designs we love to love

[zeno]

Lets be fair here & try to give credit where due.

Zenith & its distributors for being with us not against us.

RCA for the CTC175 family of chassii that paid for most of my sons
college.

Panasonic for the red screws & the most serviceable Jap sets, fun to
work on !

Sony for the fold out PCB's

Emerson & Westinghouse for getting OUT of TV's

Admiral for finally building a quality set.

GE for um err , give me a few days ...........

MGA for the MELCO Sales days. After that they started racking up
Zeros ( no pun intended). Stick with tuna fish pls !

I will add a few more later.

73 Zeno

[Dave A]

Sony for the Indextron and JVC for it's one-off 4.5" CRT/LCD field-sequential color monitor...with a tuner built in! Gotta love them for digging up discarded technology and giving us something modern to see what was in a new wrapper.

[Electronic M]

The Zenith Hybrid and CCII era sets were among the most indestructible color sets ever.

One can tout GE for having found a way to make sets with the fewest parts both electrical and mechanical, and the least material long after they locked up madman Muntz and his company got taken over by people who had more method than madness...Less parts = less that can fail, and less to check when failure has occurred.

Philco deserves praise for their 50's split chassis sets that ran cool, lasted long, and were as easy to work on as a mid-size table radio. They also deserve praise for designing the QAM color color carrier system used in NTSC IIRC.

[Username1]

GE - I think it was mid 70's to mid 80's for the 3" box that contained a folded up
schematic and part numbers and 800 number to get what you needed.....

I liked all the Japan sets as well for their ease to work on - red screws too !

.

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by zeno

Lets be fair here & try to give credit where due.



GE for um err , give me a few days ...........


73 Zeno

PC chassis and C621 in the vertical. That paid for my Dads last two new vehicles.

[Electronic M]

Gotta give props to Setchell Carlson and their Unit-ized chassis. They were solid easy to service, reliable (the two I own are still going on their original caps), and I hear the color sets would run (in monochrome) with the color unit removed....

[consoleguy67]

How about Magnavox and RCA for having covergence boards that could be adjusted while looking at the screen?

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by consoleguy67

How about Magnavox and RCA for having covergence boards that could be adjusted while looking at the screen?

Motorola and Zenith had speaker grills that could be removed to access the convergence adjustments in front of the set. Better yet.

[old_coot88]

Originally Posted by Username1

GE - I think it was mid 70's to mid 80's for the 3" box that contained a folded up
schematic and part numbers and 800 number to get what you needed....

Weren't those the little color 9-inchers with double-sided pc boards that directly superceded the Portacolor line?
If so, I was gonna mention them in the "love to hate" thread. Intermittents in the boards were endemic to those sets, and pure hell to localize. And the schematic was of no help.

[old_coot88]

Then on the "love to love" side, that one's an easy call. There was a B&W Zenith table model, pre-UHF, flat chassis with 3DG4 rectifier, 19" rectangular CRT with a big neck and 90 degree defl.
That set was built like a tank and bulletproof, and required absolutely zero service for the years I owned it, and zero service for years after I gave it to a widow lady. It never had the back off. She passed away and i never knew where the set went afterward.

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by consoleguy67

How about Magnavox and RCA for having covergence boards that could be adjusted while looking at the screen?

Quasar too. That reminds me, Works In A Drawer. 'Nuff said.

[Username1]

Originally Posted by old_coot88

Weren't those the little color 9-inchers with double-sided pc boards that directly superceded the Portacolor line?
If so, I was gonna mention them in the "love to hate" thread. Intermittents in the boards were endemic to those sets, and pure hell to localize. And the schematic was of no help.

The ones I had with the attached schematics were all solid state, and combo
solid state and maybe one IC tabletop 17" color or so-
I would say you are right, they came along right after the
porta-color era...... They did have a really good picture, no auto-color
buttons, still a click tuner, V & U tuners simulated wood grain plastic cabinets....
very cool.... I almost kept one....

Any yes as mentioned Zenith with convergence behind the speaker....
You gotta giv'em the Golden Globe for that ! ! !

.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by old_coot88

Then on the "love to love" side, that one's an easy call. There was a B&W Zenith table model, pre-UHF, flat chassis with 3DG4 rectifier, 19" rectangular CRT with a big neck and 90 degree defl.
That set was built like a tank and bulletproof, and required absolutely zero service for the years I owned it, and zero service for years after I gave it to a widow lady. It never had the back off. She passed away and i never knew where the set went afterward.

There wasn't too many of them around with the big neck. It looked like the protector cup, for the neck was added as an afterthought. The one I worked on had a 5BC3 rectifier tube. The odd 5U4 type with the novar base.
I understand, that set was the lowest priced set in the Zenith line. Excellent value for the money.

[old_coot88]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

There wasn't too many of them around with the big neck. It looked like the protector cup for the neck was added as an afterthought. The one I worked on had a 5BC3 rectifier tube. The odd 5U4 type with the novar base.
I understand, that set was the lowest priced set in the Zenith line. Excellent value for the money.

With the outstanding build quality, it's surprizing it was lowest priced.
You're right, the protector cup did seem to protrude a lot.
Actually I had the back off once when first got it, to clean/lube controls, tube test etc. But the back never came off again.
Never saw a 3DG4 in a TV set before or since.

[zeno]

Originally Posted by old_coot88

Weren't those the little color 9-inchers with double-sided pc boards that directly superceded the Portacolor line?
If so, I was gonna mention them in the "love to hate" thread. Intermittents in the boards were endemic to those sets, and pure hell to localize. And the schematic was of no help.

Yup AA, AB, & AC chassii. Also came in 17" & 13".
They paid the mortgage for quite a few yrs. Made a list for them &
the dog EC chassis of what top trace caused what. The griplets
were marked. W17A-W17B-W17C just wire them up on
the bottom. Not much else went on them and they did have the
handy "mini manual" inside

73 Zeno