Zenith 19" BW - 1977 found

[Jeffhs]

I had a Zenith 19" b&w portable somewhat like this one in the late '70s or early eighties, a trash find in my old neighborhood, a suburb of Cleveland. The TV worked very well as soon as I got it home (the remote, however, was missing) and connected an antenna (the original dipoles had been broken off) and kept going almost a year. However, one night I turned it on and was greeted by a very weak picture. The horizontal output tube was gassy which probably, even likely, overbiased the AGC stage (this set, IIRC, had keyed AGC).

I replaced the TV the next day with a 12" Zenith J-121-Y b&w portable, which lasted 20 years and was still going (typical Zenith) when I got rid of it. I had moved to a very small apartment, my current residence, from a three-bedroom house with a basement by that time and had already purchased an RCA color table model, so had no room or use for the 12" Zenith. If I could have found someone to give this set to, believe me, I would have, as the TV was working almost like new at the time, except for the UHF detent channel selector which somehow jammed on one channel. I was able to set the UHF selector to a local channel, but that was all I could do.