SER FAQ: TVFAQ: Red, green, or blue retrace lines

S.E.R. FAQ

NotTaR of Television Sets : Red, green, or blue retrace lines
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Red, green, or blue retrace lines

Where only one color is showing, suspect an incorrectly adjusted individual background/bias control or bad part on the CRT neck board for that color.

Individual brightness/background/bias control(s) - mark setting of pot for the problem color and then see if a slight adjustment removes the retrace lines. See the chapter: "TV Adjustments". Of course, if this happened suddenly, the problem is not due to a misadjusted control though a dirty pot is possible - turn it back and forth - this might clean it and restore normal operation.
Component or connection on CRT neck board - insufficient voltage to or incorrect biasing of the video driver for this color can result in the CRT never totally blanking. Compare voltages and signals, and swap components between good and bad channels to confirm.
Blanking circuit - this may be a part of the video/chroma chip or separate. Check and compare waveforms of good and bad colors to determine if the blanking pulses are making it to the video output.

There is a slight possibility that a bad CRT may result in visible retrace lines. To eliminate this possibility:

Disconnect the filament - all evidence of a picture, raster, and retrace lines should disappear once the filaments/cathodes have cooled (15 seconds or so. If there are still visible retrace lines, the CRT is suffering from cold or field emission from someplace (may not even be the cathode).
Turn down the screen (G2) control on the flyback (usually). If one color remains no matter how you set the control, again there is some kind of weird emission from the CRT. However, if white/gray retrace lines remain, the problem may be in the screen supply.

See the section: Bad CRT causing retrace lines.

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