Another 12" Color Tube portable, This one a Teleton in the UK

[DavGoodlin]

I have 16" color and a 14" color Zenith from 1970 and 1972 that I could not part with and they do look pretty sharp. Also have a Sylvania CB35 from 1969 that I did not get to the bench yet. These all are barely hybrids with about a dozen tubes each.

Total agree on the 1968 Zenith 15Y6C15. Liberated one long ago from a friend's barn collection. It was a bit rusty BUT was total cake to get looking great and a guy in tech school "bought" it, never paying for it.

I only compare GE Porta-color as it was a different kind of value set - fewer parts and simpler to repair, and easy-to-get parts. The customer was not expecting much, paying less accordingly. Not to forget the RCA CTC22 15" from 1967, another easy fix set that did not age so well as the Zenith. IIRC Philco, Magnavox and Admiral made their smallest color sets using the 11SP22 and 11WP22 that were in the low-focus ,porta-color league. heck, the Mag may have been Japanese. With Motorola and their cozy relationship with Matsushita, probably had one also. Never saw any of them.

Two 1976 Portacolors I got, then promptly sold recently. Its all too easy to recall the days when I was the low-man on the bench that had to work on them. Just basic TV nothing more nothing less.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

I have 16" color and a 14" color Zenith from 1970 and 1972 that I could not part with and they do look pretty sharp. Also have a Sylvania CB35 from 1969 that I did not get to the bench yet. These all are barely hybrids with about a dozen tubes each.

Total agree on the 1968 Zenith 15Y6C15. Liberated one long ago from a friend's barn collection. It was a bit rusty BUT was total cake to get looking great and a guy in tech school "bought" it, never paying for it.

I only compare GE Porta-color as it was a different kind of value set - fewer parts and simpler to repair, and easy-to-get parts. The customer was not expecting much, paying less accordingly. Not to forget the RCA CTC22 15" from 1967, another easy fix set that did not age so well as the Zenith. IIRC Philco, Magnavox and Admiral made their smallest color sets using the 11SP22 and 11WP22 that were in the low-focus ,porta-color league. heck, the Mag may have been Japanese. With Motorola and their cozy relationship with Matsushita, probably had one also. Never saw any of them.

Two 1976 Portacolors I got, then promptly sold recently. Its all too easy to recall the days when I was the low-man on the bench that had to work on them. Just basic TV nothing more nothing less.

The small screen Motorola sets of the late 60's, early 70's were built by Admiral and Sharp. Hybrid sets with low voltage focus CRT's.
The Sharp built sets were the same as the Midland and Wards Airline, but the Motorola sets had better styling.