Our current projects

[domfjbrown]

Chuck - that's amazing I've wanted a MIL set since I saw one in Exeter's museam in 1982 (I don't think this one works since BBC don't have 400 lines transmissions any more )

It amazes me how something made 60-odd years ago can look that good and work that well, when things like my sister's old 1984 PYE b&w are long dead....

[Jeffhs]

Was browsing this thread and saw a couple more of the Zenith TVs I like so much. Glad to see you guys are getting your sets working as they did when they were new. I had a basement full of sets like that (of all makes) back in the late '60s-early '70s, a good many of which were Zeniths. My pride and joy was a 23" Zenith console which was missing every tube but the HV rectifier and CRT when I got it (rescued the set from a trash pile). Took me the better part of a year to retube it, but it was well worth it as it worked, and well (very well for a set made just six years before I got it), as soon as I turned it on after putting the last tube in. I think it's true what has been said about older sets being put out just because the owners replaced them with newer models. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that Zenith 23" set of mine, except that the tubes were missing.

I've seen Zenith TVs with Compactrons as well in the 30-odd years I've been experimenting with electronics. In the late '70s I had a Zenith 19" Space Command 300 portable which worked well as far as the TV itself was concerned, but I never did get the remote working as the hand unit was missing. That set, however, had several Compactron tubes--the horizontal output tube and, IIRC, the AGC keyer (the latter being combined with a couple other tubes). The vertical oscillator/output tube may have been a dual-function Compactron as well.

BTW: The Zenith console color set shown in one of the posts here may well be an all-channel version of the 29JC20 table model. The latter (and a related set, the 27KC20) were made in the early '60s, before UHF was a requirement in new sets, although in some TV markets with only UHF channels such as Youngstown, Ohio and areas with intermixed VHF and UHF network stations, the all-channel versions were available even before April 30, 1964 (the date the all-channel rules went into effect).