Zenith 19" BW - 1977 found

[DavGoodlin]

One of my usual spots for grabbing TV's is near work unfortunately
Over the last 2 years, CRT sets dropped off at S.A. store (who palletizes them for ??? pickup) yielded some interesting BW sets that are basically working, and yes that would be monochrome. Sometimes I give them a ten-spot as a donation if they ask me what I'm doing at the pile.

Locally, quite a few retirement and continuing care communities that clean out a resident's belongings when they move on, bring them here. CRT and even flat TVs always need to go to a recycling facility. If CRT sets are put at curb, the waste haulers will leave them behind, more variety!

I picked this nice and rare Zenith up yesterday but it was wet, so I fan-dried it out before a power up. Next post will be a picture of it working.

[TVTim]

We need pictures buddy!!

[vortalexfan]

[DavGoodlin]

Of course I have pictures, and it also worked as found. Dirty volume control and tuner, typical for any knob set of any age.

By the look of the CRT and how controls affect it, going all bloomin' silver instead of brighter, this was played daily and only retired recently.

There is still a vhf/uhf balun on the back , it has only twin-lead screws for 300 ohm antenna cable. The signal shown is off the built in monopole from local broadcast in the metal-roofed and sided garage, channel 3 modulator fed by a Funai-made Magnavox branded DTB that never quits, set on local NBC VHF 8. Looking for more BT mods for 4, 5 and 12 now.

1977 BW 19GB1Z.jpg 1977 BW.jpg1977 BW Zenith.jpg

[DavGoodlin]

Originally Posted by TVTim

We need pictures buddy!!

I got this at the same place I got your '72 15" RCA BW with remote (unit missing)

[dishdude]

Has to be one of the last American made B&Ws.

[DavGoodlin]

Originally Posted by dishdude

Has to be one of the last American made B&Ws.

Could be, I was looking for the "1900 Austin Ave" or Chicago but saw no address. Some later Zenith were made in Missouri, IIRC.

[zeno]

Zenith 12 & 16 inch B&W's went to a Zenith Taiwan chassis apx
1972. The 19" switched to a Taiwan chassis a few yrs later. This
one IIRC is the Taiwan version. It has an upright chassis / module.
The PCB's were crappy, etch lifted too easy when repairing them.
Known for bad vert outs & an easily repaired ground loop causing
hum bars. The last US Zenith B&W's were on 9" & 12" sets apx 1980.
They were modular but they left out the "service saver" chassis.
Great running sets but a real PIA to service. It was modular but the modules were to expensive, component level too much trouble.

73 Zeno
LFOD !

[TVTim]

Dave, I would have grabbed that beauty in a New York mi! I love it.

[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.

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by zeno

Zenith 12 & 16 inch B&W's went to a Zenith Taiwan chassis apx
1972. The 19" switched to a Taiwan chassis a few yrs later. This
one IIRC is the Taiwan version. It has an upright chassis / module.
The PCB's were crappy, etch lifted too easy when repairing them.
Known for bad vert outs & an easily repaired ground loop causing
hum bars. The last US Zenith B&W's were on 9" & 12" sets apx 1980.
They were modular but they left out the "service saver" chassis.
Great running sets but a real PIA to service. It was modular but the modules were to expensive, component level too much trouble.

73 Zeno
LFOD !

I've had a few of the 19" and one 22" "tin can" with the upright modular chassis that was a pain to service. The horizontal solid state modular chassis that was made prior to this one was easier to service. When I was in high school, I recall seeing a 19" that looked like the one that the OP has, but it used a hybrid chassis.

[AlanInSitges]

My grandparents, who lived way out in the boonies in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, had one of these. Color hurt their eyes, according to them, so they stayed with B&W.

They had quite a memorable setup, at least to a 12-year-old who spent the summer out there. They lived in a valley, and had two different antennas on top of two different mountains, connected by 450-ohm open ladder line. One got the Chattanooga station, and the other was a huge yagi that picked up a couple of stations from Knoxville. I don't know for sure how far away the antennas were from the house but do remember going with my uncle in the jeep up to clear brush from the big one during one of my visits, and it must have been a mile or more.

Evidently at some point one of the antennas had been struck by lightning and ruined their old TV, so the antennas were connected to a lightning arrester next to the house, then to a matching transformer, then regular twin lead ran inside the house where it ended in two clothespins. You never, ever, ever, left those clothespins connected to the antenna terminals (grandma had a switch to make sure the kids didn't forget) unless you were watching the TV, and there was always discussion of the weather before doing so. I can remember a couple of times where phone calls were made up the valley - on a party line! - to ask if it looked like a storm was coming before the TV could be hooked up.

Good times.

[nasadowsk]

I have a 12” four tube b&w zenith. I think a Taiwan set. Must have been the last of the tube b&w sets…

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by AlanInSitges

My grandparents, who lived way out in the boonies in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, had one of these. Color hurt their eyes, according to them, so they stayed with B&W.

They had quite a memorable setup, at least to a 12-year-old who spent the summer out there. They lived in a valley, and had two different antennas on top of two different mountains, connected by 450-ohm open ladder line. One got the Chattanooga station, and the other was a huge yagi that picked up a couple of stations from Knoxville. I don't know for sure how far away the antennas were from the house but do remember going with my uncle in the jeep up to clear brush from the big one during one of my visits, and it must have been a mile or more.

Evidently at some point one of the antennas had been struck by lightning and ruined their old TV, so the antennas were connected to a lightning arrester next to the house, then to a matching transformer, then regular twin lead ran inside the house where it ended in two clothespins. You never, ever, ever, left those clothespins connected to the antenna terminals (grandma had a switch to make sure the kids didn't forget) unless you were watching the TV, and there was always discussion of the weather before doing so. I can remember a couple of times where phone calls were made up the valley - on a party line! - to ask if it looked like a storm was coming before the TV could be hooked up.

Good times.

I never knew color TV could "hurt" anyone's eyes until I read your post, although I am 65 years old and do remember when kids were told not to sit too close to the screen. I believe this must have started not long after the color television X-ray scare of the 1970s. It wouldn't have surprised me if, in those days, kids were also warned against watching TV with the contrast and/or brightness controls set too high.

My late mother's family lived in Dalton, Georgia, where they could get three channels (3, 9 and 12 at the time) from Chattanooga using just an indoor antenna, IIRC. The reception was excellent on their TV, an RCA (IIRC) 23" b&w console with power tuning.

I was surprised to read in your post that your grandparents could only receive one channel from Chattanooga and another from another city, using two antennas, unless it was in the late 1940s or very early 1950s, when most areas, if they had TV at all, could only get one or two channels. When the first TV station, WEWS-TV on channel 5, went on the air in Cleveland, in 1947, it was in fact the only TV station in all of northeastern Ohio until 1948, when channel 4, then WNBK-TV (for W N B Kcleveland; WNBC had already been assigned to the NBC TV affiliate, the network's flagship station in New York), signed on in the area. (Later, channel 4 was moved to channel 3, when the NBC affiliate in Detroit went on the air; the move was made to avoid co-channel interference with the Cleveland station, and vice-versa.)

Channel eight, then (as now) WJW-TV, signed on in 1949 and was a CBS affiliate from then until some 40 years later; the station then gave up its CBS TV affiliation and dumped it onto channel 19, a wrong-headed move if I ever saw one. The latter being a UHF station broadcasting at full allowable power (over three million watts ERP), it was all but unwatchable in much if not most of northern Ohio unless you had a good outdoor antenna, and even then many Cleveland suburbs (I lived in one then) did not receive the station, very well or at all. If I had lived at that time (mid-1980s) where I live now (an area about 30 miles from Cleveland and 40+ miles southwest of the city's TV stations' towers), I probably would not have been able to get channel 19 at all without a huge antenna, cable or satellite. Today, most everyone in this area has cable or satellite so TV reception problems are, for the most part, a thing of the past.

[TVTim]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

I got this at the same place I got your '72 15" RCA BW with remote (unit missing)

Does that mean our TVs are related?? LOL