Chris,

First, let me warn you that I'm an audio servicer, not a TV guy.

Several years ago, I had the same problem with my own Sony KV-20TS27
(1991 vintage). A friend of mine who works on TV's all the time had me
remove the tuner and resolder lots of grounds, especially the ones made
by fitting the outer shields on the tuner block. It seems that Sony (or
the tuner mfg.) relied on the bent metal tabs going to pins coming up
from the PC board to make some important grounds. Soldering them made
the covers (shields) much harder to remove if you needed to, but did fix
the tuner.

I have no idea if this will apply to your 1999 vintage set, though he
indicated that it was a common problem in the tuners Sony used.

Regards,
Tim Schwartz
Bristol Electronics


"Chris F." wrote:

Got this 32" Sony right now, don't have the model # handy but it's a '99
model. Nothing but snow with a few barely visible lines, looks like it's
trying to tune something in but not succeeding. A/V input works fine. The
customer was not in possesion of it when it quit, so they aren't sure if it
was hit by lightning or not.
To confirm that the tuner was bad, I first checked all supply voltages to
the tuner - all were perfect. I then injected a signal into the IF output of
the tuner - this produced a good solid image. That probably confirms a bad
tuner, but I want to be absolutely sure before I replace it (a replacement
runs about $150). I don't have a lot of experience with tuners because
customers seldom ever bother to have them replaced.
So have I diagnosed this properly? Or is there anything else I should
check?
Thanks for any advice.