So I saw a post by a local guy giving away an old TV for free. He was told it worked the last time it had been powered up about 20 years ago. I got it yesterday, plugged it in and twiddled the knobs for a bit to get this showing (300K JPEG) on the tube. It looks ok, but it seems that the intelace isn't working. THe bright bar at the bottom of the imageis a squshed version of the above, leading me to thing that the set isn't sweeping back to draw the interlaced image. Anyone know if a 1958 set would do interlacing, or know more about tube/valve electronics to diagnose it? Other than that the set tunes to the local stations fine and the sound is almost perfect. I wouldn't expect tube generated sound through an 8-10" speaker to be nearly as tinny as the modern sets I have with pairs of 3" speakers. That one big speaker has great bass.
The TV is a Zenith C2358W w/ chassis 18C20 ca. 1958.
I'm guessing the problem has something to do with a bad vacuum tube. Those original TVs needed constant repair, mostly because of dead vacuum tubes. (Whenever you see a TV show or movie set in the 1950s, and there's a repairman there, what kind of repairman is it? That's right -- a TV repairman.)
I dunno how worthwhile getting that thing up and running will be -- but it would be great as the basis for any number of hacks.
Replacement tubes seem to go for $1-10, so when I find a repair shop or local radio enthu. w/ a tube tester I'll have to get them checked out. I've got plans to see if a local industrial rock band would want to use it as part of their stage show. It'd be pretty cool to have the old set showing video instead of just using a projector onto a 3' screen like alot of industrial groups.
The old capacitors from the 50s-60s weren't well made, and they tended to go leaky. Most of them are well and truly leaky by now
Look for suspect caps, they're often made of wax paper from what I'm told. I seem to recall there being quite a few websites about identifying them.
You may also want to check repairfaq.org
I managed to get the interlace working, but the video still isn't great. I just took out a few vaccum tube and reseted them and wiped the dust off a few. I'll take the time to clean each one and reinsert them to be sure I'm getting a good connection. Then, if it's still wonky, it's off to find a local with a tube tester... And I've got some really great contacts in the local radio community that know who to talk to.
Oh, and audio wise, that 10" is a sub. It's got a pair of tweeters that I didn't think were speakers be cause they were hiding behind a couple cover plates. And it still sounds great.
My fiancee has an old 19" Westinghouse tv that was gutted when she got it. I managed to mount a 17" crt monitor into it, and am creating a video player with a g3 in it.
iantm