Nice! Portacolor on eBay - Videokarma.org TV - Video

***Eric H*** · #1 10-12-2012, 09:25 PM

The color is superb for one of these sets!
Of course it still looks like you're watching it through a Screen Door but that's just the way it is.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GE-Porta-Col...item1c2c178745

snelson903 · #2 10-12-2012, 10:41 PM

thats a neat looking set ,might have to keep and eye on it. unless i find a new scope nead to find a higher freq scope been wanting one just funds are tight.

RDusel · #3 10-23-2012, 05:09 PM

So this PortaColor closed at $215 dollars. Amazing price if you ask me.
Seems that smaller tube sets, especially color, are going up in price.

Kevin Kuehn · #4 10-23-2012, 06:12 PM

Seems like a lot of dough for a set that was mass produced for nearly 15 years. I can just imagine how many are still stashed in closets.

dieseljeep · #5 10-23-2012, 06:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kevin Kuehn

Seems like a lot of dough for a set that was mass produced for nearly 15 years. I can just imagine how many are still stashed in closets.

I bid it up to about $51.00 and someone bid it up a lot higher. Since I have two, I didn't need it that bad.

AiboPet · #6 10-24-2012, 07:25 AM

Would love to have one of those...with the little Compactrons. Saw those little tiny tubes in Hong Kong in my little TV/Radio repair class. For some reason I seem to remember someone refering to them as "peanut" something or other, unless I'm thinking of different tubes altogether.

dieseljeep · #7 10-24-2012, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AiboPet

Would love to have one of those...with the little Compactrons. Saw those little tiny tubes in Hong Kong in my little TV/Radio repair class. For some reason I seem to remember someone refering to them as "peanut" something or other, unless I'm thinking of different tubes altogether.

I think you're thinking about " Nuvistors ". Most compactrons are the same diameter as octal tubes. The lengths and diameters do vary.

***Kamakiri*** · #8 10-24-2012, 10:30 AM

Speaking of Porta Colors, I have a question about mine.....

Powered it on for the first time, made a loud BANG.

Tried it about a month ago because I was bored

, and after a good cleaning of the controls the dang thing actually worked! I watched it for about half an hour, everything looking great, and all of a sudden, the picture blooms, brightness fades, and the picture gets black from the center out to the edges, and the whole raster is dead. Looked like what happened to the planet Jupiter in the movie 2001. Shut it off for about 10 mins, turned it on, and the everything was fine, but it happened again.

Speaking to a VK member about this issue, and he put the fear of Jesus put in to me about what that BANG might have been, though it didn't happen since....as in a dangerously arcing flyback or circuitry due to a poor quality issue.

What do you guys think?

*zenithfan1* · #9 10-24-2012, 10:41 AM

Hey Tim, there are a few of those white ceramic "time bomb" caps in there. Some are in the horizontal out section and are located toward the very back of the chassis by the controls. Mine had one blow up and the same symptoms and description as your set was the result. It was very easy to fix, took 10 min. I forget the cap values now, .1@1000v or something......

AiboPet · #10 10-24-2012, 12:24 PM

Yeah Kamakiri. These were REAL little tubes. I think I remember them being like two inches tall, and only about as big around as your finger. They were loose, so have NO idea what they were from, but they sure were cool to look at.

With my collection, I don't own ANYTHING with tubes in it since I [stupidly] gave my old Hallicrafters S38 to someone like ten years ago.

I was sort of assuming these "Compactrons" were real little like this. I've seen and even worked with a couple old tube GE sets when I was a kid....but they really only had very pedestrian problems like dirty pots and tuners, an occasional "playing" with purity and geometry. Back in the early '80s....most of these sets weren't really old at all and recapping just wasn't something that ever came up unless you saw big visible hum bars or something. Not real sure if the little GE set I had for a short time as a kid was a Portacolor. It WAS a tube set.....but like 12" (color)....and was actually quite robust to all my "banging on it" as one of my "student" sets I brought into that class.

Kevin Kuehn · #11 10-24-2012, 01:02 PM

What picture tube did these Portacolors use, and did they use the same one spanning the entire production years?

***Kamakiri*** · #12 10-24-2012, 06:57 PM

I know mine's an 11" tube, but the model number escapes me....

Sandy G · #13 10-24-2012, 07:07 PM

PortaPotties are like Chihuahuas- They don't KNOW that they're small, old, cheap 'n' nasty, so they just keep on working, regardless...We had one as our main TV from 1965 til around 1974, when my dad got a bigazz Trinitron. L'il GE was on 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, & never burbled or complained.

dieseljeep · #14 10-24-2012, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kevin Kuehn

What picture tube did these Portacolors use, and did they use the same one spanning the entire production years?

The originals used a 11SP22, or IIRC a 11WP22, which is a low focus voltage CRT.
The later ones used a 10V**22 CRT, which is a high focus voltage CRT. I understand that it has a finer dot-pitch screen. It also uses the newer size designation. It's still the old fashioned 70 degree sweep angle. The solid state set used the same CRT, as the last of the tube sets.

Penthode · #15 10-24-2012, 08:37 PM

I bought a 1966 Portacolor from a Mesa AZ thrift shop for $3 in 2003. I took it home, plugged it in and it worked. It looks as if it needs an IF alignment, but it gave a reasonable color picture.

I took it apart and cleaned out the dust and have planned to getting around to restoring it for the last 10 years. I will occasionally get it out and plug it in and it will always work.

Someone created a terrific website for the Portacolor. I first discovered this site when I bought the set. I suppose if you are following this thread you must have seen it:

http://www.rwhirled.com/portacolor/

I love no.2 in the FAQs section of the webpage:

2. So, are these some sort of valuable collectibles or something?
Nope. As far as I know, there's zero "collector" value in these things, and hardly anybody else in the world is at all interested in them; if anything, they're more a source of derision than anything else even among the antique radio/TV collector community [You are welcome to surprise me, however]. I just happen to think they're a curious footnote in the history of entertainment electronic techology in the USA, and thought they deserved a web page somewhere. :-) Even at prices around ten dollars, Porta-Color sets tend to languish unwanted at thrift stores and garage sales across the nation.

Perhaps the Portacolor was underestimated until now?