New project - Canadian RCA CTC 38

[maxhifi]

More time with the tv - I only had one 6gh8 in my tube stash and used it to replace the weak one I found yesterday. Tonight for fun swapped the video and sync 6gh8s which both tested good. Now I have a stable picture and noise on the video. Going to put a want to buy Ad for a sleeve of five 6gh8 tubes... These Are living up to their reputation! Tv is awesome though thanks all for contributions!!

[DaveWM]

Still want to see some video!

[maxhifi]

Some photos

[maxhifi]

iPhone is making me post these one at a time for some reason

[maxhifi]

Didn't bother to make a video yet but will do when I have free time, pic is still a bit wavy at the top. Lack of buzz in the sound kind of amazes me I never knew old tvs could work so well

[DavGoodlin]

Wow, that IS clean. Takes me back to my youth when I saw lots of these.
I had a CTC38XAH in a metal cabinet. Squarish VHF knob unlike yours.
We loved the tilt-out controls on those.
The sync was touchy as I recall but it made a very nice picture and the tuner was definetly better than the GE, Motorola and Magnavox sets of the same vintage.

[maxhifi]

I was watching Netflix on it last night and it is almost shocking to me how well skin tones are displayed once you dial it in properly, I was watching
This crappy documentary about someone who found alternate meaning in the movie the shining - the scenes they showed from the movie were like photographs on the screen, this tv is a major upgrade from my 16 inch chromacolor portable in terms of performance.

[maxhifi]

This is a 16 x 9 program, can see the bend at the top of the screen I mentioned earlier

[mstaton]

Looks like Top Gear. Looks like you need to adjust your pin cushin

[maxhifi]

[QUOTE=mstaton;3090158]Looks like Top Gear. Looks like you need to adjust your pin cushin[/Q

Good idea! I was thinking capacitors but this really helped

[BigDavesTV]

Good score, that sure is a very nice looking and low hours CTC 38! I have two CTC 38s one working, one not yet :-) The working set I have, is in a nice, Italian provincial style cabinet, both are 25" with 25XP22 CRT' s.

[maxhifi]

I found out that I actually have a spare chassis for my new TV, which is awesome... got it a couple years ago with a bunch of stuff from an old TV repair man I bought my Silvertone roundie from, so I am covered for a significant number of the harder to find repair parts. To be honest I don't really like watching the roundie as much as the CTC38, to me the CTC38 is a "normal" TV, and I can watch it as though it's brand new, where I can never forget that the round screen Silvertone isn't giving me the whole picture.

I don't think the wave at the top of the screen is totally pincushion related, I got it looking better but it's still not perfect. It also has a little bit of a bend in the vertical direction, I am thinking the electrolytic capacitors are approaching design life and could stand to be retired. My 38 also has some purity issues (red looks a bit pink in one corner), and the greyscale needs to be adjusted. Once I get the Sams and a full new set of 6GH8 tubes I will pull the chassis and change all the electrolytic capacitors, then give it a basic setup - adjust purity, touch up static convergence check dynamic convergence (hopefully I don't have to do much with it!!), set grey scale and cutoff, adjust AGC and color killer, etc etc... I want it at its best.


Mine also has a 25XP22 CRT, I am very happy with the picture quality in general, aside from the fact it is old and needs a bit of a tune-up. I see a lot of potential though.

I am not sure what to call the style of my cabinet... I'd call it late 60s rec room, it won't win any design awards but at least the condition makes up for the lack of awesome design. I really want this TV to be in the living room but need to figure out where to put it so it doesn't make things look too junky.

[Gunslinger]

I should have parts for that beast. Knobs, IF transistors, etc (OEM's)

[maxhifi]

It IS a beast... don't need any parts I know of right now, but that could change, so I will keep this on file. After Christmas it is going to get new electrolytic capacitors. It is operating quite acceptably right now, but red purity is lousy, and there's a bit of noise in the video from a bad 6GH8. There's a couple magenta blobs on the screen which ruin an otherwise nice colour performance too. Once it's up against the wall and not sitting in the middle of the room its a bit less massive and actually looks quite nice. I was trying to avoid doing a dynamic convergence adjustment but I think that its going to have to happen too.

[zenith2134]

You lucky dog. That is in as-new condition!
CTC38s didn't have such a great reputation, I've read. However the picture looks quite good from what I can tell.