The color is superb for one of these sets!
Of course it still looks like you're watching it through a Screen Door but that's just the way it is.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GE-Porta-Color-Television-/120998823749?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c2c178745

thats a neat looking set ,might have to keep and eye on it. unless i find a new scope nead to find a higher freq scope been wanting one just funds are tight.

So this PortaColor closed at $215 dollars. Amazing price if you ask me.
Seems that smaller tube sets, especially color, are going up in price.

Seems like a lot of dough for a set that was mass produced for nearly 15 years. I can just imagine how many are still stashed in closets. :scratch2:

Seems like a lot of dough for a set that was mass produced for nearly 15 years. I can just imagine how many are still stashed in closets. :scratch2:

I bid it up to about $51.00 and someone bid it up a lot higher. Since I have two, I didn't need it that bad. :boring:

Would love to have one of those...with the little Compactrons. Saw those little tiny tubes in Hong Kong in my little TV/Radio repair class. For some reason I seem to remember someone refering to them as "peanut" something or other, unless I'm thinking of different tubes altogether.

Would love to have one of those...with the little Compactrons. Saw those little tiny tubes in Hong Kong in my little TV/Radio repair class. For some reason I seem to remember someone refering to them as "peanut" something or other, unless I'm thinking of different tubes altogether.

I think you're thinking about " Nuvistors ". Most compactrons are the same diameter as octal tubes. The lengths and diameters do vary. :yes:

Speaking of Porta Colors, I have a question about mine.....

Powered it on for the first time, made a loud BANG.

Tried it about a month ago because I was bored :D, and after a good cleaning of the controls the dang thing actually worked! I watched it for about half an hour, everything looking great, and all of a sudden, the picture blooms, brightness fades, and the picture gets black from the center out to the edges, and the whole raster is dead. Looked like what happened to the planet Jupiter in the movie 2001. Shut it off for about 10 mins, turned it on, and the everything was fine, but it happened again.

Speaking to a VK member about this issue, and he put the fear of Jesus put in to me about what that BANG might have been, though it didn't happen since....as in a dangerously arcing flyback or circuitry due to a poor quality issue.

What do you guys think?

Hey Tim, there are a few of those white ceramic "time bomb" caps in there. Some are in the horizontal out section and are located toward the very back of the chassis by the controls. Mine had one blow up and the same symptoms and description as your set was the result. It was very easy to fix, took 10 min. I forget the cap values now, .1@1000v or something......

Yeah Kamakiri. These were REAL little tubes. I think I remember them being like two inches tall, and only about as big around as your finger. They were loose, so have NO idea what they were from, but they sure were cool to look at.

With my collection, I don't own ANYTHING with tubes in it since I [stupidly] gave my old Hallicrafters S38 to someone like ten years ago.

I was sort of assuming these "Compactrons" were real little like this. I've seen and even worked with a couple old tube GE sets when I was a kid....but they really only had very pedestrian problems like dirty pots and tuners, an occasional "playing" with purity and geometry. Back in the early '80s....most of these sets weren't really old at all and recapping just wasn't something that ever came up unless you saw big visible hum bars or something. Not real sure if the little GE set I had for a short time as a kid was a Portacolor. It WAS a tube set.....but like 12" (color)....and was actually quite robust to all my "banging on it" as one of my "student" sets I brought into that class.

What picture tube did these Portacolors use, and did they use the same one spanning the entire production years?

I know mine's an 11" tube, but the model number escapes me....

PortaPotties are like Chihuahuas- They don't KNOW that they're small, old, cheap 'n' nasty, so they just keep on working, regardless...We had one as our main TV from 1965 til around 1974, when my dad got a bigazz Trinitron. L'il GE was on 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, & never burbled or complained.

What picture tube did these Portacolors use, and did they use the same one spanning the entire production years?

The originals used a 11SP22, or IIRC a 11WP22, which is a low focus voltage CRT.
The later ones used a 10V**22 CRT, which is a high focus voltage CRT. I understand that it has a finer dot-pitch screen. It also uses the newer size designation. It's still the old fashioned 70 degree sweep angle. The solid state set used the same CRT, as the last of the tube sets. :boring:

I bought a 1966 Portacolor from a Mesa AZ thrift shop for $3 in 2003. I took it home, plugged it in and it worked. It looks as if it needs an IF alignment, but it gave a reasonable color picture.

I took it apart and cleaned out the dust and have planned to getting around to restoring it for the last 10 years. I will occasionally get it out and plug it in and it will always work.

Someone created a terrific website for the Portacolor. I first discovered this site when I bought the set. I suppose if you are following this thread you must have seen it:

http://www.rwhirled.com/portacolor/

I love no.2 in the FAQs section of the webpage:

2. So, are these some sort of valuable collectibles or something?
Nope. As far as I know, there's zero "collector" value in these things, and hardly anybody else in the world is at all interested in them; if anything, they're more a source of derision than anything else even among the antique radio/TV collector community [You are welcome to surprise me, however]. I just happen to think they're a curious footnote in the history of entertainment electronic techology in the USA, and thought they deserved a web page somewhere. :-) Even at prices around ten dollars, Porta-Color sets tend to languish unwanted at thrift stores and garage sales across the nation.

Perhaps the Portacolor was underestimated until now?

The man behind that website used to come on here sometimes but I haven't seen him for a year or two. Well done site.

Kam, I agree on that cap being the problem. Even if it isn't, it needs to go. I had one blow on mine. The set kept playing but with a dark, screwy picture. I have had some 50s radios where a bad cap would keep blowing periodically. The set would play fine, jut every so often BANG! Good for a laugh, depending on who is in the room at the time!

The dual AGC/Height control will wisker over and "bang" also. There's B+ Boost on that height control wiper. Sometimes in a dimly lit room you will see the flash!

That control comes apart quite easily for cleaning.

The color is superb for one of these sets!
Of course it still looks like you're watching it through a Screen Door but that's just the way it is.

HAHAHAHA, yea thats about it! I have several of those things floating around here. At that price I should ebay them all before the dollar fully goes down the toilet and no one can afford novelty junk.

Exactly on the whiskers, every one I have seen had whiskers in that agc/vert combo pot thing. I usually blow them out with b+ but the correct way is to open it and clean it up.

Sylvania is another brand that Always has whiskers in the pots. They use that same 3 pot assembly and they are always shorted.

Yeah Kamakiri. These were REAL little tubes. I think I remember them being like two inches tall, and only about as big around as your finger. They were loose, so have NO idea what they were from, but they sure were cool to look at.

With my collection, I don't own ANYTHING with tubes in it since I [stupidly] gave my old Hallicrafters S38 to someone like ten years ago.

I was sort of assuming these "Compactrons" were real little like this. I've seen and even worked with a couple old tube GE sets when I was a kid....but they really only had very pedestrian problems like dirty pots and tuners, an occasional "playing" with purity and geometry. Back in the early '80s....most of these sets weren't really old at all and recapping just wasn't something that ever came up unless you saw big visible hum bars or something. Not real sure if the little GE set I had for a short time as a kid was a Portacolor. It WAS a tube set.....but like 12" (color)....and was actually quite robust to all my "banging on it" as one of my "student" sets I brought into that class.

I bet you are thinking of subminitures and acorn tubes. I picked up some military aircraft locater thing thats just full of them. I even have a military tube tester that will test them.
There were some radios made that used them, I think motorola? Someday I want to build something using them.
Compactrons are a regular size tube with 3-4 sections jammed inside. There was an AM radio made that had 1 compactron that did everything.
IMO GE made good tubes and the compactrons were reliable

Cool!!....Sounds like the "integrated circuit" of tubes. Pretty sure I have never seen one then. Sounds like it would have a wild socket since I would imagine it can only share the heater pins. An AM radio with just one tube would be fun to run "open frame" so you can see the one tube light up. So were the Compactrons seperated in a "pie" configuration?...or were they "stacked" inside.

Update:
Did an image search on Google. I'm surprised these actually are in what look like just regular sockets. Couldn't really tell how the "sections" were laid out from the pics...but my experience with tubes is almost ZERO since the class in the early 80s. Growing up in Hong Kong, and coming to USA to live in yet another flat....I've just never had the room for the sets I "really" wanted to have (BIG long consoles).

I bet you are thinking of subminitures and acorn tubes. I picked up some military aircraft locater thing thats just full of them. I even have a military tube tester that will test them.
There were some radios made that used them, I think motorola? Someday I want to build something using them.
Compactrons are a regular size tube with 3-4 sections jammed inside. There was an AM radio made that had 1 compactron that did everything.
IMO GE made good tubes and the compactrons were reliable

The 1953 Motorola clock portables used sub-miniture tubes. Three sub-minis plus a 3S4. They also built a small portable radio with three sub-minis and a 1R5. Strange!
Several other firms used them around the same time frame.

Hey Tim, there are a few of those white ceramic "time bomb" caps in there. Some are in the horizontal out section and are located toward the very back of the chassis by the controls. Mine had one blow up and the same symptoms and description as your set was the result. It was very easy to fix, took 10 min. I forget the cap values now, .1@1000v or something......

Right now, I've got the set in "fear factor" mode.....mainly because the inside of the set was so gummy with tar :yuck:

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f9/hondacuraworld/0113132106.jpg

The ceramic cap to the far left on the chassis appeared to have some oill leaking out of it.....I've got replacements from Digi-Key going in today, and hopefully, reassembly.

Any tips on (attempting to) clean this chassis? I may just scrub the case, clean the tubes, and throw it back together.....but I hate leaving a job undone in that regard......

Yikes!! did you try it before taking it all apart? I have had two of those and they both were dirty as hell and worked fine (with orig caps, I did replace the one ceramic one on the back).

If anything goes wrong and you cant get it back working AND decide you don't want it let me know. I am looking for a CRT for one.

hmmm went back and re read your post (did not see how old this thead was), Mine did make a few loud pops but that has stopped and its fine now. Looks like you may have more issues

Hm, I dunno.....nothing that makes a loud POP has no issues, just ones that haven't surfaced yet ;) .

Mine popped the moment I plugged it in, but I tried it a second time for the heck of it. After an hour or so of playing, the scenario that I wrote up came to pass.

It just LOOKS like a mess. In reality, to take the chassis out, is a matter of desoldering 4 wires, one spade terminal, and one ground wire (IIRC). The whole chassis HAS to come apart to effectively de-tar the case, and as I'm sure you know, the wires that connect everything together are REALLY short, which ends up making everything look like a jumble once it's all out of the case :)

Moved this thread over, as it's now becoming more of a technical discussion, or, from this point, a :saywhat:

Got the set repaired and reassembled yesterday, and powered it up. Slowly, it came to life....I say slowly because I must have jarred the controls way out of position, and I had to tweak everything. It started to get a picture, then BANG! You'd swear there was a firecracker inside the set. Scared the bejesus out of me!

But then the picture pulled in perfectly....perfect color, the vertical locked dead on, and everything was excellent.

What.....the....hell!

I pulled the back this morning, and it wasn't the new film caps I installed, because they're just as they were. What the hell kind of BANG can cause a set TO work properly? Usually, it's the opposite way around!

Pics of the set assembled, and then working perfectly after it threw out a loud sudden cough ;)

Moved this thread over, as it's now becoming more of a technical discussion, or, from this point, a :saywhat:

Got the set repaired and reassembled yesterday, and powered it up. Slowly, it came to life....I say slowly because I must have jarred the controls way out of position, and I had to tweak everything. It started to get a picture, then BANG! You'd swear there was a firecracker inside the set. Scared the bejesus out of me!

But then the picture pulled in perfectly....perfect color, the vertical locked dead on, and everything was excellent.

What.....the....hell!

I pulled the back this morning, and it wasn't the new film caps I installed, because they're just as they were. What the hell kind of BANG can cause a set TO work properly? Usually, it's the opposite way around!

Pics of the set assembled, and then working perfectly after it threw out a loud sudden cough ;)

In all probability, one, or, more of the back controls has "tin whiskers" shorting out the B+ causing the loud explosions. Nof goof for either the controls, or, your electrolytics. This is a very familiar problem on these GE Porta Color sets.
You could try dismantling the controls, and, cleanning them well, including with a soft tooth brush, or, replace the trouble makers.
Bill Cahill

I bet you are thinking of subminitures ... Someday I want to build something using them.


I did that, see my web page http://pw2.netcom.com/~wa2ise/radios/AA5submini.html
and compactrons http://pw2.netcom.com/~wa2ise/radios/compaa3.html

In all probability, one, or, more of the back controls has "tin whiskers" shorting out the B+ causing the loud explosions. Nof goof for either the controls, or, your electrolytics. This is a very familiar problem on these GE Porta Color sets.
You could try dismantling the controls, and, cleanning them well, including with a soft tooth brush, or, replace the trouble makers.
Bill Cahill

Replacement seems like the best way to go. Now, where do I get my hands on some of thae critters :D

Well, it's not looking good :(

I was watching the Portacolor today for about a half hour, then a firecracker went off :eek:

BANG

Lost the raster and sound. Powered it down quickly.

Opened it up just for a quick visual. Nothing seemed blown. Based on what I've done so far, any thoughts?

Does it at least have high voltage? I wonder where this could be happening.

Haven't gone any further than just a visual reconnoiter of the inside this evening. It gave up the ghost about 3 hours ago, so I decided to cool my frustrations on my CTC-36, which is being a bit more productive.

Tomorrow night, I'll open it up again and poke around. I've never had any set I've worked on go off like a firecracker as much as this one has.....this is the 3rd time.

both mine had loud snaps, I think it came from around the screen pots. Happened a couple times then no more, been fine since then, I use it as a daily driver. Keep at it, you will get it sorted out.