Beauty is in the eye of the....
 

Went back to the guy I bought my Silvertone roundie from, to pick up some more test gear. Brought home a bunch of chassis from colour consoles, including admiral, zenith, rca, and I think another fleetwood.

Also got a B&K pattern generator with a missing photomultiplier tube, and this TV. It's a Canadian Admiral 19" B&W set - about half compactrons, and half 9 pin tubes. Works great, appears that it may even have DC restoration, or at very least great contrast and brightness - certainly the best B&W picture I've seen (which isn't too many!). Sound is a bit fuzzy, but I think my cable box just has a cheap RF modulator in it.

I'm still working on "appreciating" the cabinet style, and figuring out a use for it! I'm starting to think if I really clean it up, it might make a nice bedroom TV. Is it some sort of a milestone as a collector, when you realize that you no longer can justify a use for so many TV sets? :)

This looks just like my '66 Admiral b/w portable 19...controls atop and on the side...except mine had the speaker mounted atop too.

I like the little cheapy tube bw sets. They are always fun to work on. Takes me back to being a kid.

i will post a picture of the inside later on... It gives bpc tvs a run for their money in terms of cheap build quality. The picture is great though, the tube is strong and all the small tubes original, so it must be low hours. Note the high budget plug in the uhf tuner's spot. It's made in port credit ontario, very close to toronto... i drove through there when i was in toronto for work a couple months ago and saw an interesting mix of old factories and redevelopment, i saw lots of signs for a microbrewery - it looks like a nice community now, but shame we don't make our own stuff anymore.

Pictures... finally got my real camera charged.

Funny how even "Bargain-Priced" goods back c.1965 were made to last...Can you see modern BPC lastin' for 45 years ?!?

Looks good! I remember when these were everywhere at the swapmeets and thrift stores. I would buy them for a few dollars just to get the tubes. I kinda wished I had kept them all. They really dont have any use, they are just cool.

Well, to really answer the question, you would have to know how many were made/sold, and how many are really still alive, and what level of repairs are considered acceptable for the survey. I have 2 Black Plastic Crafted tvs and plan to get a few more and use them as daily sets for as long as I last. I think now a day a bad crt usually means the scrap yard, but back in the 60's a set may get one or more crts in its life. Today crts are definitely longer lasting on average than they were in 50's to 70's. In my opinion the repairs are on average smaller parts, less expensive today on late model crt sets than they were in the tube days. Consider a crt as a really major part of the set. I think you guys just don't like the plastic cabinet tvs for no good reason. My Sanyo cheapy from walmart that I went through with a fine tooth comb doing convergence has a very amazing picture. I think the number of tube sets still alive after 40 years would be much smaller then bpc's. The big difference today are the consumerism virus where stores like Best Buy run commercials saying you need to "Upgrade" your TV TODAY! ! ! ! ! ! Millions of tvs today are being junked while they are still fully functional. Compare that to years ago before the word upgrade was invented. What a stupid word................

I've been watching it for a couple hours tonight, and the vertical linearity went all off after it had a chance to warm up fully.

Now when I put a circle on the screen, the top half of it is a little pointy and egg shaped, even with the v.lin. control fully counter-clockwise. Turning it clockwise just makes the defect more obvious.

When I agreed to take the set for free, I did it thinking hey at the very least it's an output transformer and a 4" speaker - I really doubt I'll let myself part it out though, it's starting to grow on me.

I like how one of the wires from the CRT socket connects to the tuner. It makes me think of tube amp schematics I've seen where a wire from the output transformer feeds the signal back to the preamp stage. If I was not fairly certain that wire is for the heater I'd joke that the tuner feeds the CRT video directly and all those tubes on the main chassis are for sound, deflection, and HV only! I guess that even a few inches of wire costs money.

The only "BPC" TV set I ever owned from new, was a 1997 Panasonic 20"

It has been extremely reliable, I only retired it from daily use this year, after it started to randomly shut itself off.

The strangest part for me is that I was thinking of that Admiral tv just the other day. It, with some others are in storage.

And why all the bashing? Sandy's right...this is over 40yrs on...(!)

I have no problem with the quality.. it's amazing how well it works 45 years after it was made, with all original capacitors, after being stored in an unheated shed for 15 years!

It's just been "value engineered" to the point of being totally bland - like those super cheap early 60s AA5 GE radios, where they even eliminated all the screws to save money.

Maybe we have electronic ESP?
I was having a dream last night that the hard drive on my laptop died again (I think my school has replaced it 4 or 5 times since I got it last year). Then today I picked up from the curb a desk top that is missing it's hard drive, and seems to power up, but won't send any video to the monitor.

Admiral really did a booming business in the 60s with these portables. I've had a few, still have one or two stored away. Not the most exciting things but they do have a little bit of character and they can work pretty decent. The nicest one I had was similiar to this one and was a 21". Worked great-I have no idea what I ever did with it!

That would be only the first or second milestone. Later will come "Where will I put them all?", "I will get rid of one or more to make room for the new/better/different one(s)", and "How much is the rent on a storage facility?"

:D

This TV has a strange problem where for the first 20 minutes it is on, everything looks great, but then after it is fully warm, the vertical linearity goes out of range of the control, to the point it can't be adjusted (top half of screen looks elongated). I am suspecting the electrolytic cap on the vertical output tube's cathode, or maybe some resistors drifting after they reach full operating temperature. I haven't yet got a schematic for this set, and will be unable to work on it for a few days.

bridging the electro is a quick try, also some cool spray on resistors and caps may point to the problem. I would suspect some resistors, check spary some of the high value you ones in the vert circuit.

10-4, will give it a try on Monday.

I would suspect a paper or domino style cap, when they get funky they change after they have voltage applied for a few minutes. Has nothing to do with heat. Does sams cover this?

Decided to revive the Admiral. Going to replace capacitors, and clean it up - first step is a good cleaning.

Having a problem figuring out how to take the handle off, and thought I'd ask here before I end up damaging it. Pics attached explain why this is confusing. The inside pic shows that the handle is held on by four screws into plastic anchors which are clipped into the chassis. But how to access screw heads?

Just a guess but I bet the chrome covers on top pop off, try it gently with a small screwdriver.

Thank you! I suspected as much but wanted to confirm before I ended up wrecking something - the handle is very visible.

Got the case and CRT nicely cleaned up. Put the CRT back into the cabine to avoid damaging it. Chassis is out, and has a ton of what look like paper capacitors to replace, but one 3-section can represents all of the electrolytic capacitors in the whole TV!

If you look at the schematic, in most series string sets, the CRT heater is near the end of the chain. The tuner tubes are next, where the RF amp is the last tube in the string.

Renewed interest in this TV today. Had it all taken apart since February - today put it back together and watched Netflix for an hour and a half. Pic is good, but still needs new caps.

Tube chart days this is an Admiral G3 chassis.. has anyone got Sams for it?

Hello the most oddball sets are the best performers that are out there may notlook like much but it is vintage.....Timothy

In the 1960's a good friends dad had a TV shop that sold Admiral sets. He had everything in the line, and Admiral was in the midst of a big advertising campaign and had TONS of advertising in his showroom. They also supplied TV spots with his shop listed on them.

When they went solid state, it was a big deal to their advertising departments!!

I fondly remember the stereo console with the turntable/tuner that came up to the top of the furniture opening when I raised the lid. Snazzy stuff.

All of this stuff is gone now. He had a major fire in 1969.

That started happening when I was a kid, my father could fix most TV sets people tossed in the late 60's. A coworker of my father's gave him a TV set, and delivered it to our house. They guy sees that we have TVs all over the place, and he joked that we had a TV in the bathroom, so you could watch TV while sitting down... :D

last night realized that the touch of distortion in the sound was a bad speaker. Not electronic. New speaker cured problem, old one had a loose voice coil so it was beyond repair. Was a common 4'' square frame speaker so easy enough. On black screen, left 1/3 of screen is a bit brighter than right 1/3. Any ideas what this may be?

So far I've watched two movies and a few TV shows on this TV. I never realized how much you are NOT missing, by viewing in black and white - it's no wonder the market for black and white sets stayed active so long after colour was introduced, the lack of colour does not interfere with my enjoyment of shows almost at all

Except cooking shows. In black and white, they remind me of the shower scene from Psycho :para:

I need a SAMs for this set, but it is the Canadian version so not sure the model number for the equivalent american set. It needs new capacitors all around to correct image geometry issues. Any idea where to turn for a schematic would be appreciated.

The build quality on those old sets is rather good, even on the lower end models. The biggest complaint I have about sets from that era is the polystyrene cabinets are rather thin and they don't handle tube heat very well.

It is now set up in my bedroom with a Samsung blue ray player feeding it Netflix through an rf modulator. Tonight I am going to test all the tubes, and hopefully if I can come up with a schematic I will put in an order at mouser for new capacitors in short order. The picture has some issues, and there is also a focus jumper whose operation I don't fully understand


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The focus jumper is to be set at the location that gives the best focus. I have often found that those jumpers don't do very much. I remember seeing sets like that in bedrooms back in the Seventies. I like the compactness of the suitcase style sets and they came in many screen sizes from seven inches to about 21. They all deserve to be saved if possible. Between digital converters, Roku boxes and RF modulators, just about any vintage set can be used daily for as long as you can keep them running.

I usually get my Sams either John Kendall or eBay.

What is the model number and I'll try to look it up.

Beauty is in the eye of the....
 

Thanks for the offer Eric! I got impatient and ordered it from SAMs... Not a terrible price for a high resolution PDF and instant gratification :) I can't believe the tv only has three electrolytic capacitors! (One can)



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