Well, it's started.

I finally got an old TV, so the collection has begun. I was at a flea market and found an 11 inch GE M112YVY B&W portable from 1963-64, and a 1962 GE T270A AM/FM radio at the same booth. Got it for $5.00. Couldn't resist, it was just a GE day. I was wanting an early 60's GE table radio like that, and this one is original and sounds great. The cabinet needs some help though.

The TV is in great condition on the outside, just dirty and the knobs are a little worn. However, the cheater cord is missing.

Now, before any of you start laughing at my little set, I already know it isn't the greatest in the world. They were made to be cheap. But, it is a tube set and I figured it will be a decent learning experience. If I screw it up, nothing much lost in money or collectible status.

So, where do I start? I guess the first thing is to find a cord. I did open it up and clean out the dust. Should I power it up, or something else first?

I opened it up and cleaned/blew out a lot of dust. The tubes/compactrons look ok. CRT neck looks ok, but I can't see a getter. No blown caps or resistors. Flyback seems ok. Everything is sure compact on these.

Do you have a variac or other device to bring voltage up slowly? If so, use that, otherwise I would just power it up and see what it does. Worst that could happen is that a cap will blow.

I'm not laughing, I think those are neat little sets. I tried to snag one in the early days of eBay but didn't make it.

It's packed full inside, it must be a hotbox with all those Compactrons running.

I would rig up a cord and just plug it in, I think there's a decent chance it'll work, at least somewhat.

On second thought you might want to change out the .1 ceramic cap near the flyback, I hear they go bang pretty loudly.

I find that chassis design fascinating....I've never seen a monochrome set with such a compact, minimalistic chassis before.

I find that chassis design fascinating....I've never seen a monochrome set with such a compact, minimalistic chassis before.

It sure is! Here is the flyback side again before I cleaned it. The plastic tube under the coil has the HV rectifier tube stuffed inside it and the wires are just attached to the pins with push on connectors. No socket at all! I don't know how common it was in portable tv's, but I haven't seen that in a radio yet. The CRT has no socket either.

The only electrolytics are the four section can and one 100mf 10v on the other board. There are about a dozen molded paper caps and the majority are ceramic. If the boards can be taken off without too much trouble it should be pretty easy to re-cap.

On second thought you might want to change out the .1 ceramic cap near the flyback, I hear they go bang pretty loudly.

Will a regular film cap be ok for a replacement or is there something else I should use?

A film cap of the right values will replace that white ceramic tube just fine.

A film cap of the right values will replace that white ceramic tube just fine.

Note that it's a 1000 volt cap though, you'll probably have to get an Orange Drop or similar to get something in that range. A 1600 volt cap would be even better and maybe easier to find.

Either of these should work.

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Panasonic-Electronic-Components/ECQ-E10104JF/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMv1cc3ydrPrF0%252bjlB8SXIRu%2f9tZEGuY OX8%3d

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Cornell-Dubilier/940C16P1K-F/?qs=sGAEpiMZZMv1cc3ydrPrFwTA9MNepSrRK5%252b5qMyUU8 w%3d

I find that chassis design fascinating....I've never seen a monochrome set with such a compact, minimalistic chassis before.

According to the code date on the tuner, the sets a 1963 or an early 1964 model. I don't think they made too many of that model.
There doesn't appear to be any room for a uhf tuner.
I had one of those, but I scrapped it. The CRT has a strange plastic film on it, for implosion protection. The set was beat up and dirty and the film was discolored and scratched.
The speaker and the handle was probably the most costly parts in it.
I replaced a broken handle on a box fan, with the handle from that set. :D

There was a UHF version of that set. I hade one many years ago. It is an interesting set but rather low end like most GE stuff from that era. It also uses a weird 11 inch picture tube when most other sets are 12 inch. For daily use I would recommend a Zenith from the same time period, night and day difference in quality.

I will be interested to know if that GE works or not.

There was a UHF version of that set. I hade one many years ago. It is an interesting set but rather low end like most GE stuff from that era. It also uses a weird 11 inch picture tube when most other sets are 12 inch. For daily use I would recommend a Zenith from the same time period, night and day difference in quality.

I will be interested to know if that GE works or not.
I worked on a set the looked simular, but the chassis was laid out differently.
I think the CRT was a tension band and was all channel.
IIRC, the chassis was simular to the 12" models. This set used a 23Z9, where the model shown used a 17JZ8. Other minor differences.

According to the Sams, GE used this chassis on a bunch of differnt models. Here is an ad from 1964 for some of them: http://books.google.com/books?id=80cEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA48&dq=ge%20portable%20tv%201963&pg=PA48#v=onepage&q=ge%20portable%20tv%201963&f=false Only $99.95. Says there is a lifetime warranty on the circuit boards. Do think they would still honor that?

The UHF tuner was separate and this set doesn't have it, although there is a UHF position on the dial. Apparently it was optional according to the ad. Sams has the diagram for the UHF tuner, but no picture of it, so I'm not sure how it was installed.

It is very light weight for a tv of that era. The case is surprisingly not polystyrene, but probably polypropelyne. Very durable and still very flexible. Other nods to economy were series strung filaments and no focus control.

That is a very collectible TV. I worked on at least two for neighbors, one had a red case and the other white, like yours. Neither one had UHF.
We had a rural appliance dealer that sold only GE, so it must have been an irresistable bargain to get a novelty TV for $100 in those days. Nobody shopped around then.

I don't remember much being wrong with them but I did buy a Sams (set 695?) for the first one because I was baffled by the sheer simplicity of it, I was also 13 and fixed both, so it had to be easy issues, DC power supply and the usual tuner cleaning, IIRC.

I found an old printer cord that almost fit. What do you know, the tv needs a polarized plug! One pin is larger than the other. So, I spread out one side and traced it to the plug and now it's polarized.

I thought I should make sure the CRT was still good before I spent my effort to recap it. I don't have a variac, but decided to press my luck and fire it up anyway. It works! Well, for a little bit anyway, the pictures are below. The controls are very touchy, so a good dose of cleaner might help. Got the picture to come in pretty decent. Things are a little distorted and the left side has a vertical strip that is a little darker, but doesn't show up in the pictures very well.

The sound has a light hum. It sure does heat up! I had it on channel 3 and tried to change it to see if channel 4 worked. When I did I couldn't get a clear picture on 4 or 3 again (last photo).

At least I know the CRT is good and I made an order with Mouser for parts. I'll try taking the tuner apart and cleaning it really well.

The plastic screen face had some light scratches. I used Turtle Wax on it and they came out really well, except for one small V shape scratch. After I recap and do the final cleaning I might try a little rubbing compound and buff it out.

Last pic looks like the horiz osc is off freq.

I remember those little critters. They did tend to develop vertical issues after warmup. Usually bad capacitors. And yes, they get hot! Zenith had a small 12 inch that got very hot also. If I remember, the Zenith used a silicon diode to reduce the filament voltage. The diode would short and blast out one of the tuner tube filaments.
I also admired how simple the circuit was and how complicated the chassis was physically on that GE. Does the flyback "sing" after it gets hot?

Well, the last couple of weeks I've had so much stuff going on that I haven't really had time to work on the set until this weekend. I decided to start with the can caps. There are two main PC boards that are joined together at the tops and bottoms with brackets that form a kind of A frame that fits over the neck of the CRT. Tucked in the middle underneath the neck is the can with a small PC board attached to it. The can is held in place by a metal clip (first picture). Everything comes apart pretty easy.

I wanted to try my hand at restuffing the can anyway, but with this I really had to reuse the can because the clip holds it in place and without the can the rest of it would just hang loose. I guess it's another example of engineering for economy and weight. It's an original GE four section can.

I followed bandersen's method and cut the can open at the shoulder. The foldover at the rim is very small and looks like it's recessed into a groove on the ring. I figured it would damage the ring trying to pry it up. The insides probably haven't seen the light of day since Kennedy was President. The paper was pretty dry on the outside and wasn't a lot of paste left. There wasn't much tar inside and it peeled off pretty easy too.

Mounted the new caps, shrink wrapped everything, and hot glued the can back together. Hopefully it will last a long time. There is only one other electrolytic and several paper caps to replace in the set.

That's pretty neat, fifty years old and fires up right away. Just noticed, that's a lot of speaker for such a little set.

Well, I had a setback. I accidentally bumped the horizontal osc coil and it broke off and rolled on the floor and unspooled a bunch of wire. The plastic tube is pretty brittle and crumbling, but obviously I should have taken it off to work on the board. I looked for a replacement and no luck yet. Somebody on ARF was working on a similar set back in Feb. and had to replace the coil too and found one, so I'll just have to wait until another turns up. The GE part number is ET36X664, Merit TV-250, or Miller 6352, unless somebody knows of another suitable replacement.