Went to see some sets today

[Charlie]

Today I made some house calls to people that had phoned me in regards to the newspaper story from this past Monday. I saw two sets, and brought home one. I might go back later to get the one i didn't bring home.

This first set is the one I brought home. It is a late-60's Truetone portable 21" b&w set. It played while I was there, but wouldn't tune in stations very well. It looked to be in good condition cosmetically, so I offered the guy 10 bucks for it. He gladly took the ten, and then was on his way to the store to get a 6 pack of beer and a pack of smokes!

When i got the set home, I took off the back to find a 5-tube hybrid with the instant-on feature (tubes partially lit while off). Actually, on the front of the set it says "Insta-Vu" in the top right corner. It wasn't too dirty inside, but still enough dust to warrant cleaning it out. It looks like this Truetone was made by Admiral (the CRT and tubular caps all said Admiral on them).

I found the reason it wouldn't tune in stations well... it looks like the board on the side of the tuner where the antenna connections are got pulled apart. it's only a small board with a few disc caps on it. Apparently, someone took the back off too fast without disconnecting the leads... forced it and broke the board. I tried to make some quickie connections using some jumper wires, and then put it back together.

Well, looks like I knocked something loose because now the set won't fire up. The tubes light, but nothing else comes on. Damn! Well, I'll go back tomorrow and see if I can find what i did.

As far as the raster, it DID fill up the screen completely and had great brightness. Contrast looked good as well. Of course... untill I messed something up. Oh well... I'll find it.

Here is a shot of it below.