"powered up"

[DaveWM]

what does that mean, I see it all the time on ebay and CL.

"powered up fine until just a few days ago" or "used to power up" or
"powers up" are all typical phases I read.

could this be:

1) operates as intended
2) some thing happens when power is applied (noises are heard, perhaps a pilot light comes on.
3) vacuum tubes are seen to "light up"
4) raster is observed
5) white noise is heard

It just makes me laugh when I hear that somethings "powers up"

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by DaveWM

what does that mean, I see it all the time on ebay and CL.

"powered up fine until just a few days ago" or "used to power up" or
"powers up" are all typical phases I read.

could this be:

1) operates as intended
2) some thing happens when power is applied (noises are heard, perhaps a pilot light comes on.
3) vacuum tubes are seen to "light up"
4) raster is observed
5) white noise is heard

It just makes me laugh when I hear that somethings "powers up"

Dave, you need to remember that many if not most eBay and Craigslist postings are written by people who know little or nothing about TV or electronics. They often use the phrase "power up" to mean that the TV, radio, etc. will do something when plugged in and turned on, whether that "something" is tubes or a pilot light lighting up, a raster, sound or hum being seen or heard, or some other action other than normal operation (including but not limited to blowing a fuse) being observed. I browse eBay frequently (CL too) and find posts of this nature quite often. The people who write these non-technical postings are also the kind of people who will describe a radio or TV as "not working" simply because, for example, the power cord is rotted out (a very common occurrence in radios and TVs 50+ years old) and needs to be replaced, a tube is burned out or shorted, or even a small wire (often a speaker or antenna lead) which has come loose from a terminal.

These are, of course, simple repairs for us VK members, but to most non-technical people, a set with these types of problems is junk. An example: I bought a 1949 Zenith table radio years ago at a thrift store. The set was listed as non-working; I brought it home, looked under the chassis, and found the problem: an open fusible resistor. I replaced same, plugged the radio in, turned it on, and ... it worked like a champ. Nothing else was wrong. The radio worked very well (pulled in lots of stations, using just the line cord antenna, in the Cleveland suburb where I lived at the time), sounded great (like all 1920s-'60s Zeniths), and I enjoyed it for some time afterward. I wish I had kept it, but I gave it to a church rummage sale a couple years later. If the Internet and VK had been around then (1980s), I probably would have kept it and started my antique radio collection 25 years ago, instead of in 2002.