Tuner The tuner board has been broken where the ant.cable is pluged in. A small portion is missing if I could get a good picture it could be repaired. [email protected]

You can buy the RF jack and solder it back onto the tuner as long as the tuner has not been damaged beyond repair. Inside the tuner the center conductor from the jack solders into the printed circuit board. If any small parts are broken or missing then you will have to replace the tuner.

It depends if the connector broke the tuner it is attached to. Most times the chassis of the set would need to go into the shop. I would generally charge $80.00-$120.00 if the tuner was still good - a new tuner would cost $60-$100 more if bad
The better solution is to use the video audio inputs (if on satellite or cable box) or use the video inputs by changing channels through the VCR (if on cable or antenna and a VCR is available)

The small metal box is the tuner. The tuner has to be removed to replace the broken off RF connector. The connector has to be soldered to the tuner housing (metal box) and the leg of the connector has to be soldered to the circuit board, board has to be checked for cracks or if it is broken. If board is damaged the tuner will have to be replaced, if its available.

The tuners in many Sony sets often develop bad solder connections that can cause this kind of tuning trouble. The tuner can be replaced to fix the problem, and it's also often possible to repair it. To repair the tuner, it needs to be removed from the board in the set, the cover removed, and all the connections from the tuner circuit board to the metal shield can need to be resoldered. The metal can is used as the ground connection for many places on the tuner, and the connections develop cracks and become intermittent or fail completely. When you use the video input, you bypass the tuner so you have the nice clear picture.

This repair should be handled by a technician who's experienced with soldering on small circuit boards. Improperly done, this repair can do more damage to the small, closely-spaced circuit board traces. Many technicians would rather simply replace the tuner than do the repair. Depending on the price of the part and how labor is charged, it may cost the same either way.

I don't think that the cable is your problem. Set may have a defective tuner or small signal board. (Tuner is soldered onto the small signal board).

Most likely fix is to find and replace the small signal board with tuner. Should be able to find one for less than $200.

Another thing to try is your video inputs. Use external devices such as a DVD play hooked you using proper video lines and check you inputs. Are they doing the same thing as your cable? If not, then it maybe just a tuner. Some makes and models won't allow you to solder in a new tuner without a full board replacement, but this however may allow you to hookup a VCR with a tuner built in and from VCR to your TV using video input jacks and then programming the VCR tuner to all your cable channels may get your set watchable again without having to tare it apart and replacing a board. However if your input jacks are distorting like the cable channels are, then a small signal board replacement is a must for your set.

Good luck!
Jason

It can be soldered back on. With that particular model, I don't know if the connector is connected to the tuner or if there is a litte square anteena box which then feed a cable to the tuner.

The part is called and "F" connector. It can be purchased but it also muist be soldered in place. This is not a trivial task. The F connector is part of the tuner. For a set of this size, it may be easier to replace the tuner rather than fool around with a repair attempt. Depending upon how it was broken, the PC board inside the tuner may be broken as well requiring tuner replacement anyway.

Dan

You didn't mention anything about a cable box, VCR, etc. which might be connected. A snowy pic. means simply, inadequate signal is reaching the tuner, or the TV tuner itself is bad. If the first is so... check your cabling. If you have a VCR or DVD player hooked in between the cable box or outside antenna (whichever is the case), VCR (RF or ant.) out should go to the TV, VCR antenna (RF or ant.) input to the cable box. Also check the cable wire itself. If you look at the end of the cable, you should see a relatively thin center wire. This center conductor is what carries the signal. If it is missing, bent over, or too short to make contact with whatever it is connected to, you will have a very snowy pic. If you have a spare TV, connect it in place of your "new" TV, to narrow down the problem. Lastly, if all is well with hookup, cabling, etc. the TV might have a problem. Sometimes the tuner has a component defect, or the coaxial connector can be broken.

You may either have a bad tuner in your TV (not unusual for Sony's) or a broken connection near the tuner on the flimsy circuit boards they're using on this model. The tuner requires about 30 volts DC to work, and this may not be reaching the tuner due to a crack in the board connection. You probably have several A/V inputs that can be used for cable video and DVD video and your owners manual should explain how to connect them clearly. The outputs of those units go into the inputs of the TV set. It's That Simple!

When you say you have tried all the inputs you are not clear if you mean tuner, vcr, dvd, aux, etc. If you are talking about only the cable input it sounds like you have a bad tuner. To obtain picture in picture there are 2 tuners in your set. This would explain why the small picture is ok while the main picture is bad. You should be able to swap the signals (see your ops manual). Try this. If the snow moves the one tuner is bad. If you have put other signals in (besides cable)such as dvd then the problem is in the matrix circuitry where the two signals merge. Either problem should be easy for a good tech to solve and not cost a whole lot.