Zenith 17" Space Command color set from 1982

[radiotvnut]

A couple of years ago, I walked in the flea market and found this Zenith for $10; but, they ended up giving it to me. It's a 17" Space Command from '82 and uses the 9-181/9-186 combination of modules.

Over the years, I've had my hands on a lot of Zenith sets; but, I've never had a 17" with these modules. I've had one or two 17" sets with the 9-160 module and a few CC2 (both delta and inline tubes); but, nothing with the 181/186 boards.

This set works; but, I think the CRT is getting tired (tri-focus tube). When first turned on, the screen is almost dark and it takes 15-20 minutes to fully come to life. At which time, it has a nice picture.

One day, I'll open it up and go over it; but, I'm very cautious about rejuvenating the CRT. It's been my experience that even with a good CRT tester, these Zenith tri-focus tubes usually don't rejuvenate very well and they'll often look worse after than they did before.

As far as the tri-focus tubes, I think that they produced a brighter, sharper picture than the tubes that came later.