[gadget73]

finally I can make a legit post here. My first oldie, a 1954 Philco 54-8486 that I found on the side of the road tonight. These are pics from a short time ago after it spent a couple hours on the poor man variac.

Side note, in spite of the "UHF" badge on the front, it doesn't actually have UHF. There is a tag on the inside that says the set was designed to allow the install of the optional UHF converter.

This is totally as-found condition, the controls aren't even cleaned. The pics are bad because its my cell phone, the memory card in the digicam seems to have died or something. The vertical hold is a bit unstable, but I'm hoping once I get some DeOxit ordered and applied to the controls that will stabilize. The linearity control on the back seems to do nothing, and the height is wonky, maybe dirty controls or something else. I have no real experience working on TV sets so this will be a learning experience for me. This thing has been apart before. There is a service tag inside, but its quite old. Looks like at least one replacement tube, and I think someone has been into the HV cage. Theres a missing screw there. 4 of the screws on the back were also gone, and the tuner chassis (its a 2 chassis design, one side appears to be tuner, the other side video) seems like its not bolted down firmly. Wiggling the tuner knob moved the whole thing around. Apparently whatever tech fooled with it wasn't very good about putting all the parts back inside.