[marty59]

I want to share my receint acquisition, an RCA model GH630W chassis CTC-20C. I know we discuss ways of ID'ing as well as justifying their reason for being the last RCA Roundie. IMO other than maybe a large stock of CRT's I believe these sets existed mainly as a low(er) cost alternative to the new square tube sets. Heck, there were not any remote sets made and few models at that, either a 20A or a 20C chassis design. I'm not sure if the differences were in the tuner/bezel layout? Other than on the front of the Howard Sams most of the one's I've come across look like the later CTC-16Xx style with a later channel selector knob. Plus, the chassis was backwords engineered from the squaretube CTC-19, which was a 19" set. I was still a kid at the time so I don't know what the cost would be for these when new, besides my becoming awareness of roundies...

Anyways my interest in picking up this set was for the CRT, which fortunately tests uniform with tracking ability but on the low side of emissions which is just fine for now. It had seen power and I was told that the screen didn't light up. It still had the original 6BK4 which had turned that nice brown charred color. I checked all the tubes and with a couple of exceptions removed the weak ones and especially any that checked with shorts. The Flyback has lots of drippings but I variaced it with the HOT out and then installed it. I was surprized to see a raster! (with no RF source). The Fly was staying cool too!!

But there are some issues with it, two of the legs had been JB Welded and the cabinet sides may have seen some moisture and gouges as well as something being spilled over the speaker area on the bezel. And the wicker basket grills do nothing for me! The top is nice though. Electronically, there may be some AGC problems as there is a lack of a snowy raster or sound but I don't want to force any fine tuning as it will only turn so much. I'll hook up my tuner subber and try to pass some RF through it at least. I just want to check it out but not make any repairs.

My plan is to remove the tube and do my first cateract repair. This tube tests better than the one in my Zenith 5131 chassis 25LC30 so I want to make sure I have a spare. I've started on another set so the Zenith will be waiting some. I'm not making any drastic decisions at this point but I wanted to post some pictures since we like to look and talk about roundies!