'84 RCA 13" color TV

[radiotvnut]

Here's a 13" RCA that was given to me today. Despite the fact that it's been in an accident, is nearly 30 years old, and appears to have never had it's back taken off; it still works fine and produces a nice picture. All I need to do is clean the controls.

This TV uses a CTC123 chassis; which, I've never seen. All of the 13" RCA's that I've worked on from this time period all had the same basic chassis as the larger portables & consoles (the chassis with the large filter cap mounted on the rear heatsink).

Here's a video I made of the TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeqSonX2f1U

[DaveWM]

Wow that does indeed have a nice pic. Nice.

[Zenith26kc20]

I have one in my attic. It is a great performer. The biggest trouble they had was the electrolytic on the back will dry out and give a hour-glass raster. Another is the color will go out. It can be fixed by turning the trimmer (looks like a screw in a ceramic sleeve by the big IC) a bit.
They are great DXers and most have a turret tuner thats as rugged as can be. I got mine from an estate sale. When they closed the sale they gave it ot me instead of throwing it away!

[dieseljeep]

[QUOTE=radiotvnut;3063487]Here's a 13" RCA that was given to me today. Despite the fact that it's been in an accident, is nearly 30 years old, and appears to have never had it's back taken off; it still works fine and produces a nice picture. All I need to do is clean the controls.

This TV uses a CTC123 chassis; which, I've never seen. All of the 13" RCA's that I've worked on from this time period all had the same basic chassis as the larger portables & consoles (the chassis with the large filter cap mounted on the rear heatsink).

IIRC, I have two of those sets. One has the key-pad tuner and the other has the eighteen position varactor tuner. The latter set, I got from an old family friend. It never needed any repair of any kind.

[Beachboy]

I also had two of these RCA 13" TV's of 1984 vintage, one was the conventionally tuned model shown in the video, the other was the more upscale model with a single knob electronic tuner. Both delivered a great picture, but both suffered from the same design flaw where the audio would eventually get very weak. I had one repaired; I believe it was some type of discriminator coil which was the culprit. It cost me $75 to fix the one, when the second TV displayed the same weak audio symptoms, I donated it to charity.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Beachboy

I also had two of these RCA 13" TV's of 1984 vintage, one was the conventionally tuned model shown in the video, the other was the more upscale model with a single knob electronic tuner. Both delivered a great picture, but both suffered from the same design flaw where the audio would eventually get very weak. I had one repaired; I believe it was some type of discriminator coil which was the culprit. It cost me $75 to fix the one, when the second TV displayed the same weak audio symptoms, I donated it to charity.

I worked on a few of those sets with weak audio. All it took was a touch-up of one of the audio coils. I don't know why they drifted off so bad.
I have to look for my square alignment tool again.

[DavGoodlin]

I had the same RCA with the 14 position varactor tuner. No trouble at all.
Looked great, so I gave it to a friend who is still using it after 17 years.