Scored my First Portacolor! And More!

[fsjonsey]

I have a job working for my College's computer center. The other day, I was on a call with the head of the theater department, helping him hook up a monitor to an 80's lighting control board that was based on an old Tandy computer. The original composite monitor had given up the ghost (bad flyback), so I asked him if he had any TV sets lying around, figuring at least one of them would have a composite video input. He proceeded to take me up a rickety old iron spiral staircase to the prop room. There, there was a large metal shelf crammed with late 60's through mid 70's TV sets, Including a mint looking GE Portacolor. None of the sets had a composite input, so I casually asked him If I could have the portacolor. He said yes, that he going to be cleaning out the props soon, and that I could have anything I wanted. That evening, I ended up loading the Portacolor, a 16" SF chassis GE, a late 60's 19" B&W Magnavox, and a little Japanese made 10" Sears set into the back seat of my Corvair. All sets are tube, or in case of the SF, are hybrids.

The Portacolor works, but is badly out of convergence and has a dirty tuner. It's a 1976 model with a woodgrain cabinet/front panel and a click stop UHF tuner.

The 16" GE SF works, but has "Insta-View", and the CRT was extremely dim when I first powered it up. It's gotten much better after being played for a few hours each day, but is still extremely blurry. Maybe some slight rejuvenation will help... If anyone has a CR57 socket adapter for a b&k 465 CRT tester they would be willing to give up, I'd be very interested.

I haven't tested the Maggie or the little Sears set yet, and I will when I have a chance this week.

Pictures to come.

[freakaftr8]

Hey way to go! That is always great to hear something like this. It's nice to see places like this still exist with equipment being preserved.

[andy]

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[fsjonsey]

Originally Posted by andy

I've found that the "cleaning" mode on my Beltron works wonders on blurry low focus voltage CRTs. Even when they test good, they can be very blurry.

I have a 465, and I wouldn't use its rejuvenate function on anything I cared about. It's very harsh, and usually destroys the CRT. Try to find a newer B+K, Sencore, or Beltron.

Someone told me that the "remove shorts" function on the 465 works well as a light rejuvenation mode. I was going to try that before anything more drastic.

[Sandy G]

Kewl !

[Charlie]

I would be interested in seeing a photo of the sears set...

What's even better... you brought this stuff home in the back seat of a CORVAIR???

[fsjonsey]

Originally Posted by Charlie

I would be interested in seeing a photo of the sears set...

What's even better... you brought this stuff home in the back seat of a CORVAIR???

yes...

[Charlie]

Wow... cool ride. A high-school friend of mine used to say, "It's hard to tell whether those cars are coming or going!" I guess he meant those cars didn't look very different from the front or back.

The reason for my interest in seeing the Sears set is because I had one as my first set (as talked about in a different thread) and I haven't seen one like it since then. Would be funny if it turned out you had the same set.

[stromberg67]

"Unsafe at any speed" my rear end! That car is beautiful! Never owned one, but had the pleasure of driving two: a 1960 (first model), and a souped up 1964 Monza convertible. Great fun!!!
I have a 1975 Porta-Color that was found at the curb. Must have been a second or third set, as the neighborhood is a bit "ritzy", and the tv is mint.
Kevin

[zenith2134]

I recently had the back off my '66 portacolor to increase the focus voltage and just for fun decided to torture myself with the convergence again. hehehe it is perfect now...they really hold up well. Nice finds.