The Family DuMont
 

Howdy all,

Here's a couple photos of the DuMont Ardmore my grandparents bought new back around 1950. It's been one of my dreams to get it working again since I was about 15. I'm now 49. I think it's time I get to work, what'cha all think? :yes:

As an admirer (never owned one) of Dumont telesets, you have a great project.
There are some real experts on these.
Good Luck.

Most you come across, have the case with the doors. This one is an interesting change and must be rarer.

Great set.

Appears to be an RA-108 variant. I'll be working on one myself over the next couple months.....get your soldering iron ready :yes:

Where are you from?

I'm out in Farmington, New Mexico, up in the Four Corners Region near Utah, Colorado, and Arizona.

You'll be working on a RA-108? Excellent! Vintage televisions are pretty rare out here. In fact, vintage ANYTHING is rare. Pretty much everything "vintage" has to be imported! I've never seen another DuMont Teleset in person (except for maybe in a museum). Seems a lot of folks have high regard for them. I know my grandfather said DuMont was pretty near top of the line in it's day. They seem to be well regarded around these here parts (Meaning the forum)! Except for maybe the 19AP4 CRT!

First order of business is going to be a full recap. Looks like about 50 or better caps including electrolytics. Tuner has seized (it still turned when I was 15!), hardened grease is likely culprit from what I've read. It's going to be a learning experience for sure! As for the CRT, since I don't have any specialized testing equipment, some luck is going to play into it. I know the heater filament is good, but that's about it for now. I'm beginning to doubt that a bad CRT was the reason the set was retired, but a lot can happen in 50 more years. I've got my eye out for a spare CRT already.

New roll of solder and a new soldering iron tip are at the ready!

-Cary

Yep, sadly right now the set is in the garage. I brought both chassis in the house, and plan to get the rest of the set in the house and into the basement after the Christmas tree is disassembled and the living room crap can go back in the living room ;)

The way things are going around here, I'm going to have DuMonts coming out of my arse soon :D . Here's the thread where I got this one a month ago. It's going to my friend Al, it was his mother's childhood set :)

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=260099

Thanks! I don't have much to judge by, since other than photos, this is the only DuMont I can remember ever seeing. Looking at photos of different DuMont sets, though, it does seem the ones with doors are more prevalent. The cover of the "John F. Riders" service guide shows six models for 1950, and four of them have doors. Interesting that out here in the west, as dusty as it is, that my grandparents would buy one without doors. Although where they lived out in California it was all citrus orchards and vineyards "back in the day", so maybe dust wasn't as big a deal.

ALMOST looks like a Royal Sovereign...THOSE are VERY rare..

Man, I'm gettin' jealous of all the vintage sets that seem to be piled up back east! DuMonts everywhere! We just got our Christmas stuff down yesterday, and put away today, so we've got to put all the furniture back where it goes, and then I'll have room to at least get the chassis over here (the set is stored in a building right across the yard) and start start working on cleaning up the tuner while waiting for parts to arrive.

Almost, but it's not nearly large enough to be that. :no:

I just looked at this:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/dumont_ra-119.html

And now I have TV envy. :jawdrop:

My friend has the same Dumont that you have except his might not have the metal grille over the speaker grille cloth.
I have the RA-110 and it too is the type without doors and the tuning dial is at the bottom not the top and it too is square

that RA-119 has 45 tubes total and draws over 5 amps when playing , that must be one nice picture , the biggest roundie and black and white set ever.
mike

I think this has come up before, but does anyone know if any of the 30" Crosley sets have survived?

I believe 1-2 are known to exist, and I believe there is a restoration thread here on one of them...

I know of a collector in St. Louis who has one. He is a member here but doesn't visit much.