Show us your vintage B&W sets!

[jshorva65]

I learned most of what I know from the "oldtimers" around where I grew up. Back in the 70's, I suggested to one tech that a pair of selenium stacks should be replaced with silicon diodes. I learned something that day and also did a bit of teaching. He said those stacks might not fail for another 10 years or more and replacing them would raise the B+ enough to need some compensation. Flipping back to the first page of the Sams, he read off the 1.8A current rating of the set (an old 19" B/W portable of some kind, metal case, knobs on top) and said "2-amp slo-blo pigtail" which he then went and got from the parts cabinet along with a length of clear plastic tubing. Unsoldering one lead from the on/off switch, he moved that lead to a nearby unused tube socket pin, soldered one end of the fuse there also, covered the fuse with the plastic tubing and soldered the other end to the switch lug where he had removed the original connection. At the time, I was maybe 14 and until that day my hanging around at the shop was sort of a nuisance to the oldtimers. The tech I was observing that day had been working on radio sets since 1941 and was from the "old school" of "if it ain't broke ..." and he thanked me for reminding him that safety precautions were often neglected in older sets and that's one more thing that it's our job to fix. He retired maybe ten years later and was about 80 when he died at the retirement home where my ex works.

I talked with a veteran technician from out in Arizona yesterday about a Farnsworth 661P at the request of someone from Texas who asked for my recommendation of a restoration shop that was closer to his location than Ohio. The conversation with someone in his 80s about this old gear reminded me of my years as a student. He doesn't have Internet access and only seemed vaguely aware that younger generations were taking an interest in old technology. I, of course, told him about AK and that his local library probably had Net access and people who could show him how to reach us. I also told him about Steve's museum and the Convention just in case he and his wife, who had initially answered the phone, might want to do a bit of traveling this or next year. He shared a few interesting stories about the CRT rebuild shops that used to operate in his area and how "some knew what they were doing, and some didn't" and he backed that statement up with one anecdote about some workers leaving some tubes in the oven with the vacuum pump running during a break. When the workers got back to their posts, these picture tubes were totally useless for anything "except maybe an ashtray" ... having been crushed flat when the heat of the tube oven softened the glass enough that the structure of the tube buckled under the pressure of the atmosphere.

[classicradios]

Thanks to all for the outstanding tips on restoring this RCA TV.
I just finished this one last night after hours of work. Eric you were right about this set being a pain to restore, I rate it right up there with the Holiday Predicta as a nightmare chassis to work on.
Someone in the past tack soldered a few caps on top of the board but I removed the bottom plate and installed "ALL" the caps properly. The set improved slowly as I re-capped the set (Including all electrolytics) But wasn't stable until I re-capped the board. Runs great now. The last thing I need to do is replace those Selenims, I tried the 1KV 600V diodes with resistors in series but they didn't work. I don't have the Sams for the proper voltage rating so I guessed with 300 ohm resistors no luck. The seleniums are behind the CRT so It's hard to get a probe back there to measure. The original seleniums are hooked up for now until I get the Sam's folder. I'll replace those seleniums for sure, I can take this set apart in my sleep now. Thanks again for all the help.
Jim

[Charlie]

Jim,

That RCA turned out great! I love that screen shot with Ralph and Alice! The expression on his face looks like she just shot him down good!

[classicradios]

Originally posted by Charlie
Jim,

That RCA turned out great! I love that screen shot with Ralph and Alice! The expression on his face looks like she just shot him down good!

Yeah,
Ralph isn't impressed with Alice's woman's work is never done speech, His response "Good Gosh!"

Originally posted by classicradios
Yeah,
Ralph isn't impressed with Alice's woman's work is never done speech, His response "Good Gosh!"

"Pins and needles, needles and pins, a happy man is a man that grins."

Anthony

[H2s04]

This my first B&W console. It needs all the tubes, including a new picture tube. The bakelite base is half missing and 2 of the 5 brittle wires are gone for ever. its ALSO missing the phono. I'd LOVE to have a chat with whom ever droped this set off at the dump! ARG

[Kamakiri]

What picture tube do you need?

[wa2ise]

I guessed with 300 ohm resistors no luck. The seleniums are behind the CRT so It's hard to get a probe back there to measure.

I'd use resistors around 5 to 10 ohms. It's a little hard to calculate the desired ohmage when working with a half wave rectifier with filter caps circuit. Most of the time the rectifier diode is not conducting. It does conduct for a brief period of time at the top of the AC waveform, to top off the filter cap. That makes for a relatively large current spike. This spike is about 20 times larger than the B+ current draw by the rest of the set from its power supply. A rough guess for that current would be around 200ma. Twenty times that comes out to 4 amps. and to lose 20V would mean a 5 ohm power resistor. 300 ohms aint gonna curt it

[Tim]

H2s04:

I think that is a 1953 set. We had the bakelite table top version as our first set when I was a kid. My dad replaced the CRT twice and I remember "helping" him. We used it as our main set until 1965 when we got our first color set. Hope you can get it running. If you can find a CRT, I'll donate whatever tubes I have to the cause.

[H2s04]

Kamakiri: I'm in need of a 21wp4x

Tim: You're correct, FEB 1953 is rubber stamped on the yoke mount. Thanks alot for the tube offer, but a some people on another message board have already chipped in to help.

[Tim]

You can try and e-mail this guy: [email protected]
He posted over on the ETF site that he had a bunch of CRTs for sale including a 21WP4. Good luck.

[classicradios]

Originally posted by wa2ise
I'd use resistors around 5 to 10 ohms. It's a little hard to calculate the desired ohmage when working with a half wave rectifier with filter caps circuit. Most of the time the rectifier diode is not conducting. It does conduct for a brief period of time at the top of the AC waveform, to top off the filter cap. That makes for a relatively large current spike. This spike is about 20 times larger than the B+ current draw by the rest of the set from its power supply. A rough guess for that current would be around 200ma. Twenty times that comes out to 4 amps. and to lose 20V would mean a 5 ohm power resistor. 300 ohms aint gonna curt it

You were right,
5 ohm / 5 watt resistors with the diodes work perfectly, The old seleniums are disconnected now. The current is 240ma according to the Sam's folder so the 5 ohm resistor is right on. Thanks again.
Jim

[bgadow]

Here I am, trying hard to get rid of tv's, and what do I do? Buy more! The story behind these: an elderly customer of mine has moved from his old farmhouse into an apartment. I mentioned that I collect radios/tv's. First he gave me an old Philco console radio from the barn. The story is that he never threw out any of the old stuff, just stashed it away somewhere. And thats where these came in-the old tv sets just got pushed upstairs when they stopped working. The one on the left is a Silvertone, 1954 model. The other is a 1960 Motorola. He says both have bad crts, something I usually take with a grain of salt. I tend to believe it on the Sears since it has a GE branded tube with a brightener, which would seem to point to years of hard use. Will have to put the tester on it-set is packed with black beauties so I know better than to even try it. The Motorola is loaded inside with tobacco gunk but has most of its original tubes, including HV. I carefully powered it up and I have audio but no hv, despite subbing all tubes in the circuit. Tommorow night I'll drag out my trusty Sencore sweep circuit troubleshooter and see what develops. Ironically, I just brought back to life a Motorola that is about a year older, a cheap table model. They are very similiar with the biggest difference being that the 59 is series filament and this one parallel. Last year I came across a collector who wanted to sell all his tvs and most of his radios. This included a Motorola console very close to this one. I walked on that deal because he hemmed and hawed on the price too much. Out of that whole lot this was the set I kept thinking I might want to call him on again-now I don't have to!

BTW, price on these was $15 each, which I, being a cheapskate, thought was too high. He said the cabinets were worth a lot...hmmm...sounds familiar?!

[Tony V]

Hi Bryan,
I have the same Silvertone as the one in your picture. The only difference is that mine has doors on the front of it and has the factory built in UHF tuner that is integral with the VHF tuner shafts. It tunes thru the knob behind the VHF selector. The CRT in mine had went to air and with it being a metal cone tube i ended up converting it to an all glass CRT which works well. Mine was missing the back so i dont have a clue what model it is but its a nice playing set. Mine also has the phono switch on it like some of the RCA's of that era had and its switched behind the front cover plate. The cool thing about this one is that when you flip the switch to phono, it turns off everything but the audio in the tv so no looking at a snowy picture while playing records. Nice finds! I like the cool swivel legs on the Motorola! Very retro.
Tony

[Jeffhs]

Originally posted by Tony V

The cool thing about this one is that when you flip the switch to phono, it turns off everything but the audio in the tv so no looking at a snowy picture while playing records. Nice finds! I like the cool swivel legs on the Motorola! Very retro.
Tony

Most TVs of early '50s vintage with phono inputs were set up to shut off the video circuits, even to the point of blanking the raster, when the record player was in use. I've seen a few of these sets in over thirty years of electronics experimenting, and even owned one. The one I owned was a 16" 1951 b&w roundie Majestic; the phono-radio switch was on the front panel, smack-dab in between the volume/contrast control and the tuner. My folks' first TV was a 1954 RCA Victor console like polaraman's (ours had the speaker at the side of the cabinet and two decorative vertical metal bars at the base, where the speakers are in his set), also with a phono input (we also had the matching 45-EY-3 45-rpm record changer, which sat atop the TV of course).

Speaking of the 45-EY-3 changer, I had one when I was a kid (the model with an integrated amplifier; the volume control was on the right side of the case, IIRC). The thing got pitched when we moved in 1972, again IIRC.

I know now, 32 years later, I should have kept the unit for the antique value of it, but I was just a kid then (16 years old). Besides, we were in a hurry to move, so a lot of stuff went out with the trash--including my 45 changer and a basement full of old TVs (including the Majestic roundie). Hated to part with those sets, especially a 23" Zenith b&w console I had rescued from a neighbor's trash and retubed from the ground up about three years earlier (it had no tubes in it except the HV rectifier and CRT when I found it), but again, I had no choice.