1985 RCA CTC120 XL100 console

[radiotvnut]

TV number one from an estate sale that was free, after nobody wanted it, is a 25" RCA XL100 from 1985. Cosmetically, the cabinet is solid, but it needs a good cleaning and polishing. Electronically, it has a loss of horizontal sync, which is something I don't recall ever running into on these. On these, it's usually bad filter capacitors, loose connections in the tuner and control modules, and no color due to a faulty or misadjusted 3.58 MHz trimmer. Also, I don't think I've ever encountered a vertical sweep failure on one of these.

I used to see lots of these in the '90s and early 2000s, and they were easy sellers. Today, I rarely see them and you can't hardly give them away.

I really didn't want this one or the Curtis Mathes set that I'm about to make another post about, but had I not taken them, she might not offer me anything again and the next sale might actually have some older sets in it.

[rcaman]

Those were as reliable as they came. i sold a lot of those new and they worked and worked for years and years. great chassis

[radiotvnut]

All I had to do to this one was adjust the horizontal frequency coils, a couple of the trap coils, and touch up the greyscale. It now has a decent picture.

[JohnCT]

Originally Posted by rcaman

Those were as reliable as they came. i sold a lot of those new and they worked and worked for years and years. great chassis

True story.. When we sold these, we included a free 3 year parts and labor warranty in order to compete with the discount stores which at times would sell TVs cheaper than we could buy them direct from RCA. Except for the early '81s with the bad flyback run, we didn't have to fix one RCA in warranty until the CTC140 came out (a very complicated high performance design) in '87 I believe.

John