My 1st Predicta

[DaveWM]

whoo hoo...

dinked around with it a bit more (touched up the audio IF) the damper is fixed

no way I could get it to go out. the only slightly sensive tube now is the vert osc. I "may" go back to it but really its pretty solid, you have to move it around on purpose to make it go out. I will go thru my tube socket stash and see what I have. It is an easy one to replace (completly exposed) so I guess it makes since that I should do it while I have it out.

a few other things I did to help the overall pic

cleaned the tuner RF conncection (both the female on the tuner and the male from the IF strip) and polished up the surfaces with very fine sand paper. There was a good bit of oxidation. Same with the CRT cathode connecting pin, both the pin on the board and the female connector from the CRT head. Again lots of corrosion there. The biggest gain was cleaning the tuner, it was not so much noisey as just low signal strength. I did not bother to check the resistors in the tuner, not sure if I should bother with that.

I am going to let it burn in for a while on the bench, if all goes well I will reinstall into the cabinet for a longer term burn in, then decide about stuff like repainting.

does anyone know if the finish on decorative bars that go up the sides of the CRT head are painted or plated? Mine are pretty messed up with surface rust. I was thinking of stripping them and redoing but not sure if its paint or plate.

same question on the base, it looks like steel that was maybe plated.