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Yet another Zenith roundie
Got this 25LC20 set today in a deal I made with a friend and local collector. I had to give up my CTC-15, but I also got another set. Had to completely set it up. When I first plugged it in, the picture was horrible. Very dim and blurry. Had to rejuvenate the original tube, and now it's better, but not great.
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"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." -Carl Sagan |
#2
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I've been watching this set quite a bit. The tube is still waking up even after I rejuvenated it. It gets very bright now, I even had to turn the bias down a little. Focus is a little on the soft side though.
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"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." -Carl Sagan |
#3
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However, I will say it again for emphasis, you cannot and will not get anything but snow on your 52-year-old Zenith roundie if you try to get local reception using just an antenna; again, I am baffled as to why you are getting anything on your set as it is unless, as I said, you are using a DTV converter box, satellite, or cable. If you have cable, your local cable system in Birmingham must not have made the full conversion yet to digital if you can hook up your cable directly to the TV and get a picture. However, the day will come when you will need a cable box on your TV to get anything at all. Spectrum (formerly Time Warner Cable) was the last cable system in the US to convert to full digital, so the cable in your area has probably been 100-percent digital for some time. The only other thing I can think of is there may still be one or several VHF NTSC television stations operating in your area.
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. |
#4
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Very nice find, as usual. I would be interested in seeing a picture of the screen after your setup procedure, showing something other than color bars. It sure does look like a winner to me. And it appears you got the legs as well? I think that’s what I’m seeing in the first photo, but not sure.
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#5
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Quote:
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"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." -Carl Sagan |
Audiokarma |
#6
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Uh... You do know that you have to actually work on the 52 year old tv if you actually want it to work correctly...
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Admiral C322C2 Regent (Restoring) RCA CTC-7 Pensbury (Restored) RCA CTC-5 Westcott (Restored) CRA CTC--4 Director 21 (Restoring) |
#7
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Uh... Well aware of that. I'm not new to this hobby. Plus, I don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on these things like some people here do. I have bigger problems, like keeping the refrigerator full and the lights on.
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"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." -Carl Sagan |
#8
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What are you using as an antenna with that DTV converter? You mentioned you don't have cable or satellite, so the only way your set would work at all would be with a DTV converter box, and I'm sure you are some distance from Birmingham's TV towers so you would probably need some sort of outdoor antenna. I wasn't aware these boxes were even available anymore, as inexpensive as many flat screen TVs are these days (I see some sets with 20-inch-plus screens advertised in my Sunday paper for under $200), although you said yours was a 2009 model so you've probably owned it since the beginning of the DTV conversion.
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. |
#9
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I got my Zenith converter box brand new in the box in January of this year at an estate sale. I'm using an Iron Butterfly antenna.
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"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." -Carl Sagan |
#10
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What is an Iron Butterfly antenna?
Phil Nelson Phil's Old Radios https://antiqueradio.org/index.html |
Audiokarma |
#11
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Yer bowtie ain't an Iron Butterfly till it has received at least the albums Heavy, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Ball, and Metamorphasis.
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Tom C. Zenith: The quality stays in EVEN after the name falls off! What I want. --> http://www.videokarma.org/showpost.p...62&postcount=4 |
#12
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BTW, I didn't realize you had already reconverged your TV's CRT. It's been a while (45 years, to be exact) since the last time I had a TV with a round color tube, but I do recall that it isn't easy to converge them, especially in the corners of the screen. (I was trying to converge my set's tube by eye, without a pattern generator--believe me, I'll never do that again, as the results were far from even optimal.)
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. |
#13
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Most of the transmitters are on Red Mountain, which is about 10 miles away. The only channel I have issues picking up sometimes is WABM 58. On stormy days, it's hit or miss. I don't know where the tranmitter is for that station. I can pick up WBRC, WVTM, WTTW, WUOA, and WIAT without issues.
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"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." -Carl Sagan |
#14
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WABM is located on Golden Crest Drive just off of Beacon Parkway East... fairly close to many other tv transmitters. They have a construction permit to go to ch 20 for repacking. Decent power, but they do have a directional pattern with lower power going North.
https://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/t...2=&EW=W&size=9 jr |
#15
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This is what I MEANT to say...
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"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." -Carl Sagan |
Audiokarma |
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