Motorola Color Roundie TS-912
 

Look what arrived today.. Has the original Motorola picture tube, and yes, it gives decent emissions.. Gotta up the voltage a bit and back it down to 6.3 to get these emissions.. Looks like it may need to wake up.. I'll probably let it sit for a few hours at 7 volts.. Polarized plug, attempted to the a soft powerup, seemed to be drawing current but no tube filament.. I'm pretty sure all the tubes are series string..

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I don't think, there's that many of those animals in captivity.
They didn't work bad, not real high performance. Two stages of IF. Some real wild Euro-tube types and two heater strings, 300ma and 600ma.
Enjoy! It's a neat set.

Excellent save! Is there a date code on the back of the chassis? Should be a month-year code with an "M" inbetween. I'm thinking it's a '64. It has a Sylvania built CRT.

Thanks guys, and thanks Doug.. I found the number, it's 4M64.. I've got the Sams already for it.. Ordered it thinking it could be the TS-19 and was fortunately right on.. This set will be set aside until I'm done with the current resto...

I wonder if one of your testers is wired improperly? They can't seem to agree on which gun is tired.

I noticed that.. I have a Sencore CR70, it tends to agree more with the B&K... Beltrons I've noticed are quite different..

if you need a fly for that chassis i think i have one as it may be hard to find that one.

Love the looks of that, those seem pretty rare too. Great score!

Nice score. Love them roundies!

Haven't seen one of those guys in years. There were a few of them in our area back in the day.

just wish it were mine. great score

It seems, that chassis would be used in the lowest priced, entry level metal table model set, not in a wood console set. The only one I worked on, also was a console set.
According to the date codes, it's an early 1964 model, the time when RCA was still building the CTC15 chassis. :scratch2:

I've yet to see a TS-912 in person. Indeed it's an April, 1964 build date, right at the time when the FCC mandated "All channel TV tuning" (the inclusion of UHF tuners) which was officially effective after April 30, 1964.

I have a very large assortment of factory Motorola service literature. I'm pretty sure I have TS-912 info. Do you have a model/serial# on that set?

The only one I saw and worked on, didn't have UHF. If you look at the picture, it looks like a UHF kit was installed.
The horizontal output tubes, two in parallel are strange types, 12GC6 only used in Motorola sets. IIRC, the schematic also shows 12DQ6, used in some models. Different pin-out. It also has two 19AU4's.
They must've used that set as a prototype for the newer TS914, as the LE8 color demod circuit is used. The 914 used a power transformer and 6 volt variants of some of the tubes. :yes:

COOL ! And a Premium Rated Picture Tube Too ! ! !
LUCKY ! ! ! Crank that baby up and lets see some
screen shots ! !

.

i have a silvertone dated 2, 1963 and it has UHF.

Wow, what an unusual set in the golden age of CTC15 clones, likely with a much better fly than RCA used and OEM'd. It lacks a tint control but looks like a roundie version of a TS914.
Even the convergence board is up front ala Zenith. Super cool, good luck and I cant' wait to see the progress.

It depends on what area it was sold in! Milwaukee was a UHF town from 1953 or so.
IIRC, Chicago didn't have UHF channels until the mid-60's or so. Chicago members, please enlighten me regarding this observation. :scratch2:

I used to visit the service shop at Dykro, Inc. the Wisconsin distributor for Motorola and talk to the technicians. One remarked that RCA sells more flybacks in a week, than Motorola sells in a year. I thought it was comical, but true. :D

Motorola seems to have always had a pretty robust flyback design like Zenith.

I believe the first Chicago UHF station was WCIU channel 26 and went on the air in February, 1964. WFLD channel 32 was next in 1966, followed by WSNS channel 44 in 1970. Those were the earliest. As the years progressed, many more stations came on line. Up until the shut down in '09, it was fun to tune across UHF on the old sets. There were close to 20 UHF stations going.

This Motorola looks like a factory UHF to me. I don't know if they offered this control panel with the UHF knock out, did they? I have a couple rectangulars with the TS-914 that used this near identical control panel. Mine say "All 82 channel" but they are '66 models. Its hard to see in the photos, but does this one say "All 82 channel"?

Thanks for all the compliments.. Doug the UHF channel indicator goes up to 83.. I'm surprised that it goes that far, I thought there were only 60 something channels for UHF...

Ok, yes, all TV tuners should have gone up through 83. The FCC pulled channels 70-83 from television use in 1983. I believe those freq's were reallocated for translators and mobile radio use.

Does your TV have any wording on the control panel stating that it's "All 82 channel"? That would tell us if it's factory UHF. Do you have a model and s/n for it? I'd like to see if I have factory service data for that model.

Ditto for Philadelphia and Baltimore. No UHF until 1965.

My other sets go up to 83 also, don't know why I was thinking that, I guess I never really paid any attention to how far the numbers go up to..

It doesn't say anything about it being all 82 channels...

The model number is 21CK19MPD I'm pretty sure.. It's mostly faded..
Serial number on the CRT is N694878 assuming it goes with the chassis..

That would be great if you could find more info.. Would be helpful too..

The plug on this thing is a polarized plug, what would happen is it was plugged into an outlet reversed?

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I doesn't make too much difference if the plug is reversed or plugged into a misswired receptacle. A polarized plug arrangement insures that the chassis is not hot in relation to ground. That is, if it's plugged into a properly wired receptacle.
I see the set uses 19CG3 damper tubes. What are the horizontal output tubes. It looks like it could use a new set. :scratch2:

HV output tubes are bad, one is shorted and fails grid emissions, and give zero emissions, other one tests strong but short light comes on for checking shorts.. Damper Tubes are 12BE3, and test good.. Sams says they are 19AU4, a totally different tube..

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My TS-907 set does have the "All 82 Channels" wording on the control panel.

I assume the TS-907 is a year or two older than mine and maybe they just decided that wording was not needed anymore. It would look odd and out of place not having a UHF knob the way the set up is.. I tired finding a Sams photofact for that version and I could not get anything to come up on Google..

907 is the same control layout with the same number of controls. "All 82 Channels" is in the center where yours reads "Motorola".

The non-UHF Motorola's, the lower knob was the on-off volume. When the UHF kit was installed, the volume control was moved to it's present place. The kit included the proper knobs for the UHF tuner, small volume knob, hardware, ETC. The bezel had a knockout plug where the volume control is now.

I pulled the Sams on it today. The set shown, appeared to be a table model set. It looked like one of those heavy beast, wallpaper covered particle board cabinets, that Magnavox was famous for.
The Sams was for the earlier model, that used the 19AU4's and the 12GC6 horizontal output tubes. The Sams is 695-4. :scratch2: