Recently I accquired a Zenith color television. It's a 19", looks to be from the early 70's, has a plastic simulated woodgrain cabinet, and that wonderful Zenith "spinner" UHF tuner. A hybrid tube/solid state set, this one has only four tubes, but it has that quality Zenith metal chassis. I'll post pictures and get the model number when I get a chance, but I figured I'd post a quick, general thing here since I have a moment this morning...
OK, so the set looks good, and when I power it on I get sound instantly (solid state sound). No HV or deflection whine though. Tuning appears to work, I can get the sound for various channels. Inspecting the inside doesn't tell me much, it's dusty, but these Zenith sets typically work fine, and hold up very well. The electrolytic can doesn't get hot or even warm. The filaments on the tubes all light. The horizontal output tube, however, looks odd. It's still got a silver getter, but there are black marks on the inside of the glass, looks to be streaked down between the two mica spacers inside. It almost looks like burnt something, and the pattern is unlike any I've seen on a tube before. Normally you get the brown marks on the glass, but this is different - it's hard to explain, I'll post a picture as soon as I get a chance though. The top cap on the tube is a bit loose, but it still appears to be making connection properly, and the getter looks fine, don't think the tube is gassy. It's a 20LF6, and I don't have another one (that I can find, anyway) to swap in. Normally I never suspect a tube just because it looks odd, but this one looks really odd. The flyback looks fine, no burning or cracking, but once again, that doesn't mean much. I just thought I'd post this and see if anyone knew of any common failures on these sets, and had some suggestions of where to start. I just don't have time to go to the library, track down the schematic, measure voltages, etc, etc.
While I don't know where I put my digital camera at the moment, it looks a _lot_ like this set I found in the gallery. Might even be the same model....
http://www.audiokarma.org/gallery/sh...&cat=all&page=
Just hoping someone could give me a hint as to where to start. I'm really hoping I have some actual time soon to work on stuff... Also more space would also be nice...
Thanks!
-Ian