zenith roundie combo in WI
 

Nice '65 zenith roundie combo in milwaukee, WI.

http://cgi.ebay.com/zenith-21-inch-r...QQcmdZViewItem

I thinkie I might have to buy that. Hmmmm..... no room for a combo but it's a freakin Zenith!

I know the guy selling it. He's bought some sets from me in the past. Has a pretty good sized collection too. He orignally told me he wanted me to repair the radio. Says its got a hum (filter caps im sure). Otherwise, the TV works fine. I was told it uses the 25MC33 chassis. Please save it! Good news though, I dont think he would ever junk it since he is a collector.
Hes driving out to my place this weekend to pick up some other sets he bought on ebay. Not sure why he's selling it, probably to make more room I would guess. I can't take any more combos. That RCA one from dwight was the absolute limit.

It sure is worth the space though, that RCA is cherry!
I will MAKE room for this one, I'm nuts about the roundies! It also sounds like an easy fix on that stereo, picture looks good on the tv.

I'm the high bidder but I hope it don't go too much higher....:sigh:

That's very close to being a holy-grail set for me, but I want one with doors over the screen and a little different cabinet style.

Who knows, what I'm looking for might not even exist. :no: I'd have to look at some Zenith catalogs from that era, but have never seen one.

Some better pictures would help that auction!

True.. but I think the price is getting high enough without any help!LOL!

No worries, I'm not helping that one!

I have enough collectibles from Kenosha anyways. :thmbsp:

When I got up this morning my wallet was on fire and I could feel a hernia coming on. This can only mean one thing, so I checked eBay and sure 'nuff I won it for a pretty penny. Now to lug it home.

Glad you got it! Ive been there....paid big money for a TV through ebay which would have been dirt cheap if not free if found locally at an estate sale.
Look forward to seeing good pics of it and what really needs to be done to get it back to 100%.
You're lucky, its an easy drive for you.

Aww, you guys make me SICK...I have NEVER run up on one of these down here-I think I've only seen maybe 2 or 3 "stand alone" roundies over the years. The Reason ? NE Tennessee in the '60s was POOR- Remember LBJ & The Great Society & all that jazz- We were poor, hardscrabble hillbillies here-Color sets were an unaffordable luxury to most. And another thing-Until "cable" TV started being big in the late '60s, you could only get 1 or 2 stations anyhow-usually both rather badly. By then the Roundie era had passed.

It's sad, it has the old yellow sulfide tube in it.

Nice! Glad you got it! Post more pictures when you pick it up... or should I say, slide, shove, and lift one end at a time. :)

I really like the looks of the big combo sets. I need to get mine going, I have a Magnavox combo that I drove out to Maine to get. Needs some work, and quite possibly a flyback - but fortunately a fellow AK'er was kind enough to send me copies of the schematics.

It's great that your set already basically functions - so you know that the picture tube is at least watchable, the flyback is good, etc.

-Ian

Thanks guys, I will post pics as soon as I get it. I am going the Saturday following this one. I have to work this weekend, gettin paid double time to be at the Field Museum in Chicago all day. I am very excited to finally find a Zenith roundie combo that is within reach, working to boot! The stereo should be an easy fix. Hey Ian, What chassis does your Maggie have? Sadly, I am parting out a '68 Maggie combo. The fly and the tubes I put in are about all that is good, I am going to just keep the chassis{s} and speakers. You can have any part you need from it, the good parts anyway. Pm if interested.
Mark

Hello all, I picked up the set yesterday. The guys name is Tom, very nice and and has a nice collection of sets. This one was upstairs and was VERY hard to get down. The steps had a steep turn at the top that made it so we had to stand it up on end and work it around the corner. Then had to be dollied down the steps, sucked! The drive up there was nice and easy, and only 48 mi. from my house. I would have picked it up sooner but I had to rebuild my power steering on my '85 Chevy Silverado, that was Saturdays project. The power steering broke on the way down to Doug's house in Batavia Il a few weeks ago, had to drive it home from there pulling a trailer on the tollway, no power steering. Also sucked! The tv is awesome on the other hand, works great. The only thing it needs is a really good cleaning and checking. The stereo needs new filters also. Speaking of the stereo, on my '65 maggie, the stereo cannot be on when the tv is, this one can have both on at the same time which is cool when you are just scanning channels and listening to music until something good comes on tv. The picture and sound are excellent, this set has an all tube stereo and amp.All of my other stereos are solid state so this one excites me. I cant wait to jam to my vinyls on this thing! I would have taken pictures of the inside but I threw my back out moving the '65 Maggie combo and '64 Maggie console stereo out of my tv room. I'll scooch it out away from the wall tonight and start the cleaning process, I can see some black beauties and some white time bombs in there so I know a trip to Chesters is on the way. This set uses the gold video guard tuner with electric pushbutton like a space command, very cool. Too bad it isn't space command, they already got it halfway with that type of tuner. I'm sure there's a SC model out floating around out there somewhere, or should
I say sitting like a boat anchor! The dial lights are burned out but when they work, the numbers appear on the "woodgrain" panel behind the knobs. The bezel in this set is very well laid out,{no straining your fingers trying to turn a fine tuning knob that don't have anything to hold on to} love the pushbutton with the Zenith crest inside of a thick lens, looks kinda 3D. I also think there is a zenithfan2 in the house:thmbsp:, my 4 year old daughter loved it! {that and I let her watch family guy with me} shh! don't tell my ol' lady!LOL! I took some screenshots with the camera set for motion I think, the pics turned out a little better this time. They don't have that "rainbow" look to them like usual. I think this might become one of my favorites, the cabinet is almost a match to my avatar only it's wider of course.

Very sharp looking set! I'm sure glad I wasn't having to hold onto one end of that monster. A few years ago I visited a man who has a roundie in an attic room. I think it would take an act of congress to get that thing back down. Maybe a good thing he didn't want to sell it!

My back feels a little better, I pulled 'er out and took the back off. As usual there were unwanted surprises inside,mouse crap EVERYWHERE! Amazingly, that was about it, not one thing chewed on..... whew! Good luck there. However, I did have to spend 6 hours detail cleaning and removing every piece of crap with my shopvac. I detail cleaned the CRT, all tubes {20 of 25 appear to be original:thmbsp:} I noticed that every one that was original had the code start with 64, could this be a '64? Did they have the 25MC33 in '64? I'm picking up the sams pretty soon, maybe it'll say. I also cleaned every inch of the chassis. The micro cleaning tools for the shopvac are a must! It beats the hell out of how I was doing it before. There's a pic of me easily getting all the way under the CRT an surrounding area. I also pictured the stereo, amp and a few other goodies that are hard to see without sticking your head inside the set. I also had to clean mildew off the back, came off great. Next, I plan to recap the stereo and amp to get rid of the dreadful hum.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...1/100_1916.jpg
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Roundys, Chairman Bob approved!
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...1/100_1884.jpg
Zenithfan2

I'd say that's a '64 model since the stereo has tubes. I thank Zenith went solid state with their stereo's in '65 or so.

Thanks! The older the better!:thmbsp: I love the tube stereo, It is also wierd how the speakers are hooked right to the tv, bypassing the amp. There is a switch on the power control that connects the speakers to the tv when its on, otherwise the two units are separate entities. I am used to how the Maggies are made, everything works together and cannot be separated. The Maggie stereo gets power from the tv chassis. The Zenith stereo has it's own power cord.

Can you post a pic of the radio and record changer in your combo? I'm just curious what these looked like in that time frame.
Thanks,
Tony

Chairman Bob Approved? Too cool!

the picture on that zenith is astounding! maybe the best roundie picture i have ever seen? i thought my ctc15 was sharp,but you are the topper.congrats on a great,great find.i am happy for you.more pics in operation,please.

Sure, Id be happy to. And Ron, I am also happy to put some more pics in operation, I also plan to make a youtube video. The stereo pic is of before I cleaned out that area. I'll try to get more pics of the tv running tonight if I get time.
Also, the white paint rubbings have been removed from the front edge of the cabinet over the tv section,{pictured in above reply} goo-gone did the trick. Last night was nice, I didn't have to work on the tv in order to use it. The previous night I spent 6 hours cleaning it. Last night my daughter Genevieve and I watched 6 1/2 hours of cartoons on DVD, consisting of 35 episodes of Tom and Jerry and the original Horton Hears a Who plus the bonus features on both sets. Freakin awesome!
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...100_1891-1.jpg
Tuner
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...1/100_1877.jpg
Changer
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...1/100_1904.jpg
Amp
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...1/100_1875.jpg
Control panel

Zenith's older televisions were great (I had a 23" K2739 [1963 vintage, VHF only] b&w console over 35 years ago, trash day find, no tubes except the 1J3 HV rectifier and 23ANP4 CRT, but it was well worth the money I spent on new ones--the picture was fantastic, even with rabbit ears in a Cleveland suburb 33 miles from the transmitters, and even better yet on the attic antenna in my home at the time). I hated to get rid of that set but I moved three years after restoring it and had no room for it in the new house, :no: especially since I brought my Sears Silvertone roundie table model (21") and two other sets with me.

You won't be disappointed with the results when you're done restoring the radio/stereo in your console (recapping, especially around the power supply, will eliminate the hum you mention; the electrolytics now in the set have to be over 40 years old, and probably long overdue for replacement). High-fidelity sound was a hallmark of Zenith radio and stereo (including the stereo components of their fabulous three-way consoles like yours) throughout the company's history, until they got out of the radio business in the early 1980s; their older radios have sound quality I consider to be unmatched by most others. I have two high-end Zenith radios (C845 and MJ1035) that, IMHO, sound very good (I'd say excellent for table models) owing to their two-way speaker systems (using a real speaker as the tweeter, not plastic-cased electrostatic ones as were used in smaller Zeniths such as the K731) and 35C5 (two 50EH5s for stereo in the MJ1035) output tubes.

My K2739 Zenith TV was a 23-inch b&w console with a fantastic picture (owing to a 3-stage IF amplifier strip), as I said above, and downright incredible sound that most modern televisions cannot hope to match, owing to a 6BQ5/6BN6 audio stage with tone control and a 6x9 oval speaker in the base of the cabinet. The sound was so good I eventually patched an old Knight-kit (Allied Radio Corp., now long out of business) FM tuner into the audio stage by connecting the tuner's preamp output across the TV's volume control. The results were gratifying. Great sound on every Cleveland FM station, again just using an indoor antenna, though I think I did connect the attic antenna to the tuner briefly as a test. If I had kept that TV I probably would have tried to patch a stereo turntable into the audio channel as well.

BTW, the Zenith roundie console in your avatar reminds me of a similar set we had in our electronics shop in high school 35+ years ago. The only difference between that set and yours, IIRC, was that the one in our lab was a table model, VHF only, in a faux woodgrain metal cabinet; TV only, of course. I don't remember ever seeing that set working, though, and it's probably (almost certainly) long gone by now.

Beautiful set, great find.
Checking the book "Color TV Servicing Made Easy Vol. 2" lists Zenith chassis 25MC33 as a 1965 model. The SAMS Photofact index also shows it as a '65. The set may have come off the line in late'64 as a '65 model. The tubes may also have been manufactured in 1964. What a bear that must have been to move down the stairs. Take care with your back.

-Steve D.

Thanks for the info, Steve. I like to find out as much as possible about my sets.
Last night I set the convergence up, it looks pretty good but I think the usual selenium rectifier replacement is nessesary on the convergence chassis but that will be a later project. Picture looks good enough. The only problem I had was what appeared to be a grid to cathode short on the CRT, thank God it wasn't. It turns out the socket is bad and the connections inside are loose, if you wiggle it some of the wires get temporarily interupted causing the picture to go green, flicker colors and have retrace lines. Tapping gently on the neck does nothing, just wiggling those wires makes it happen. I temporarily fixed it with some white plumbers tape {no glue} just around the socket where the wires go in so I could work on it. The thing I really don't like is the fact that some "tech" cut corners by rigging that thing years ago instead of replacing it. The focus lead corroded and overheated melting that part of the socket, that was enough to replace it in my book. This guy soldered the wire directly to the pin on the tube {rolling eyes} I hate those kind of repairs. The guy also left all the wires in the set just hanging around in there ignoring all of the wire ties and holders, very sloppy work! Probably who ever worked on it back in '69, their name isn't on the tag. I wouldn't put my name on that kind of work either. Will update some pics shortly.

I took the socket off the CRT last night. Surprise! More problems! The guy that rigged the socket also squashed the pins flat on the tube. DUMB! So, I took the socket apart by drilling the rivets out of the fiberglass end cap. Then took each contact and squished those back to the right size. {common sense would tell most people to do this before practically destroying a perfectly good CRT} The socket is much easier to replace! Then put the socket back together with screws. Then came the daunting task of CAREFULLY smashing the pins back into shape with needle nose pliers, that turned out well. In the process I noticed the solder was knocked loose from the inside of every pin {from all the abuse} I then soldered up all of the tips so the little wires inside get a good connection. I left the focus lead soldered to the pin for now until I find a new socket, the pin is undamaged and will return to normal. The raster is nice and steady now, shown in the pics. I forgot to put the pics of the socket repairs on my flash drive, so I'll add them later. Here are some screenshots, I couldn't find the remote to pause the DVD so some pics have motion streaks but the set is looking great and I am very happy with it. Also, just to clarify, the mouse crap was not from the home I purchased this from. I really dont' think Tom ever took the back off this set, way too much undisturbed dust and crap in there {no pun intended}
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This is after the repairs, flux made the pins look yucky, that cleaned off with de-oxit
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...1/100_1928.jpg
You can see the flattened pins in this pic and the melted spot where the focus lead used to go. I had to take the socket apart and squeeze the contacts.

thank you. those pics made my day!

Wonderful screen shots. Maybe they will inspire me to get off my rear and finish my long-delayed CTC-11 project :-)

Phil Nelson

WOW!The bee movie doesnt look that good on my plasma!

Awesome!

I just came back here to read the replies, thank you for the great compliments. They made the 16+ hours I put in this week cleaning, checking and preening over this thing worthwhile. I am happy I can share with people who appreciate it. The comment about the Bee Movie looking better on this than a plasma made my day!! I am far from done with this one but it is coming along nicely, and is the most fun I've had with a set in a while. Thanks again!!!!!!

I just saw some of the pictures in your gallery; they are great--I'm looking forward to seeing more. I wish I could take pictures that good with my 1.3-megapixel Radio Shack Flatfoto camera! They look okay, I guess, but when I see the pics some of the rest of you post here and compare them to the ones I've posted here, I realize how poor my digital camera really is.

The screenshot of the weather forecast from Milwaukee's channel 4 showing on your small portable (don't know what make it is; doesn't look to me like a GE Portacolor) looks a bit overscanned, as part of the TV station's ID popup at the bottom of the screen looks as if it is slightly cut off at the bottom.

It is a GE Porta-Color, '73 to be exact. does have a little overscan but that is quite common with old sets. The picture is now very proportionate. However, it used to be all squished at the sides and stretched in the middle, new caps in the horiz. section ironed that out. I use a 6.1 mega-pixel Kodak with a huge lens, not quite sure of the zoom but it's pretty nice. I zoomed in on a tower about a mile away when I was in Kansas last year picking up a set, I could see the birds sitting on top! I recently figured out how to get a good screenshot with it, so I like it more now.