Who made General Electric (GE) 13" and 19" TVs in the 80s?
 

Who made GE 13" and 19" TVs in the mid-80s? I hear stories that they were made by GE themselves, but could be also be made by Panasonic, RCA, or Thomson. I am looking for a Panasonic-made GE 13" TV to match for my 1985 Panasonic-made GE VCP, but I don't know which year it was produced. Can anyone help me?

I think GE sold off its TV business to Thomson in 1986.

There was a 13" and a 17" GE color set from about '83 to '86 that used the Panasonic built "BC" chassis. I think the tuners may have been GE; but, the main chassis was built by Panasonic. These sets ate flybacks for breakfast. These sets came in both remote cable ready and knob tuned configurations.

There were a few goldstar built 13" GE sets just before GE got out of the TV business. There was also a 19" Panasonic built GE from around '87. The chassis was something like "MN" or "MX" or something like that. This one had an orange disc cap in the HOT collector circuit that would short and take the HOT with it.

Lastly, there were some 25" GE sets from the mid '80's that used a Panasonic chassis. IMHO, these were junk. They ate flybacks (TLF14423F) and HOT's. The CRT's were always weak and the chassis always had cold solder joints, usually on power resistors that were not secured well enough to begin with.

Probably the best GE set from their last days was the GE built "PC" chassis that was used in 19" and 25" sets. That chassis was fairly trouble free except for some caps in the vertical and power supply circuits. There was also a "PM" real GE chassis that was used in their higher end 19" and 25" sets. I've only seen one or two; so, I can't speak much for that one. The only catch is that many of the CRT's used in these sets are weak by now. It's been my experience that the early '80's GE CRT's hold up much better than the GE CRT's from the mid '80's. I don't know if the CRT's were actually made by GE or someone else. I'll have to check the EIA code the next time one comes my way.

My 17" AC chassis from 1982 has a GE EIA code. Very bright CRT.

back in 1980 I had a job interview at the GE plant in Norfolk VA. I saw conveyor belts with hooks holding TV chassises overhead, for smaller sets. Probably SS portacolor sets. So they were making TVs at least in 1980. Another time, also around 1980 was to the Sylvania TV plant in Batavia NY. But it looked like the place was slowly dying...

I think the last "real" GE TV's were made in '86. I'm sure Sylvania went from GTE to NAP ownership in '81. I have one of the last GTE-Sylvania/Philco color TV's. A Philco branded 19" from '81 using the E32 single board chassis. It still has the little GTE logo on the front of the cabinet.

EDIT: I just checked and my GTE-Philco is from April, 1981. I don't know what month that NAP bought the Sylvania/Philco consumer electronic line; but, it was sometime in '81.

I was told Hitachi built some... I.E. the 10" AB-C chassis Porta-Color type set from '80. I have trouble believing that Hitachi could build such a piece of debris. How many of those thru-hole conductors must I have had to poke wire through and solder top & bottom? Must have been in the 10s of 1000s.

The Thomson chassis was later; maybe mid 80s.

Charles

I too have a hard time believing that Hitachi would build such a set. I know what you mean about those connectors. There's currently an "EC" chassis 19" on my trash pile because I don't feel like resoldering 10,000 connections.

I do know that Hitachi built some GE/RCA big screens somewhere around the Thomson takeover.