I have been browsing over this forum and see several RCA tv owners who have problems similar to mine. I hate to give up on my tv; it has that Guipe+ thing on it that is really a plus. Good not so old (2001) RCA 19" tube TV has slowly degraded picture to the point where most of the time I can listen to my programs but not see them. It started by collapsing the picture to the middle of the screen and choosing one color of the CRT to illuminate the scene, then popping out completely, then it would turn off and on again a few times, and then act normally for a few hours. Now, I am lucky to get 2 minutes of any video image at all.
At first I thought it must be the power supply to the CRT, but if so, it is very intermittent because it does work sometimes. The color choices had me thinking color ICs (or are they circuit boards still?) but then the full picture would display again for a while.
I have peered into the top back of the set and see orange lights, no green ones and the orange ones die out shortly after I turn the set on. I have some expertise with electronics, but I'd rather give this to a repair guy who knows his way around these sets if it can be saved. Anyone have a clue?
Sounds like bad connections on the picture tube socket, and or bad ground connections in or around the on board tuner. Good luck
If that's it, it will be a small fix. My thanks for any answer at all, and I hope it is the right one. I've ordered a smallish LCD tv which will make a good one for my computer room if I can get this RCA fixed cheaply. I've taken the RCA off-line until local TV guy can come pick it up. It does get very hot in the area of the TV, so maybe that could have contributed to the connections being iffy.
If this is the problem I'll come back and let you know.
Great! Of course this is only an educated guess derived from my experience with these TV sets and may as well be another different problem completely. Another thing is, it may not be worth messing with as these TV sets have gone down in price a lot in the past several years. The techs pick-up and delivery charge may cost well over a hundred bucks these days.