GE Portacolor MFG Year Identification
 

Hello- I have a GE Portacolor set model WM212HWD-4 with an H-4 chassis.

The serial number is 5L30 19625.

Can any member give me the year of manufacture of this set?

I bet that's the same one that was on eBay last week, that ended on Friday night.. I was going to bid... But than forgot, and on top of that, it went a bit higher than what I would have paid for it..

Sams shows a number 1223 folder, dated 3/72. The set's probably a 1971 model year. :scratch2:

Welcome, Gary. Good to have another Wisconsinite join us! There appear to be a lot of WI & IL collectors in this group.

If you haven't heard of WARCI, TVs have been known to show up at our swap meets. The next meet is this Sunday. See www.warci.org for more details.

Jim (Appleton, WI)

Date codes on the tubes will give you a good idea. Mine has 1967 date codes. My set looks identical to yours.

I think, that was the last year for the cabinet mounting screws in the front. I have a year newer model and the cabinet screws are in the rear.
That model, still has the low voltage focus CRT. 11WP22. :boring:

A-yep!

H-3 chassis (I have one with all the GE documentation/service lit) is 1970, so yes, the H-4 is 1971. The HE chassis PortaColor was introduced in 1972, 1973 introduced the 10JA chassis solid-state PortaColor, and 1974 was the 10QA Chassis PortaColor so your set is among the last of the all-tube models.

I have several porta colors, I always thought that layout was on later 60's era sets.

IIRC, the H-4 is the first chassis to use a 12JF5 and a 1DG3 high voltage rectifier. It also had the safety capacitor on the PC board, near the horizontal output tube. The newer chassis, had the cap on a terminal strip on the side of the hv cage.
Slight differences in the power supply circuitry on the H-4 vs the earlier models.

Date codes on major parts is the best way. Also tubes
are coded but IIRC GE used a screwy code.
IIRC original tubes had blue lettering & replacement white ?

73 Zeno:smoke:

Actually no. I have had the set for many years. I acquired it around 1985 when I was working as a TV/VCR tech.

Thanks for the welcome Jim!

I am thinking it might be from the mid or late 1960s.

I'm thinking 1965 or 1966.

OK it looks like 1971 is the answer and thanks!