Quote:
Originally Posted by drh4683
The picture blew me away too. THe picture is as good if not better than a zenith chromacolor II. It has 8 preset UHF channels. Opened up the control door, which is designed to be completely removable. Also to note, the long vertical control door is actually pot metal! None of the presets were tuned, the indicator bars were all the way to the end like it would have been after leaving the factory. The channel windows on the dial drum all had letters A-H for UHF too. No channel digits were ever installed.
I didnt know what to expect as far as the chassis was concerned. I bought it for half off, which was only 5 bucks. My kind of deal.
When I got home, I pulled the back off to dedust it. I was expecting some "modern" looking chassis layout, like a mediocre sized circuit board and nothing else. Well, I was pleasantly surprized with what i saw. A nice big chassis, like an XL-100 which plug in modules, but the chassis was a horizontal layout. The power supply and HV sections were still point to point wired. Even has a seperate remote control chassis, similar to that used in the 60's sets. So its not a cheaply made set. It must be one of last "good" ones though. Good meaning, circuit boards/modules mounted on a steel framed chassis, and individual pots mounted to the rear of the chassis. I really like this one, and would make a great everyday TV.
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I agree with you, Doug. I also have an XL-100, very late 1990s vintage (CTC185, bought new in 1999) that has only had two repairs in eight years...and even survived a fall off the stand about two weeks ago, the only "damage" being slight color distortion that I was able to clear up with a few passes of an old speaker magnet. I don't know to this day whether the auto-degausser in my set has failed or just what happened (the shadow mask was bent slightly when the set hit the floor, or...?), but I do know I was very surprised and pleased to have gotten rid of the color splotches so easily. (I had visions of a smashed CRT and other horrendous damage to the chassis.) They haven't returned; in fact, the TV's picture is every bit as good as it was when the set was new. The only thing I've noticed is that the picture is slightly out of focus for a few seconds, until the TV warms up. Once it's warm, the picture is beautiful.
The picture quality of XL-100s, as you noted, is every bit as good as (if not better than) Zenith sets. I would put my XL-100 up against a Zenith Sentry 2 any day of the year.
RCA/Thomson finally got the bugs with the RF tuner out of their newer TVs, beginning with the CTC203 chassis (so I've read here), by mounting the tuner separately from the rest of the set. The on-board tuner in those late-'80s-'90s RCAs was a bad idea from the beginning; I can't help wondering why it took them so long to get the message and change the design.
