Thomson-era GE 19" color TV from 1989

[radiotvnut]

A number of years ago, I bought this CTC136 chassis 19" GE at an estate sale for $10 and these were also sold under the RCA badge. I think the chassis came out right about the time that GE bought RCA and was carried over into the Thomson era.

When I bought it, the TV worked fine and I needed something to watch. It served me well until about mid-2020, when the MTT tuner module started giving me intermittent problems. I opened it up, soldered all the usual trouble spots, put it back together, hit the power button and.....POP!, stink, and a puff of smoke. The fuse was blown and there was a short from the HOT collector and ground. At that point, I was disgusted with it and said, "I guess the flyback arced over and blew the HOT." I then shelved it and replaced it with a 19" Zenith from 1984.

The GE always had an OK picture; but, the Zenith looks a lot better.

Today, I pulled the GE out and this is why you should never assume anything. Most of the time, when a short is indicated in circuit between the HOT collector and ground, it will be the HOT that's shorted; but, sometimes, it will be something else that's shorted.

After removing the HOT, I found it to be good and the culprit was a shorted blue 330pf/2KV N750 disc capacitor. Years ago, I tossed most of my later solid state TV stuff; but, I dug around in my junk and found an older Sprague 330pf/5KV disc capacitor. For the fuse, I tacked in a 7A pigtail fuse in place of the 4A fuse. I know that is a "no no"; but, it worked well enough to see if the set was going to work and I will order the right parts so that it does not look like a hack repair job.

As far as what I'll do with the set, I haven't decided if I'm going to keep it or drop it off at one of the thrift stores that still takes TV's. If I had unlimited room, I might keep it; but, space is an issue and I can't keep everything.