[Bob Andersen]

I was hanging out with some friends this afternoon and spied this in one of their garages. He said 'sure you can have it' so I brought it home. The front plastic bezel has been damaged and it's missing some knobs and trim, but otherwise it looks OK.
I think this was one of the last Philco sets for the North American market.
[Image: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7126/74699...72f9_z.jpg] [Image: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8163/74699...c86c_z.jpg]

[Image: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7135/74703...db61_z.jpg] [Image: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8020/74703...4530_z.jpg]

Most, if not all, of the tubes are branded Philco "cool chassis". Some have gone to air though.
They did quite a job packing all the components into such a small space. It's a very heavy "portable" though.
The 19ABP4 CRT tests very strong. Does anyone out there have a better cabinet, knobs etc ? Regardless, I'll do my best to bring it back to life
[Image: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8165/74703...9b3d_z.jpg] [Image: http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8018/74703...cb2d_z.jpg]

[Bob Andersen]

I went through all the pain of unmounting the circuit boards and replaced all the paper caps and resistors.
Also, all but two of the original tubes were very weak and replaced.
[Image: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7257/75812...a2b1_c.jpg]

After a hiccup or two, I was treated to a full raster. No video or sound, but I'm making progress.
[Image: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7139/75850...0116_z.jpg]

[Glenn Roberts]

Nice!! Progress is good. That is a pretty cool looking "portable".

Glenn

[w4rtc]

Hi
I have been watching your progress with this set on youtube, interesting. I was in TV repair in the late fifties-early sixties (before solidstate) I hated to work on those portable sets. But I enjoy watching this as you go along, keep up the good work.
Joe

[codefox1]

Looks like a hum bar, HK leakage. Is this a mission or a crusade?

[Bob Andersen]

Thanks guys. That bar is just from the camera being out of sync with the frame rate. It's neither a mission or crusade, I just like fixing vintage TVs. A good cabinet will show up someday.

[codefox1]

Aye. Didn't mean to discourage anyone. Avocation would be more accurate, I reckon. Been a real long time, but seems to me that you have a raster, which is a really good sign. Nowadays you need to get a known good cable box and shoot into channel 3 or 4 to get anything at all in most parts of earth. Of course an old fashioned VCR can provide audio video signals to be injected for diagnostic purposes.

If you are lucky enough to have schematics/ voltage charts, you can also follow the volts across the voltage dividers, and see if there is a point of failure.

Probsbly yu hae thought of all of this before, but remember, others are reading this.

Best of Luck.

[Bob Andersen]

Yes, I do have a full copy of the Sams. We still have a low power analog broadcast on channel 6 in Chicago that I use while testing.
All the voltages are fine except for the AGC buss. It's way off - should be around -.5 to -2 volts, but I have -45 volts. That's killing any signal from getting through.

[Bob Andersen]

Progress!
Rather than pulling the set apart, I did some more experimenting.
Finally, it occurred to me to just hook up a battery to the AGC bus (like when doing an alignment) to force it into the correct voltage range.
That got me some harsh video and sound.
I disconnected the battery and was surprised to still have sound and video. After some head scratching, I realized that if I rotated the contrast control to one extreme I could get sound and video without forcing the AGC bus.
So maybe it just comes down to a bad contrast control ? More testing later tonight....
[Image: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7246/75929...3062_z.jpg]

[codefox1]

Yes a bad control can be hard to diagnose or find. I'd shoot all of 'em with deoxit, call it a day, hope for the best and fire it up tomorrow. Didn't realize any analog TV existed any more. Ready to put a large spike up wher the sun don't shine to cable company.

[John R]

Analog Class A TV, LPTV (low power) & TV translators have until 1 Sept. 2015 to convert to digital. A good percentage have already converted. Full service TV (full power) had to convert by 2009.

[Bob Andersen]

Yep, it was the contrast control alright. I tacked in a replacement until I can track down the proper control.
[Image: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7126/75957...10db6b.jpg] [Image: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7134/75957...240e19.jpg]

[Radioroslyn]

Hey Bob
It make a nice pic!!!
Terry

[Glenn Roberts]

Good looking picture.

[Arran]

To think that one of the no minds on You Tube commented on how crappy early 60s tvs were in respose to viewing a video of an unrestored RCA set with a CTC 11 chassis. I know one thing, even a cheap B&W TV from the early 60s will outlive a brand new Asian made flat panel. It's a shame that now that they have high def TV there isn't any programing worth watching.
Regards
Arran