Porta-Color on You-Know-Where...
 

..Not mine, no affiliation. Item # 290212073905. Got a little over a day to go, still pretty cheap. Looks like it works pretty good, typical for a Porta-Potty. They don't know they're old & cheap & shouldn't still work, so they just do...(grin) Always had a warm spot in my heart for these little guys, they're generally real troopers. Somebody grab it, OK ? You'll feel good about yrself...-Unca Sandy

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Its an exact duplicate of mine. Mine has served many hours with only a few hiccups. I'm actually pretty impressed by these little sets. Very reliable.

David

Is that that one you got from me? I bought that from a thrift store when I was in Michigan, never did any repairs to it, as far as I know (except for missing the antenna) it was still totally original.

Those were remarkable little sets for the time. But remember....

1) The dot pattern on the screen is of exactly the same density as for larger CRTs of the time. This means iffy resolution at best.

2) Some of the compactron tubes used in some sets of this vintage are made of pure unobtainium.

It was in the early 1980s that I had one of those sets on my bench with a complete sync failure problem. After being on for about 5 minures the picture would suddenly start to spin and roll. Turned out that a triode section in one of the compactrons would develop a grid-to-cathode short after warm-up. After futile search for a replacement, and a customer that reeeeeaaallly wanted this set to survive, as he really liked the thing, I said :sigh: I'll see what I can do. After some meditation over this matter I went out to my car and removed the battery, and brought it in to my bench.....

Inside of 15 minutes I was buttoning up that set--fully functional, and with that tube working just fine. :D

I found the listing before I found this thread! I'm the high bidder right now, wish me luck!

Wow! You blasted the short with a car battery? Did you put anything in series with the battery to limit current?

I have an attic full of compactrons, so if it is needed, I may have it.

I also have a 1977 Portacolor that works but not well, just as Andy indicates.

Interestingly, the picture is dated April 3rd 2008... This can only mean one thing... THERE'S BEEN A TIMEWARP AND THIS AUCTION ISN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN FOR ANOTHER MONTH!!

or they had their date stamp wrong...

Yep! :yes:

Noop! :D

WOW! I had no idea this could be done, I guess 'ya learn something new everyday.:yes:
Does anyone know the year of the porta-potty? It looks to me like a '72?

The deal with compactrons is that they may be a whole lot easier to find now than they were 25 years ago. A lot of that stuff has come out of the woodwork. I know I've got quite a pile of 'em, though I don't know specifically about the ones used in the Portacolors. I remember a few years ago I was working on one of mine and broke the horiz.output tube; seems like I had several NOS on the shelf.

I have a pile of them too, from sets I picked up on trash day and were too far gone. Lots of the early 70s GE color tabletops had bad crts it seems. I always pull the compactrons since I have one 1966 portacolor and one GE SF-chassis portable.

My portacolor has a dim CRT but is in mint shape otherwise.

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Had a fairly decent supply at the time. But not a working isolation transformer for the set. Not trusting the inherent isolation of the power supply, and mindful of the delicate circuitry of the rest of the set, the car battery seemed like the magic at the time. :o Just power the set up and wait for it to misbehave, and have the alligator leads at the ready... :D

BTW I have nothing against overkill if the resources are there, and it doesn't tax 'em too much. ;)

The set in question just sold for $70! Did anyone here get it? I saw that final bid and I thought about all the ones I used to sell as a kid. They would bring anywhere between $20 and $40, depending on how well they worked. That was in the early to mid '90's. I would like to find one of these again; but, not bad enough to pay $70 for it.

Probably because I used all them up on radio projects like this:
http://pw2.netcom.com/%7Ewa2ise/radios/compaa3.html

Cool projects wa2ise!

I paid 50 for my portacolor, but I couldn't resist, the thing looks like it was in a time capsule

Hey guys! I won the set!! I'll post pics as soon as it arrives {in one piece I hope!}

Glad to know it's in the Audiokarma family. I do think that's about a '74 model. I had a '76 once that had the same control layout but had newer style knobs.

Thanks for the info, I'm pretty excited,:yes:I've never owned a Porta-Color before.I have those other two GEs but they're 19 inchers. This one I can take with me! I am determined enough that when the death of analog comes, I'll bring the converter and powered antenna wherever a portable set goes....unless it's a battery powered portable, unfortunately, those sets will be mostly crap then:thumbsdn:

Glad you got it ! I have 3 Porta-Pottys, a toob one of uncertain vintage-I NEVER have learned how to "mouth" one- & 2 SS models from like '84. The SS models aren't strictly Porta-Colors, but they still use that sort-of round coarse CRT & have a complete lack of "modern" features-so I guess they sorta count.

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Yeah its the same one I got from you, Adam. I think I got a good deal, looking at what they go for on eBay. I'm sure I hadn't paid that much, and I walked away with about 4 sets.

The only problem I had with it was it started having the vertical issues a while back. But about the time I posted a help message on Audiokarma to see about tracing the problem the set got scared and decided to fly right. It hasn't had a problem since, and I put a lot of hours on it at the office.

Unfortunately a co-worker of mine had left the set on overnight on my day off. When I came back (after 2 days) the boss just had a fit. The set was fine, it was still playing channel 20 like it was supposed to. But he didn't like the idea of having a vacuum tube television running for a few days unattended. I didn't have a heart to let him in on the secret that all the CRT's running in Master Control 24/7 happen to be overgrown vacuum tubes as well. Anyway, Portacolor has retired from service, but not through any fault of its own. I'm using a small mid-80's b&w Zenith set (which incidentally I got from Adam in that same trade) which is solid state. Its actually a pretty good set, but I miss not having color.

David

P.S. Congrats to the guy who won this set, they're a hell of a lot of fun.

Nice! I added that one to favorites. :yes:

I forget the CRT numbers, but the original CRT type that GE used for the first model-year Portacolors was indeed like that, but the later one used after the first model year was much better (if you put one of each side-by-side, the difference in dot pitch is really easy to see!). However, when GE switched the PortaColor from a dot-phosphor CRT to a stripe-phosphor CRT in the early 1970's, the resolution went right back down again.

The one I had was definitely an earlier model, judging by the predominance of tubes.

The evolution of CRTs in that model of GE set is a interesting thing to know. Thanks! :thmbsp:

Yup, 70 bucks was too much, I put my high bid in like that because I wasn't around a computer when it ended. I didn't expect to pay that much! It does work, however it needs a lot of attention, tubes are good, CRT is questionable which is kinda uncommon for these. Found mold inside and some rust. Good news is: The cabinet is mint, and the problems are not too hard for me to fix. Nothing I haven't seen before. I am just a little disappointed with the description of 100% working but thats the way it goes on the bay, they will say anything to sell sh*t for the highest price. I have pics and will post them tomorrow.
Mark

I think a lot of epay sellers simply just don't know better. They are untrained in electronics and just want to make a fast buck on the latest item they dug from a dumpster or bought at a yard sale for $1. They think if an electronic item lights up or makes some noise, then, it's considered to be working. I buy (or, try to buy) a lot of old radios, record players, etc. on epay and they rarely work as good as the seller would have you to believe. What's really sad is the fact that some of this so called working crap will bring more than the same item from someone who has obviously restored it and knows what they are doing. I now bid on most items as if they do not work regardless of what the seller says. If I get outbid, then, so be it.

David, If you need a home for your Porta-color we would be happy to have it visit the headend in La Mirada. You should also tell your boss that unless you have staff in master control 24/7 they should turn all the monitors off when the last person locks up. I have my staff turn off most of our test equipment and monitors when they lockup the headend. If it has a CRT and should be left on 24/7 we always turn the brightness down. I can't stand weak CRTs and the wasted power.
Steve

Its kind of a mixed bag in master control. The official line is that they all should be shut off. But it depends on the operator as to if it really gets gone. Sometimes they don't turn the monitors back on the next day like they're supposed to as well. Things are kind of demoralized where I'm at, due to work stuff I don't want to get into here. :whip:

David

Here are the pics, The one where the screen is blue is what I got when I first powered it up. I was not impressed to say the least! After an hour or so of setting the controls and testing tubes the picture got somewhat better, but still needs a lot of work. All of the pots are full of carbon and gunk so no adjustment is easy, I will have to carefully take apart each one and clean it. I'm also sure a few are too bad to save i.e. the vertical linearity control. The other thing I was sad to see was that crappy CRT brightener, I removed it {it wasn't doing much good anyways} there is a great deal of blooming with this set, brightener or not. Tube is very dim:thumbsdn: And chassis has quite a bit of mold:tears: But I will fix it up and make it worth what I waste... I mean spent on it.

Shame about the brightener.... Blue looks nice though

I'm sure it'll be smokin' (in a good way :thmbsp:) once you get done with it.

You've inspired me.
 

I decided to take my '66 apart after I posted the above reply. Can't think of a better way to spend a lazy Friday afternoon.

I never properly set greyscale on my set since it already looked pretty good as-is. I spent some time cleaning out the bias pots and tube sockets and now it looks right.

Enjoy your set, seems like they are kind of fun to work on. (P.S.- mine uses a tube HV rectifier, and I had a flickering problem til I cleaned the cap and socket behind a little metal door-- might wanna try that out if yours still has one...)

I think there are a few of us on here that have spare crts for these; I know I have a pair hiding in the attic.

Cool, I'm probably going to be working on this set in the next week. I will update on the condition of that tube after I get the chassis going a little better. That would be great if you had a replacement.:yes:

I know they changed up that tube several times through the years; my guess is your version uses a more common one, but I could be wrong.

Well, I put the same caps in that I put in the other one. These were just as bad as the others but it was easily overlooked due to the amount of mold and dirt on the chassis. I replaced the .1@100VDC, .039@600VDC and I subbed the .047 with a .05@400VDC {all I had} and the set has improved greatly. This one don't need a HOT either, it just looked that way 'cause of those caps. The dim pic and blooming was also from these caps, some idiot put in the brightener to try and fix it without really looking the set over. When I powered it up it worked for a minute then the raster disappeared, the 2.5 amp slo blo went, I subbed it with one of my homemade fuse subs {wire soldered to a low amp fuse}. After I put that in the set powered up and worked fine for over three hours.I would recommend that anyone with a Porta-Potty replace these caps if they haven't already. I still have a lot to do to this one, but at least it's watchable now. It just got way too late to keep working on it. I took some extra pics of the orange drop by the HOT {.1@1000VDC}. When I did the other P'color, I put it right down to the PCB, it is very close to the HOT but seems to be ok. This idea worked better. I used the coating from some wire that was laying around, made it safe and keeps it from moving too much. This way that cap is about 1/4 in. from the tube rather than about .030 of an in. like the other P'color. The CRT is bright and focused now but has some slight retrace lines, I might want to get a spare anyways. It uses an 11WP22 EIA code 188-23. Hey Bryan, if you read this could you please check and see what tube you have, I'll buy it from you if it's the right one. Even if I don't need it now, it's always nice to have a spare. Oh, and if anyone has the channel knobs that would be awesome.