[jshorva65]

Jamie bought this Stromberg-Carlson TV-12 combo set at the first ETF Convention (2007) we attended together. This was her first Vintage TV score, but she didn't officially become a Collector until she bought her SECOND set. Two or more sets qualifies as a Collection, doesn't it? Now, her collection consists of this Stromberg-Carlson, a late-fifties Zenith "bug eyes" portable (eBay score), a Crosley wooden tabletop (2009 ETF Convention score), and a set that's going to be a birthday gift from me next week (she hasn't joined AK yet that I'm aware of, but not revealing what set I got her until after her birthday just in case). Anyway, here's the Stromberg-Carlson on display as an attention-magnet to lure shoppers into a booth she ran earlier this year selling baking supplies and cooking-related art (mainly small ceramic sculptures and jewelry) at a local farmers' market as a side project for her catering business.

The first photo is of the TV chassis undergoing bench-testing at one of the "progress check" points during Restoration.

Next is a screenshot at another "progress check" point. That one was taken while I was setting up test gear for the RF/IF alignment that it needed due to a dial-tracking issue with the Inductuner. Those Mallory Inductuners are great when they work, but can take a while to get working just right when something goes wrong. Anyway, it took a while, but I got it repaired, aligned, and back to proper tracking all across the dial. Incidentally, part of the tracking issue was that the end-stop inside the Inductuner had gotten bent out of place due to someone having tried to "force" the knob past the stop at some point long ago. I would imagine it was an attempt to use brute mechanical force to get the dial to track correctly without opening up the tuner assembly to look for leaky capacitors and/or off-spec resistors. Basically, I ended up replacing almost every resistor inside the tuner and most of the ceramic and mica capacitors.

Next up, here's another shot featuring the AM/SW radio dial and the record changer. The changer was tricky at times due to the first cartridge we ordered for it being a dud right out of the box and the fact that some previous "repair" person had assembled some of the linkages backwards (namely, the Off/On/Rej switch linkage, which was obviously mis-aligned since it was colliding with the Speed linkage). Once I got the control linkages to work and a working cartridge installed, there was another challenge because of a missing setscrew in one of the changer linkages, this one affecting the setdown point of the stylus. Since it was an odd "pointed" screw, it took a while to track the proper replacement part down.

The final picture of the series is of the set on display at Jamie's former baking supplies booth, next to the "ultra comfortable" wingback chair she scored at an antique mall. There's actually a funny story behind that. Before she took an interest in Vintage TV, she sat in that chair to take a break at the antiques place while I searched for more Radio and TV stuff. Not sure if she was bored or tired. Anyway, she liked the chair so much that she ended up buying that chair by the end of the day.

About a year after I initially restored the TV, it developed a vertical sync problem. At first, I suspected that one of the original electrolytics that had re-formed nicely during the initial Restoration work had finally given up (would have been the second such failure in something like 8 years since I started keeping track). Instead, my 99% (probably closer to 99.5% by now) success rate at achieving long-term reliability on electrolytics where ESR and leakage check out OK after re-forming remains intact. It turned out that the electrolytics were OK and that the primary (the sync winding) of the vertical oscillator transformer had gone open. Sams doesn't list any substitutes for it and the same transformer is also used in most Dumont sets from the RA-103 "doghouse" model up to the RA-108 (Dumont p/n 20D490-1, 20004142, and 20003931 are listed in Sams, a different one of these three in each Dumont model's folder). Although each Dumont model lists a different p/n in Sams (with no crosses listed in Sams) they all cross to the same three subs (Merit A-3001, Stancor A-8124, and Thordarson 26A01) per parts catalog listings. Another tip is that ONLY if the transformer fails with the primary (red/blue lead pair) as the open winding, a temporary fix while waiting for the replacement part to arrive is to tack a 22K/2W resistor across the open winding and couple the sync pulses from the junction of the blue lead (output of the integrating network) to the oscillator grid with a 0.0015uF capacitor. That will stop the "rollin', rollin', rollin'" symptom on your Dumont set until the new transformer arrives.