Check out ebay item #140192104220 for what appears to be a decent looking 19" GE tube color set. This appears to have a click stop UHF tuner and the knobs look like the ones that were used on late '70's or early '80's models. They say the chassis is a 19CD. This was probably the last 19" GE tube set from the mid '70's. I'd like to have it; but, it's too far (as usual). So, someone please save it from the dump!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140192104220&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebay.com%3A80%2Fsearch%2Fse arch.dll%3Ffrom%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dm37%26satitle%3D 140192104220%26category0%3D%26fvi%3D1

I have a couple sets with that chassis. A miserable TV to work on, if you ask me. The older of the pair has a terrible, terrible picture; the newer one, not much different from the one listed, is not too bad. Once I had one of these rebadged as "Bradford" (W.T.Grant house brand) If anyone is down this way and wants one just let me know. I won't pay you to take them...but I will load them for free!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140192104220&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebay.com%3A80%2Fsearch%2Fse arch.dll%3Ffrom%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dm37%26satitle%3D 140192104220%26category0%3D%26fvi%3D1

I have a couple sets with that chassis. A miserable TV to work on, if you ask me. The older of the pair has a terrible, terrible picture; the newer one, not much different from the one listed, is not too bad. Once I had one of these rebadged as "Bradford" (W.T.Grant house brand) If anyone is down this way and wants one just let me know. I won't pay you to take them...but I will load them for free!

Well, I see the one on epay sold for $1. I wonder if an AK member got it? The more I think about it; I may have worked on a similar GE model. Is that the chassis that is constructed on a PC board and housed in a plastic (not metal) frame? I think they also had a plastic piece that slid out from under the chassis for ease of servicing. As far as GE pictures, I never was too crazy about them. Even the early '70's solid state GE's were not that great. I think a Motorola would be better. Some of the later GE tube sets and the SS sets from the late '70's on had a somewhat decent picture. My favorite GE chassis was the PC solid state chassis from the '80's. About the only thing that went wrong with them were caps in the vertical circuit and the power supply. But, most of those today are found with weak CRT's. Those sets are between 20 and 25 years old now.

Yeah, that's the one. It's a pretty crowded chassis with many things hard to access. The sliding plastic grille underneath was a nice thought but not enough. In the Sams for those sets they picture a 23" console version-you can tell how good they were as that is the single most dog-eared, coffee-stained, solder-splattered photofact that I have! The guy I got it from was a GE dealer so I'm sure he had a steady diet of them in the service department! What I'd like to find is a KE chassis, like the console we had when I was a kid. The one we had displayed a nice picture. (but, then, I didn't have much to compare it to when I was 7 years old!)

In the Sams for those sets they picture a 23" console version-you can tell how good they were as that is the single most dog-eared, coffee-stained, solder-splattered photofact that I have!

:lmao:

Repairmans best friend eh? mor at the very least, job security...

This set is now in my collection. It works great. I bought it for a daily watcher. Needed only a few simple fixes. Only cost 51 dollars to ship, not bad for 70lbs.
Mark

I figured it would cost much more than $51 to ship and I'm happy you got it in one piece. If I may ask, who shipped it for you? I think that is one of the last GE tube color sets from around '75 or '76. I saw a late '76 PortaColor once and it seemed to have a better picture than the earlier ones. I guess GE was starting to get their act together by then.

Hi,

This set has an OK picture, they were very prone to repairs even when new. Not one of the easier sets to service or align. The only GE Color TV sets I much like are the RCA based Roundie console and Portacolors.

Tell me about it, I am still trying to troubleshoot my black one like this{ it;s a little older has continuous UHF but the chassis is almost identical} The raster is flashing red the green and nothing seems to help. It may be a bad pot, but I don't know. The more I look at this one the more I think it is a '75 or '76. My favorite thing about a GE is the way it produces it's blues, the reds are a little orange but not too bad. Good enough to watch while I keep the others safe! I had it shipped via UPS and they did not break it! yay! I hate when you are all exited about a "new" set and you open the box after two weeks of waiting and there it is... all smashed. It happened to me recently.
Mark

It could very well be bad pots especially if they are the ones that have several controls in one unit. There was one such pot in the P'colors that had boost voltage on one end of it and the pot would carbonize and the boost voltage would leak over and mess up other circuits. Also, you may want to get that soldering iron cranked up and resolder all the connections on the PC board. GE's were bad to have loose solder connections. I fixed a lot of P'colors that way!

Hi,

Definitely check the solder joints on a GE set. Soldering is a weakness on GE sets and yes, many Portacolors were repaired by redoing cold solder joints.

I figured it would cost much more than $51 to ship and I'm happy you got it in one piece. If I may ask, who shipped it for you? I think that is one of the last GE tube color sets from around '75 or '76. I saw a late '76 PortaColor once and it seemed to have a better picture than the earlier ones. I guess GE was starting to get their act together by then.

This big improvement with the later Portacolors was the CRT. They went to a much sharper high focus voltage CRT in about 74.

{black GE}Excellent! I will definitely check the solder joints. And yes, they are the type of pots that are three in one. It acts like a leak or a short. I noticed when I turn the brightness up to where I want it the raster seems to become more agitated and flashes more and faster. Also it won't let me set up the greyscale, It refuses to produce white, grey, or black. Safe to say, the picture sucks! But I'm getting off subject, Maybe I should have started a new thread about the black GE.
Mark

Back to the GE off Ebay, The only repairs needed was a .1 @400VDC cap in the power supply. It's funny that the cap cost more than the Tv at $1.15! Also I fixed the broken VHF knob {this was not in the listing and was not from shipping but not a big deal} Now all I need to do is figure out why the fine tuning does not work, I hope it's stuck like others i've seen, thats an easy fix. Right now the set works fine hooked up to my stupid satellite dish. I have been doing over time on some of my sets so I can enjoy the wonders of NTSC before it's gone. Boy will I miss the days of DXing on UHF and pulling in stations from across Lake Michigan. Northern WI and some of IN.
On a clear night I could pick up an extra 10 stations or so. I should have been born about twenty years before '82!
Mark

Some of those 19v GE sets had AFC and were designed without fine tuning knobs. I found that out in a service manual for the motel version. They called it something like "fiddle-free" that came as a kit which included a new VHF knob designed to work without the fine tuning one. Yours is probably just stuck though.

One of these that I had years ago worked fine though the picture had a dark look to it. When I opened it up I found that the big white cap in the power supply had fallen apart. At the time I didn't know anything about caps and couldn't really solder so I just left it that way. That cap seems to be a sore spot in those series string GE color sets.

This one does have the AFC switch, but the only channel thats tuned is channel 2, which is actually channel 3. this is the only current way to use the VHF, the fine tuning just spins. UHF works fine. I just don't have the time to open up that tuner right now. Hopefully in the next week or so. It's funny you mention that big white cap, there was one that had sprayed it's guts out all over the back of the set.

There's probably a broken gear causing your fine tuning problem. I've seen it several times on various brands of TV's.

in '97, I bought a bunch of '80's 19 GE motel sets that used the solid state "PC" chassis. All of the sets had those "fiddle free" knobs on the VHF and a "knock out" plug over the UHF tuner. The motel gave me a big box with the original knobs so that I could convert the TV's back for normal use. IIRC, the AFC was defeated when you pushed in the fine tuning knob to fine tune the channel. I bought 20 of those sets for $5 each and I think I fixed 19 of them. I had no trouble getting rid of them. I don't think I could do that today. IMHO, the "PC" was probably the best chassis GE ever made. About the only trouble it gave was bad caps in the vertical and power supply circuits.

:thmbsp:Thanks for the help everyone! I've been soldering like crazy! Found over five bad connections, one not soldered at all. And there is carbonizing in those pots, measured several hundred volts there. I take it this is the boost voltage. I'm workin' on two of 'em {19CD and 18CD} Those pots suck, they're the open type so there was also a ton of dust in there. After this part is done then it's time to tackle that tuner. I'll update when it's all done. Thanks again!

Between work, snow and life in general I finally got the time to work on some sets this weekend, one of which is the '75 GE from ebay. I took the tuner apart and cleaned and lubed each contact individually so there is no "bad channel" when all the others work fine. I hate when people blindly spray cleaner into a tuner getting everything but the contacts, I see a lot of that, also causes drifting. Fixed the fine tuning, the spring was a little strong for the unit and the assembly was a little stuck. Cleaned up nice and all
I had to do was stretch the spring slightly, works flawlessly now on all channels. I also replaced the broken VHF antennas, This was a pain! Literally, I accidentally stabbed myself with the broken antenna when removing it. I had to make three trips to the store to find the one that would work! The GE replacements and the "universal" ones would not fit, the ball was too small. Oddly, the ones that worked and the last ones I tried were for a Sears TV!, or the ones for japanese made sets! Anyways, they are replaced and look nice. This set has now ben run for over 8 hours now without one flinch, snowy spot, buzzing sound or problem whatsoever:banana:. I've noticed that any project of mine isn't done until I am cussing and/or bleeding! The best projects have all ended this way!!LOL! My other project consisted of a '60 Zenith HI-FI table radio{off subject,sorry!} I found sitting in the aisle-way of an antique store I went to with the family this weekend. It is fun to go back to the basics once in a while, AND this is one of my favorite Zenith radio models, I HAD to save it!{ I also noticed that even radios are getting real hard to find:tears:} I fixed the broken dial string{ reused the copper rings for originality, see pic} and detail cleaned the whole thing. The only thing wrong with it now is a water stain on the top, I'll probably just have to live with that. Years ago I would have probably passed on it because of that stain. Now I take 'em no matter what!