Best and Worst Televisions, ever!

[captainmoody]

When I was doing tv repair 20 years ago, The most common junk sets were the cheap japanese tube portables.
The customers would never go for repairs on them or they would be beyond economical repair and we would have to toss them out.
The RCA and Magnavox sets that came in with lots of hours on them were pretty much toast. I remember when replacing tubes sometimes the board would break from the slight pressure of plugging the tube in.
Remember, These tv's were already 10 and 15 years old and actually gave great service for being used everyday.
The sony sets had a super picture when new, But went downhill pretty quick on the crt emission, Not to mention the scr issues with them.
Zenith sets in my opinion were built for the long run. Even 36 years later after minor repairs they still perform great! If you have one of their sets with the "super gold video guard tuner" all you need to do on that after three decades is wipe the contacts clean! Zenith to me is the winner on longevity.
My favorite however, is the much hated "works in a drawer" sets by Motorola. Yes, Many were tossed but if repaired and set up properly last for years. Don't forget, Their last models had a switching power supply starting in '72 which was quite advanced at the time and most tv guys back then did not understand them and did not want to deal with them repair wise.
Now practically all sets use them.

Oops!! Major omission on my part. Got distracted at lunch today while I was typing my last post. From about 1989 to approx 1994 I did some work for a Magnavox dealer/servicer. Anyone here ever repair a late 80's to early 90's Magnavox rear projection TV? From a reliability standpoint those things had to be the WORST EVER electronics I've worked on. The power supply module and the deflection module in those sets had tons of metal stake feed thru connections to connect the copper traces on the top and bottom sides of the PC board. Just about every one of the feed thru connections would fail. These sets were going out right and left before the warranty ever run out. Some of them that were out of warranty had already been serviced several times. Can you imagine how upset customers were after paying $1,000 to as much as $2,500 for one of these projections sets only to have it break down every time you turned around? The replacement boards weren't cheap either. They sold for around $150 to $175 each. I usually got stuck doing the service calls on these sets, so many times I had to face the wrath of an upset customer. We lost some good customers because of those junky things. After awhile, the owner was giving irate customers the number to Philips headquarters to direct their complaints to. I know Philips ate quite a few of those modules for our customers just to smooth things over. I think it took 2 or 3 years or maybe more before Philips finally redesigned the modules of it's projection TVs to have a single sided circuit board. The Magnavox C6 chassis with the failure of those square blue caps that would burn a hole in the circuit board and also the C6,C7,C8 and C9 chassis that would have a cascade failure in the switch mode power supply were pretty bad too.

[ProAc_Fan]

Geez I've never posted in the TV forum before but here's my .02. My favourite TV is the 36" flatscreen Panasonic in my livingroom and my most hated TV is the 10 yr old JVC 29" in my basement. It has these stupid vertical lines on the top of the screen which are the reason I have the above mentioned Panny upstairs. My 20" flatscreen Zenith in the bedroom probably has the best picture of any TV in my house though.

I must say, I don't understand the lore of the old TV's. I can remember what my parents RCA XL100 looked like and that set couldn't hold a candle to any of my newer sets.

Mike

[captainmoody]

As far as myself and family, We watch a Panasonic flat screen upstairs and a 1997 36" RCA in the game room downstairs.
I most likely collect the old sets because I used to repair them and liked how they were easily serviceable. In my office downstairs, I switch off as to what "oldie" I use. Right now it is a 1966 Zenith roundie I got from Kam with a new crt, It has an excellent picture, Just no remote and osd. For my use, Simpler is better!

ProAC Fan,
You might want to check the electrolytics in the vertical section of your JVC. Japanese sets seem to have a problem with electrolytic caps drying out and causing problems.

Jeff

[ProAc_Fan]

Thanks punk rock dude and if I had the slightest clue as to what the hell that was I would do that.


Mike

[Jeffhs]

The tube-powered Zeniths I had 30+ years ago (trash-day finds) were great, in my opinion. From my K-2739, a 23-inch b&w console from 1963, to my Zenith SC300 19" b&w portable (1969), every Zenith I've ever owned has been trouble-free and worked great from the moment I turned them on after bringing them home. The K2739 Zenith needed all new tubes, but it was worth it, as the first time I switched it on after installing the last new tube, it worked very well. Very nice picture on rabbit ears on all three VHF channels from Cleveland, and even better when I used the attic antenna. The SC300 portable, which I found in the trash in my hometown in 1977, worked well as soon as I plugged it in and turned it on, and continued to do so for a year until the horizontal-output tube went gassy. Couldn't find a replacement, so I put the set in my basement and bought a new Zenith 12" solid-state portable. That little guy lasted me 22 years, worked like a champ all that time, and never once required service! The detent mechanism of the UHF channel selector broke and jammed on one channel as well after a few years, but that's not why I got rid of the TV; in fact, I used it as a computer monitor for about five years after getting my first color set (a Zenith, followed by another varactor-tuned 13-incher of the same make) in the early '80s. I'd still have the 12" b&w today, but when I moved to my apartment in 1999, I kept the set a year, then threw it out. The reason was I already had (and still have) two color sets in the apartment; there is no more room for other TVs, as my place is very small.

Speaking of early RCA TVs with many years on them (as one person mentioned earlier in this thread), I can relate to the PC-board problems these sets would develop after a few years and lots of viewing time. I had a 1964 Sears-Silvertone roundie in the early '70s (you guessed it, another trash day find) which worked quite well after a couple of minor repairs. However, in 1973, I had to replace the video output tube (6AW8). The replacement had a pin that was bent ever so slightly, so I had trouble getting it into the socket. I pressed down on the tube and, about ten seconds later, heard a sickening crunch as the tube socket broke out of the board and fell to the bottom of the set.

I brought out a 1961 Philco b&w 19-inch portable, put it atop the (now ruined) color set, and used it the next two years until I moved back to my hometown. However, when I bought my first new color set in 1979 (again, a solid-state 13" Zenith), I kept my hands out of it. I replaced it with a Zenith 13" varactor-tuned portable some two years later (because I wanted a set with electronic tuning--my first 13" Zenith was still working at the time) and put the first one in the basement. Kept my hands out of the backs of both TVs, as I know next to nothing about solid-state TV repair (like Carmine, I am no TV repair expert; I limited my servicing activities to tube swapping and minor component replacement in my tube-powered sets, and stayed strictly out of the three solid-state sets I owned). As a result, both solid-state color sets ran for years with no problems whatsoever.

I don't have either of those small sets anymore, as they were put out for the trash before I moved. Too bad, because both sets worked, and well, at the time. However, I had no say in the matter. If anyone wants to know exactly why those two perfectly good sets were discarded, please send me a PM and I'll explain the whole thing.

As far as Thomson-built RCA TV sets are concerned, IMO, they will work trouble-free for years once the OB tuner problems are corrected. My 1999 XL-100, which I purchased new, is a case in point. Had some problems with the tuner in the beginning, but after those were corrected the set gave absolutely no trouble and hasn't yet. I use it a lot, especially in the winter (it's my daily watcher) and like its automatic picture-correction circuits (auto color, black stretch, black lock, etc.) as well. This set has a beautiful picture on cable (antennas don't work well in the small town where I live--too far [45 miles] away from the transmitters of the seven Cleveland TV stations) and works well with my VCR as well. Now that the OB tuner problems have been corrected, this set works every bit as well as my Zeniths (and a few older RCAs I had) ever did. I expect it to last a long time now.

BTW, the CRT issues in the RCAs seem to have been corrected as well. I was looking at some earlier posts here on AK yesterday, and read one from a member who seemed to think that the quality of RCA CRTs actually improved when the company was sold to Thomson. If this is in fact true, I believe it. The dark-tint CRTs in today's RCAs and Zeniths (the latter, when Zenith was still an American company based in Chicago, used these tubes in their Chromacolor II sets of 1970s vintage, but the quality of those tubes went down the drain in a hurry when GS bought out Zenith and moved the company offshore) produce much better pictures (blacker blacks, whiter whites, better colors) than their predecessors with gray or green faceplates. I'd use a dark-tint tube to replace an older one any day in the year, provided the electrical characteristics (and screen sizes, of course) of the tubes were identical.

[kc8adu]

you forgot the ones on the convergence board!
if one of the supply voltages was lost that board goes off like july 4th fireworks.
and lets not forget the coolant that leaks,goes cloudy from bugs living in it,or turns to jello.

Originally posted by PUNK ROCK DUDE
Oops!! Major omission on my part. Got distracted at lunch today while I was typing my last post. From about 1989 to approx 1994 I did some work for a Magnavox dealer/servicer. Anyone here ever repair a late 80's to early 90's Magnavox rear projection TV? From a reliability standpoint those things had to be the WORST EVER electronics I've worked on. The power supply module and the deflection module in those sets had tons of metal stake feed thru connections to connect the copper traces on the top and bottom sides of the PC board. Just about every one of the feed thru connections would fail. These sets were going out right and left before the warranty ever run out. Some of them that were out of warranty had already been serviced several times. Can you imagine how upset customers were after paying $1,000 to as much as $2,500 for one of these projections sets only to have it break down every time you turned around? The replacement boards weren't cheap either. They sold for around $150 to $175 each. I usually got stuck doing the service calls on these sets, so many times I had to face the wrath of an upset customer. We lost some good customers because of those junky things. After awhile, the owner was giving irate customers the number to Philips headquarters to direct their complaints to. I know Philips ate quite a few of those modules for our customers just to smooth things over. I think it took 2 or 3 years or maybe more before Philips finally redesigned the modules of it's projection TVs to have a single sided circuit board. The Magnavox C6 chassis with the failure of those square blue caps that would burn a hole in the circuit board and also the C6,C7,C8 and C9 chassis that would have a cascade failure in the switch mode power supply were pretty bad too.