Another nice zenith 21" on ebay

[drh4683]

Yes, the tv has been saved! I will have the guy drop it off here at my home! I will get some more photos of it as well and let you all know how it all works out!
Doug

[drh4683]

The guy delivered the set to me yesterday, and was pleased with the appearance. Basically, the steel cabinet is mint, no dents or scraches anywhere. On ebay he said it had scraches. None to be seen, so that was a huge plus. I was a bit scared when he handed me the chassis sticker off the high voltage cage, this told me he was inside the tv messing around. After he told me all about his other old sets, I knew he must have tried to work on this one but gave up and sold it. Yes, it didnt work when I got it. Had a bad focus problem. The 1v2 was missing from its socket, and the socket was pretty well burnt up. This was the second socket, as this one had bad soilder connections and you could tell someone cut the rivits off the hv cage to remove the old one. After putting a new 1v2 in, the socket started glowing red with smoke. Put in a new socket, new 1v2 and we have good picture! The 21FBP22 tested basically like new. I didnt need to mess with the bias control, each color gun was strong. Only thing left to do was get a color to come in. The 6JU8 in the zeniths is a common fault for color loss. Most tubes were original zenith, only needed to replace some of the color tubes. Anyone know why these focus sockets burn up? This is the 3rd socket in this set. Solder connection are good now, and I read 4 kv off the heater, so I know its working fine.
Here are the pics of the set displaying color bars.

[drh4683]

The chassis is like new too, no rust or anything, barely any dust to begin with. (forgot to put the 26KC20 sticker back on the hv cage as you can see)
All in all, this worked out well. Even though he bid up his own auction, it was worth what I paid.

[Steve Hoffman]

He bid up his own auction? What a creepazoid!

[drh4683]

yep, pretty dissapointing steve. You could tell as all of his other auctions had the same bidder in the history. Its funny, he is into old tvs too. I think he gave up as he couldnt figure out what was wrong with this set, so he put up on ebay. I emailed him that its fixed and that it has a wonderful picture. Havnt heard anything back. Oh well, its in good hands now.

[Steve Hoffman]

It's in great hands now!

Enjoy it!

[Jeffhs]

DRH4683,

Your recent acquisition is a Zenith 29JC20 from 1963. The last time I saw one of these was 31 years ago, when I was in high school. We had one in our electronics lab that looked as if it was in good shape and probably should have worked, though I don't know if anyone ever tried to fire it up or not. No sense even thinking about that now, though; that set probably went out with the trash long after I graduated in 1975.

The roundies are collectors' items today, even if they aren't quite antiques yet. I had a Silvertone roundie from 1964 (RCA CTC12 chassis) that I picked up in 1970. It had a lot wrong with it (circuit breaker was bad, on-off switch on volume control was shot, convergence was way, way off, etc.), but I managed to get it working after a fashion. Sadly, though, the set met its demise three years later when the video-output tube socket broke out of the video circuit board.

Your new ebay find is a Zenith, however, with a hand-wired chassis (Zenith didn't use printed circuits in any of its TVs or radios until the late 1970s or early '80s). You won't have tube socket problems (or any other kind of trouble associated with PC boards) with that set. Not meaning to belittle or attack other manufacturers, Zenith of Chicago in its early days, because they believed in hand-wiring all their sets (radios in the 1920s through the '50s, being joined by televisions from the 50s on), enjoyed a reputation for very high quality throughout the United States; remember their former slogan, "the quality goes in before the name goes on"? Case in point: I have a Zenith radio which was built in 1951; hand-wired, solid metal chassis, the whole nine yards--this set had "Zenith" written all over it, not just on the front panel. The last time I had it on, a month or so ago, it was working unusually well for being over 50 years old--the set even has its original filter caps, or so it seems. If that doesn't speak volumes for the way Zenith built things before they went to Korea in the '80s (they had already begun production of radios and stereo gear there by then; I had a Zenith stereo system from 1982 until 1999 that was made in Korea and which worked quite well over those years), I don't know what will.

Good luck with your new/old Zenith. I'm sure that set will work quite well on cable if you use a converter ahead of it, or on an antenna if you choose not to go that route. You have a set which was made to last, which is more than I can say for some of the inexpensive color sets coming from the Pacific Rim (Korea, Japan, etc.) these days. (There are still some excellent color TVs, radios and so on coming from the Far East made by Sharp, Sanyo, Sony, Hitachi and so forth, however, but one always pays through the nose for them.)

As a Zenith devotee for many years, I am somewhat disappointed that it moved its production facilities to Korea but I guess that's where the company figures it will make the most money--and as I think everyone knows (or should know), businesses always go where the big money is, even if it is out of the country.

Kind regards,