Hi all, I'm way out of my depth here and hoping for some advice on a
couple of fronts.

I have a Magnavox TS2560-B101 that my brother gave me when he bought a
big screen TV. I'm not sure how old it is, but I've had it a year or
two and worked just fine until tonight. Problem is, I don't have the
manual and I can't find one online.

So my first problem: where on earth is that little plastic door you
open to fool with the settings like vertical hold and things like that?
The remote on this includes settings like brightness, but no vertical
or horizontal hold. Do these things not exist anymore?

Second: The TV just went screwy tonight, and in reading online and
doing a search of this ng, I'm pretty sure it's the horizontal sync. It
starts getting this blob that moves from left to right, and then the
whole screen is diagonal and broken up. I checked a repair faq online
and it had some pictures, and my problem seems to be the horizontal
sync. It does it immediately when I start the tv, then sometimes clears
for a bit, then back and forth. This just happened an hour or two ago,
so I can't really tell you if it only happens when the set is cold and
so on. It seems very random so far.

I actually thought it was the cable at first, because I could turn on
the VCR and it didn't do it. While I was on hold with cable to report
the problem, I had a tape in for testing, and then it happened on the
tape as well. But it doesn't seem to be as prevalent on tape as it does
live tv if that makes sense.

In reading online, I read something about turning up the brightness,
and that did seem to help (though the breakup still happened eventually
and then went back to okay).

So, as a temporary measure until I can get a repairman here, I'd like
to find the control for horizontal hold and fiddle with that to see if
I can fix it.

Then, I need to call a repairman, and I'm new in town so don't know
anybody. Should I just call someone out of the phone book? Any tips on
not getting ripped off? (I have had some very negative experiences with
repairmen who realized I know nothing about appliances or home repairs.
I *know* there are decent repair guys out there...just how to find one
and kind of bluff that I know what's going on. Otherwise I end up with
a new picture tube.)

Thanks for listening and any advice you can give. This was totally out
of the blue and unexpected.

Ruby