Good afternoon gang.

I bought this GE portacolor off a gentleman locally for 50 dollars. It is model M213BWD and I believe it is one of the earliest models - Perhaps 1966-67.

In any event, I paid more than I would've liked to but this particular set is absolutely flawless in both cosmetics and performance. Actually, to the point where its kinda odd, considering its age.

Now I see firsthand how cheaply these were produced...but only in terms of image rendition. I say this because mine has illuminated dials and knobs, and a headphone jack. These are nice features for an assumingly BOTL TV. But then again they all had these perks back then, didnt they.

One interesting note is that this says it was built in Electronics Park, Syracuse, NY. Could this plant have been one of the places that the EPA ordered to be shut down due to pcb contamination, or did GE shift TV manufacturing to China before they could?

I'll get some pics of this set running soon..

GE made consumer products in Electronics Park, NY. Radio production was moved to Asia and TV was moved to a new highly-automated plant in Portsmouth, VA, around early 80s. Portsmouth TV production was merged with RCA Bloomington soon after GE bought RCA. From then on, GE TVs were essentially rebranded RCAs. The Portsmouth plant was converted to other GE products.

The Portsmouth TVs were among the best of the later GEs. The VIR sets were Portsmouth products. Picture quality was exceptional and market share increased.

Electronics Park was likely old & outdated by the late '60s-early '70s. I remember seeing ads for GE TVs from the '40s that proclaimed they were made there. Obsolete facilities, older, unionised workforce w/heavy benefits, making a mature product w/slim profit margin.. Ain't hard to figure out.

Actually, GE moved their TV production to Portsmouth in the mid 70's. GE closed up shop in Portsmouth in the late 80's, after their "PC" chassis sets.

GE used a parts numbering system that identified where the end item was manufactured. ES series parts were for Syracuse sets, EP for Portsmouth sets, and EW was offshore (Taiwan and Singapore, mostly). EA was early GE audio stuff. Confusingly enough, similar parts were not the same. An ES15X1 transistor wasn't (at first) the same as an EP15X1. Made things tough for dealers and distributors. ET was also used for early stuff - not sure of the location of manufacture.

A couple of anecdotes about the GE plant. When I was working for Cain Electronics in Norfolk, VA in the early 80's, the GE plant engineering department would purchase RCA TV parts from us to dissect. Mostly RF stuff - varactor tuners, baluns and the like. Guess they wanted to examine the competition. :scratch2:

When the plant closed down, they auctioned off some parts and tooling. My dad and another gentleman here in Norfolk, both TV repairmen, got the engineering department parts stock. Fun stuff to sort through - 80,000 film resistors, CRTs that hadn't been UL tested/listed yet, loads of assemblies, and mock-ups of future TV models. They had a metal case PC chassis set loaded with options - MTS stereo, video and audio input/output jacks, and even take-off points to a patch panel on the side. We never did get that one to work - too many modifications to deal with.:eek:

I have a few NOS GE parts and now thanks to Brian I understand those numbers! Neat stories there.

Since Portacolors were in production for so long, they were built at both plants. GE didn't really seem to be what I'd call a major player in the TV business until the 70s. That's my impression, anyway. I see oodles of GE clock radios from the 40s-60s but very few TV sets compared to RCA/Zenith/Philco, even Admiral/Motorola seem more numerous. But the later stuff, well, I've seen tons of GE stuff around here. It probably helped that in the small town I grew up in the sole TV dealer mostly sold GE. In fact, thinking about it, until I was a teenager 90% of the sets I saw were made by them. There were some extended family who had early RCA XL100s, at school they had a pre-Philips Magnavox, and one uncle had a pair of GTE Sylvanias.

Cool information, gents. Kudos to you once again. It was almost comical when I was setting up grayscale...I switched from my PLUGE DVD to antenna on my dvd unit, and the background was like 80% white, with a new black Ford auto in the middle-- I could not even distinguish the Ford from an Aston Martin. So much for DC resto. I still have an attachment to these portacolors though-- but I like em better with the plug pulled.

Has anyone else noticed that the CRT is a bit dim for outdoor use, or is it just mine has a weak 11SP22?

Has anyone else noticed that the CRT is a bit dim for outdoor use, or is it just mine has a weak 11SP22?

I used to have a first generation Portacolor many years ago. They are not suitable for outdoor use at all. They are portable in the sense that they can be easily taken from room to room, kitchen counter to dresser, that sort of thing. They are not great performers but they have nice style and are fun to work on.

I was going to start a new thread, but I'll just add to this one. The wife and I were out last evening and she spotted a 13" color portable on the curb - got out to take a look, and on the opposite corner, I spotted - wait - could it be? Yep, a Porta-color. I gave up on the 13" set, grabbed the GE, and we came home. Checked it over this morning, cleaned off the sand (from sitting on the curb) and powered her up. Came up with no sync and reduced vertical height. A few adjustments (all user adjustments, I haven't opened it up yet) and got a useable picture on all VHF channels, but no UHF at all. I'll probable have to check the wafer switch on the back of the VHF tuner - commo problem with getting B+ to the UHF tuner.

It's a model WM213HWD3 - and the cabinet is in great condition, with only a small depression on the top where some bozo set a cigarette. Only a depression, as the faux walnut grain is intact and un blemished. The Porta-color badge on the top left is there too. Rabbit ears are original and intact. It had a 75:300 ohm adapter, so the original owner probably had it on cable.

Overall, a cool score. Now where to put it - I don't plan on making it a daily watcher (200W draw from the power line, crappy picture, you get the idea)

I'm 2 for 2 with my curb finds. last week, I scored a HEAVY Toshiba 35" set that has run for almost a week with splendid pictures.

Cheers!

People make fun of the ol' Porta-Pottys,-I'm guilty, too, but for what they are, they do a darn nice job...We had one from '66 til '73, it was our main set, I don't remember it skippin' a beat-& it was on 12-14 hrs a day, 7 days a week. We then got a 17" Trinitron, it was like the difference between "Lightning", & "Lightning Bug", but the ol' GE was a trooper...