Here's the situation:
I bought a used NTSC monitor off ebay (probably shouldn't have- it's a PVM-1354Q with SMPTE C phosphors, 1995 era) and when I fired it up I found out the colors have problems. The colors on the left side get shifted to another primary color. This is from feeding the monitor with red, green, and blue mattes. So if it feed it blue, the left third is red.

When i feed it a white matte, I see a discoloration on the left third. Down the left half the brightness drops (it's greyish).

Apparently to fix color purity problems (which is what this is right?), degaussing it might work.

http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/sam/crtfaq.htm#crtmdg

To do this properly I need a degausser, which I don't know where to get it from in Toronto Canada. I could try building the budget degausser mentioned in the FAQ about (I can get a 95 era computer monitor easily that I can rip apart) but there are safety issues (I may have to learn how to discharge the lethal voltages inside a CRT).

2- (Yes, buying used NTSC monitors off eBay is probably a bad idea.)

A bulk tape eraser is a degausser. Radio shack no longer carries their bulk tape erasers to the best of my knowledge. B & H has this model (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=147122&is=REG) that would work.

The technique is to move the eraser (degausser) in a circular motion, starting just several inches from the screen. Very slowly, while continuing the circular motion, pull the eraser back from the screen. Do this until the eraser is several feet from the screen, then turn off the eraser. Be careful because some erasers have a duty cycle and will turn off before you can get the eraser far enough away from the screen.

Hmm, MCM Electronics is showing an external "degaussing coil" (you have to search for degaussing coil, not degausser) for $11USD. Not sure what the shipping and brokerage fees is like- didn't check if they ship UPS Ground or not (UPS Ground is outrageous, other UPS and other carriers should be fine).

I think that's what I'll get. Gonna talk to one of my professors at Ryerson first to see if I can get help that way. Thanks Jeff.

Hi. I bought a used monitor off eBay for a project a while back, well, actually several monitors--big fiasco, clueless (or evil) seller, not gonna get into it.

However, I did take one of these monitors to a local rental house, whose employees I'm friends with, and had them use a degausser to screw around with it, as they said it would likely fix the problem (bluish/purplish tint to the screen, easily visible if shooting something that was supposed to be pure white). Anyway, the degausser didn't do shizzle, and I just wanted to relate this to you. You probably know more about the technology than I do, but before you go buying more stuff, see if you can verify that your problem's even fixable. Mine wasn't. Can you send the monitor back? Push for a refund or something.

Thanks for the input Josh.

I'm not sure how to check if a degaussing coil/degausser would fix the problem or not. I got a fridge magnet and played around with the monitor- the monitor's built-in degausser does seem to work. I suspect an external degausser may not work.

I'm going to try to work something out with the seller. Hopefully I can get a refund or something. Shipping is quite expensive but I'll see what happens.

I don't really know that much about this stuff, otherwise I probably would not have bought the monitor.

2- In retrospect, I don't think I should have bought this monitor. I should have asked the seller what the date of manufacture was (older than 2 years is a crapshoot). I also should've wondered why the monitor was being sold in the first place. If you're a pro you probably aren't going to be selling a monitor unless it's not good.

True dat.

However, I got a sweet monitor sometime in '03, a Sony PVM 14m2u (how old are those?), and it's SWEEEEEEET! Guess I lucked out.

I'm sorry for the bad experience, and I've been there.