Some additional items from the press....

After the March 1945 press conference, RCA placed full page ads in various newspapers -- the examples I have appeared in the New York Herald Tribune -- including one on May 7, 1945 -- "RCA Home TELEVISION almost as big as a newspaper page" that includes a drawing showing the optical path of the innovative Schmidt optical system.

Then from the Herald Tribune, September 5, 1947, a brief item from the Associated Press --

"RCA Offers Big Screen Television Receiver -- A new, large screen television receiver producing pictures nearly as large as a newspaper page will be on the market within a month, RCA Victor Division of Radio Corp. of America announced today (9-4-47).

The set will be available in both walnut and mahogany, will retail for $1,195 plus $11 Federal excise tax. Purchasers will also pay an additional $95 for an owner's policy covering antenna, installation and a year's service and maintenance for the set.

The set offers a 15 by 20 inch picture with the image about five times as bright as the average motion picture said Henry G. Baker, general sales manager of the home instrument department."

Somewhere among the preceding posts I understand this receiver came from southern Illinois; the specific community has not been stated.

Purchase in 1947/8 would coincide with the February 8, 1947 air date of KSD-TV, channel 5, St. Louis, Mo. licensed to the Post-Dispatch newspaper. This was the country's first new post-war TV station, 100% RCA equipped with much of the equipment air-freighted from Camden to St. Louis. KSD-TV began with a rather modest initial transmitter/tower/antenna set-up that provided limited coverage confined to the immediate St. Louis metro area. Later that year, a 3-element RCA "Turnstile" antenna pole-mounted atop a new 500 ft. self-supporting tower on the Post-Dispatch Annex in downtown St. Louis (1111 Olive st.) broadened coverage considerably. Visual ERP was 16kW; aural 8 kW while height above average terrain was 530 ft. The transmitter was an RCA TT-5A. The tower still stands incidentally though no longer used for TV.

A lengthy article the following year in Electrical Merchandising magazine discusses the marketing of television receivers in the Greater St. Louis area. This revives old memories of the post-war lust for television pushing into the deepest of fringe areas that provoked construction of tall masts, elaborate antennae, boosters and other miraculous paraphernalia. Audio with perhaps a snowy picture was quite acceptable but after all, it was TV! Although KSD-TV's regular, reliable signal covered only the half-dozen counties in the St. Louis SMSA, the EM article cites reception in dozens of areas a hundred miles or more from downtown St. Louis!

Sams did sometimes publish production change bulletins. Perhaps some kind person with a paper Sams index could check for you.

Another possibility is to get out some paper and a pencil and start drawing a schematic of what you find in the chassis. With it drawn out, things should start to make sense.

Easy, Steve. Steady! The Boys will see you though this, as they have myself, countless times...

I've encountered two Sam's errors. The first was a cap being off by a factor of 10 on either the schematic or parts list (not sure which) of my 53' Zenith.
The second was on my 63' space command "portable"(PINO portable in name only). It worked, but the tuner motor needed a lube to move, and the channel change transformer on the remote chassis was off frequency... so after the lube I ,as the last task of the night, detuned the volume change transformer because sam's had the adjacent channel xfmr and vol xfmr completely in the reverse configuration from what was in my set ! So the next morning I had to readjust both! I suppose I should count my blessings and be happy Zenith uses seperate remote chassis other wise I may have ended up detuning an IF xfmr!

Verry nice restoration so far. You are making me want something I don't have room for.

I'm sure you will sort it out eventually.

Were rooting for you!

Tom C.

Steve, that set is filled with rubber wiring, especiallyin in the amp.
Rubber rots. Also, RCA's cloth wiring doesn't seem to hold up very well, either.
Those resistors were cheaply made. The insulation breaks down. Bang! They short, and, go open.....
That resistor bank also covers negative bias. That's why you sill see one positive filter section connected to chassis.
Chassis is about 100 volts positive above B-.
Bill Cahill
You wanted RCA.. Now ya got it!
Don't worry. We'll help ya..............

After a lengthy phone conversation with ChuckA last afternoon, I took the resister package completely out of circuit and we was able to determine that it was fine. There are several glaring wiring schematic errors in the Sam's manual for the audio amplifier chassis. Several wire wound resisters are completely omitted from the diagram yet they appear on the parts list and are clearing showing on the pictures of the underside chassis views. The bottom line is all the caps are changed out and now I just have to replace point to point wiring (about 10 wires). RCA must have had different plants making the different chassis, TV chassis is all fabric wire for the P to P connections where as the audio chassis is all rubber insulated wire.

Last night I changed out all the cap's on the TV chassis but haven't tackled the multi-filter caps on it yet. I'm going to go after those this weekend. While replacing caps on the TV chassis last evening I found several broken wire connections that needed to be re-soldered back onto their terminal connectors, all and all this chassis is behaving and matching to the schematic.

I'm going to turn my efforts back to the p to p wiring replacement on the audio amp tonight. I should have a couple of pics this evening of that finished.

Thanks for all the support guys!

Steve

If you come to good stopping points, post some pictures and descriptions of your work. I'm totally blown out by that TV. Its got to be one of the most interesting examples and definitely deserves the attention you are giving it.

BTW, is that TV covered in one of the early Rider Television manuals?

Carl

Yes.
Bill Cahill

Ok here is the two chassis'

Audio chassis is completely recap'ed, notice the three large 2000 ohm resisters, thes do not show on the schematic! Also take a close look at the point to point wiring, it's all dry rot.

before


after


I need to do all the multi filters and those last three caps, still waiting for them to arrive.

Before


after

I like the looks of a freshly recapped chassis.
I'm not a purist - I'd rather see Orange Drops and Yellow capacitors rather then those bland brown period correct capacitors. It looks clean and neat.

I see your TV is coming along nicely.

Carl

Carl

I like the space it opens up in the chassis, it makes other repairs easier to work on, your not reaching around the bulk that the old capacitors have.

Steve

I am a Purist. I lo-ove restuffing old wax paper caps, dipping them in wax, and resoldiering them to their age old positions.

When I get through recapping a chassis, I like it so it's reset to 1947, or whenever it was assembled. I'm kinda wierd...

I've just read the thread and had to congratulate you on the beautiful job you have done on that set. That is a lot of work! I wish I had the perseverance you have shown in your restoration. By the way, if that set sold for $995 in 1948, the equivalent price in today's dollars would be $9,226.17! Good luck!

I considered doing that with my DuMont, and in fact I saved every single old cap, if I ever wanted to do it. But with 120 or so caps that it would need to be done on, it would delay my graduation date...

Lee,

I wouldn't go so far as saying "I love restuffing old caps", but you do get a sense of satisfaction when it's done.
This is my DuMont 181, top picture is of the original caps, bottom is after new ones installed:

Hi Chuck

Very impressive! I can appreciate those who re-stuff them, but I don't have the patience or drive for doing that.

When working on capacitors the love is gone for me when I start removing the Multi-cap electrolytic filters. I hate the rats nest of wiring that is always involved to remove them!

Steve

Exactly, Chuck. I like "resetting" the Chassis back to ex-factory condition, or as close as I can get it. These beasts are getting rarer...

I feel more like a restorer than a repairer, not that there isn't anything less noble than a good TV Tech. Those guys have superior troubleshooting skills than I...

It goes without saying, you're good, Chuck.

BTW, when I restuff 'em, I fill 'em with Hot Glue, THEN dip them in a dark amber colored wax.

The Hot Glue has a higher melting point (I believe) than candle wax, so they don't seep when they get hot. The dark amber wax is (usually) appropriate as a final color coating.

I've seen and used other color waxes at times. Dark Red, for example...

I thought about restuffing the caps in my DuMont, but I found that they were not sealed with wax. It looked about the same color as wax but would not melt. I settled for using Panasonic caps which are a sort of dark red/brown in color. They do not change the appearance of the chassis as much as yellow and orange caps do.

Sorry to nitpick but I think those are what justradios.com calls "Orange Dips" not to be confused with true Sprague "Orange Drops".

I'm torn on the topic of restuffing. I like the way new, smaller caps really open up the chassis too. It also allows for more airflow. On the other had authenticity is a nice touch and restuffing is kinda fun

Anyone come up with a way to restuff bumblee caps ?

Back on topic - it's looking great so far and I've got my fingers crossed for ya.