Garage Sale Find - RCA CTC-5
 

I found this set this morning at a garage sale just down the block from my house. It looks to be well kept, the cabinet look almost new. I had to go home to get a cart to pick it up, and the woman at the sale went inside and found the original booklet for it.

I don't have a color CRT tester right now, so I'm not sure of the CRT condition. I was told it hadn't been used in many years.

I am in the process of moving all my stuff to a new house, so I don't have much time to look into the set in more detail right now. I will install it in my living room as a "static display", and try to get it going over the winter.

I was doing a bit of reading, and it appears the "Super" chassis doesn't produce a very good color picture? I will have to see what the set can do.


The sale also had a nice Zenith Porthole set for sale.

wow, what a find, it looks great, the yoke cover looks like new so prob stored in a air conditioned enviroment.

I have that same exact model. It's a Super. Nice to get the owners manual. Would there be a way to get a copy?

Ahh HATE Yew !-Yosemite Sam, Esq.... Seriously, that's an incredible score ! So glad it went to "One of Us", instead of the landfill or a gotdang fishtanker...

Wow, that's a "Super" nice score! Why can't I ever find a gem like that in a yard sale around here? All I ever see is baby junk and old George Forman grills.

Great, great find at a yardie! The only RCA sets I ever see at one of those sales is a made in Taiwan special:D
Enjoy

QUOTE:
"I was doing a bit of reading, and it appears the "Super" chassis doesn't produce a very good color picture? I will have to see what the set can do."

Zenith,

Great find.
I've owned both the "Super" & "Deluxe" CTC-5 sets. Both if properly restored & set up will produce a fine color picture. Hopefully the CRT is in good shape.

-Steve D.

Wow. Amazing find. Good to see that they are still some out there to be discovered.

Must be a day to find old color tv sets. You found a 5 today---I got this porta-color at a thrift...BOTH will now NOT end up in a packer truck--and in ALL likelyhood--WOULD have , had we not intervened...

Absotively !

...

wow wow wow , thats incredible to find at a yard sale . thats what drives me to stop and look at yards sale just on a slim chance someone has a find like that.

Ooooh....me likey! Excellent score. I'm always glad when one of us picks up a set like this. You just never know what's lurking out there waiting to be found.

This proves once again that there are still some great sets out in the wild. I still find one once in a while.

I STILL think the Nashville area might yield up a few "Ancient" color sets-Maybe even a CT-100...Why ? Well, Nashville was/is "Music City" USA, moreso back in the Fifties than today. There was a lot of wealth there, lots of "Industry" types, people who would want to have the Latest & the Greatest.

Sandy, I bet you're right. And, maybe Memphis too.

When did WSM go color? I know a lot of old country music shows that I used to watch as a kid were produced at WSM. Many of them are being re-run on RFD TV and the tapes look fantastic. Very good color.

I had an identical one about 10 years back. Found it on the curb.. Stuck it in my storage locker, then put it on Ebay later when i had to move out of state.

I heard that same thing about the Super chassis, but I have never worked on one so I can't be much help. I doubt that Rca would put out a dog in an era when they were trying to show color to the public and create some interest.

Very nice find!

My Super (the same set as yours, but in a blond cabinet) produces nice color, no problem.

Incredible! I always keep my eyes open around here and never see anything like that find. Nice!

I think i read somewhere the color circuits in the super series were cost-reduced somehow compared to the more deluxe models. But I suspect most of the later production RCA color set series pprobably used the same system first used on the CTC5 Super series. Once a company figures out most of the customers didnt notice the difference, the bean counters are able to overrule the engineers...
Plus, its not like RCA had a great deal of competition for color sets in the 50s, and the price of color sets was probably a big deterrent to sales, given the limited color programing at the time. So anything to shave a bit off the price was welcome, I think the Super series were the first color sets under $500 if i recall correctly.

I don't have the manual with me right now, I should be able to make a scan next weekend.

Thank you all for the comments, I certainly was surprised to find something like this half a block from me. It was certainly different than an average garage / yard sale. Almost everything they had for sale was old. Her uncle owned a grocery store and she was selling an elaborate old plywood and steel adjustable shelf system from the store - I'm trying to figure out if I have room to set it up in my basement.

Here are a few screen shots from my CTC5 Aldrich Special Model with the Super Color circuits. This was the least expensive color set RCA had to offer. It's shown sitting on top of it's optional base to make it look like a console. It makes a pretty nice picture by any standard.
Bob



http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/u...ps12704c0e.jpg


http://i642.photobucket.com/albums/u...ps70143598.jpg

i dont care how much it cost-thats a tremendous picture!

WSM had color in 1954, for sure. I got this from an old WSM film cameraman that taught me well.

When I lived in Nashville, I saw many roundie color sets in people's basements.

Quite the opposite. Both the 4 and 5 (special chassis) were a once only sort of thing, concerning the circuits. All sets after used the X/Z demod scheme with a trio of drivers one for each color.

[QUOTE=egrand;3105700]Sandy, I bet you're right. And, maybe Memphis too.

Yeah, Memphis had a good deal of "Music" there, too, & it was a much bigger place than Nashville was in the Fifties.

having a subject like Marilyn helps a LOT :yes: 7 year itch was one of my favorites.

This is correct. The CTC-5 Super chassis had a lot of experiments in cost reduction that were rejected later because they just didn't work that well. High voltage too low, poor luma bandwidth/detail, poor color oscillator/hue stability, no impulse noise immunity; even the sound IF circuit was cost reduced by removing a stage, which made the FM limiting iffy at best. Reading the audio alignment procedure tells the story - first put the audio trap where it should be (but the sound is then too weak), then tune the trap off slightly to bring up the audio to an acceptable level. The later chassis with X/Z demods hit the sweet spot for cost vs. performance and was used with only minor modification for many following chassis.

Super or Special, thats a fine set and congratulations!
I live 5 miles from where all the RCA picture tubes were made, and YOU WOULD THINK these sets would turn up once in a while around here but NOOOOO:sigh:
Rubbernecking at garage sales, looking in the papers, but I have not seen one in the 25 years Ive lived here.

Here is a link to a scan of the owner's manual for the set, in case anybody would like a copy:

http://www.tepperaudio.info/photos/Manual.pdf

Thanks!

That is a great scan and quite an asset for the CTC-5 owners! Thanks for sharing that scan.

Thank you for posting the manual scan, maxm.