This must be the lingering effects of all those Lew McCoy articles I read. I
see a TV, I want to gut it and build ham gear.

As I kid I would explore the neighborhood on my bicycle on the days
the trash went out looking for junk TV sets. I had a set of tools
in my pockets to pull out the chassis and would lug them home to
gut. A friend of mine who lived in a house instead of an apartment
would save the chassis whole in the basement (which bugged the
gas man who had to climb over a mountain of tv chassis to read
the gas meter!).