Quote:
Originally posted by jstout66
I wouldn't mind having it, but the picture looks like crap. It's hard to tell with the snowy pix, but it looks like the picture tube is bad.
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I wouldn't suspect the CRT just yet, js. The reason the picture "looks like crap" to you could very well be that it is so snowy. Color television requires a much stronger signal than monochrome to produce a good picture. The Willoughby, Ohio area is a near-fringe area for Cleveland television, being some 30 miles from the city's seven TV transmitters; one needs either a good outdoor or attic-mount antenna or cable to get consistenly good reception from every station in the city. I know this for a fact as I used to live near there, and I had cable on every set in my house from 1982 on, preceded by an attic-mounted antenna. Moreover, the further east you go in this area (northeast Ohio, near Lake Erie) the worse your TV and FM reception becomes. I recently moved to a village which is a fringe area for Cleveland television, just at the outer edge of the stations' coverage areas and over 40 miles from the city's TV transmitters; to get decent reception from Cleveland in this area one must have cable, as rabbit ears or even amplified outdoor antennas do not work well here or, in some cases and in some parts of the village, at all. (As an example, my own sets don't work worth a darn without cable.)
My best guess is that the person selling that Zenith roundie is trying to get by with rabbit ears, or even no antenna at all. I saw a coax cable hooked up to the antenna terminals through a matching transformer, but I have no idea where, if anywhere, the cable leads. If it goes nowhere, then it is no wonder the picture is so bad; coax is shielded, so very little signal will get to the set if the seller is trying to use the cable alone as a very poor excuse for an antenna.
In my opinion, this is a very poor way to demonstrate a television set he/she is trying to sell. If it were me in the same situation, I would have the set hooked up to cable through a converter so that it would be getting the best signal possible. Of course, there is always the possibility of weak or dead tubes in the tuner or IF strip, but I'd get a decent signal into the set first. That Zenith, with its deluxe SC400 remote and all, was a good set in its day; it can probably make a fairly good picture today, but it must have a decent signal at the antenna terminals to do so. I realize this sounds elementary, but there are people who think all they need is a coat hanger on the antenna terminals to get good color reception. If you are very close to the transmitters (say within a mile or two), this dodge might work, but in outlying suburbs or out here in the boondocks, miles away from the nearest TV station, you need either an antenna or cable or you just don't get much of anything.