CTC-12 on eBay
 

This looks good! Also note that the picture tube was replaced in 1982!! I wouldn't imagine too many of these got serviced into the 80's. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...&category=3638

Well, I don't know...if this set was made in 63 it would only be 19 years old in 1982. I think there are many 1984 or 85 sets still in use today.

The last roundie picture tube that I replaced for a customer was in 1984, Was a Sylvania and cost 75.00 at my distributor.

This also reminds me of the time I went to the house of an elderly couple in their 70's to repair a small RCA black and white set. They had a brand new Sony 35" TV, only a few months old. They said that they previously had a round-screen color set and were still using it as their main TV up till a few months before I met them (in 2001!) The TV repairman they had called about it said it couldn't be fixed anymore and so they took it apart and threw it in the dumpster when it broke down the last time. They said they would have been glad to give it to me had they known me then!

i still get service calls for old tube sets.mostly from folks i have been serviceing since i was a teenager.about a month ago i changed a roundie for a customer.it was a 63 zenith that had been a daily driver since new.was fine the evening before and went to air overnight.it had been worked on twice since new.

I'm from a small town where our shop was located (Tekamah, Nebraska). Find that on a map... LOL. :) Anyway, I know that older people tend to hold on to stuff longer and wouldn't be surprised that there are still older sets used as daily watchers, but I also know that from about the mid 70's on it was rare for a customer to have a roundie repaired. The technology had changed so much they could get a solid state set with a 25" tube and that's what alot of customers did. Unless it was some "older lady" that liked the cabinet on the set, most roundies and other tube sets got tossed to the curb if the repair bill was too high. Tube sets also didn't hold up well in the days of a family having 1 TV. 10-12 years of hard use and most of em were shot. As a kid, I always tried to get my Uncle to save as MANY as possible. I would also sneak and do some repairs using shop parts and not tell him, so they could go on our "used" floor. It makes me sick to think of some of the cool sets that didn't make it. But I do remember the mentality of tossing out the tube sets once the repairs became excessive. (not my mentality tho.....I wish people would still have stuff repaired) Most repair shops aren't even helpful in repairs on older sets. I had a problem with a 70's Chromacolor 2 which is solid-state and the shop tried to talk me out of the repair and acted like I was nuts for even THINKING about a repair. Most shops now do warranty work and that is IT. Most of these "newbie" techs probably have never even worked on tube stuff.

We're collectors, just just users. I'm a car user, not a collector of cars, so when my car starts getting unreliable, I trade it in for a new model. But I do collect TVs and radios. My web page:
http://www.geocities.com/wa2ise/

"Most repair shops aren't even helpful in repairs on older sets."

Cant agree to that anymore. When my 66 zenith had a convergence coil crack into dust I asked many local shops if they had junk chassis/nos coils. I was told by rons tv service "all the money in the world will never find you one of those" From what I notice, tv service techs around here dont really have any passion at all for vintage equipment. the alpha zenith service dealer by my home had tons of tubes on the shelf. Thats where I went as a kid to by tubes for all my stuff. That guy was always a jerk, he was rude when I called asking about a number. The countless times I was told to throw it out "new tv is cheaper" realize I was only 10-12 at the time and here is this kid that likes old tvs. It confused everyone and nobody knew how to react (like garage and estate sales! Still get the same weird reactions at 20).

I have yet to meet a tv repairman who gave a flying fig about old tv sets. Many have given me stuff that was heading for the dumpster, and they just shook their head as I carried out that box of "junk". When I was younger I had a couple tube color sets that needed repair-the local shop would always take one crack at it, telling me when I picked it up that "thats it-if it breaks again, you're outta luck". Each time the repair did not last a week, I then took the set to a shop in another town and the repair would hold. 10 years ago I was trying real hard to get my Porthole up & running but having no luck. I really didn't understand at the time the importance of recapping. A radio collector I talked to reccomended her uncle, a part time tv repairman. I thought he would have that thing going in the blink of an eye. Instead, it sat there for about 8 years and he never did figure it out. (In the mean time I had gotten smart enough to fix it myself!) This same fellow said that one of his first tests, as a young tech, was bringing a CTC-5 back to life; also said he has a Predicta hidden away. But he really has no interest in tube sets. I guess guys like him don't like living in the past?

About 10-12 years ago I was finding tube color sets left & right; nowadays its too easy to go to Walmart & buy a new set for $99. Tommorow I am going to the counties first annual junk electronics collection day. I wonder what will show up? I wonder if they (or my wife!) will let me drag anything home?

bgadow,

Most older techs that worked on tube sets for many years are tired of them and don't want to work on them, or even see these things anymore. It is different to us collectors who have a nostalgic interest, or whatever the reason. To us they are new and interesting, at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it! ;)

when i went into business in 1979 there were a lot of tube color sets around. and i can tell you it was not a fun job fixing some of those sets. the solid state would stay fixed when the tube color would go out again . but i still love them. and yes i threw away quite a few color roundies. steve

Doug- I know what you mean about the age thing. I started in this hobby about 1990, when I was about 15, my first set was an RCA CTC-12, people thought I was out of my mind for working on this stuff! I siezed the opportunity though, and went to all the repair shops in my area looking for old tv parts. I left with boxes and boxes of tubes, flybacks, schematics and yokes, you name it, in many cases not even paying one dime for them!

Yup. We had an Admiral color roundie from the mid-late 50's and kept it up thru 1973. The local servce shop changed hands (ld guy retired) and the new owner (young guy) didn't "want to mess with any thing that heavy or that old". :( He sold Mom & Dad a new 25" RCA Hybrid. It was "okay" but a dog compared to the old Admiral in build, sound and sensitivity.

I have an uncle that used to service TVs on the side back in the 70s and 80s. He never believed in trying to fix a set once it got to a certain age. If it was 10 years old and needed service, he felt the best place for it was on the side of the road. If it was a tube set, he felt there was absolutely no reason for keeping it.

When I first started this hobby years ago, I would call him to ask for pointers in troubleshooting. I recall one of the first times I phoned him about a set... I think it was for my CM B&W console. I said, "Uncle Charles, I have a 1963 CM set that isn't putting out any video. What should I do?" His response was, "Buy a new set and throw out that piece of junk!"

Now, years later, he has come to accept that I really enjoy this (although he still doesn't understand why), and he has been very helpful giving me pointers when I get stumpped by a set. Last year, he gave me a car load of test gear that I really appreciated.

Occasionally, he will give me a hard time because I don't own at least one modern television.

tv teks
 

I could never understand why so many tv teks hated the tube type sets. They were built better, so why hate them? when I was younger, I would call local shops to see if they could give me some pointers on fixing up a set. like charlies uncle, I would get the same responce EVERY time. "Throw it away" It didnt take me too long to figure out that all TV shops have a common policy that "if its not ok, throw it away".
Last year I converged a zenith console and all the right hand dynamic coil spools cracked and fell apart. I went searching for them. So many shops around here couldnt figure out why I wanted to fix this type of set. I was told by rons TV service
"all the money in the world will not get you one of those" Guess what, the shop that I worked at (later on, Carmens TV) had a bunch of junk zenith chassis in the basement of his shop storefront. He was shocked to see that somebody had a use for them. That was rare experience. Its funny, most shops have a bunch of parts for the old sets, all the photofacts, but they DO NOT want to work on the set? Doenst make any sence at all, they are turning away profits.

Doug,

There aren't many new techs that understand tube circuits, heck they don't even understand SS circuits. Most are only monkeys trained well enough to replace circuit boards or modules until the problem goes away. Tracing a fault to an actual board level component is a lost art. You have to know circuits and understand how they work to do that. It takes training and education and a mind not too lazy to want to learn. Same in automotive repair and most everything else now. It is sad.

I knew a tech who ran a small TV and electronics service shop where I previously lived and I was visiting him one day. He had a fender guitar amp with P-P 6L6's and couldn't for the life of him figure out the fault. He asked me if I would look at it. As soon as I heard the way it cycled on and then went to fuzzy low power I knew exactly what the problem must be. A grid drain resistor on one output tube had opened. At first the tube could work somewhere in it's linear region but within milliseconds of power applied (actually as the circuit was coming up to voltage the tube would get cut off). I had it fixed in a jiffy. Boy was he impressed, or should I say the boy was impressed. :dunno:

One of the main reasons that component level repair today seems so difficiult is that most of the hardware in modern electronics is in the million+ transistor integrated circuits, not isolated to discrete components as it was 20+years ago. There are usually only a few power supply caps, external coils, and mirco-resistors outside the ICs.

Not only is the failure of one of these difficult to diagnose, finding a replacement after only a few years is harder than finding a part for a 50+ year old radio.

Modern electronics is truly designed to be throw-away, not repairable.

...

Kinda funny to think that 50 years from now, someone would be trying to restore something from the 90's. Their display room would be full of black plastic boxes. Hmmm... i suppose anything is possible!

Andy is correct. The last two modern electronic items that have lost were damaged by power surges from lightning. Both had power surge protectors that did not protect them. One was a 16 year old Mitusbishi TV, I have not been able to find the microprocessor IC that was destroyed. The other was my old HP computer running windows 98-uses non-standard size mother board, not made any more.

Another thing that breaks on modern electronics is the cheap plastic buttons, supports, etc. Both of my sisters have had this kind of problem with modern TV sets. Kind of reminds me of modern cars-great electronic engine control which is much better than the old carb system (and modern cars have much better safety features), but the rest of the car is mostly plastic junk which begins falling apart after 5 years ( at least this has been my experience).

I have a friend who used to work for Teves-they make braking systems & associated electronics for the automotive industry-& he told me that virtually ALL the parts suppliers follow the same unwritten rule-after demand drops below say, 25K units a year, said part is discontinued,& here's the kicker-most times the tooling is destroyed or sold. Sometimes you can substitute a part, sometimes you can't. When my beloved 1977 Yamaha CA-2010 got zapped by lightning in 2001, we couldn't get it fixed because of a certain transistor just simply wasn't available. People marvel at my 1925 radio-"How on earth did you ever find tubes for something that old ?!?"-they don't understand that '01A tubes were made by the zillions for dozens of years. I pity the guy who has as his pride-'n'-joy a 1992 Lincoln in the year 2027 & one of the innumerable little "black boxes" goes kerflooey on it. Especially when I drive by in my '69 model that has none of that mess on it & wave at him...Listening to my 1925 radio, too...HehHehHeh-Sandy G.

There was recently a customer in our body shop with a 92 Mustang, 5.0, 5 speed, nice car. He hit something hard enough to pop the airbags, which requires new front sensors. Ford has discontinued them. Due to liability concerns I have to turn him away. (can't legally repair the car without repairing the SRS system) Many late 80s/early 90s parts just don't exist any longer.

Repairing newer TVs, SMD 64 pin chips
 

For me this is another problem repairing newer electronics. Manfactures who use surface mount devices not because there is not enough room, but because they are cheaper to build by robotic placement, wave soldering, etc. and no thought is given to repairability. Even if you can find the replacement smd. and using a high end Pace solder system it can take you an hour and a half or longer to remove and replace one of those chips. Ok, I feel better now, end of my rant.
Richard.:rant: