Is there a such thing as a reliable tube color TV?
 

Yanno, between nearly impossible to solve convergence issues, replacing 6GH8s about every other hour, horrible purity, bad picture tubes, yokes that fall apart due to brittling from heat....not to mention the tedious restoration process and the de-cataracting of picture tubes, are there any tube color sets that can be made to be reliable in 2013?

Reliable, not as in when they were new, but well built enough to be made to be reliable today.....

get an early 70's Zenith.

zenith sets are prob the most reliable IMHO. they often work with no restoration needed what so ever. I have several both roundies and rectangles that are very reliable. They also have CRTs that have bonded screens that while may turn a light green around the edge, are still watchable without removing the lens.

oh one more thing, if you really want to use it a lot, putting a fan in it to help keep cool may help with long term relialblity. I added a fan just for this reason to my CTC-5.

I kind of figured that, so I bought a Zenith roundie recently in working condition, semi-restored. Worked for about two minutes when I got it home, picture started to shrink from the bottom, and I started to smell something. Shut it down. What a let down. I'll get to that once I get the customer work done.

RCAs, though, I have zero luck with.

I guess you can call this thread a "rant". Your support and commiseration is appreciated :D

In my days in the biz, Zeniths seemed to be fairly reliable but the pix didn't always offer a good color rendition of facial tones. RCA's could do very well but I think RCA was making up for lost time and money to recoup for the cost of color development that ran soooo over what was expected. Quality in production could have been better. Dumonts and Admirals had spectacular color but were less tollerant of differences in cameras and stations back then.

Today we fix, tweak, craft, rewire, scrounge, and sometimes talk to sets that were never reasonably expected to last 50 plus years.

We are Jug Heads! It's what we do. :cool:

well it will prob be something simple.

a few things I always do, pull the horz and vert out, do a slow power up while monitoring the AC line currrent (metered variac) and the B+ and temp of the filter caps.

I theory is this will give a cap time to reform (if its going to reform) and will also quickly let you know if there are any shorts in the B+.

Pulling the horz and vert is just done as a preventive measure in case the low voltage prevents osc and bias issues on the tube.

Typically I will let this process go on for several hours starting at about 10vac and working up to about 80vac, as long as the B+ seems ok and nothing starts to heat up.

My guess on yours is a shorted filter cap followed by a smoked resistor in the filter network.

I did have a zenith with a shorted disk cap but that was an easy fix and the only thing that was wrong with it. I did not even pull the chassis, just replaced it with the service saver chassis cover removed.

Good luck with your zenith :thmbsp:

Incidentally, having attempted to watch both a CTC-25 and a CTC-36 on a regular basis, I now understand your username.

I might change MINE to 5GH8cowboy :dammit:

As a CTC-25 owner myself, I can relate to this.

I lost all color on my CTC-25, had a perfect black and white picture. Come to find out that two 6GH8s are SHORTED, replaced them, and now I have a purple band at the top, a green band at the bottom, and white in the center. Screen looks like a "Mystery Mix" Now & Later candy.

Yay.

I wonder if using 6U8's or 6EA8's would increase the reliability of sets that have all those 6GH8's?

I've tried them. It's got to be the 6GH8's.

DONT use the International/Lindal brand. Some runs of the RCA 6GH8's were better than others. I've had issues with GE 6GH8's in the past.

Side note: I replaced the 6EA8 in my CTC-10 tuner with a 6GH8. It worked good enough to leave it in. That was years ago.

On the car forums a lot of guys have a saying, "if you never had to fix it, it wouldn't be as much of a hobby."

After reading your "rant" I said to myself...he has an RCA.
IMHO the most reliable set belongs to someone else because I don't have to touch it.
And when it does break, oh well and good luck.
Have fun.
Phil

Didn't RCA use Sylvania manufactured (labeled RCA of course) 6GH8 tubes in their sets later on because of the reliability?

Fairly sure they did.

As said a Zenith is the best tube color set to deal with.
With the steel chassis & hand wiring they just hold up best.
Even in the 70's we used to get RCA's & others that the PCB
& wiring was dried to a crisp. Never seen a Zenith dried up.

We used to buy 6GH8's by the gross about 3 times a year
from Zenith for 90% off. Nothin but problems no matter
what brand. With RCA's you also got to watch the tube
sockets, changed tons especially the pair up front. 5GH8's
were used in that first all tube 19" plastic RCA. I despised
that chassis, gave a nice pix but always needed an arm full of
tubes for the little problems. Too much heat I suppose.
So try a Zenith, at least when it craps out it wont turn to
dust working on it. & add a fan to anything..........

73 Zeno:smoke:

...

I have had the best luck with Zenith sets, particularly their early 70's hybrids. I used to like to work on the RCA's of that era, but they never seemed to be quite as dependable.

I too like the color circuits of RCA's better, and like to work on them more (the pcb if not toasted is just easier to replace parts than the zenith).

My favorite sets to work on are the vertical chassis RCAs like the 7 and the 9.

Well, yeah. In my basement office where my sets are located, at the moment I'm using either one of two identical 1974-75 RCA XL-100s, or a 1973 CTC-56, that all perform very well. I had been using a 9T246 regularly, but I need to do some work on a low HV issue. I like to rotate all of the working sets into the mix.

My CTC-36, well, it's just a problem child. Stinks too, because I love the damn thing.

Of course, for the main watcher in the living room is a 32" HD flat panel. Women, yanno? :)

I read, or heard, likely here, that Cdr. Eugene F. McDonald, Jr, the Wheel Horse at Zenith, didn't like television, only reluctantly got into it when he saw how BIG of a market it was gonna be. RCA held most of the patents, he told his engineers not to bring one out til it was RIGHT, & that's why Zenith TVs, even into the color era, often don't require the level of rebuilding the other brands do..Maybe that's BS, but as the owner of a still-performing Porthole, I like to think that's right...

Picture of one of the XL-100s please. :)

Women and their lack of appreciation for anything other than the newest crap. If I were to marry, mine would have to at least have to accept the presence of all my old stuff and buy all this worthless gadgetry out of her own money, which means I'll probably never marry, haha.

Amazingly enough, my Magnavox has been less problematic then my Zenith. I find that very surprising, considering the Magnavox 19" set my parents had in the 70's was always needing repair.

My wife is amazing. She even picked out the 1941 Chambers stove in our kitchen :) . But for watching hockey games and other stuff, she'd rather go with a new set. Tradeoffs, yanno?

I will say that she never complains about anything I do or buy. We realize in each other that life is all about doing the things that make you come alive.....and this stuff makes me come alive. For her, it's road trips, good restaurants, and family....so we do that stuff too :)

Here's a REALLY old shot of one of them, when it was doing duty in my kids' room in a place I lived briefly during a divorce. I ended up getting the house back :)

Get a Sony Trinitron. I've had excellent luck with them. We had a KV 7010UA and a KV 1210U both purchased in 1969. Both running well with not one service call until my wife accidentally gave them away in 2006. 37 years without a problem.

I still have my Sony KV 1722 purchased in 1973. Only a very minor purity problem in the upper left corner which is not always visible. No service calls on that one either, 40 years of reliable operation.

Sounds pretty good. A woman liking hockey seems rather unusual though, as does a man *not* liking sports (me). Seems like you scored a pretty good one that time. Old appliances are good too. Things I want are rarely found in stores.

Guys whose wives force them out of or severely limit their space-taking hobbies, that I have a problem with.

Good on you in regards to the house. :)

My '87 Trinitron has the same sort of problem. Trouble with those though, if any semiconductors go, good luck finding a replacement, they have to be OEM.

Haha. Before even opening this thread, my first thought was the all-tube Portacolors. This may sound bonkers but in terms of reliability, the Portacolors had it hands-down despite the cheezy-looking construction and low picture resolution.

With the narrow-deflection CRT and low B+, the deflection tubes were not stressed near as much as in regular sets. The resultant cooler running seemed to be the biggest factor influencing the Portacolors' longevity.

I am much newer to the TV repairing game than most of you, and I always think its funny when somebody asks me what is the best TV to buy. I tell them I never see the good ones, so I wouldn't know! LOL. I can tell you which ones are crap, and which ones are easy to fix, but if I've never heard of it, that's a good start ;)

I have had good luck with portacolors. only one that really got me was one with an open pot in the color demod circuit, just jumped a resistor from the center lead. had one with a flacky cap in the vert both other than that pretty much prob free.

Is that one you got from me still intermittently going off like a firecracker? :)

I had two Heathkit tube color TVs, a GR-295 and a GR-180. Both were very very reliable.
The GR-180 did develop a CRT heater-cathode short the morning
of the first moon landing but I got it replaced in a couple of hours. But after that it
lasted about 6 years with no other problems at all. I'm very sorry I got rid of it
during a move and would love to have another one.

Nope, that was a chuck of carbon on a B+ trace to ground, found it using a variac (more like a sparkler than a fire cracker :D) Cleaned it off and been good ever since. It sure was exciting though when it went off the 1st couple of times I tried it at full line voltage.

[QUOTE=Kamakiri;3082162]My wife is amazing.

I will say that she never complains about anything I do or buy. We realize in each other that life is all about doing the things that make you come alive.....and this stuff makes me come alive. For her, it's road trips, good restaurants, and family....so we do that stuff too :)

Best thing I ever did was get hitched...But the WORST thing my wife ever did was get hitched-After all, she got stuck w/Moi....(grin) In all seriousness, Lauriann says I gave her something she never had-a HOME. She was an Army brat, lived a pretty nomadic existence. The stuff I've grown up w/& have had all my life-Going into shops, & they know you, knowing people on the street, not being concerned about talking to strangers, she never had that. I never thought much about it, but I guess if you never knew that, it IS a big deal.

Funny, I never watched any sports on tv, until..... they invented

W I P E O U T ! !


And the wife loves it too ! ! !

Um, YUP.

On my CTC-36, replaced 4 5GH8s on the first go round. After testing the rest of the tubes, it needs one more. Along with the 24LQ6 (nearly dead), 5AQ5, 3KT6 (weak and shorted), and 6HL8.

By the time I get done sourcing and buying these tubes (everything I have is too old, I spent an hour rummaging through my loose tube boxes), I will have replaced every tube in the set, aside from the 3A3....including the picture tube.

This is the way these sets were when new? Holy hell, it's a wonder anyone that owned one ever bought another RCA! :yes:

In my household, after the RCA CTC-22 it was all Sony Trinitron solid state sets... never looked back! Don't get me wrong, I love collecting and repairing the older sets, but they are not used for daily watching.

jr

Kamakiri's corollary to Murphy's Law:

In any color television receiver using n 5GH8s, n+1 will be bad.

:D

Cheers

My parents were poor, both emigrants from large families and both taken out of grade school to help their parents through the depression. So my farther managed to buy us a 17 inch black and white Travler set around 1956. I was 9 then and remember the endless problems we had with it. Put a bad taste in my mouth for reliability. As I grew up the Sony's appeared, first the 8 1/2 inch, then the tummy TV and so on. They were very reliable never broke down. When the first Trinitron's came along, snapped them right up. Like the other member said, never looked back, it was always going to be a Sony Trinitron until the flat screens came along.

The memory of that horrible Travler TV steered me away from American sets. I know that won't sit well with the members here, but I have no technical background to repair sets. I just wanted a television that would last and last and the Sony's never disappointed.

Having said that, I appreciated the romance of early color television and would love to find a RCA CT 101 and such other sets to add to my collection.

:lmao: :lmao: :lmao:

Back in the dark times, 1967, we bought our first 25" color TV: An RCA. It ran for 3 weeks, before it had a fire that burned the wall behind the set. Under warranty, of course. When the dealer called to tell us that it had been fixed, my mom informed the dealer that the set was coming back into this house over her dead body.

THEN, we bought a 23" Motorola. It got 3 CRT's in just over 2 years, but NOTHING was ever done to the chassis, ever. No tubes, nothing. Then, it moved to MY bedroom, where It ran perfectly for years. Then, the folks bought a new Magnavox console... their first fully solid state set. It had a few issues, but once the known problems were addressed, it ran fine from 1973-74 until 1980, when it got hit by lightning. They bought their first remote TV, a Maggie, in 1980, and it ran with zero repairs until 2003, when I gave them the 46" Mitsubishi, and a 32" Philips set.

So, our tube sets were the RCA and the Motorola. Even though our RCA nearly set the house on fire, the RCA sets were my favorite sets to repair when I started doing repairs for a living. Like some of you, I would buy a case of 6GH8's about once a year for stock.

Rarely even saw a Zenith anything in my shop, but I did start buying cases of Zenith 6GH8's when they started offering them over the RCA's. I've still got around 15 of these tubes on hand, and a big box full of 5GH8's.

I sure do miss the days of tube TV's. They were a class all their own.