1954 GE 15" Color TV Photos and a plea for Help

[John Folsom]

Hi Audiokarmites.

I hope the group will enjoy these photos of my General Electric Model 15CL100 15" color TV from 1954. And I hope someone can help me with some problems.

GE, along with a handful of others, offered 15" color TVs in the 1954 model year to support the introduction of NTSC color TV. This set features 40 tubes, including the 15GP22 CRT, and was offered with VHF 12 channel tuner and an optional UHF tuner, which my set does not have. From the looks of the set, GE was anticipating the arrival of a larger 19" or 21" CRT. What was the next color set GE made?

The set is well documented in the Wallace Telaides GE service data for 1946-1954. This will be a great help when it comes tiem to get the set working again. Curiously, it describes 2 production runs of the set, with differing schematics and component layouts. My set appears to be from the second production run. Makes one wonder how many sets they produced in each run.

The tube layout calls out several "in house " prototype tube numbers: Z2176 (a.k.a. 2v2), and Z2188 (a.k.a. 6BU5).

While the 2V2 seem common enough, the 6BU5 is another matter. The 6BU5 is a pentode HV regulator tube, similar to the triode 6BD4 (or 6BK4). I have not been able to find any 6BU5 tubes through any of the usual tube dealers. Please check your local tube dealers and you stock and help me find a 6BU5 tube or two. Of course, if it comes down to it, I can rewire the socket to use a 6BK4….but what fun is that?

When the set was offered with no UHF tuner, an escutcheon covered the round hole in the center of the front panel where the UHF tuner control would be. The plate was about 21/2" square. You can see this plate in the scan I included, from the May 1954 GE Tech Talk service bulletin. Unfortunately, there is not enough detail to make out what it looks like. If anyone has a better example of this GE emblem plate from some other GE TV or product , or advertisement, I would greatly appreciate a good quality photo/scan of it so I can attempt a reproduction.

As you can see from the photos of the set, I am missing the large knob for the dual control on the left side of the front panel. If anyone can help wit h a like knob, or even a pair of very similar knobs, I would be happy to buy or trade for them.

Any help would be appreciated!