GE B&W set with built in clock/timer

This is a bit of an oddball......guess that's why I like it!

Model number is PAM 119 AWD but the seller can't find a year...am guessing later 60's. Does anyone know? My understanding is that GE's weren't the bestest sets in general, or does that only really apply to their color models? TIA

Anthony

[Chad Hauris]

The GE b/w sets were very simply built with just about 7 or 8 tubes it seems, like the portacolors, but the b/w sets performance seems better...the picture seems to be quite good to me. There were similar sets to this one but larger that also had radios built in. The handle on that set is very similar to a 1966 portacolor I have, so I am guessing it is from around that time.

[maxm]

I have one of those! It is on my workbench, and I actually watch it a lot. It gets a pretty good picture for the "bare bones" chassis that it has, the only problem is that the UHF will roll vertically at random times (It is not the vertical hold, since it never does this in VHF) There must have been some variations of the set, since the one I have has a tiny clock over over a radio contol, the one on eBay has a huge (and much cooler looking) clock that takes up the whole side panel. (I'll post a photo of mine when I get home)
Interstingly, when I got the set, the TV worked great, but the filters in the radio were totally gone, I guess the ones in the TV were higher quailty, or maybe somebody only used the TV, causing the radio's filters to dry out. Unlike my other TV/Radio, an 8" Emerson from 1956, this set has a totally seperate radio chasiss, with its own amplifier, and volume control, though I think the TV and radio share a speaker.

[bgadow]

I think that GE, more than anyone else, got a radio chassis down to the bare bones. Some of the GE AA5's I've seen (from the late50s/60s) are super simple. Probably would have cost the General more to tie the 2 chassis' together than to just keep them seperate. So the General made its own radios, its own tubes, its own clocks, heck, they were/are big in plastics so maybe they made the cabinet in house-pretty easy for them to just slap the whole shebang together. They could have added a toaster oven so you could warm up your pizza rolls while you were watching Laugh-In!

[maxm]

Here is an inside shot of mine. After looking closer on the one up on eBay, I don't think that one has a radio in it, only a clock...

Well, I won this TV for $9.99. I like the design of it, especially the clock.

Maxm, what does your clock panel look like on yours?

[maxm]

Here's the front of mine, the radio is located below the small upper clock.

[RetroHacker]

I've got one jus like maxm's set, only mine is in a beige cabinet instead of simulated woodgrain. Mine's in pretty bad shape, I found it on the side of the road a couple years ago. It worked-ish as found, only the picture didn't fill the whole screen vertically, and the radio produced only a loud 60 cycle hum. I replaced the electrolytics in the radio, and that solved that problem. I had one HELL of a time getting the radio out of there, mainly because I couldn't get the @#$&* knob off the front! I originally thought it had been glued back on at one point, since the television knobs both slid off rather easily. After much effort I was able to get the knob off, but I managed to damaged the shaft of it - turns out that the thing was secued in with an odd metal clip that would have to have been removed from the other side. It was at that moment that I realized the only way to really work on the set was to remove the metal housing from the front panel - a thought that hadn't occured to me before (it was really late...), since it seemed that most parts could be removed from the back. I had never seen a radio knob secured like that before, and couldn't believe just how much of a pain it was to work on that little set. It's still sitting on a shelf somewhere, partially disassembled, waiting for me to come up with a good way to repair that knob, and some other things, it needs some electronic help to correct the vertical issues, and it needs a lot of cleaning and other cosmetic work. It was one of those sets that I found and saved to play with - planned on fixing it and using it somewhere, and never finished. I'll fix it one of these days...

Anyway - hopefully you can learn from my mistakes, and now you know how the knob is held onto the radio...

-Ian

Congrats Mike, glad someone from AK got this. I was considering it at one point.....but the seller had screwed up the postage calculator and it quoted me $6 to Calif! You may have noted my question to him.....anyway he replied and stated that he had corrected it, but when I checked the auction the calculator was gone altogether! I e-mailed him again asking for an estimate and he never responded. Gave me a hinky feeling so that clinched it for me---not to bid. I don't see the need for the buyer to calculate postage, often the seller wants to tack on more than their actual costs and I want to be clear about this BEFORE BIDDING. Ya know? Hope it works out for you!

Anthony

[maxm]

Originally Posted by RetroHacker

I had one HELL of a time getting the radio out of there, mainly because I couldn't get the @#$&* knob off the front! I originally thought it had been glued back on at one point, since the television knobs both slid off rather easily. After much effort I was able to get the knob off, but I managed to damaged the shaft of it - turns out that the thing was secued in with an odd metal clip that would have to have been removed from the other side.

I had the same problem with the radio knob actually, I managed to pull the radio chassis off the knob from the inside, leaving the knob secured to the front panel, instead of taking off the knob before removing the chassis.

[Whirled One]

Originally Posted by maxm

I had the same problem with the radio knob actually, I managed to pull the radio chassis off the knob from the inside, leaving the knob secured to the front panel, instead of taking off the knob before removing the chassis.

Yeah, I agree that can be confusing if you aren't expecting it.

Actually, a lot of series-string radios from the 60's have captive knobs like that. I think it was a UL safety requirement starting in the early 1960's or so that any series-string tube radio (or TV) that had metal control shafts had to have the knobs mounted in such a manner that they couldn't be removed from the outside of the set. The idea being, of course, that this would prevent the possibility of electric shock if a knob were to be removed while the set was plugged in, and someone touched a "hot" control shaft.

Just as you discovered, though, on those sets, you remove the chassis (or-- more likely-- PC board) from the knobs rather than the other way around.

Rather than resort to "captive" mounting of the knobs, manufacturers often switched to using controls having plastic shafts instead of metal-- this also met the UL safety requirement. Some of the cheapie Japanese import makes didn't bother getting UL approval, so those sets often had removable knobs with metal shafts anyway.

[peverett]

I have some early 1950s GE AM/FM radios where the volume control and band selector knobs are captive. The Tuning knob is insulated from the metal chassis. The screws on the bottom are also insulated from the chassis and the back contains an interlock, so power is off when it is removed. This is one safe radio!!!.

I also have some AC/DC radios from the 1940s where the metal chassis, possibly at 120 VAC, is easily accesable by removing a knob or picking the radio up and touching a hold down screw. What a difference a decade made.

Everything works absolutely perfectly on this TV. The clock works great too (although the pilot lamp behind the clock is burnt out.) The picture is very stable, very sharp, and very bright. The cabinet is made of metal with a simulated wood grain look. I took it apart and found out another surprise: It was manufactured early-mid 1965. Only one disappointment: It did not have the AM radio as listed. But I am not going to complain. I got it for $9.99 and I really wanted it because I love the clock on it. The inside of the TV is like brand new. It doesn't look to have been used very much, as all dirt was loose dirt instead of that greasy, grimy dirt that the HV attracts.

After letting it warm up and run for about 2 hours, all it needed was a slight tweak to the vertical size. Linearity was perfect. That is all this 40 year old TV needed to work perfectly again!

The clock has both an on/off alarm timer, and a sleep timer! I haven't tried the timer functions yet. But now I want an early GE Portacolor (from around 1966-1970) that has the built in clock/timer too :p

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