19" RCA ColorTrak (CTC110 chassis)

[radiotvnut]

Probably close to a year ago, I ended up at a house that a flea market vendor was cleaning out after an estate sale, and most of the junk that was left was going in a roll-off dumpster out front. The only thing left in the attic was this 19" RCA ColorTrak from January, 1983, which uses a CTC110 chassis. It was filthy and missing the control door, but I took it anyway.

Among first test, it was dead, but after repeatedly pressing the power button, it fired up, and faulty buttons on RCA sets from this era seemed to be common. I was greeted with a bright picture with retrace lines, and a picture that would "blow out" with advanced brightness and contrast settings. A check at the boost supply to the video output stage only revealed about 120V, and further checking revealed that the 30uf/250V boost filter was open. Replacing that brought the voltage up to 190V, and got rid of the retrace lines and bright picture.

However, the picture still looks like crap, and I didn't have time to troubleshoot further today. The best way I can describe it is the picture looks to have noise in it, as well as a halo/ghosting effect around all the images.

Also, this TV was full of sawdust, and I suspect that once the picture turned to crap, it went to someone's workshop, where picture quality was of little concern. When working right, these produce a nice picture, and I hope I can someday locate the missing control door. Based on my experience with RCA sets from the '80s, the CRTs seem to hold up very well in them.