About to start on something rather unique and interesting...
 

Hi everyone, sorry that this first post is a bit long its mainly to give some background information for your interest.

I am about to embark on this restoration project which has been on the cards for about the past year or so.
What has prompted me to finally bring this set out of hiding was due to the workshop being recently revamped with nice big long workbenches and I told myself that once those benches were up, this set was going to get looked at…. And today was the day…

What we have here is an extremely rare low production New Zealand made 23 inch black and white TV made around 1963-65.

It may not mean much to anyone else but to me this is a special set as the person who designed and made this set, I knew him personally. Alan was a very clever man with an amazing brain for knowledge and was very switched on when it came to anything technical or electronic.

He started making radios back in the 1930’s and all of his sets were manufactured from his house, and a large area of his house was used solely for making them. His brand name was called “Telerad”.

After the Second World War he returned and continued to make radios including hi-end hifi amplifiers as audio was one of his passions, all of his radios had a very well designed audio section and the sound quality left any other locally made set for dead. I also have a couple of his sets and they really perform well.

I can’t remember when he stopped making radios, think it was the around the mid 1950’s but his hifi amplifiers were still being made though.

Alan always followed the latest technology so naturally gravitated towards television when it started becoming the latest craze in the electronics industry.

I met Alan in the early 1990’s as a teenager through the local radio club. I used to call him regularly to ask questions and he didn’t mind and he could talk for ‘hours’. You had to listen to an hour or two of his war stories first but then he could be easily diverted with an electronics question so he’d rattle on for ages about his designs/circuits and the things he made and would answer the question in between… He was a talking book and I wish I had recorded some his phone conversations as they were dam fascinating.

Alan died on July 7th, 2007 aged 94.

This TV came out of his house, it was buried in a back room with stuff piled on top of it. He became a hoarder in recent years and the house was ‘full’ of test gear/valves/components/radio cabinets etc. Unfortunately some of it was dumped but a lot was rescued and found new homes. I got about six Tektronix scopes, heaps of components and some other bits and pieces including three brand new unused radio cabinets for my Telerad sets.

This set is probably the only one left in existence, I have no idea how many TV’s he made as this was the only model, he probably did tell me but I can’t remember and I highly doubt that there are any others that have survived.

The internals have been made up using left over radio components and two radio chassis stuck together. Alan was not one to waste anything, he never threw anything out.
One of my unrestored Telerad radios which was made in 1948 has the exact same brand of components in it.

The tuner and line output stage are all Philips, so is the picture tube (Miniwatt AW-59-90) and deflection yoke.

It is hard to believe that this TV was made in the 1960’s as the chassis/valves/components looks like something out of the mid 1950’s!

Here is the valve line up, the majority of them are octals: All I'm going by is the hand drawn valve location chart that was taped to the back cover.

Tuner ECC88/ECF80
1st IF 6SH7
2nd IF 6AC7
3rd IF 6SH7
Sound IF 6SH7GT
Sound Det 6SQ7
Audio Amp 7C5
Video Det 6AC7
DC Restorer 6SA7GT
Peak Detector 6SA7GT
Sync Amp 6SA7GT
Sync Sep 6SH7
AGC Gate 6SA7GT
Line Multivibrator 6SA7GT x 2
Vert Osc 6SA7GT
Vert Amp 6L6
Line Output EL36
Boost Diode EY88
EHT Rect DY87

So there’s quite a mixture of valves there and he used a lot of 6SA7’s! Anyone know why?

Also a Rola 12 inch dual cone speaker was used for the sound, the one shown in the photo is not the original. I have the original speaker for it.

In regards to the circuit diagram, well there isn’t one and this is going to make the repairing/fault finding/restoration a lot harder! I can see head scratching/frustration and swearing in the wind with this one!....
But fortunately I do have a complete spare chassis so this is going to be my only saving grace.
I have no idea what circuit design he based this on either so its going to be an interesting journey bringing this set back to life.


He put a note in the set saying it was last run in 1987 and that it has a horizontal sync fault. Do I dare wake it from its 24 year slumber?

When I got this back in 2007 I found the main filter caps had let go and the terminals were eaten away so I temporarily wired some filter caps in and replaced the rotten power cord… I never did get around to putting any power on it though. Everything else looks ok underneath and I’m toying with the idea of slowly bringing the set to life with the variac and seeing what happens.. I know this is a bit risky but at least if the set show signs of life I will then know what stages are working and as I don’t have a circuit it maybe the only way to get voltage readings etc. Hopefully the picture tube and lopt are ok.

The first thing I will do is change all the capacitors and then check resistors along the way. There are a lot of can type 10+10uf filter caps throughout and some look quite difficult to get at.

Wish me luck on this voyage, it maybe a rocky one!

I'm not going to rush at this, well will try not to as have other projects on the go at the moment but at least I now have the space to leave it untouched.

Will post up progress reports when time allows.

Enjoy the pictures...

Cheers
Glen.

More Photos...

And more photos...

Wow. One thing's for sure--that set's not a clone of anything! What a fabulous design; it makes contemporary Soviet stuff look cutting edge!

This would be a very interesting restoration project.
Like to follow your progress. Keep posting about it.

Carl

Very strange set, using 40s tubes. I think this is a one-off set.

Wow....

Wowzers! This is going to be an interest grabber sorta in the same vein as the RCA 'prototype' set in another forum. oc

Amazing. Homebrews are commonplace in the radio world, but pretty unheard of with televisions.

To quote Bertie Wooster, I shall follow your future progress with considerable interest!

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Here is an update...good news Its ALIVE!:banana::banana::banana: The CRT checked strong so and I bought it up slowly on the variac over an hour or so and watched for any signs of stress, took some basic voltage readings and I was greeted blank raster so somethings up with the If/video stages but hey at least the flyback/vertical are working so a promising start so far!!:D... Not bad considering its 25 year slumber!:yes:
I think my next move will be to check all the tubes in the front end and then start fault finding from there....I'll start replacing caps in the flyback/power supply sections as I'm going to have to power this up again no doubt...

Thanks guys for the all encouraging comments too :) I'll try and keep you all as up to date as possible.

Certainly a unique TV and it will be interesting to see it's restoration.

The set was made from commonly available and possibly war surplus valves. Alan probably had a pile of 6SA7's left over and used as many as he could in the TV. He has used them in very unconventional applications though.

Basically a home built tv, pretty impressive . Great to see it alive again and good luck and we'll be watching the restore

I think it's great to restore this to working condition as a tribute to the builder. He did very nice work. I assume he worked alone, perhaps building these to order? This most reminds me of the Transvision I have. Something to treasure.

Yes his workmanship standard was always very high, and yes he did work alone, I'm not sure if he made them order, but more than likely as most of his customers were exclusive as he lived in a well to do area and the locals knew he was the 'guru' when it came to good quality electronics back then.
I'm sure Alan would have been pleased that I saved this set from being dumped and getting it going again is pretty much in his honor.... He was a good friend of mine and after he passed away his daugther told me he'd once said that I was the like the son he never had...That brought a tear to my eye...So this is definetly something to treasure.

Wow! That really is amazing. The tube lineup reminds me a little of the early GE 80X sets with all their octal tubes.

Good luck getting it running :thmbsp:

Very impressive. I dont see how he could ever make enough to cover the time it would take to make that.
I would love to see some pictures of the underside of the chassis.

Thanks :) Yes hopefully luck is on my side with getting this one working again..:yes:

I think Alan cared more about making the set than making any profit on it! That was just the way he was :) Post number 3 shows pictures of the underside...;)
Cheers

I had not looked at that picture before. Just as with the octal tubes, this 1960 TV is full of late-1940's-style Solar paper capacitors! What an interesting set, and it must be very nice to be able to restore and own this TV having known its designer and builder personally.

Yeah those 40's Solar caps sure give it away for being odd considering when he builit it!So far I have removed four of those Solar caps and replaced with new ones in the flyback section. I checked those old Solars on my bridge and they're all leaky so it will be good to replace them all eventually...:yes:
Having known Alan, I kind of wish I had picked his brains more about the design of his TV, but not knowing that he actually had this set buried in the house, at the time it didn't seem that important.

Its late here and I should gone have to bed ages ago but just had to post an update... I traced the no video fault one of those horrible solar filter can 10+10uf caps, one side has gone shorted that supplies HT to the video amp tube. Temporarily put in a new 10uf 400v cap in place and now we have a picture! :banana: :banana: :banana:

It was quite an historical moment to finally see a picture on it after 24 years! :)

The horizontal hold/sync is very touchy so there's still more work ahead but hey good progress already. I'm quite chuffed to be honest.
This will spur me on to continue the revamp of the electronics. Can't wait to get rid of all those Solar caps.:yes:

Earlier today I had a window of spare time while our son had his afternoon nap and went down and started testing all the tubes and I found that every 6SA7 tested bad.... I confirmed this again with my AVO Mk4 VCM and all of them had very low anode current and very low ma/v indicating they were past it.

Luckily I have a stash of NOS Kenrad 6SA7's, these also came from Alan's estate so I installed a total of seven new 6SA7's in the set. I made a point of checking the new tubes and they were spot on as to be expected.
But just so weird how all of them were low?The weak tubes are all Tung-Sol.

I've included a couple of photos of the cap replacement so far, I have a bunch of NOS Japanese .1uf 630 volt polyesters which I'm using, they are perfect for the job and don't look too out of place either.

So that's pretty much it for now, I guess the work has only really started...now the fun begins!:thmbsp:

Enjoy the photos

Cheers
Glen

The temporary filter cap in place and some of the new .1's in situ and those dead 6SA7's....

Wahoo! It's always fun to watch the TV perform better and better by stages, as you replace more and more of the bad old caps. I should use your photos as evidence, the next time someone persists in trying to diagnose a specific problem before bothering to replace any caps.

Funny how all of those 6SA7s were bad. They look identical. Perhaps the Tung-Sol quality control person had a hangover that day.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

If they're all bad in the same way, I'd be tempted to wonder if the original builder got a hold of some factory rejects for cheap - tubes that still perform but don't meet the full specs. Since this is a custom built set (and knowing a few people that like to hack together their own stuff), it might well be that the set will operate properly with those "bad" tubes that are out of official spec... but still in-spec enough for that design. I wouldn't bin them just yet :)

This method I actually prefer rather than blanket replacing, I'd be more confident in doing a complete recap if I had a circuit but in this case I will do a small area then power the set on and check to see that its working still.
By all mean use my photos if you wish :) Yeah rather odd about those 6SA7's, they could have been duds??

Yeah I've wondered this too, and I will probably put all those weak 6SA7's back in after its all fixed and see what happens. I checked all the tubes before fault finding so wanted to rule them out first and finding all those weaks ones I just had to change them :D

Congrats on the progress you have made with the picture on this set :banana:

Steve

Thanks Steve :) Its still a long way off from being done, but yeah the progress so far has been positive. By the way your RCA Projection TV is just awesome! :yes:

Cheers
Glen.

Progress Update - One section has been totally recapped and most of the resistors have been replaced. Some checked fine, others were way off.
The area I did was in the horizontal drive/osc/sync section. The horizontal sync is now stable and the picture locks in perfectly.
I have to admit that some of those old components were a little tricky to get out, some of the caps were buried underneath others, thankfully I took upclose photos and drew some rough diagrams so to resolder all the new parts in the right place.
I also checked those mica caps just to be 'sure to be sure'...They all checked fine.

Have now started on the vertical section....And that's where I'm at :)

Photos are of the repaired area and the dead bits including a slighty better picture showing a test pattern this time.

Cheers
Glen

Nice progress, Glen.

I wonder if those Solar capacitors are among the few that ever traveled to NZ and are still there?

Thanks for the comment Chris :) Those Solar caps could very well be...Alan would have imported them from the US.. I've seen quite a few of those solar caps in radios built here. Cheers Glen

Here is a rather belated update on this restoration, have been busy with other things of late :yes:

The vertical section has now been totally recapped and all resistors replaced, most of them were way out of spec and the result is now a nice even picture that fills the screen. I can adjust linearity and height now without any problems. :)

I also tidied up the smoothing cap arrangement in the voltage doubler circuit for main B+ that runs the whole set. I actually had some identical new old stock filter caps which surprisingly reformed to near perfect so I installed those, they should be ok, generally I'd just put new ones in, but in this case I thought I'd try them and see how things go. I will replace rectifier diodes but for now they can stay there.

I think my next move is to replace all the electrolytic caps that are still in place and there are about 1/2 a dozen or so.

Since the original speaker and output transformer were missing I connected another speaker that had an output transformer with it and tested the audio side and thats working fine too, there's no video buzz or off tune noise and sounds good, so the alignment has held up pretty well. At least thats something I don't have redo! :thmbsp: That's all for now.

Certainly looks great. And now that you have had a few moments to work on it, most likely you will be even more encouraged to go on. Great success story and I am sure that this set is unique and may ultimately deserve a place in a museum...

Thank you for the nice comments kvflyer:) Yes this set it pretty unique and its already in a museum...my own personal one! :D This is going to be one of those TV's that must be passed on and end up in the right hands when I leave this earth, which will not be for a long time.:thmbsp:

Looks really nice. Do some stations actually still broadcast a test pattern over there?

Hi Kevin, thanks for the compliment. :) There are no TV stations here producing test patterns anymore. Our analogue gets turned off next year. That test pattern was recorded on VHS some years ago when a small local TV station started up. I then transferred it to DVD and its perfect for when working on TV sets.

Hi all, Good news, this project is coming to an end....It's nearly done. :yes:

Over the past few months I've been slowly picking away at it, replacing components here and there, haven't had much time to really spend on it only in the past few weeks has some real progress been made.

Every single paper and electrolytic capacitor has been replaced along with several resistors in which some were way out of tolerance, others were ok but decided to replace anyway for peace of mind. Replaced the rectifier diodes and the screened cable going from the tuner to the 1st IF as the orignal was all stiff and no doubt its dielectric properties would have gone a long time ago.

Fitting some of the new electroytics, I had to compromise as to where to put them as the originals were buried in places and restuffing the original cans, I wasn't even going to go there but managed to put the new ones in various places so it still looks tidy. I had to mount some on a tag strip as the area would not allow me to put the new ones in place as they would have been right above the B+ droppers and in amongst other components.

I did though encounter a couple of faults which had to be sorted, the first one was width related. From cold the width was fine and the control could be adjusted to suit, after about 5-10 minutes the width would increase in size and get to a point where it was too much and it was affecting the boost voltage and the control had to be turned hard to one end which I didn't like so I set out find out what was causing the issue.
In the end it was width control pot, obviously heat and voltage was causing the resistance to change after time. Luckily the pot on the donor chassis was ok, so I put it in and now the width and boost voltage are stable - phew!

The other problem kind of led me on a wild goose chase in a way, again it was a resistor causing the problem, after about 1/2 hour I noticed the contrast would reduce and picture would get a bit washed out and I had to adjust the AGC control to compensate as it warmed but even hard at one end it wasn't good enough.
I started with the tuner and did find a 5.6k inside which has risen to about 20K, but that didn't fix it so started poking around with the scope and confirmed that it wasn't the front end causing the problem. Next I moved to looking around the AGC gate/sync area and eventually found a 22k resistor that was heat sensitive, spraying it with freeze would restore the contrast to normal but something interesting is that while it was faulting, touching anything around there with meter probes would boost the contrast level, but after the new resistor was put in, this had very little or no effect, must have the capacitance of the meter probes compensating for the fault!
This one did take a while to find in between getting constantly interupted while in the middle of it all, but got there in the end! :smoke:

So there we have it, too queer faults both caused by resistors this time, not capactiors for a change! :D

At this point in time all I have to do now is make up a lead/plug for the speaker and output transformer and put that and chassis back in the cabinet.

I have decided to leave the chassis surface alone as it had originally been sprayed with silver paint and don't want to disturb it by cleaning. You can see it starting to flake off in places but it isn't not going to rust away. I might just give the chassis top a light spray with some silicone anyway.

So all going well the next update should be of the set all back together and playing.

Attached are recent photos and the final pile of dead bits.

Stay tuned...

Cheers :)

Glen

Beautiful job on this one-of-a-kind television. I can't wait to see a photo of the whole thing put together.

One caution about using silicone (in any form) around furniture: It can create serious problems with "fisheye" that might defeat any future attempts to refurb the lacquer finish on your television cabinet. Pledge and similar furniture polishes have been permanently banned from our house!

I understand that you mentioned using it on the chassis, not the cabinet, but silicone oil is invasive and pervasive. It can be transferred on fingers or a rag, as well as through the air.

Perhaps there's some other product that would work just as well on your chassis. Or, if you use it, at least keep that spray far away from your cabinet and wash hands thoroughly before touching the cabinet again.

Regards,

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Hi Phil, thanks! Its now very close to going back in its cabinet, I am hoping to get some photos up over the weekend :yes:

Silicone - Yes it can be a pain, I know what its like as that stuff does go everywhere, I may decide not to use it just in case I have to pull the chassis again in the future should anything else go wrong and then have that stuff on my fingers and tools etc.... I think I'll just leave it as is. :)

Cheers
Glen

Hi guys - Its done, the Telerad is finally all back together in its cabinet and is complete! :banana: Phil - My avatar has been a kind of a teaser..;)

I have to say though its been an interesting project to say the least and it took me a lot longer than I'd expected to finish it and I learned a few things along way as you do with anything like this. The bit I didn't like was not working without a circuit, there's always a degree of uneasiness with something as rare and odd as this, but thank goodness I did have that spare junk chassis and the heap of photos I took to fall back on especially if I'd undone a part of the circuit to replace some components and then left it like that for a week or two! :eek:

I also reckon that this Telerad was set number ten that he made as there is a code on the back of both chassis, this one is '1510' and the donor is '1503'.
Thinking back I do recall Alan saying he used a prototype set in his living room for years and that one is the junk chassis as I saw where it came from after it had already been thrown in the skip complete with CRT etc and smashed by someone helping with the clean out at the time before I could stop him! :tears:

Now I can sit back and enjoy watching it. There are a few DVDs I've been putting aside just so I can see them on this, so looking forward to doing that with a :beer:

Hopefully the set will behave itself, now its back together. The cabinet is really well built and does look nice. :thmbsp:

I'm sure if Alan were still alive he'd be tickled pink to see his only remaining set in existence going again. :D

Thanks for following this thread and should anything else come up in regards to the Telerad I'll post an update. Some final photos for your enjoyment. :)

Cheers!
Glen