Fixing an old TV?

[84GNTTYPE]

I have this late 80's 25 inch RCA TV in my basement. It has a VCR hooked to it and the screen shows videos fine and also video games hooked through the VCR. The problem is that I can't get any TV channels in. Normally I had the coax hooked through the the VCR and then into the TV, but I also tried hooking it directly to the TV and still got just fuzz.

I don't know a lot about TV electronics, but I'm assuming that there must be some kind of decoder in the TV that "unscrambles" the signal coming through the coax. My question is: Is there some kind of external decoder that I could use, or another relatively easy way to fix this problem?

I know most would say to just get a new TV, but the picture on this one is still perfect and I can't see dumping it if there is a chance of getting it to play TV stations again.

Thanks for any help.

 

[GN One Day...]

If the picture is fine from the VCR for tapes and games, hook the cable to the VCR and use that as the tuner. If it doesn't work, test the VCR tuner on another tv in the house. If it works otherwise, sounds more like the cable itself or the cable at that room isn't hooked up. If that's the case, hook it up and then try the tv again.

 

[Little6pack]

Or you can buy on ebay a pretty cheap old style cable box that will suck in the CATV stations in so you don't have to go thru the vcr.
Also Yard sales or local dump may net you a old cable box for next to nothing in cost.

Remember some VCR's & Cable boxes need to have the TV set to channel 3/4 to view the stations..

 

[84GNTTYPE]

This TV gets stations from an antenna not cable or a sattelite. Does that make a difference?

 

[Little6pack]

A non Cable ready TV can recieve Cable stations.. They make an adapter the you hook to the back of the TV where 4 screws are called UHF or VHF.. Radio shack has them.. Then the cable box or Cable ready VCR should work fine..