Atari 2600 No Picture/Sound/Static

[Sharkspine]

Hello Everyone

 

I am in the U.K and I've recently acquired a PAL Atari 2600 Light Sixer. It's board is Revision B and it was manufactured in 1981.

 

It is connected to my Sony Trinitron CRT directly by an RCA cable into the TV's aerial socket. The Atari is powered using a 3rd party power adapter.

 

When I first set it up, I was able to auto tune/fine tune the Atari to any channel I tried and I would receive sound, an image and be able to play. However, the image was overly dark and slightly snowy. The colours of Pitfall for instance, were off, the screen was dark and the word 'Activision' at the bottom of the screen was hard to read. I tried Space Invaders, River Raid and Kaboom! All exhibited the same issues.

 

I very carefully checked the internals of the console, couldn't see anything obviously damaged and gave it a clean with contact cleaner and air duster and gave the tint dial a tweak. This changed the tint but the image issue remained the same. I messed with my TVs brightness/contrast settings, no change.

 

I carefully took the top off the metal RF Modulator box and couldn't see anything obviously damaged except there was a small cylinder with a screw inside located in its own little cubicle in the bottom left of the modulator box which is loose and I wasn't able to tighten it.

 

I cleaned all of the games with cotton buds and contact cleaner.

 

I put everything back together and tested. Games still the same. I tried again the next night and now I have no image, sound or static at all. I tune to all the channels, including fine tuning and it appears to find something, as the tuning bar stops, but no matter how much fine tuning i do, I get no picture, sound or static. That includes channels 3, 4 and 36 as well as many others that previously worked. I've tried a different RCA lead and a different power socket. Powering the Atari on and off doesn't change the screen at all. 

 

I have an A and B Channel Selector hole on the underside of the console but no actual switch is present.

 

The TV is fine as I play other consoles such as NES and SNES through Aerial and RGB scart with no issues.

 

The metal heat sink is becoming warm when the unit is on for a while.

 

I'm not overly technical and do not own any electric testing equipment.

 

I have taken photographs of the inside of the RF Modulator case. 

 

What do you guys think could be the issue from this information?

 

Thank you.

[TomelloSoulMan]

On 3/13/2022 at 11:46 PM, Sharkspine said:

I carefully took the top off the metal RF Modulator box and couldn't see anything obviously damaged except there was a small cylinder with a screw inside located in its own little cubicle in the bottom left of the modulator box which is loose and I wasn't able to tighten it.

It seems you have the same problem as in this thread:

If the adjustable inductor is not broken by now, you could try to adjust it again to its previous settings, but might be hard. Did you consider doing an A/V mod on this console?