Andrea CVL-16 "Tough-Dog"

[bgadow]

Big news! First, let me say this: it used to be that if I wanted to just casually talk TV I would do it here, but for technical advice I usually had to turn to posting on ARF. Well, that has changed. The depth of talent here is getting better all the time.

With a lot of skepticism, when I got home tonight I took a good, close look at the "bad" side of the flyback. Poking and prodding revealed, hey, that break just might be accessible after all. Sure enough:

You'll notice the corrosion. I picked this set up back in the 90s from a guy I knew through work. He had it stored in an old shed with a dirt floor. It killed the finish but the chassis, overall, isn't bad. No rust, for instance, but some of the tube pins/sockets are a little corroded besides these wires. Anyway, as you can see, I had enough to work with here. I carefully soldered an extension, slipped on a piece of insulation, and took an ohm reading...continuity! I put the cage back on and gave it a whirl:

The dog has been tamed! Thank God for the guys on Videokarma! Now, on to some smaller issues. I was able to get the audio running after some fiddling. There are some problems which seem to be temperature related. The set has to warm up for about 5 minutes before the audio will work at all; at the same time, the AGC drifts the longer it plays. The horiz hold is also at the end of its travel. I'll take some voltage measurements with it cold and then see what happens. Got my can of freeze spray at the ready. Oh, and one part of the intermittent audio turned out to be a bad output transformer, which is now open. I should have something in my stash close enough for that one. I'll keep everyone posted.