My strange new-to-me zenith

[jpdylon]

This was originally on ebay, then it was put out on the street, where Adam promptly picked it up and was storing it in his apartment, then decided to let it go, where I picked it up this afternoon --thanks Adam BTW. Got to see the beastly buick while I was there as well. Definitely a nice cruzin car.

The cabinet will need refinishing, but the 21YP4 tests great and the set basically functions. I don't think the control door is original, it says vhf on the lef and UHF on the right, but AFAIK this is a VHF only set. The volume knob is stripped and will not grab the shaft. I'm wondering if anything cosmetic wise on this set is original.

Also, the numbers on the tuning knob are in no order at all. It goes from 2 4 5 7 9 11 13 3 6 8 10 and 12. The green translucent center is odd as well.

The yoke is also crumbling to dust. The back part of the assembly with the centering magnets has separated from the rest of the yoke, and trying to epoxy it back together just makes it fall apart more.

I really like the look of the CRT mask. This is also another tube with a vertical face. The safety glass follows the vertical curve and from a distance the set looks like a trinitron.

Yet another project taking up valuable space, but it at least looks cool doing so. I'll get to it when I have some spare time. The new job doesn't allow for much "free time"

[Bill Cahill]

Hi. The door is original. It was made that way for eventuality you might add uhf. Not sure on some of the knobs, though. Set looks worth saving to me. Bill Cahill

[kbmuri]

Attached a pic of the front knobs on my similar set. Your red "Fine---Tuning" knob and the "Hor Hold" knob with the pointer are identical to mine. Zenith seemed ok with having a completely unmatching hodgepodge of knobs under the trap door, in both of our sets at least. I'd guess all of them are original. Mine has channel numbers out of order too. I think dealer setup was to bunch the local stations together for convenience.

[David Roper]

As far as the crazy mixed up channel selector, the order of earlier Zenith sets like yours looks more practical in the areas that follow a traditional allocation pattern. In the New York City area for instance, your TV displays one channel after another after another with no breaks from 2 to 13 with the snowy channels are all bunched together. Even in my area where the only VHF channels are 3, 8, and 13, with the Zenith channel selector they're all huddled together. However, the fact that Zenith shuffled the channel selector order in a different mixed up pattern later in the fifties lends creedence to the opinion of those that say it was never really anything but a gimmick to begin with.

[bgadow]

I'm glad to finally hear the explanation for that arrangement. And it makes perfect sense. Locally both Baltimore and DC stations can be picked up with a good antenna, so you could hit every channel on the air in those cities from 2-13 without a dead channel; north of here, in the the Philadelphia market you could go 3-12 without a dead channel (counting 8 in Lancaster). Replace the dead VHF strips with ones for local UHF stations and you have a very neat arrangement.

[Adam]

The channels here in LA are exactly like that too: 2-4-5-7-9-11-13, and nothing on 3-6-8-10-12. You might be able to get something on some of those if you got more than just indoor antennas, but there's nothing local. Up in San Jose it's similar but not exactly: 2-4-5-7-9-11 (11 is local the others are from San Francisco), but with a good rotating roof-top antenna you can pull in 8 from Monterey, and 3-6-10-13 from Sacramento, but there's nothing even remotely close on 12.

[kbmuri]

From a 1955 Herald-Tribune TV listing. Note the channel numbers.

My set was sold in central Indiana. The knob numbers are out of order, but a different order than yours. Soon as I find a TV Guide from 1950 from Muncie, Indiana I'll verify it against the channel knob. Might not be an easy find.