Exploding GE Color TVs, 1960s

[radiotvnut]

All the thermistors that I saw crumbled and fell apart except for one that was smoking in a mid '70's Sylvania solid state hospital set. Often, the internal coil is not strong enough to degauss the tube and a stronger, hand held coil has to be used. I've never had a problem with any degaussing coil pulling metal objects.

[rcaman]

comon guys if you believe this i have some great land for sale it is kinda under water but floats better than this story. if a set were to have that kind of magenetic power wouldnt you think it would be making a HELL OF A NOISE.
steve

[zenithfan1]

Since most of the early GEs were RCA clones, I wonder why this only happened to GE sets. Very interesting......

[David Roper]

Originally Posted by Newton

Hello, I am new here.

Good, let's begin with a point we can agree on.

There have been claims that...early GE color sets had tended to explode (implode) magnetic wise. That is, ...suddenly...an intense magnetic field...was generated inside the TV set in a split second that caused any near by steel items (including nails in the walls) to be pulled to the GE TV set with great force. ... Claims indicate that only GE color TVs (or TVs made by GE sold under other names) of the early 1960s were involved, no other brands of color TVs were known to have this problem.
According to the claims, the GE design engineers were at a loss about the whole thing and were unable to come up with an reason why or how this would happen.

Where and when did you first hear these "claims"? Did you hear of this phenomenon on multiple occasions or from just one person who told you it had happened multiple times? The amount of detail you recall about the "Chicago incident" suggests you read about or were told about it at the time it happened...which begs the question why, if you know with any certainty that this tragic incident is a matter of fact, you would still lead with the phrase "There have been claims..."

WHOSE claims? Is there any point in asking you to cite a single source for any of this?



Practical jokes are supposed to be funny. This falls more into the realm of (frequently pointless) performance art.

[sampson159]

thats a hard one to believe. ge didnt make their own crts. i have had an rca implode and nothing of that magnitude. wish that would have happened when they kicked in my roundie!

[salb203]

This is a true story, it has to be, Santa Claus told me so...

Sal

When I first responded to this I misunderstood that it was about nails being drawn to the TV. I mistook it to be TV's blowing up.(see what I mean about my small lead-smoked brain)
I hope Mr. Newton isn't entertaining himself at our expense. I would not be surprised if he is but he comes across kinda genuine. I hope he gets the article because I got too many other old news stories to look up first.(really, I'm not kidding).
If there is an article on it one could look up relatives of victem, etc. I would look if I had the time because I think stranger things happen and... oh yeah... I wanna know!
If it's true I think it was something to do with a space ships magnetic fields gone awry. Perhaps the aliens don't like GE. Maybe RCA and Zenith were in on it. I think even stranger things than that have and will continue to happen.

I'm nut's? I just saw Egypt's carvings showing, in one spot together, sideveiws of a helicopter, a speedboat, and a plane. In the past I saw other carvings showing Jetson like spaceships. The source could not be making these or we would hear somebody proving it to be fake. How could people in ancient times imagine such to carve such acurate designs of modern stuff in one area together?
I know most don't have time to find out themselves and therefore won't believe it but I am just keeping an open mind!

[kbmuri]

The urban legend:

So in many ways we have early RCA color TV engineers to thank for my discovery of the power generator. I am sure they are all dead now but they did contribute.
Perhaps a story which had impact on me at that time was told to me by my boss way back in 1970 I believe it was.
He told me that around 1965 or 66 there was an explosion in an apartment in Chicago. the authorities had concluded that for some unknown reason, a General Electric color television receiver had been the source of an explosion that killed a young black child in the apartment. My boss went on to relate that he was involved in the investigation because he was in Chicago at the time and he was invaluably experienced with television circuits and etc.
He told us that what they found was, the TV had exploded with some quick furry. The explosion did in fact kill the poor child who was sitting directly in front but sparred his mother who was some distance away in the kitchen.
The explosion was strange because of the absence of expected chemicals necessary to create the explosion. It appeared that the TV was the exact center of the explosion, however no one could find a reason for the explosion occurring. Also consider that there is not really much inside a TV to explode with enough force to kill people and destroy the living room a large apartment. Yes a CRT can explode and kill someone, however this was not the kind of explosion we are talking about. The most interesting part of the story is that according to our boss, metallic objects especially those containing large amounts of iron were dramatically displaced. He mentioned that some nails were actually removed from the walls and pulled toward the TV set. When they found them they were bent and shaped like cork screws! Everything in the room appeared to have moved or was moving toward the TV as it exploded, or imploded as the case may be. The child was apparently killed by way of these metallic objects traveling through his body on their way toward the center of the TV set.
As far as my boss knew, there was never a good explanation for the occurrence. We found out that this was not the only unexplained explosion of TV sets worldwide. However, the fact that all the sets exploded while in operation may bear some light. Also most of the TV sets were made by the GE company or were TV sets made using GE circuits and of similar design.
However, this man who had been my mentor for so many years had his own theory which he never told anyone as far as i know, except me. His theory was that the TV while in operation, somehow managed to become a receiver of more then just television waves and so for a millisecond in time became a receiver and the discharger of a huge amount of electrical and magnetic energy. This discharge of magnetic energy is vary similar to the discharge of magnetic energy during an atomic explosion. . . Now that is something I have thought about a great deal.

[Eric H]

There might be a slim chance an imploding CRT could have killed someone but a magnetic field from a TV, no chance in hell, the hardware just isn't there.

[kbmuri]

-- an interview with Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
"Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 102
%%
"I have a friend who just got back from the Soviet Union, and told me the people
there are hungry for information about the West. He was asked about many
things, but I will give you two examples that are very revealing about life in
the Soviet Union. The first question he was asked was if we had exploding
television sets. You see, they have a problem with the picture tubes on color
television sets, and many are exploding. They assumed we must be having
problems with them too. The other question he was asked often was why the
CIA had killed Samantha Smith, the little girl who visited the Soviet Union a
few years ago; their propaganda is very effective.
-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
"Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100

[kbmuri]

Apparently the GE TV accidentally had a reciever that picked up the Earths electromagnetic field instead of the TV station's. Since the Earth's magnetic field is a jillion times stronger that a TV station, it exploded.

There's also a carburetor that gets 1000 MPG and GM is hiding it. And also there are aliens walking around Area 51. And George Bush planned 911.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Newton

Hello, I am new here.
I had my own TV repair shop from 1962 to 1968 and have not worked on TVs since. However I have taken an interest in GE color TVs from the early 1960s because of other reasons not related to the restoration of these sets.
There have been claims that these early GE color sets had tended to explode (implode) magnetic wise. That is, they suddenly became an intense magnetic field that was generated inside the TV set in a split second that caused any near by steel items (including nails in the walls) to be pulled to the GE TV set with great force.

GE didn't become pure evil until the mid 80's (when they ate RCA). Also, I've heard of skyrocketing high voltage (which could cause the CRT neck to crack) but I don't think the physics of the situation could allow the set to suck nails from walls.

[nasadowsk]

GE didn't become pure evil until the mid 80's

Never had an old GE TV huh?

[blue_lateral]

Originally Posted by Newton

.....But it was just GE color sets, no other brand.
GE may have tried to push the whole thing under the rug at the time. Not sure.

Since this happened in 65 or 66, I would guess that the sets would have to be made before that date.

Well, If nobody else will come out and say it, I will. This is absolute bunk. GE color sets of the early 60's had RCA chassis. They would have been ctc12, ctc15, or ctc16, or clones. These chassis were sold by the millions in RCA and many other brands. They are the most common color roundie on the planet. If there was a problem, It would have been noticed in all these other sets that had the same insides, long before it would have been noticed on the relatively rare GE's.

I hate to be a wet blanket. In life, most things are possible. This isn't. But, welcome to AK. Hope you enjoy it here

John

Originally Posted by kbmuri

The urban legend:

As far as my boss knew, there was never a good explanation for the occurrence. We found out that this was not the only unexplained explosion of TV sets worldwide. However, the fact that all the sets exploded while in operation may bear some light. Also most of the TV sets were made by the GE company or were TV sets made using GE circuits and of similar design.
However, this man who had been my mentor for so many years had his own theory which he never told anyone as far as i know, except me. His theory was that the TV while in operation, somehow managed to become a receiver of more then just television waves and so for a millisecond in time became a receiver and the discharger of a huge amount of electrical and magnetic energy. This discharge of magnetic energy is vary similar to the discharge of magnetic energy during an atomic explosion. . . Now that is something I have thought about a great deal.

Maybe there was just one GE set this happened to. Maybe it's a Burmuda Triangle type magnetic thing.