Does your electrostatic do this cool thing?

[Carmine]

The prettiest light show is from a 68 Zenith color console which puts out a psychedelic kaleidoscope that lasts a few seconds.

Yup, here too!

Had an RCA HiLite 21FJP22 that did the same thing, but really dim. Just enough to notice it. Spooky to wake up at 2am and see that roundie outline just abut glowing...

Wow, same thing here. I used to have a roundie in my bedroom when I still lived w/my parents. It was creepy to see only that roundie "eye" glowing in a totally dark room.

We also had a Sony Trinitron 13" set, from about 1980 that would glow pretty bright for a long time...

My brother's mid 80's Zenith has such an agressive natural glow to the CRT

Since we've mentioned Zenith & Sony, might this have something to do with a high-quality CRT?

[Adam]

""Even worse is my tek 545A scope. The screen *glows*. Hasn't been on for months but glows anyway.""

I have one of those and it does exactly the same thing. It worried me for a while, I would unplug it and then still see it glowing. But then I read something somewhere about some of these old scope tubes having two layers of phosphor, the outer one of which is light-sensitive. So I took a flashlight and shined a focused beam of light at only part of the screen, and sure enough after I took the light away the screen glowed brightly where the light hit it and nowhere else. I also have a 515A that is the same way.

[Charlie]

My '59 Motorola 21" B&W floor model used to do the dot in the middle of the screen. It would take roughly 5 minutes to slowly fade away. I just figured it was normal since I remember sets doing this when I was a kid.

This was when I first got it... and the set didn't play correctly anyway. Took me a long time to find the little bug causing the bad picture... it was one of those peaking coils... and it was well hidden in a little can. This was my first experience with Moto's failure-prone coils (I remember many people here spoke of them often).

After I changed the coil, the picture was perfect. Later, after I finished playing with the set for the day, I turned it off and quickly noticed that the little dot went away quickly... within a couple of seconds. Never again did that dot hang around. I don't know what difference the new peaking coil could have made for the dot, but, it apparently did something. That was the only thing I ever changed in this set, so, I have no other parts to blame it on.

I have a late 60's Truetone portable 21" b&w that does the same exact thing... bad picture and the dot when you turn it off. Will be interesting to see if it has a bad peaking coil... and if replacing it fixes both the bad pic AND the dot.

[markthefixer]

I was in the hospital in march of 2003, in the ICU, but I was alert...
I had a tv that when "OFF" at night I could STILL see program reception.
I thought I was NUTS for a while....

Couldn't SAY anything about it, I was intubated and on a ventilator..
Just imagine trying to get THAT across using charades or on a written note....

Until I finally got a remote in my hands and started turning the thing on and off and actually following program content after my eyes adjusted to the dark... on programs I had never seen before, switching across cable channels.

Turns out off really wasn't zero power. leakage?? circuitry??? hv shutdown??

It's not ghosting as in the rest of the thread, so sorry for the hijack.

[old_tv_nut]

Mark: If you're seeing a normal-size image, it's almost sure everything is running except that the video has been biased (almost) off

Charlie, I bet that peaking coil carries DC that bleeds off the video supply, and if it's open, the bleed can only happen through the CRT. [Just a guess -if you think I KNOW what I'm talking about, I will now explain Einstein's relativity.....]

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

Just a guess -if you think I KNOW what I'm talking about, I will now explain Einstein's relativity.....

Hey, no worries! I have a friend that would actually blame it on the flux-capacitor!

[domfjbrown]

Originally Posted by markthefixer

I was in the hospital in march of 2003, in the ICU, but I was alert...
I had a tv that when "OFF" at night I could STILL see program reception.
I thought I was NUTS for a while....

Perhaps it was a telescreen, and Big Brother really WAS watching you

#14, you mentioned that pulling the line cord rather than using the on/off control was causing problems.

I have my Admiral bakelite set hooked up to a VCR for tuner (remote control) purposes only, but the VCR doesn't have a switched outlet. I've tried to find an old analog cable box with a switched outlet without success. So I've put an in-line switch on the power (extension) cord for the TV, and this is how it gets turned on & off. Does anyone know if I'm asking for trouble with this practice?

[rcaman]

here is what rca says. afterglow is a condition where some portion of the screen remains lit for a period of time after the set has been turned off. the duration of afterglow dedends on on the high voltage bleed off rate at the second anode of the picture tube. the bleedoff rate tends to be slower in a low leakage tube. hence a better than normal tube may exhibit more longer afterglow. the brightness and contrast setting at turn off the bleedoff rate will be faster.

this condition is quite normal and picture tubes exhibiting this condition are not eligible for warranty concerderation.

[bgadow]

I'd say if anything this would be a better arrangement since there is less wear & tear on the power switch. Oftentimes they are none to sturdy.

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by rp2813

#14, you mentioned that pulling the line cord rather than using the on/off control was causing problems.

I have my Admiral bakelite set hooked up to a VCR for tuner (remote control) purposes only, but the VCR doesn't have a switched outlet. I've tried to find an old analog cable box with a switched outlet without success. So I've put an in-line switch on the power (extension) cord for the TV, and this is how it gets turned on & off. Does anyone know if I'm asking for trouble with this practice?

If it hasn't burned the tube, then it's not a problem with this design. The Motos that had the problem had some sort of complicated multi-pole power switch to provide instant-on capability, IIRC. And as another post says, you are saving the switch in the set.

[markthefixer]

Originally Posted by domfjbrown

Perhaps it was a telescreen, and Big Brother really WAS watching you

With all the tubes and wires, they didn't need to see me to know what I was doing...
Occasionally with a visitor, a nurse would come in and tell my visitor that unless some particular reading got back where it should be, visiting hours were over......

[bgadow]

Just tonight I was finishing up on the 630TS & had the 10BP4 out & face up in my lap so I could clean it. Yep, I saw some small but distinct flashes on the edge of the screen while I was holding it. I thought maybe static related but I could not duplicate it.