VICA 123-S TV set.
Work in progress!
This set came along and could not resist it. I do not have many Spanish TV sets, so I thought this would be an interesting venture.
When the set arrived, it reminded me of a boxy early ‘60s Sobell TV. I gave it a quick inspection and looked for obvious damage or faults. Cleaned out some dust and dirt. With the back off, it reminded me very much of a Philips set. The build quality was very good, all components hand wired, neatly soldered with leads bent at right angles and all angled at 90 degrees to each other, looking smart. At time of writing, I cannot find any detail of this set and no schematics. So, with current limiter on, I set about a slow power up. Hang on a minute, I know Spain had a mains supply of 120V years ago…. A quick check on the back plate and indeed, the rating was 127VAC! That would have been a silly mistake. Let the set resting at around 60V for 10 mins and current seemed stable. Gently wound up the supply to 100V. Got to about 115 and noticed the current limiter bulb flicker and before I could reach for the power, there was a small flash and a puff of smoke from a resistor on the left hand side of the chassis. This seemed to be connected to a pin on a PCL84. This valve is normally used for video output. Checked for obvious shorts but couldn’t find anything on cold tests. Not having a spare PCL84 to hand, I wound up the power again, watching carefully.
Nothing smokey going on and I could hear a frame timebase rumble. Had a quick look at the screen and to my amazement, I had a raster. Full screen and no bottom cramping as we all have with an old set. Now these sets are 625 line with a VHF turret tuner only. Spent ages looking for my video modulator, nowhere to be seen. But, the Philips pattern generator had a VHF modulator. So, applied a signal and managed to get an unlocked image. Then remembered I was running at 90V not 120. As soon as I gave her full volts, the image snapped in. The tube looked very nice for a set that was early 60s.
Had no volume and after the output valve to refitted, I had background hiss and crackle but no modulation signal could be heard. If I detuned the set quite a bit, I could hear a faint tone. So, I guess the burnt resistor around the PCL84, which is in the IF section, must be an issue.
Well, keep looking for a diagram and then can get to work and restore the audio. But, nice set with a good tube, so worth continuing with. More to follow.
