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Andy,

I took the liberty of reducing the picture size so that your text could be read.

I have seen Trav-ler sets with round CRT's shown in the late 40's Rider TV service manuals. I cannot offer further information. Your's sure demonstrates absolute minimal circuitry. Losing sync and sound volume with the contrast control is reminiscent of some of the 40's sets where they controlled contrast by adjusting the RF and IF gain with this pot. The sync and volume were taken off at the end of the gain adjusted IF chain and subject to fade with the control.

Rob

I've got one of those cheezy cheapo Travler portables... model 17P6000 (Sams 501-2). I found it in a little junk shop on the north side of Corpus Christi... not too far from where my ship used to dock every week. The set wouldn't come on in the store, so the lady let me take it for a whole dollar!

After returning to the ship, I got Sparky's tube tester and found an odd-ball 5B8 tube burned out. Was able to get one the following week and the set powered up fine. I used that set on the ship for a year before bringing it home. Surpisingly, it held up rather well against the ship's vibration while empty.

The name plate is missing that used to be on the front CRT bezel. On the inside, the tubes and CRT were all labeled Travler. This set looks just like the one you have taken apart, Andy. I guess mine used to say Hyde Park on the front as well.

If my memory is working correctly, I believe that Hyde Park was a brand name of Macy's in NYC.
Another of their brands was Supre-Macy.

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Castle makes an excellent product called Plexo, it comes in a spray can, and is used to clean aircraft windshields. It's ideal for polishing plexiglass, I used it on my Predicta.

You know, the construction of those sets looks very similar to a 57 Westinghouse I have, same split level circuit boards and similar cabinet construction.
I'll have to dig it out and take a closer look.
Eric

Well, I looked at the Westinghouse and it's different than those sets yet still similar in some ways.

I don't know if Westinghouse would really qualify as a low end brand back then, (they sure do now!) but this set is built with a large PC board which always smacks of cheapness to me.

Notice the big bolt sticking out of the HV cover from the inside! this appears to be original and the only purpose I can see is that it is a handle to help open the cover.

This set belonged to a little old lady and is very low mileage. It's 100% original as far as I can tell, except for the damper tube, and it works well.

Eric,

I would think your set would be of a better grade, but probably any of those small portables in general are cheaped out as much as possible to make them affordable to buy back then. I have seen that Westinghouse on your site... it is a really nice lookin one!

Charlie ,your probably right, these portables were designed down to save costs (except maybe Zenith)

Still, it's funny to think that you could get something with a Copper plated Steel chassis back then and it was priced modestly.

When's the last time you were able to buy anything new that had real metal in it much less Copper plating! :eek:

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Andy,

Did you get to use that plastic cleaner on the screen? What did you use and how did it turn out? In the photo, the plastic looks pretty good.

I think I like the color of your set more than mine.