noisy, snowy screen

recently my tv screen has gone haywire. it turns on as normal for a minute or two, then goes black and snowy and makes this really loud fuzzy beeeeeping noise! the two repair places are 80 dollars different in price (roughly) so before i lug the thing to either place, i was wondering if you could give me a little insight into what the problem may be.

 

Without seeing or hearing it, this is tough to diagnose. It's kind of like a fellow asking, "My car goes clunk. What's wrong?"

The presence of snow in the picture and loss of picture indicate a failure in the signal handling circuits that range from the channel selector through the intermediate frequency amplifiers. The failure can range from a power supply problem to a failure of the AGC (automatic gain circuit). Because the picture comes on normal and then deteriorates, my first look would be in the power supply and my first suspect would be a filter capacitor.

But, it is speculation on my part. Sorry I couldn't be more definitive.

Smokey