Hello, I am new here.
I had my own TV repair shop from 1962 to 1968 and have not worked on TVs since. However I have taken an interest in GE color TVs from the early 1960s because of other reasons not related to the restoration of these sets.
There have been claims that these early GE color sets had tended to explode (implode) magnetic wise. That is, they suddenly became an intense magnetic field that was generated inside the TV set in a split second that caused any near by steel items (including nails in the walls) to be pulled to the GE TV set with great force.
In one instance during 1965 or 1966 one GE color TV set did this in Chicago and claimed the life of a child that was watching the GE color TV. The child was not killed by the TV, but was killed by a metal item from the room that passed through his body on it's way to the GE TV set.

Claims indicate that only GE color TVs (or TVs made by GE sold under other names) of the early 1960s were involved, no other brands of color TVs were known to have this problem.

I am interested in these GE TV sets of this time frame for this reason and any information on these sets would be of great help to my investigation of the cause of these "explosions". Also I would like to aquire a Sams copy on these GE sets for study.

CRTs and yokes are of great interest in this quest.

I know this request seems unusual, but I really could use the information and I do understand analog electronics, so I can keep up to speed during a conversation related to these devices.

Thank you,
Newton

I don't believe any TV could generate a magnetic field powerful enough to pull nails out of walls. This sounds like a myth to me.

Sounds like Urban Legend to me, it would be impossible for any TV to generate enough magnetic force to pull nails out of the wall or even nearby objects.

There was some concern about excess X-Rays from sets at that time and I think GE was one of the biggest offenders, but even that was overblown.

Wow, the way you describe your story combined with the likelyhood that GE could have and would have kept the media hushed through secret illegal methods bring me to think it could be true.
This is very likely to be the best place to find out for sure. Many extremely well-educated and honest people are often here.

I can hardly wait to get to the bottom of this!
I just hope that the one or two guys that may know are not still being paid or threatened to keep thier mouth shut!

You can search and find many GE color sets here. Some are from your time frame with beautiful pictures on them.

Maybe GE had a handful of very oddly defective color sets with some wild engineering blunder or parts from china... I guess back then japan was more likely to supply.

Could japan have been like china today? Causing us trouble by pretending not to know lead is in thier products? Like lead won't cause multitudes of people to aquire cancers or even worse to cause multitudes to not be able to think very well. Gee... I wonder if that is part of the reason people like me can't keep our thoughts straight half the time?
I saw one product from china recently that had a hole in the package telling you to touch it! Like people need to touch a cell phone cover to like it better?

I don't remember which series but Generous Electric did have to sets that the HV would go as high as 40k, could cause you to glow in the dark I suppose.

Come to think of it maybe they used those tv's to help make the Eldridge disappear. The Naval ship involved in the so-called Philadelphia experiment.

That still sounds like an Urban Legend to me...

I can believe abnormally high X ray emission, and possible radiation poisoning. I can believe a defect in the picture tube causing it to implode during operation, sending flying glass everywhere, but a magnetic field strong enough to pull nails out of the wall? No. I'd bet money that's a myth.

Some calculations might be in order here to determine how much magnetic force would be needed to pull the nails from the walls as you describe. I'll bet there isn't one thousandth of the copper needed to do that in ANY television set ever made. There is also the problem of a power supply. Only so much current is available through that teeny cord. Calculations of the electromagnet needed to do this will show you how much current would be needed. If the current did not come from the wall, an electrical charge would have to be stored inside the set. I think you'll find that enough capacitance to do this would have been cost-prohibitive in the early 60's, and probably also would not fit inside the cabinet.

John

Hey! I wonder if I could duct-tape an old GE color TV to the front of my truck and use it to make those people who drive slow in the left lane move over.

Seriously, no.

Newton is a lawyer, chumming for a class-action suit, maybe? If one TV expert here would just say, "yeah, that might happen", then there's a chance to establish "reasonable doubt".

Maybe the one case mentioned, if not completely urban legend, there was a spinning cyclotron in the next room... Or maybe it happened in Almogordo.

Brach,
Thank you for the reply. Yes I agree the whole thing sounds strange, but this happened not just once, but several times with GE color sets of the 1960s. All the "exploding" (actually imploding) GE TVs were turned on at the time this intense magnetic event occured.

According to the claims, the GE design engineers were at a loss about the whole thing and were unable to come up with an reason why or how this would happen. But it was just GE color sets, no other brand.
GE may have tried to push the whole thing under the rug at the time. Not sure.

Since this happened in 65 or 66, I would guess that the sets would have to be made before that date. The Chicago incident stood out because of the death of the child watching the GE color TV in the living room. His mother was in the kitchen and escaped injury. The GE color TV set was the exact center of the "explosion" (implosion).

The child was killed, not by the TV, but by a metal object in the room that passed through his body on the way to the TV. The nails in the wall were pulled out with enough force to twist them. The TV was destroyed, but no damage to the apartment, other than the displaced metal (iron steel) objects.

It appears that for a split second, "something" caused the TV to create a very intense magnetic field that caused the "explosion" (implosion).

Of course, we all know a CRT can implode, but this was "something else" very different.

My next step is to scan the Chicago news papers 65 66 to see if I can find any thing, but this could be a long process as there was no fire, justs a exploding TV set and a death.

I am investigating the "something else" part.

Newton

Impossible. The only device I have ever encountered that has a danger of attracting metal objects at a distance is the superconducting magnet used in the bubble chamber at Fermilab. There they have a line painted on the floor to indicate the limit at which tools that are dropped are likely to be pulled in towards the magnet.

It never happened. I can't see how a TV could store the power to do it. Is there any newspaper record to back up the story? I would think so if it really happened.

How about a "shorted" thermistor in the degaussing coil circuit? Seems to me that might be a possible cause, although I doubt the "pull" would be very strong, but I don't know, either. I can't remember seeing a "shorted" thermistor in a degaussing coil circuit. They usually crumble and open.
Kevin

If I remember my Zenith with the degaussing coil and thermistor, the thermistor was parallel to the coil, as it heats up the resistance in the thermistor decreases and less current flows through the coil and more through the thermistor, so if it shorted the coil would never be in use at all, even when the tv powers up. I think.

All the thermistors that I saw crumbled and fell apart except for one that was smoking in a mid '70's Sylvania solid state hospital set. Often, the internal coil is not strong enough to degauss the tube and a stronger, hand held coil has to be used. I've never had a problem with any degaussing coil pulling metal objects.

comon guys if you believe this i have some great land for sale it is kinda under water but floats better than this story. if a set were to have that kind of magenetic power wouldnt you think it would be making a HELL OF A NOISE.
steve

Since most of the early GEs were RCA clones, I wonder why this only happened to GE sets. Very interesting......:scratch2:

Hello, I am new here.
Good, let's begin with a point we can agree on.
There have been claims that...early GE color sets had tended to explode (implode) magnetic wise. That is, ...suddenly...an intense magnetic field...was generated inside the TV set in a split second that caused any near by steel items (including nails in the walls) to be pulled to the GE TV set with great force. ... Claims indicate that only GE color TVs (or TVs made by GE sold under other names) of the early 1960s were involved, no other brands of color TVs were known to have this problem.
According to the claims, the GE design engineers were at a loss about the whole thing and were unable to come up with an reason why or how this would happen.

Where and when did you first hear these "claims"? Did you hear of this phenomenon on multiple occasions or from just one person who told you it had happened multiple times? The amount of detail you recall about the "Chicago incident" suggests you read about or were told about it at the time it happened...which begs the question why, if you know with any certainty that this tragic incident is a matter of fact, you would still lead with the phrase "There have been claims..."

WHOSE claims? Is there any point in asking you to cite a single source for any of this?



Practical jokes are supposed to be funny. This falls more into the realm of (frequently pointless) performance art.

thats a hard one to believe. ge didnt make their own crts. i have had an rca implode and nothing of that magnitude. wish that would have happened when they kicked in my roundie!

This is a true story, it has to be, Santa Claus told me so... :yes:

Sal

When I first responded to this I misunderstood that it was about nails being drawn to the TV. I mistook it to be TV's blowing up.(see what I mean about my small lead-smoked brain)
I hope Mr. Newton isn't entertaining himself at our expense. I would not be surprised if he is but he comes across kinda genuine. I hope he gets the article because I got too many other old news stories to look up first.(really, I'm not kidding).
If there is an article on it one could look up relatives of victem, etc. I would look if I had the time because I think stranger things happen and... oh yeah... I wanna know!
If it's true I think it was something to do with a space ships magnetic fields gone awry. Perhaps the aliens don't like GE. Maybe RCA and Zenith were in on it. I think even stranger things than that have and will continue to happen.

I'm nut's? I just saw Egypt's carvings showing, in one spot together, sideveiws of a helicopter, a speedboat, and a plane. In the past I saw other carvings showing Jetson like spaceships. The source could not be making these or we would hear somebody proving it to be fake. How could people in ancient times imagine such to carve such acurate designs of modern stuff in one area together?
I know most don't have time to find out themselves and therefore won't believe it but I am just keeping an open mind!

The urban legend:

So in many ways we have early RCA color TV engineers to thank for my discovery of the power generator. I am sure they are all dead now but they did contribute.
Perhaps a story which had impact on me at that time was told to me by my boss way back in 1970 I believe it was.
He told me that around 1965 or 66 there was an explosion in an apartment in Chicago. the authorities had concluded that for some unknown reason, a General Electric color television receiver had been the source of an explosion that killed a young black child in the apartment. My boss went on to relate that he was involved in the investigation because he was in Chicago at the time and he was invaluably experienced with television circuits and etc.
He told us that what they found was, the TV had exploded with some quick furry. The explosion did in fact kill the poor child who was sitting directly in front but sparred his mother who was some distance away in the kitchen.
The explosion was strange because of the absence of expected chemicals necessary to create the explosion. It appeared that the TV was the exact center of the explosion, however no one could find a reason for the explosion occurring. Also consider that there is not really much inside a TV to explode with enough force to kill people and destroy the living room a large apartment. Yes a CRT can explode and kill someone, however this was not the kind of explosion we are talking about. The most interesting part of the story is that according to our boss, metallic objects especially those containing large amounts of iron were dramatically displaced. He mentioned that some nails were actually removed from the walls and pulled toward the TV set. When they found them they were bent and shaped like cork screws! Everything in the room appeared to have moved or was moving toward the TV as it exploded, or imploded as the case may be. The child was apparently killed by way of these metallic objects traveling through his body on their way toward the center of the TV set.
As far as my boss knew, there was never a good explanation for the occurrence. We found out that this was not the only unexplained explosion of TV sets worldwide. However, the fact that all the sets exploded while in operation may bear some light. Also most of the TV sets were made by the GE company or were TV sets made using GE circuits and of similar design.
However, this man who had been my mentor for so many years had his own theory which he never told anyone as far as i know, except me. His theory was that the TV while in operation, somehow managed to become a receiver of more then just television waves and so for a millisecond in time became a receiver and the discharger of a huge amount of electrical and magnetic energy. This discharge of magnetic energy is vary similar to the discharge of magnetic energy during an atomic explosion. . . Now that is something I have thought about a great deal.

There might be a slim chance an imploding CRT could have killed someone but a magnetic field from a TV, no chance in hell, the hardware just isn't there.

-- an interview with Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
"Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 102
%%
"I have a friend who just got back from the Soviet Union, and told me the people
there are hungry for information about the West. He was asked about many
things, but I will give you two examples that are very revealing about life in
the Soviet Union. The first question he was asked was if we had exploding
television sets. You see, they have a problem with the picture tubes on color
television sets, and many are exploding. They assumed we must be having
problems with them too. The other question he was asked often was why the
CIA had killed Samantha Smith, the little girl who visited the Soviet Union a
few years ago; their propaganda is very effective.
-- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976
"Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100

Apparently the GE TV accidentally had a reciever that picked up the Earths electromagnetic field instead of the TV station's. Since the Earth's magnetic field is a jillion times stronger that a TV station, it exploded.

There's also a carburetor that gets 1000 MPG and GM is hiding it. And also there are aliens walking around Area 51. And George Bush planned 911.

Hello, I am new here.
I had my own TV repair shop from 1962 to 1968 and have not worked on TVs since. However I have taken an interest in GE color TVs from the early 1960s because of other reasons not related to the restoration of these sets.
There have been claims that these early GE color sets had tended to explode (implode) magnetic wise. That is, they suddenly became an intense magnetic field that was generated inside the TV set in a split second that caused any near by steel items (including nails in the walls) to be pulled to the GE TV set with great force.


GE didn't become pure evil until the mid 80's (when they ate RCA). Also, I've heard of skyrocketing high voltage (which could cause the CRT neck to crack) but I don't think the physics of the situation could allow the set to suck nails from walls.

GE didn't become pure evil until the mid 80's

Never had an old GE TV huh?

:yippy:

.....But it was just GE color sets, no other brand.
GE may have tried to push the whole thing under the rug at the time. Not sure.

Since this happened in 65 or 66, I would guess that the sets would have to be made before that date.

Well, If nobody else will come out and say it, I will. This is absolute bunk. GE color sets of the early 60's had RCA chassis. They would have been ctc12, ctc15, or ctc16, or clones. These chassis were sold by the millions in RCA and many other brands. They are the most common color roundie on the planet. If there was a problem, It would have been noticed in all these other sets that had the same insides, long before it would have been noticed on the relatively rare GE's.

I hate to be a wet blanket. In life, most things are possible. This isn't. But, welcome to AK. Hope you enjoy it here :)

John

The urban legend:

As far as my boss knew, there was never a good explanation for the occurrence. We found out that this was not the only unexplained explosion of TV sets worldwide. However, the fact that all the sets exploded while in operation may bear some light. Also most of the TV sets were made by the GE company or were TV sets made using GE circuits and of similar design.
However, this man who had been my mentor for so many years had his own theory which he never told anyone as far as i know, except me. His theory was that the TV while in operation, somehow managed to become a receiver of more then just television waves and so for a millisecond in time became a receiver and the discharger of a huge amount of electrical and magnetic energy. This discharge of magnetic energy is vary similar to the discharge of magnetic energy during an atomic explosion. . . Now that is something I have thought about a great deal.

Maybe there was just one GE set this happened to. Maybe it's a Burmuda Triangle type magnetic thing.

Well, If nobody else will come out and say it, I will. This is absolute bunk.

I think I kinda sorta hinted at that conclusion, but you get points for brevity and directness. :D

Actually, these TV sets have a flawed design that under the right conditions inverts magnetically. Since they are plugged in when this happens, it causes the usual polarity of the wires running through the walls --which, like everything else, is normally aligned with the fundamental electro-harmonic resonance of the Earth's magnetic field, and therefore causes no problems-- to reverse itself. As soon as this polarity reversal occurs, the wires in the walls REPEL the nails, pushing them out of the walls at high speed, like bullets. This requires less energy than pulling them out would, since you are just reversing the direction that the nails were put in, using a reversed polarity. Since the wires are connected to the city's electrical grid, they have plenty of power available to do this; it is not dependent on what is inside of the TV; all that does is initiate the reversal. Then the power of the city's electrical grid provides the rest of the energy needed. Sometimes when this event occurs, the neighbors' electricity supply "stutters" a little. Ever had your lights flicker or your TV set stutter a bit? It was probably due to this happening somewhere nearby in your city. So you see, the nails don't get sucked into the TV, they get pushed out of the walls.

Once any one of them touches the TV, though, it discharges the imbalance and stops the process, much the way a spark from your hand to a doorknob discharges a static buildup. The kid was just unlucky enough to be in the path of one, before the first one hit the television.

At the risk of oversimplifying, perhaps the easiest way to explain this comes out of the movie "Young Frankenstein": You connect the plus to minus, and minus to plus...

:scratch2: I think I have seen to many 1950s sci-fi flicks...

Yes, I've seen this effect in guitar amps too, but only with Electro-Harmonix brand tubes. They seem to have the right electro-harmonic resonance. It was dramatically shown in "Back to the Future" when Marty McFly's guitar amp exploded.


Note the name of one of the posters here:
http://www.overunity.com/index.php/topic,3660.msg67793.html

Hello Arkay and kbmuri,

I get the distinct impression you two are giving factual information and I greatly appreciate it. It makes sense to me but I am not as well-educated as I should be so I am often suspicious of "what I think".
I sure wish we could all verify this but I feel like it has been verified by much of what's written here. I am not sensing 3 men pulling our legs.

Thank you very much

This thread is creepy as hell...

I suppose it is possible, but very unlikely.

I know a fair bit about the Philadelphia Experiment though... Not to mention a few other experiments...

I don't own a cell phone, and I never will (and I am young, so its like... very odd to everyone)

Would it be less creepy to shower Heath Ledger with googoos and awws over how beautiful his acting abilities are?

I am not trying to joke or make others think anything.

I am reading words from at least two very well respected and very well educated men who obviously know alot more about science and electronics than I.

I just hope to find out if the nails came out of the wall and if what these men wrote isn't enough to prove it's possibility I do believe a newspaper article could lead to relatives who could verify it.

We will not be visiting the realatives so somebody here is knowlegeable enough to verify it . I bet this gentleman from HongKong is being serious and I bet he knows what he is talking about.

Don't you care if it happened or not? I would guess not

This is creepy? I sure weould like to know what you think is not creepy.

Goodnight and I love you. (now theres some real creepy for you you sexy hunk...ooh la la!)

http://www.cinecultist.com/archives/heath_ledger5.jpe

"S'matter with you Jack, you don't want a colored TV set, the dang things blow up!"

Yes, I've seen this effect in guitar amps too, but only with Electro-Harmonix brand tubes. They seem to have the right electro-harmonic resonance. It was dramatically shown in "Back to the Future" when Marty McFly's guitar amp exploded.


Note the name of one of the posters here:
http://www.overunity.com/index.php/topic,3660.msg67793.html

And your link lead me eventually back here:

http://www.overunity.com/index.php/topic,2383.0.html

...where you can download a PDF about this "TPU device".

http://www.overunity.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2383.0;attach=9211

Interesting reading......... :D

John

I doubt it but I failed to take the time to think of a better example of a typical conversation here at AK that most here apparently think is not creepy.

Heath's thread is in another category but if I took the time to find them I would find plenty in the TV section to support my impression that this talk of nails pushed out a wall to a TV is in no way "creepy" at all especially if compared to much of the "typical" humor here there and everywhere.

So, nails being pushed out a wall electromagnetically is not possible?
I hope to find the truth.

I am an honest man who loves humor of all types except when it's mean in any way towards the less fortunate.

Many of you are far above most men with your knowlege and wisdom. To try and make somebody less fortunate to believe untruths is definately mean and definately CREEPY AS HELL.

The degaussing coil could not suck any metal towards it because it has no core and thus no pull. This one is definitely a myth, however, a 21" CRT imploding could certainly cause problems!

Charles

Mr Arkay was also generous enough to clue me in.
I did think he may be spoofing but the initial story sounded possible to me because I thought nobody in a group of such highly intelligent, well-educated and considerate people would bother to think and type so much just to fool strangers. To me that is not at all funny but I don't mind and my previous words CREEPY AS HELL were not reflective of any anger towards anybody. I just thought it was creepy to say what I was part of was creepy. Now I guess it was creepy afterall but not as creepy as praising Heath Ledger as though he had accomplished anything important in his life.

Earlier in the day I was watching a special on Egypt tomb carvings showing the helicopter, speedboat, and plane all next to eachother as I described previously and other specials that brought me to believe there are wilder possibilities in life than I thought. Another showed many people out west claiming to have seen ships come out of the ocean. A 911 call desribed overhead huge craft. Much else was presented with info on magnetic possibilities for these vessels. It was about something I had never heard of but it seemed logical to me.
I am frustrated not being able to figure out what is true or not. I thought I was getting smarter but now I think I may have some brain damage.
I should have known I would have heard about the exploding sets if it was true but I thought if UFO's are real than this story could be also.
I can't believe I'm that slow. I guess the person who wrote the story will get a real thrill from making a fool of me? I think this was good for me but I just feel kinda creepy.

You cast yourself as a "stranger" but I wonder if maybe we knew you before by another name...http://b7.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00371/71/13/371723117_s.jpg

Would you like me to be someone that was here before? Sorry to disappoint you but I am not who you obviously think I am. He is a very good friend of mine who was, in my humble opinion, abused by at least one person here who apparently was on some very odd power trip. Apparently the offender is an extremely successful man with beautiful children who, surprisingly to me, seemed to take a genuine pleasure in hurting my friend based on his words. I heard my friend wrote horrible things in return and that was completely wrong of him to do so.

Perhaps it will please that person to know that not only did my friend throw away many worthwhile TV's but also gave me his two RCA's that I mentioned knowing at least several of you would know the sets as if they were your long lost children. He became very depressed over being treated as he was and is currently in a private mental hospital after being persuaded by his family to not take his own life.

He told me that if I came here I would find some of the greatest people on earth. He said he regrets what he did but could not help himself because he believed he was being targeted for a bully's pleasure. He said he will never come back here. I don't believe he will ever come back here because I have known him since the first grade and he is one of the most sincere men I have ever met. He is writing a story about it all and thinks he can sell it. I'm not sure how you sell a book from a mental hospital but I suppose stranger things have happened.

Is he crazy? I guess he is or he probably would not be where he is now.

Wow...This is gettin' deep...

He's going to sell a book about being mistreated on a bulletin board to the extent that he needed inpatient mental health treatment?

I think the book about the black-hole TV sets will sell better.

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?

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

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.

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 :-)

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.

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?

http://b7.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00371/71/13/371723117_s.jpg is apparently back. :sigh:

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

Checking the Proquest database (which *does* carry the Chicago Tribune, as well as the NY Times, Wash Post, LA Times, Atlanta Journal-Chronicle, Chicago Defender...) absolutely nothing on any related keywords about color televisions exploding. Closest thing: January 27, 1970 Chicago Tribune: "122 Color Television Models Criticized in Safety Report," attached. Though it uses the term "explosion" it actually is just talking about sets catching fire, which I think we all can agree is possible. All the other articles with these keywords were either irrelevant or were talking about the explosion in color television (which in Chicago seemed to be happening every few years...)

Jeff Martin
Chicago, IL

Eric, thanks for your offer.

I think the early 60s color GE model set I am looking for information on is the one (s) that uses convergence coils instead of permanent magnets.
I don't know just which GE color model that is.

It is thought by some, that these coils were the source of the "problem" with the GE color TVs.

It is not just the coils themselves or the connected devices to the coils, but the arrangement of those coils that were / are, thought to be critical to the nature of the "problem"

It is this coil arrangement, yoke arrangement, CRT and the connected devices that I have an interest in.

I hope some one knows which model(s) this is and could let me know.

Regards,

Newton

Hmm, that 1970 article does list GE sets as more prone to catch fire than many other popular brands. (No data was submitted on Japanese manufacturers) :scratch2:

Eric, thanks for your offer.

I think the early 60s color GE model set I am looking for information on is the one (s) that uses convergence coils instead of permanent magnets.

Newton

All early 60's sets used convergence coils - you are seeking a distinction that doesn't exist. Really, there is no possibility of this event ever having happened; my advice is to either give up or be prepared for many years of a fruitless hobby chasing this urban legend.

maybe "twilight zone" or "outer limits". dont think this really happened. make a good episode though. glad i didnt buy that ge roundie. potential atomic device,disguised as a television set. clever,very clever!

Hmm, that 1970 article does list GE sets as more prone to catch fire than many other popular brands. (No data was submitted on Japanese manufacturers) :scratch2:

Note: only certain models.

Also note that the reporting of TV set "fires" is historically extremely sloppy. It undoubtedly includes some cases of smoke but no fire due to operation of a circuit breaker or fuse, and some cases where the fire started in some other way, but the TV set was blamed because it was convenient. Still, the engineering evaluation of materials present to support combustion is valid, and I believe these kinds of things were addressed by UL with stricter criteria for materials and tests. I personally can recall upgrades of PC board materials and wire insulation temperature ratings, although the details are lost to memory since I did not work in product engineering.

All that said, I do not leave my 1967 Magnavox plugged in when not in use.

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

I was digging around myself tonight and came across a blurb from a trade magazine from about '66 mentioning the same thing as one of these, about a simpler color crt from GE. This article was a little later and had the details: they were talking about the portacolor crt, which was simpler by virtue of using the inline gun.

I can play along with all this to a point. Okay...convergence boards varied somewhat from model to model. I would start comparing Sams for RCA sets and their GE counterparts and see what the differences were, and look at the convergence boards and see if they differed significantly. I am not a conspiracy theorist-I would say I am a skeptic. I see no harm, in this case, with helping out those who want to play with it. I have a pile of old paperwork and it's enjoyable to leaf through it anyway, so if I can find something why not share it. I was contacted by someone else privately regarding this whole thing and have offered them some suggestions.

There were GE sets (and come to think of it..other brands too) I would like to have seen explode. Then I wouldn't have had to fix 'em.

Y'all got my nerves tore up. Now I'm thinkin maybe I'll leave this vintage TV collectin' thing alone and go back to the safety of my day job at the dynomite factory:)

I'm not even a TV guy, but I had to read the whole thing.:sigh:

All I know is, when I was a kid, I could put my bare feet on the screen of our RCA roundie and see the bones in my toes.

Excuse me...I think I got something in my third eye. Need some eyedrops. Gotta wax my scales, too.

:lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao:

Hello Newton, I have a guess on how a imploding crt could generate magnetic fields way above the usual levels associated with normal tv operation. Of course my theory is about as scientific as discussions of the star ship Enterprize's warp drive. In a article of Popular Mechanics magazine Sept 2001 issue. They discussed how a Electro Magnetic Pulse EMP weapon would work. It requires a collapsing magnetic field, usually you have a coil of superconducting wire, that is energized, and then you have a small explosion which forces a copper tube to progressively short out the length of the coil which causes a induced pulse to emerge from the other end. It sounds far fetched but their illustration kinda looks like a long deflection coil. I know a deflection coil isn't a superconductor but maybe it was struck by lightning at the moment it happened. Just my 2 cents, Logan:nutz:

Ball lightning, that's the ticket! It purportedly does stuff like this. I remember an article about it, maybe in Popular Science, or the tongue-in-cheek Uncle Tom's Corner in Electronics Illustrated.

What does a slam on Heath Ledger have to do with jerking us all around for five pages of postings on what is obviously a huge jerk off tale? But the person who put up the frame from the movie with a light hearted joke about TVs blowing up gets high marks from me for disarming what otherwise could have been a positively explosive degeneration into homophobia.
The Vulcan aphorism applies here: "Wanting a thing to be so does not make it so." T'Pal's admonition to Archer referred to time travel; we might as well have been comparing notes on our recent trips to the week of the big bang for all the veracity this thing held from the get-go. Or as William Shatner told a shocked SNL viewing audience: Get A Life. --Tom H

The Vulcan aphorism applies here: "Wanting a thing to be so does not make it so." T'Pal's admonition to Archer referred to time travel; we might as well have been comparing notes on our recent trips to the week of the big bang for all the veracity this thing held from the get-go.

Ahh, but time travel ended up being true... The basis for the whole series.

I would be more inclined to trust the NY Times than a Vulcan... Vuclcans are always holding-back and sneaky.

Some interesting things have been discussed here haven't they??

Someone mentioned lightning:: I am no physicist--BUT...I can think of ONE very REMOTE but MAYBE possible explanation

First:: there are a couple of "initial conditions" that would HAVE to be met here--for this to happen.

1--the CABINET MUST have been made of metal.
2--the set MUST have been hooked to an MATV system or rooftop antenna.

If so-I think HERE is what MAYBE could have happened:

The set is on, playing normally. Lightning, hits the rooftop antenna, or CLOSE (it does NOT really matter if it hit, a close strike is sufficent).

For a couple of milliseconds or so, BEFORE the resistance of the lead-in, amp tubes(of the MATV amp, if used) and power cord, casue destruction, a VERY VERY high current/voltage pulse WITH a VERY powerful magnetic field, could enter the set, AND IF it had a metal cabinet, in THEORY, for a brief milisecond, the cabinet COULD have become a VERY powerful magnetic source, before it totally vaporized and exploded.

That is my THEORY--as I said--it is a VERY remote possibility--but maybe possible. and it is the ONLY practical explanation I could think of.

Because--otherwise, the power line would have to supply more than 500 -1000 amps, to provide probably 15k Gauss of magnetic power, needed to magnetize the cabinet and cause the effect.

:DI would be more inclined to trust the NY Times than a Vulcan... Vuclcans are always holding-back and sneaky.

Hey wait a minute! Vuclcans can't lie :no:; it's against their nature or something. But the NY Times... remember that reporter covering those two nuts shooting people from the back of a car; dude was writing fiction that made the front page.:yes:

What does a slam on Heath Ledger have to do with jerking us all around for five pages of postings on what is obviously a huge jerk off tale? But the person who put up the frame from the movie with a light hearted joke about TVs blowing up gets high marks from me for disarming what otherwise could have been a positively explosive degeneration into homophobia.
The Vulcan aphorism applies here: "Wanting a thing to be so does not make it so." T'Pal's admonition to Archer referred to time travel; we might as well have been comparing notes on our recent trips to the week of the big bang for all the veracity this thing held from the get-go. Or as William Shatner told a shocked SNL viewing audience: Get A Life. --Tom H

hehehe

Just how much energy does it take to pull nails out of walls? I bet it is a lot more than can be drawn from A 117 volt circuit, even if the 15 amp fuse ( we are talking 1960's) were removed and a copper penny installed in it's place.

Perhaps they had several bedrooms full of capacitors and one full of rectifiers.

I'm surprised this topic is now on its 6th page..lol...for the life of me i dont see how this is possible. Even if it was, why only to one brand concidering the circuitry in the tv's of that era were more or less similar. I think this is another one of those urban legends like the guy who attached the jet engine to the top of his 66 Impala and ended up hitting the side of a mountain when it left the ground. Come on...get real! :)
-Tony

I still say it was a one-time lightning strike that, through the grapevine, turned into what is being talked about here. I have read a very detailed Chevy rocket story on the web which sure seems plausible, but is almost certainly made up. Maybe I should write up an exploding GE story and post it somewhere, and see who notices!