TruTone roundie found
 

I was browsing through the local CL listings last night and found a Truetone roundie up for grabs. It's probably a CTC-16 clone but appears to be in good shape. I contacted the owner today and got it. I will be picking it up on saturday. Best part about it is that i got it for free! I'll post pictures when i get it home.
-Tony

Excellent. Looking forward to seeing the pictures.

I suspect a Truetone roundie is sort of rare. Truetone was Western Auto's store brand and there's a good chance that set was built by Wells-Gardner.

I can't wait to see it!

I picked up the Truetone today and got it home. A quick check looks like everything overall is in good shape. The model number is 2DC1667D and of course it was made for Western Auto. I couldnt find any chassis numbers stamped on it. It had notes inside where it was re-tubed in '86 and it also has a replacement GE crt that tests almost new.

It does have the beginnings of cataracts starting on the outer 1/4 of an inch so its more likely to be a RCA tube than Zenith. It is a RCA clone but possibly may be earlier as its more similar to a CTC12 than a CTC16 as it has the CTC12 style flyback set up instead of the CTC16 version. It has factory UHF so its at least a '63 model. It doesnt have a nuvistor installed and it has an automatic deguasser. One thing i've never seen on a color roundie is that it has a push pull instant on switch installed on the rear of the chassis with tone control integral with it. One of the filter lytics must have went bad at some point as theres and extra one strapped to the outside of one of the originals. That will be corrected when i do the recap.

I did a slow power up with variac and it produced a raster but with a hum bar of course. No video but its picking up the channels as the audio section works fine. Once the recap is done then i can trace this down. So, its got a good flyback, power transformer, crt and new tubes so needless to say it was worth chasing down. Another thing i've never seen before is it has white drop caps instead of orange or brown drops. I hope this isnt a bad thing.

I'll finish checking it out this evening and post pictures for you guys sometime tommorrow. I think another member on here has one like it as it has the VHF/UHF controls with 4 knobs directly underneath them forming a square.
-Tony

Glad you got it and it sounds very promising at the moment. Keep us posted...

Oh, and stick a picture up here!

Tony:

You may not be interested but here is a scan from the 1966 Western Auto Christmas catalog. I think your set is in the ad.

Steve

The cabinet is the same as the early american model in the lower right but the control layout is different. Mine has VHF tuner at top, UHF tuner below it, then two sets of two controls below the UHF control. Thanks for posting the ad though as you dont see many Truetone color tv ads from this era.
-Tony

the price is right !

Ok...heres some photo's of the Truetone. I messed with it some last night and found the no video problem was caused by dirty sockets. After finding that, i was pleased to find a crystal clear picture even though it still had a humbar from shot filters. It also displayed color which was a tad weak and tint was way off. To have the tv to be able to do this much before a restore is definately a good thing. Bringing this one back should be halfway decent. Maybe you guys will be able to help me date it or tell me where to look to find that out. I'll also be looking for a sams for this one. I apologize for the lower quality pictures as i wanted to keep the file sizes small to conserve space on here. Any comments are surely appreciated!
Thanks,
Tony

Looks like a great restoration project!

That is a CTC-12 chassis all the way. Replace all the caps in the HO and damper circuit. Watch the Ho cathode current on this chassis. They tend to run away and kill flybacks.

"25-inch picture," huh? that's an interesting typo!

Wayne:

It wasn't a typo, that was the heading for the rectangular sets pictured on the lower part of the catalog page.

Steve

Oh -OK - but still before the days of "viewable diagonal," which would have been 23V for those rectangular tubes.

It is not a CTC12. It is a CTC15.

The CTC12 can be identified by noting if the 3A3, 6BK4, and 1V2 are accessible by opening the TOP of the HV cage. The CTC15s were accessible from the front of the cage. Also, I belive that the CTC15 did not use a 1V2 or 2AV2 for focus rectifier, but rather had a selenium focus rectifier.