I've had this set since before I knew how to fix tvs. I took it to the last, and now long gone tv shop in kenosha for him only to tell me the HV rectifier was bad and he couldn't get one. Fast forward about 5 or 6 years and I was looking though my tube stash one day and the big lead covered rectifier caught my eye, I thought man, that looks like the one for that old GE. It was, I put it in and was greeted with a PERFECT picture, I mean the best I've ever seen on an old GE set. Needless to say I was very happy......but it didn't last:no: The picture started flickering and the green drive pooped out. It's probably a short or bad cap somewhere buried. I don't have a schematic (at least that I know of) after I moved a lot of things are misplaced so who really knows. Anyway, I was moving more things into storage today and going though some stuff and thought, damn I'm bored of not fixing any sets in a long time, so.....I brought this one home. It still does the same thing it did before. I replaced the pots that control the drives the last time I was pulling out hair over this cramped hard to work on POS. The original ones were breaking so I had to modify it a bit because the three in one pot was unobtainium. Two fit through the holes in their original spot while one is mounted inside the set so the back has to come off to get to it. Originally, I was very happy to find the carbon tracks broken in the original pot, I thought wow, this will be easy. No. I suck at working on sets like this, early Zenith and RCA, I'm good at, but this one NO! I was hoping by reading my rambling post and looking at the pictures someone could help me get this thing going or at least tell me what all the voltages should be on the CRT pins and in the color demod section. The CRT tests very strong on all three guns with no shorts. I'll bet it is something really easy but in a place I can't see or get to so it's been overlooked. Thanks in advance, I may have posted about this set before but can't find anything. It's been sitting for about 2 years since I gave up on it last time.
Overlook the garbage in the background that I'm supposed to take out.
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/Photoon9-23-12at556PM_zps18ab7726.jpg
Picture with color all the way down
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/Photoon9-23-12at600PM2_zpsea2d0ea0.jpg
Color turned up
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii90/zenithfan1/Photoon9-23-12at602PM_zps799ba63f.jpg

Also, when I was saving this set from the basement of my foreclosed house, I broke the tint knob. (Had to move QUICKLY) If anyone has a spare chrome PortaColor knob I'll pay for it +shipping. Thanks!

Wow, Nothin'? At this rate I'll go bald before it works right:D :banana: Yes. I posted a banana :P

You probably have already tried this; but, if you have not, look for bad solder connections on and around the tube sockets that contain the chroma and video tubes. Also, try wiggling the tubes around in their sockets and don't overlook a possible bad CRT socket.

I had a 19" RCA tube portable and a 13" Admiral tube portable that lost it's green. In both cases, it was an open coil in the green video driver circuit.

I have a Packard-Bell branded GE built color TV that's similar to this one; but, I've never plugged it in. I don't recall seeing too many of these larger GE portable color tube TV's. I don't think they stood the test of time like RCA and Zenith.

i had a few of those back then.very good sets picturewise.i always liked g e s look.most others didnt,but they had a certain sharpness that i liked.not bad sets electronically either.

I had a porta color that the green was MIA, turned out a minor tweek on a phase shift transformer was all it took. I used a vector scope with a built in gated color bar generator to set it up. There are also the drive pots (can you get a green raster?) and of course the difference amp tube. you should prob start by just seeing if the green raster is present by turning down the red and blue G2 pots. If no green then you should check the CRT pins for correct bias on the cathode/G1 and G2 voltages.

I have the same set nut is talking about, a packard bell branded one of those and I had to replace the SCREEN pots to get all the colors working. You are right about them going bad.
This should be easy to diagnose.
The wire colors going to the crt socket are all EIA standard colors on every set. All the yellow w blue, red, green stripe are the cathodes, The white with b,r,g stripe grid, then the 3 solid color wires screen.
All in the groups of 3 should be about the same. IE all the solid r,b,g wires should all be around 600v. the yellow w r,b,g all around 150 etc.
You will find it fast using this method.
Ohh and you can use the voltages from any 22 series tube. Even a 21FJP22 will have about the same voltages.

If you have a model number or chassis im sure i have the schematic.

I have a couple of these sets; you can tell how good a set was by looking at the Sams. The 2 most worn out, wrinkled up, solderering-iron-burnt, written-on, coffee-stained Photofacts I've seen were for a CTC-38 and this GE. They really deserve the honor of being called a POS. That doesn't mean I don't like 'em!

Those tri-pots are junk. I have remote mounted new pots elsewhere which isn't great asthetically but it works.

Thanks for the tips! I should have time this weekend to dig into it.:)