1950 Zenith TV Working Again
 

Finally after many many months of searching for a 12UP4 CRT This Tabletop Zenith is finished (Almost) Thanks Eric H for the 12UP4, This ends over a year long search for this CRT. Now that all the chassis work and CRT replacement is done I can find a prominent place in the house for it. Cosmetically the cabinet and Bezel need some work but that will have to wait for warmer months. You may notice a few room reflections accross the screen in the photos. Time to beam up some vintage programming!
Jim

Hey that looks pretty nice! Makes a great picture!

Jim, I'm delighted the tube made it to you and that it works so well, much better than it gathering dust in the back room.

That set has a great picture :banana:

Eric

Those "porthole" Zenith sets are kinda odd-lookin' to me,but...That don't mean I wouldn't like to have one someday !!-Sandy G.

Is the width on that set set so it includes a fair amount of the video image? As the porthole is round, and NTSC video images are rectangular, it would make sense to squeeze a bit the width so you don't crop too much of the action. It does make for skinny faces and actors though. 75% squash on the width would make it a square picture, and given that you'd want some overscan on the vertical (to avoid seeing vertical interval trash) you'd see about 75% times overscan width.

Most porthole sets feature a switch to change the aspect ratio (i.e. stretch the vertical). As a kid looking at old magazine ads for Zeniths, I always wondered just how the picture would look on a porthole screen. I found out about the switch the first time I saw one of these sets actually operating at an old repairman's shop. The upper and lower portions of the screen were black while a picture of normal proportion filled the width of the screen. When I asked him why he didn't make the raster fill the screen, he told me about the switch, mumbling something about "distortion." So does anybody watch their porthole set with the switch in the "normal" position?

@clasicradio. A nice roundie working again. My advice: keep ol' sets working again