The "cheap" TV's had a great picture too......

[bozey45]

our first family color set was an Airline in 1964, a CTC-15 chassis. Beautiful color picture on that set. I remember we turned it on for the first time to see Bonanza; when the peacock came on the picture was all green and stayed that way until Wards came out; I remember he replaced a tube or maybe two and from then on perfect. I used that set until 1987 long after my parents bought a rectangular screen set in 1974 when I bought my own house and the roundie went with me. When I built a Heath 25 inch set in 1977, that roundie was relegated to the bedroom; eventually it played out in 1987 and I put it in a storage shed. I ravaged parts out of it to repair other people's roundies. So enthralled with my heath set was I that I never thought of the future of the roundies. Eventually took what was left to the junk yard like a fool; it was a metal cabinet so no great loss there. I've still got the 1977 Heath set in the garage, hasn't been turned on in 18 or 19 years. I think the pix tube was getting weak was reason I got another newer set. The new set was a Sharp and its still being used on our back porch at 20 years old; I stopped using it in 1998 when I bought a WebTV system and it looked terrible thru that set. But that Airline set was great and a big regret is junking it back in the 80's.

[oldtvman]

Doug,

Back then I think a lot of those sets were made by Wells-Gardner. The Sears, Airlines and Cm all had the same type of lay-out and circuit boards, the Cm entertainment system I have has a plastic bezel around the Crt.