Eric,

That RCA is really nice looking! :cool:

Let's imagine for a moment, the look on the origional owner of that set back then, if you were to tell him or her that some day down the road, someone would be able to choose between several hundred TV stations due to a service such as DirectTV! :confused:

It's kinda funny to think that when these sets were made, one was lucky to tune in one station.... and they thought that was sittin in high cotton!

Charlie,

I always wonder about the original owners of a set this old.

I imagine it was an exciting day for them when their new set was delivered. Probably the whole family and half their neighbors were there!

I wonder what the first thing they saw was? A test pattern I suppose :)

OK, now that the 721 is off the bench (kitchen table) I had to start a new project. I picked a 1956/57 RCA 14" portable model 7070G.

Here's a pic of the almost recapped chassis running an 8" test CRT. I gotta get a couple 1000v caps to finish the job.



Eric

I was cleaning up the TV room and came across this photo I got off eBay.
I have this exact same model set, it had depreciated about $635.00 by the time I got it though :)

RCA9PC41
 

Hey folks, I had to raid the charge card to pay for it but a friend told me of an RCA projector set Tuesday and I stumbled all over myself to go get it today. It was only about 10 minutes from home! It is complete except for the back, and even has the REMOTE CONTROL!:D I got this and two floor 12" Admiral 3 ways, two boxes of old tubes, and a Heathkit tube stereo amp. Whew! I am tired! The RCA has 40 tubes, plus CRT, on FOUR chassis's! Cabinet's in good shape too. It never fails when I am out of hobby money that is when things start popping up! I think it is :beerchug:PARTY TIME :beerchug:in the Mackley household! http://home.earthlink.net/~marlinmackley/rcaproj.JPG

9PC41
 

Marlin,

Great score finding a nice 9PC41. I'll bet you're tired. That set has to weigh 250+ lbs. I put hidden castors under mine so I could actually move it by myself on the carpet...highly recommended mod by ROB-TV!

The 9PC41 was the last of the RCA projection line that used the same set of four chassis. That is why this 1949 set still has the channel 1 tuner.

If you wanna sell that Heathkit tube amp send me PM with details.
I'm looking for tube amps to 'play' with right now. :)

Thanx,
Rob

Marlin,

Nice RCA, I have a couple of them, actually 4, no room to bring a couple of them home, yet. The biggest drawback to the projections is the front surface mirrors. They get sort of a dull grey from being exposed to the air after 50 years and it cuts the brightness down a lot. HL Clausing in Skokie can re silver the curved mirror in the "bell" , it runs between $150-$250 depending on the quality of the coating you want. I had the one for my Berkshire done a few months back. The flat mirror you can probably get by with a thin back coated mirror. I picked up some new projection TV mirrors that I'm going to try and cut to size for a couple of my projection sets. Oh yeah, I was told that the flat mirror would be too expensive to have re-silvered.

Chuck

Rob, I was wondering about that channel one and the date - thanks for the info. I will get back to you shortly on the amp as I do not need it and I can maybe recover some of the $ spent on this adventure. :)
Chuck, FOUR? Just thinking about that would give me a retroactive hernia! Thanks for the mirror info. I had not given that any thought yet. I have not even cleaned out the spider fuzz balls! Also I use to hang around the do-it-yourself telescope builder types (never did it myself) and may also ask them for leads as telescope mirrors are surface silvered.
:) Marlin

While on the subject, has anyone seen or have one of the test lamps that was used to set the mechanical focus on these sets?

Chuck

Schmidt projector optics adjustments
 

Chuck,

I worked for many years on Schmidt optical systems setting up and servicing big events projectors for closed circuit boxing, etc. On the larger commercial projectors that utilize this optical system to create pictures up to 15x20 feet and larger there are adjustments to converge the entire relationship between CRT, its depth towrds the main spherical mirror (focus), the centering of the CRT in the main mnirror, and the centering and plane of the corrector plate lens. I don't know how many of these adjustments are available in the RCA as I haven't dug into either of my 9PC41's yet.

If focus is all you are worried about you could get pretty close by shining a powerful flashlight down through the corrector plate to illuminate the CRT face from a bounce off the spherical mirror. You'd want to stretch a couple of black sewing threads in a cross against the CRT face with tape or a rubber band around the bell of the tube. In a darkened room you will see the image of the cross on the screen.

In actual operation the focus setting will change a small amount because the image actually occurs on the inside of the glass faceplate, not the outside. When you are at this point and have optimized the mechanical focus on a working projector you will also see a color shift as you rock through best electrical focus from yellowish image to bluish as you play with the focus control. This is caused by varying the focus plane of the scanned raster so it falls on the backside of the phosphor, in the middle of the thickness of the phosphor or deeper in towards the faceplate of the tube. The opacity of the phosphor causes this yellowing. I find the best picture when the e-beam is focussed towards the blue.

There is a procedure for correctly setting the geometry of the corrector plate lens with the CRT removed. If the corrector is adjustable laterally (side to side) this needs to be done. With one eye about a foot from the front of the optical barrel looking into and coaxially centered on the CRT hole in the corrector plate you will see some circle images which represent the hole in the corrector plate and its reflection in the spherical mirror. One of these is a virtual image and it takes a bit of staring sometimes to see it properly. By moving the corrector plate lens laterally you should see this virtual circle shift in the opposite direction you moved the corrector lens. You want to lock the corrector plate in place so that its virtual image is precisely concentric with the hole in the corrector plate. Inotherwords all these circle images will be aligned perfectly with each other.

Some Scmidt assemblies move the primary spherical mirror towards or away from the CRT face for mechanical focus. Adjustment procedure for the corrector lens will be the same.

Rob

Rob,

Thanks for the optics training on the projection system. I wondered why the focus control shifted the hue of the picture from blue to a brownish color. One of the units I have is really out of adjustment I'll give your adjustment method a try.

Chuck

Capehart Cabinet
 

Here's a couple pics of the Capehart now that I have it inside the house, what a monster!

http://www.vintagetvsets.com/images/capecab1.jpg

The finish is pretty rough, also there is a piece of the lower door that needs to be glued back on.

http://www.vintagetvsets.com/images/capecab2.jpg

The original owners must have been pretty proud of this back in 49, they must have been fairly affluent as well!

Eric

Wow Eric!

The wood of that monster is gorgeous! Makes one wonder how one of the best inventions of all time has now ended up in a black plastic box!

Charlie

ADMIRAL 19A11
 

here is an admiral 19A11 set that i have downstairs,perfect working chassis and perfect 7jp4,has a cracked cabinet and got tired of seeing it sit around.. so i removed the 7jp4 and installed a 7gp1 (green screen) and adapted one of my crt clocks,nice large numbers..i used a 5 volt regulated supply for the filament to make the 7gp1 will last awhile..different,as i like to be different.:)
this will go on top of my other 7" electrostaic sets..
terry

19A11 clock
 

Terry,

That clock is preetty neat! So do I understand you correctly that you have this little circuit that makes a CRT into a clock and you are not running the 19A11 tube chassis to drive the 7GP1 CRT? What is the 7GP1? I have a 7JP1 and it works in the original 7JP4 circuits AOK of course if you don't mind green.

Is this how you got that time display on your heathkit Vectorscope? I wanted to ask about that.

Rob

the 7GP1 is the same as a 7GP4,used a bit earlier before the 7JP4 or 7JP1, I did not want to use the 7JP4 that the set has because it was a N.O.S tube,and want to keep the hours on the tube low,(the 7JP4 with a white phospher is neat to watch with the clock) no part of the admiral is used,just to hold the CRT in place..the little clock board is not so tiny as it is a kit from david forbes website,if you are creative you can make this board drive any electrostatic CRT,the drive board is pretty intense to build,and it only draws about 7W..!! the board will not drive the filaments on the 7gp1 high enough,so i made up a regulated 5 volt dc power supply just for the filament,still just cool to watch itself,the digits are drawn (simple so to speak) and formed from circles,lines and arcs..aligning the board is a real trip!! you can make the H/V X/Y totally out of phase and in phase to make some interesting patterns on the CRT during the "DRAW" process.
it is safe to leave alone itself running as it draws less current than a lot of bedside clock radio's draw,(all mine have been running 24hrs a day for almost 2 years)..
CRT's are fun to play with..:)
terry

Today's Estate Sale Find
 

I usually go to the estate sales here in Minneapolis-St. Paul every weekend, and once in a while I find something really cool. Today I found this beautiful Emerson 12" TV from 1949, model 644. After I finish working on my Zenith Porthole, I'm definitely going to begin restoration on this beauty...

Ohh Ooh Ahh!! Oh man, I am intensely envious of your find! :D

Gorgeous set!

Eric

Emerson
 

That Emerson is really cool lookin! I wish I would have better luck finding goodies like that more often. Perhaps I am not waking up early enough in the morning!

Just got home from being on the ship for 50 days. Hopefully I'll get lucky with something like that! Guess tomorrow I'll grab a newspaper to find the garage sales for this week.

Uni,

That is one awesome score! Beautiful Emerson. The stand really works well under it too.

Rob

Re: Emerson
 

Charlie, you need to consider the Marlin method of finding goodies. First, spend all the money you have. Second, spend all the credit you have in the charge cards. Third, now walk in to any garage sale or antique store, or just answer the phone, and I promise you great things will fall on you, now that you would not be able to pay for them!
Marlin:confused: :D :dunno:

Here's the newest addition to the "family". A Sparton 4940, nice bright pictures on it (I was to lazy to run the antenna over for this picture).

Chuck

Chuck,

That's the nicest Sparton 4940 I've seen. My cats would like like it, that huge expanse of grille cloth to sharpen their claws on.

Rob

Hey Chuck, great Sparton! I have one that looks like Rob's cats got hold of. Also mine is missing the knobs and the chassis mounting rails.:mad: I hope to get a look at those knobs and rails someday for duplication. Right now I can't put the chassis on the cabinet.
Marlin

Marlin,

If you need pictures of anything on the set let me know.

Just got back from a TV run, brought home 4 more projection sets, 2 RCA's (9PC41 & 8PCS41), an Emerson (609), and a small unit I can't remember the name of right now.

If anyone needs parts from an Emerson 649 projection set let me know, I have a junker that's going to be reduced to parts. The cabinet is to far gone for a reasonable restoration.


Chuck

Chuck,

You are headed towards a real vintage TV museum with a projection technology annex fast! Nice work.

Rob

The fourth set is a Norelco (Philips) Duo-Vue, a small table with a Protelgram projection unit inside, you set a normal 10"-12" TV on it.

Connect the Duo-Vue to the horiz, vert & video circuits of the TV.

You can view the program on the 10" set or if you want a big 3'x4' screen roll the unit away from the wall, turn the switch and the picture is projected on to the wall.

Guess I'll have to move this one to the fast track for restoration.

Chuck

Chuck,

I passed on one of these a year ago at Rochester AWA for $25 because I didn't have the room for it in my small car along with the CTC-4 early color set I bought. It looked like it was missing a lot of circuitry to be a TV receiver. With your explanation it makes perfect sense.

Rob

Rob,

Luckily I got all the paperwork with this one. All I have to make up are the 2 connecting cables and sockets.

Chuck

Here's a couple of pictures of my Emerson 609 projection set. Finished re-capping it today.
Pictures are pretty good on it, even though the flat mirror is a bit hazy, they sure didn't hold up well over the years, the mirrors in the projection box (Protelgram) faired much better.

Here's a closeup of the projection screen. I still need to make a few adjustments on the mechanical focus.

Chuck,

Very impressive! That is so cool to see an old set like that working so well. The cabinet looks great. Nice work!

Rob

crosley-itis
 

Chuck: That 609 is terriffic!

Eric posted a Crosley on a different thread so thought I would put one up here. It has vernier tuning, and a cool clear overlaying dial which gives the FM stations in the intermediate range of the dial. It is a 10" and the CRT has an odd blueish hue. AM is tuned with the right vernier. Record player in the right drawer and storage is behind left door. Not working right now (story of my life!). No tuning eye though.
Marlin
http://home.earthlink.net/~marlinmackley/crosley.JPG

Marlin,

That is a great looking Crosley!

My weakness is consoles, just can't find enough of them. Especially in that condition.

What phono is in that?

Chuck

Chuck;
There are no markings on the turntable, but it is a 3 speed changer with flipover crystal cart. Here is a closeup. You can see dusting doesn't happen around here much, single life being what it is. This is a good example of the results of networking. I went to a radio hamfest, no TV's, and just asked around. I wound up with three good buys, the Crosley costing $75.:) :)
http://home.earthlink.net/~marlinmackley/record.JPG

Marlin,

Not only a nice piece, but a great buy too.


Chuck

flocking excellent!
 

Marlin,

Nice flocking! ;) Hasn't seen much wear.

Rob

Tuning Eye
 

Marlin, gorgeous set!

But ain't that a tuning eye on the right, above the knob?

BTW, I subbed a shorted cap on my Crosley and got it to fire up! Amazing since it looks like it spent the last ten years in a field somewhere. The original DuMont 12JP4 too.

The tuning eye was working but is a double square not a circle.

Eric

Eric: Wish it was, but it is a tuning dial, similar to the left tuning dial.

Rob: Flocking? I thought it was mold! (Just kidding).:D
Marlin

Sylvania Halolight
 

I finally got this Sylvania all back together! Refinishing the wood was a real pain! Sand, varnish... sand, varnish... sand, varnish! I thought it would never end! The cooler weather we've had these past few days didn't speed the drying up either! I know the fabric covering the speaker isn't exactly 1950's vintage, but I was so ready to finish this that I went to Walmart and found something that would accent it well. Later I will probably look for some vintage fabric.

Notice the clock-radio on top... it's also a Sylvania from about the same time. Also have another like it in GREEN, but that one didn't look right with the tv.

:D