dumont ra-103

[RDusel]

Glad you picked that set up. I bought 5 TV's from Mike (Kramden66) he had some interesting sets that were going to be sold on Craigslist if not bought by VK and ARF members. I passed on that particular set as I have the Dumont Doghouse RA103 and they are very similar. Neat that you got the stand as well.
Plus those Dumonts weigh a ton and I hate moving them.
One thing to be careful of.. In my RA103 there are a few high precision capacitors used for the horizontal and vertical oscillators that look like old dogbone resistors instead of caps. One of mine had a hairline crack and it caused the horizontal oscillator to run at the wrong speed. You might have the same issue.
Hope this helps!
Rob

[stusnyder]

I figured out the horiz and vertical sync problem, there was a ground missing on the v16 6sj7 2nd sync clipper. One fixed that, horiz and vertical both lock.
Got a watchable pic, but awful snowy. Tomorrow I'm going into the tuner and check the components in there.

[zenith2134]

I bet an RA103 has a very good tuner in it. Sets this old usually need extensive cleaning as you probably know. On my '53 Admiral 16R12 the mechanism for vhf fine tuning didn't feel right mechanically and a quick regreasing of the endshaft fixed that. The RF and IF was well within spec however. Sometimes simple things help a lot.

[Phil Nelson]

My RA-103 article has a section about cleaning the tuner:

http://antiqueradio.org/DuMontRA-103Television.htm

A snowy picture could also result from other causes, of course.

Regards,

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

[old_coot88]

Originally Posted by stusnyder

...Got a watchable pic, but awful snowy. Tomorrow I'm going into the tuner and check the components in there.

Be sure and check the ant. input coils for continuity, on the chance that one could have been popped by the spike from a nearby lightning strike.