Exploding GE Color TVs, 1960s

[Randy Bassham]

No way could you pass enough current through the 18ga power cord and the chintsy little interlock to create this kind of magnetic field. Now a hospital EMR machine absolutely can, but have you ever seen the gage of wire going to one of those things?

[veg-o-matic]

Well, I checked our historical newspaper indexes, and while I couldn't find anything to support this story (no Chicago papers), I did come across a couple of interesting articles from the time period.

veg

[freakaftr8]

Has anyone seen White Noise or white noise 2? The part where the ghosts were coming out of the plasma set and he whacked the screen with a baseball bat? Did you see the amount of glass that flew from that screen along with the shower of sparks and the smoke? I bet if I whacked a plasma it wouldn't do half that. My point... Hollywood amplifies the reality, what it sounds like here in this case is someone somewhere had turned this story upside down and made it sound like something that might have happened but not to the amplitude of what we are hearing... I just dont see how a TV could produce such a magnetic force to pull an object at high rate across a room... Just my opinion, take it or leave it but yes, this thread is a bit interesting.. No offence of course at all to those who moderated this thread.

[Pete Deksnis]

As a guy who made a living for many years arranging letters of the alphabet on paper, I cringe sometimes at what my fellow editors have allowed to pass under the guise of reason masked by a word of admonition.

Consider the article veg-o-matic found: Forty-three years ago a house fire in a Deal, NJ home -- which by happenstance is two miles from where I write this bit -- was made by the NY Times to 'appear' as though a TV picture tube blew up and started a deadly fire. Check the fourth word in the article: 'apparently'. It is a way to make the entire article legal but, because of its location, quickly forgotten in the mini avalanche of negative news that follows about the fire and its victims. One easily leaves with the impression that an exploding television picture tube blew up and started a fire where people died. Gruesome. Bad TV set.

But television cathode ray tubes can implode in a fire. Maybe that's what actually happened. How can we know what happened forty-three years ago?

I wasn't there.

Maybe the "...explosion-like sound" reported in the NY Times was an exploding bottle of potable flammable liquid that ended up feeding the fire. I wasn't there.

Were you?

Don't be too quick to put faith in words you read. (paranoid persons excluded of course :-)

Originally Posted by Pete Deksnis

As a guy who made a living for many years arranging letters of the alphabet on paper, I cringe sometimes at what my fellow editors have allowed to pass under the guise of reason masked by a word of admonition.


Don't be too quick to put faith in words you read. (paranoid persons excluded of course :-)

I will definately keep this in mind.

Thank you.

Consider the article veg-o-matic found: Forty-three years ago a house fire in a Deal, NJ home -- which by happenstance is two miles from where I write this bit -- was made by the NY Times to 'appear' as though a TV picture tube blew up and started a deadly fire. Check the fourth word in the article: 'apparently'. It is a way to make the entire article legal but, because of its location, quickly forgotten in the mini avalanche of negative news that follows about the fire and its victims. One easily leaves with the impression that an exploding television picture tube blew up and started a fire where people died. Gruesome. Bad TV set.

But television cathode ray tubes can implode in a fire. Maybe that's what actually happened. How can we know what happened forty-three years ago?

I wasn't there.

Maybe the "...explosion-like sound" reported in the NY Times was an exploding bottle of potable flammable liquid that ended up feeding the fire. I wasn't there.

Were you?


Seems like it should be possible to substantiate things from the past without actually having actually been there.

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by Brach

Seems like it should be possible to substantiate things from the past without actually having actually been there.

Ah yes, that is the challenge, isn't it?

[kbmuri]

is apparently back.

Ok, for the record. I humbly apologize for playing along with Arkay's spoof. Electro-Harmonix tubes do not blow up guitar amps. Back to the Future wasn't real, and I don't want to duct tape a color TV to the front bumper of my truck. Jeez. One would think that any slow child over the age of ten would have known that was sarcasm.

Brach, I challenge you to join that other forum and make friends with all the members there until one of them cracks and lets you in on the secret of the tpu device. They obviously know something we don't, so they're smarter than us. It won't pay to ask around here, but they have it over there on that forum, I'm sure. If you don't have a 1965 GE color set, get one and experiment. When you find the answer, get back to us. Don't get back to us before then, only post here when you've got the answer. It'll make you cool and everyone will like you then.

No apology necessary. I was given a clue and a generous explanation by someone who is apparently very considerate to all others.

Again, I apologize for not being Bobby but if you'd like I could probably convince him to return. He is allowed to use the computer sometimes in his new temporary home.

[Carmine]

A very good thead so far. I can only hope that since the tone is civil, no one will jump the gun and lock it! I would make the case that the tv only needed to produce the field for a moment, actually a mano second, to produce the result. . . so that removes the idea of needing time to build a magnetic field. Possible.

[vintagecollect]

Someone probaly exagerating on fireball flybacks on magnavox or sears or possibly tvs?? Don't have or seen in person, but have seen older posts here of some bad flyback failures ---they may have ended up in smoke!

[bgadow]

Certainly the most interesting thread here lately in AK TV World!
My reaction has gone from:
Hmmm...
Whoa!
Ha!
Hmmm...

Neat urban legend. Perhaps, way back at the root of it, lightning found its way to a CTC-11 clone. Lightning does do weird things-tends to magnetize CRT's (fairly common; not destructively so. degaussing fixes it) If I was going to explore it I think I would take that route.

[kx250rider]

My head is spinning.

Charles

It is me again.
Well now I see I should have ask a different question. The Exploding TV thing is side tracking my real question I have.

I was trying to be directed to to a source of information regarding early 60s GE color TVs via a Sams or other factory data for study and thought this would be a good place to start.

As Far as the exploding GE TV goes, I don't know if it really happened or not and don't matter one way or the other as this is not that important to my work.

However, thats right, I am working on building a Steve Mark TPU unit as discussed in one of the posts here.

The GE color TV part is only about 5% of what I am working on.

I was just trying to find some information on early GE color TVs for further study is all.

Thanks,
Newton

[Eric H]

Newton, I'm sorry your post got so sidetracked, I was assuming you were asking if a malfuctioning TV could explode in such a manner to which I still say no, however if this is siome type of theoretical Quantum Physics experiment then who knows.

I have some schematics of early- mid 60's color sets, don't know if any are GE but they are all pretty similar.

If you PM me your address I would be happy to send you a couple.

Eric