Good news! The Wingate has been running pretty well for the past week or so, so I'm calling this one done. Between adjusting the horizontal drive and HV pots I installed, I was able to get a reliable 19.5kv anode under most viewing conditions. Sams shows a 110v p-p drive waveform as being correct, I ended up with 140v p-p because it made a greater amount of HV. The increased drive did not cause a drive line to appear. The horizontal cathode current settled right around 205ma, which is higher than I would like to see, but since the flyback is running pretty cool I'm just gonna leave it. The HV pot is almost at maximum (minimum current draw from the regulator), so 6BK4's should last forever in this set.
You could just about run without one and be fine, but I left it in for safety.
I've come to the same conclusion as everyone else with this chassis: HV production is simply pathetic. At anything more than moderate brightness the picture blooms, HV sags, and the raster shrinks horizontally. It's impossible to get more than 20kv from the HV supply even with the 6BK4 removed, though HV does improve the longer the set operates. My suggestion to CTC-5 owners: it'll never make a bright picture, so thank your lucky stars RCA saw fit to put these chassis in the most aesthetically pleasing cabinets of all time. A fair trade, all things considered.
