The worst color tv?

[Bill R]

My vote goes to the GE Hybrid sets.

[freakaftr8]

Remember the old GE roundie a few years back that sucked the nails outta the walls of a house??

[matt_s78mn]

Let's keep this discussion to tube type or early solid state if we can... I think we can all agree on a lot of modern sets being junk, but I primarily wanted to know what everyone thought about the worst VINTAGE color sets. There's been quite a few responses about vintage GE sets being junk... which I would tend to agree with. I've only really dealt with one tube type GE color console, which was full of compactrons and brittle circuit boards. And I do recall a lot of the GE sets from the '80's full of cold solder joints. Anyway, good responses, let's keep em coming.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Don Lindsly

The absolute worst color TV was the Olympic 910, 19 inch TV, of the mid 60s... It produced a pathetic pale picture and had so little gain that when the antenna was removed, it had no snow or noise. The dull grey image looked like someone removed the IF tubes.

Did Olympic source those sets from Muntz?

[Findm-Keepm]

ANY Sears/Warwick Chassis ! Early tube Sears Color sets had only two IF stages that easily overloaded with cable TV - what a PITA. The solid state sets with the 4-lead safety caps - Sears sourced the replacements from the same date code lots as the originals!

From a parts seller standpoint, the mid-80's Solid-State modular Magnavoxes with the 703744 regulator modules that crapped out if you either:

A. Plugged in the set
B. Looked at the set in a funny way
=or=
C. Owned such a set.

We sold tons of the rebuilt Maggie modules in the 80's, along with lots of GE flybacks for MA/MB sets.

Me personally, I hated the Admiral color sets of the late 70's/early 80s, and disliked the Philco modular sets of the same era.

Cheers,

[Sandy G]

My vote as a "Layperson"-IE, non-repairman type, would go to the Sears mini-consoles of the mid-60s. Ours had a 19" screen, & was, IIRC, the 1st "rectangular" color set sold in America. I think it was a Toshiba, & it was obviuosly made LONG before the Japanese had heard of Quality Control...It would sometimes "crap out" before the repairman got back to the Sears store...

[Zenith26kc20]

Sylvania hybrid color portable! 15 inch if I remember. Sold by the rental companies.
Just pitiful sets!
Delmonico B/W 12 inch (IIRC) that had to have a fan on it to keep it from rolling after even a few minutes because it was shoehorned into it's case.

[kx250rider]

Worst picture: A tie between the 25" Sharp from the late 80s, and GE PORTACOLOR

Worst reliability: Emerson (Orion-built) from the 80s & 90s

Toughest to work on: Zenith Digital System III (1988-ish)

Worst tuner: A tie between the RCA G-2000 (1968) and the Magnavox Star System (aka Bird Cage)

Worst flyback: RCA CTC-101

Worst CRT: Zenith A68ACT00X (27" SquareFlat 1990s)

Charles

[ctc17]

Looks like GE is winning.
Is this why later GE sets had the service info in that little box on the back??

I will add my port a color h-3 chassis has the auto-drift feature. Good thing all the controls are easy access on the front because it requires adjustment every 5 minutes. The color and contrast are just not that good for a small tv and an image that has a lot of green it turns brown. A few green trees its fine but if its a lawn or ball field it automatically kills the grass.

[Zenith26kc20]

Original Panasonic Prism. Hated them!
Mitsubishi 36 inchers with drooling caps and shutdown circuits gone arwy!
GE console with KE chassis!
Don't turn the lights out, I'm going to have nightmares tonight after reading these posts

[radiotvnut]

And what about those Panasonic/Quasar/GE 25" sets from the mid '80's that used the TLF14421 flyback? Every one of those that came my way had a bad flyback/HOT, bad CRT, a baked PC board full of loose connections, or any combination of the above.

Speaking of Mitsubishi's, I just tossed a 26" set with drooling caps. I actually got the set to work; but, didn't want to change all those caps. If another Mitsubishi comes over here from that vintage, it's not even coming off the truck.

I had one of those Magnavox sets with the failure prone regulator module. I actually got several years out of it; but, it eventually started giving trouble all the time and it was always the power supply. The last time it died, I just calmly unplugged it and tossed it in a dumpster.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by kx250rider

Worst flyback: RCA CTC-101

And my CTC101 's flyback died. Had a replacement, but I couldn't find it before my brother tossed the set... Loved the comb filtered picture, though.

[rca2000]

I personally feel that these are the WORST crt's ever made. They beat the Sony 26" 710AB22/A670XXX and even the Zenith 91-98 tubes in poor quality!!

And I agree that ANY warwick solid state Sears (the "528" series) are trash. I worked on them in the late 80's at Sears service...and HATED them!!

Those NEC sets(sold by CM and "Rutherford") were trash too!! hot chassis, cheap cheap cheap!!

I HAVE worked on a number of older GE color sets besides the EM/EC and such. I have a GE under the "truetone' brand I think--that is a "QA" chassis, from 1974 or so. This is the one that had that "stick" HV rect in a cage for the flyback on the right side of the chassis.(the JA chassis is just like it). I have a 15" or so YA chassis set. A YM console is in my mom's room, 1979, with digital tuning.9I changed the tube in it about 20 years ago, and it is not too good now) And in the late '80's I worked on and/or sold a LOT of GE sets, YA's YM's MA's MB's MC'S JA's and of course the "AB/AC" "griplet sets" that came before the EM/EC set. I had a KD chassis set about 25 years ago. I too did not like the CA color sets, though I DID fix a few in the 80's early 90's.

[radiotvnut]

Yeah, those CM branded NEC sets were cheap built - they just didn't have a cheap pricetag. I've had several of those TV/stereo combo units from the late '70's-early '80's and most had weak CRT's along with serious power supply and horizontal deflection issues. AFAIK, NEC made most all of CM's solid state sets.

[Jeffhs]

My vote for one of the worst 19" table sets of the late 20th century:Emerson, 1988-89 vintage.

I had a 19" Emerson table model TV, 19", that actually worked quite well but had a bad habit of shutting itself off whenever a thunderstorm was active in my area (the storm didn't have to affect the electricity; in fact, the set would shut off while the lights stayed on). I didn't even have to see the lightning; as soon as I heard the thunder, the TV would turn itself off. I think this must have been tied in somehow with a system this set had which would turn the TV off about 15 minutes after the local TV station you were watching went off the air.

Hmmm. I wonder if my Emerson TV might have been made by one of the smaller Pacific Rim importers such as Orion, Funai, or some such. Given the random shutoff problem I just mentioned, and the fact that the set lasted only six years, it wouldn't surprise me if it had been manufactured by one of these firms, or some other no one ever heard of.

Other than that, as I said, this TV worked quite well for me until about 1995; then it quit, I put it out for the trash, and got a new (at the time) Zenith 19" color table set. That one still works well to this day, and has its original CRT. Surprisingly, the one in my set still makes an excellent picture and the TV itself has required no service whatsoever in 14 years, although for the last ten of those years the set has been in my bedroom, being used only for cross-checking in case my cable goes out and as a backup for when my living-room set, an RCA XL-100 CTC185A7 19" table model (now all of ten years old and still going strong, with a fantastic picture; knock on wood), goes belly-up.