn't have lasted anywhere near six years (going on seven as I write this).

Your Zenith was manufactured several years before the company left Chicago and went to Korea, which explains why it's still giving you good service after 25+ years. I have a 19" Sentry II Zenith of 1995 vintage that still works well and still has its original CRT. This amazes me, since 1995 is right in the middle of the time frame during which Zenith was having so much trouble with the CRTs in their sets.

I shudder to think what the reliability record of LG's flat-panel HD sets must be. I do know, however, that I would never buy a new TV with the lightning-bolt "Z" on it nowadays. That symbol is just a marketing icon; it means absolutely nothing. LG is simply using it on their televisions to protect their intellectual property rights to the symbol. The guts are still the same low-quality garbage found in LG and many other TVs made offshore today. (I hear even some Sonys are made offshore by another Korean electronics firm.) Unfortunately, however, this is nothing new. I bought an off-brand 12-inch portable TV when I graduated high school 30.5 years ago (1975). The set lasted all of three years before giving up the ghost (I turned it on one afternoon and saw a plume of smoke rising from the circuit board; something had shorted in there). I pitched the off-brand set and bought a Zenith solid-state B&W portable the next day; the new Zenith lasted 22 years without giving me one bit of trouble--nice sharp bright picture, good sound, and good reception with a monopole antenna in the near-fringe area where I lived at the time. I got rid of it in 2000 only because of space limitations when I moved. I also had two Zenith 13" color portables, one 1979 vintage, one 1982, that also gave me excellent service. Again, the only reason I gave them up when I moved was the space problem, which I have described in other posts.

I can only hope those sets went to good homes and didn't wind up in the landfill (I wasn't even living at my former residence in late 1999; my dad's widow cleaned out the house and later sold it after I left, so I have no way of knowing what happened to those TVs), as they were still working very well, with the 1979 set (Zenith L1310C) having only tuner issues (the detents were shot on both the VHF and UHF tuners). These sets made excellent pictures, however, and were built very solidly...well, at least the 1982 set that replaced the L1310C was; I wouldn't say the '1310 was made all that solidly if the detents on both tuners quit after only a few years. The reason for the 1310's successor's long life (at least 20 years) with no tuner drive train problems was probably that the set had one-knob electronic tuning; once the UHF stations were set up and the channel number tabs installed, the UHF tuning was ordinarily forgotten as was the VHF fine tuning (this set had switchable AFC, but the instruction manual suggested switching the AFC on and leaving it on after properly fine-tuning all stations in the user's area).

I know nothing lasts forever, but anything one pays a good deal of money for should last at least a few years. Time was when you could buy a TV set, for example, and it would last 15-20 years or more. Today's sets, by contrast, even the flat-panel HD sets, are throwaways and generally do not last longer than a couple years, often giving up the ship immediately after or shortly after the warranty expires. I'm not making this up; I have read right here in these AK forums of new TVs made by such formerly respected companies as RCA, Zenith, Magnavox, et al. which come in for repair service, only to have the technician find that the set has developed some very costly repair problem. In many cases the warranty may have just expired or else, if it is still in force, does not cover the problem being repaired. Another common situation is the TV with some years (5, 10 or more) on it that comes into the shop with a very severe problem such as a burned-out CRT, flyback, etc. that will cost more than the set is worth (or what the owner paid for it when it was new) to be repaired. These sets are generally pitched immediately, or at least as soon as the owner gets the repair estimate, as it is not cost-effective for the customer to have it repaired; for what the customer would pay to have the old one repaired, he or she could buy a brand-new set. With the change to digital TV coming in about three years, many people are getting rid of their perfectly good analog CRT sets (I see them all the time on ebay, at dirt-cheap BIN prices and very low starting bids--some as low as one penny) and replacing them with flat-panel plasma/LCD HD sets. It just makes sense, especially since, even though analog CRT TVs will work with digital signals using a converter box between the cable and the set, they will not produce a HD picture. However, as I said, at this stage of their development, HD flat-panel sets are still prone to repair problems that often show up just after the warranty expires. Heaven forbid an owner of a HDTV flat-panel set would have trouble with the video driver ICs in his/her new set. The ICs are actually molded into the ribbon cable going between the panel and the chassis, so if the chips go West for any reason, the entire panel must be replaced. This is probably why so many relatively new FP sets are winding up being sold as-is on ebay or being thrown out with the trash these days. I saw one on the bay just recently that had a cracked screen; these show up very often, being advertised as "parts sets" or something similar. Many FP sets are severely damaged by soda cans or other heavy objects being hurled at the screens by irate viewers or children; many times the sets are not worth repairing, especially if they have a few years on them.

All of the foregoing is too bad, but, as former CBS-TV anchorman Walter Cronkite used to close the "CBS Evening News", that's the way it is in this age of outsourcing and companies leaving the United States for offshore destinations. It would be nice if things weren't like this, but they are, so the best any of us can do is to accept it, and, if we can, to make the best of a bad situation.