[Username1]

When I was a kid and regularly picked up tvs that people would gently throw out to be picked up in front of your house by the town for FREE without complaint; A few times I took a set that I was not going to keep or sell, and turn all the very small turnie things that needed a special tool to get into. So I can tell you that first hand the kind of things that need an alignment. When the sound has any kind of hum, buzz, or in some other way seems to sound like a radio not quite on the station. And if the video seems to be smeared on the screen and you can't get it so clear that it looks like its got little lines that make up the picture that run vertical as well as the scanning lines horizontal. Then it needs alignment. Our instructor at BOCES back in the late 70's would turn the fine tuning knob just before the screen let go of sync and any smearing of the screen went away and all the lettering got real crisp, he said "now you're done" if he couldn't get that your set wasn't fixed. And if you turn the little turnie things inside the little square skyscrapers then you will never get that perfect sharp screen...... "Do it again!" he would say......

And he was a perfectionist, the midterm of our first year was to draw without mistake the schematic of a 5 tube radio. And we all could do it, and know the voltages on the tube pins. So tv alignment was nothing. Convergence was only gone over for a few days, the real McCoy was that big flat 60 pound metal thing with the little square metal skyscrapers and glass things with the fire inside.