Is this a Portacolor???

[Jeffhs]

Originally posted by tv beta guy
I got the Sears from Kamakiri the other day (thanks!) The lack of color was caused by dirty color killer pot. I touched up the greyscale and adjusted the vertical size and linearity. After letting it run for about an hour, the picture looks great. It is all solid state, is an instant on on the CRT, but it is still nice and bright. Has a very fine dot pitch. I'll probably mod it to get rid of the instant on. It works great now. I was surprised to see that the CRT is actually a delta gun type. The yoke and convergence panel is about the size of the face of the CRT itself.

Removing the instant-on feature is exactly what I would have done with a set like that. I never much cared for instant-on because it left the tube filaments on even after the set was turned off; a fire hazard waiting to happen. The other problem with instant-on was that, if lightning were to hit the power line the set was connected to, the surge would, more often than not, immediately short the instant-on diode. This in turn would have the same effect as bypassing the main power switch, as these diodes were connected directly across the switch. The only way to turn the set on and off with a shorted instant-on diode was by inserting and withdrawing the AC power plug from the wall socket. Many set owners simply did just that when the instant-on diode shorted, but some technically-savvy owners might (often did) take the back off and remove the shorted diode. This restored the on-off switch, but removed the instant-on feature. Just as well, as instant-on was also a waste of energy; this was probably, even likely, why the feature didn't last the entire decade of the '70s. If you recall, there was an energy crisis at that time (so the news media told us); this alone could explain why instant-on didn't last as long as some folks might have hoped.

BTW, these small portables are cute, and given a good signal can produce a very good picture (owing to that fine dot-pitch CRT). But I sometimes wonder--who would want a set that small? The screen on yours doesn't look much bigger than nine inches diagonal measure. I hope this wasn't an attempt by Sears to copy Sony's "tummy TV" 5-inch b&w portable of '60s vintage; if it were, it would have failed miserably. Depending entirely on how much the Sears set weighs (I'd say at least 10 pounds), it wouldn't have felt comfortable on most tummies; in fact, if the set weighed much more than that, it could well crush a rib or two.