The design of all new TV sets these days makes it impossible to repair
the set unless you are a qualified technician and have special tools
and equipment, to wit, a controlled-temperature soldering station (a
regular pencil iron or [gasp!] soldering gun won't work; you will
either make a poor connection if your iron is too small, or, at worst,
lift the foil off the PC board) and a bench full of other gear.
Thirty-plus years ago, I used to work on old TVs I'd rescue from my
neighbors' trash; these were mostly tube-powered sets with heavy metal
chassis, often handwired (e. g. Zenith, before Gold Star bought them
out) in those days, and often a new tube or two or a minor
adjustment--or even a small part, such as a capacitor or
resistor--would get them working without much trouble. Today, however,
all new sets are made with surface-mounted components, crowded circuit
boards, scan-derived power supplies, and other things the old sets
never had. That has put me, and many former electronics experimenters
like me, out of the picture as far as being able to repair our own
sets is concerned--and to be perfectly honest about it, I miss the old
days. Today, the only way to have your TV repaired is to call in a
qualified technician who has access to a repair shop full of equipment
and to pay their very often sky-high prices. By way of example, my RCA
XL-100 19" color set, which I purchased new in 1999, works quite well
now on cable. However, the set has been repaired twice for the same
problem. The repair was not covered by the warranty, so I had to pay
the TV shop out of my own pocket both times.

The other thing which keeps average (read most) set owners from
repairing their own TVs are all the safety interlocks, shields,
barriers, etc. that must be replaced just as they were removed from
the set, otherwise the TV could create a shock, fire or X-ray hazard.
Also, the manner in which parts are mounted on PC boards in all new
TVs absolutely precludes service by anyone other than qualified
technicians, not to mention the tests for safety hazards, etc. which
must be performed after any new set has been serviced for major
problems such as no high voltage, etc. Without such tests being
performed, the TV has not been properly repaired and, as I mentioned,
could be unsafe.

Television repair in the 21st century has been taken out of the
hands of set owners, who "repair" their sets these days by taking them
to high-priced repair shops. The problem is that most TV shops perform
only warranty repairs these days, and will not touch sets more than a
few years old. I have seen posts to this forum advising that owners of
such old sets (such as Zenith System 3 sets of the '80s and RCA's
original XL-100s from the '70s, et al.) scrap them at once and buy a
brand new TV. These days it is not uncommon to see RCA Guide Plus TVs
and Zenith System 3s, etc. from just a few years ago on treelawns and
curbs, all because the parts needed to repair them are NLA. It is no
longer practical to spend large sums of money on repairs to today's
RCA or Zenith TVs (unless they are the big projection or HD sets which
cost $1000 or more). The Zenith/GS sets are unreliable as all get-out
anyhow, with all their circuit problems, CRT issues and other things
which have been reported with them, and RCA is just as bad. I have a
Zenith 19" TV (SMS1917SG) which was new in 1995 and which still works
well today (I had it on recently and found it is working almost as
well as when it was new). No issues, yet, anyhow, with the CRT or any
other part of this set, or with the circuitry or CRT of my living-room
RCA XL-100.

I have a question, though. With all the comments I've read in this
forum regarding the poor reliability of Zenith TVs, and given the fact
that my 1995 Zenith SMS1917SG still works very well on cable for
having almost nine years on it (with the original CRT, which is still
working and producing a decent picture), I wonder. Did I just happen
to get a good set by the luck of the draw?

Thanks for reading this. Happy New Year.

Jeff Strieble, WB8NHV (mailto: )
Fairport, Ohio