Pair-o-Portacolors

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by tv beta guy

But it seems that most TVs up till the early 80's were still real TVs. I was born in '82, so for some reason I find anything older than I am, whether TVs, appliances, or anything electronical, fascinating.

I know what you mean. I was born in 1956 and grew up in the late '60s-early '70s, so I am very interested in anything electronic from that time period; I also like the TV shows which were popular during that time (one reason I'm glad I can get TV Land, Nick at Nite, the Hallmark Channel, and three classic movie channels on cable). I've been renting DVDs from Netflix of some old TV series, such as Starsky and Hutch (just finished the last disc of the first season). I'm presently waiting for a disk from Netflix with several of the old Columbo detective series programs (just saw one yesterday on the Hallmark Channel from 1967). I got a DVD player for Christmas last year and have been using it quite a bit, watching those old shows again (I watched Columbo and many of the other NBC "Mystery Wheel" detective shows when they were new in the '70s--glad to see a lot of them coming back in reruns on DVD).

Your GE portable color TV looks great. From the looks of the front panel, that set must have been made some time after 1975; I can tell because that was the first year detented UHF tuners were required on all TVs. I remember the GE "Performance Television" line of TVs; never actually owned one, but I saw them advertised quite a bit in the '70s, back when GE actually meant GE, not Thomson (as it does today). Actually, I shouldn't and will not knock Thomson, as I have a Thomson-built "RCA" TV in my apartment which has been working absolutely great these last five years; I've only had one repair done on it so far, which was shortly after I bought the set. Not bad for a TV that gets a lot of use every night of the year , especially now that I have both a VCR and DVD.

[frenchy]

[QUOTE=tv beta guy]Nice Portacolors bgadow! They look great!
I myself have taken a liking to these little TVs. I have a 1976 Portacolor and with some tweaking, really looks great for what it is. >>

Quite amazing when you look inside one, 40 year old design but a COLOR (!) tv that you could carry like a briefcase with so few tubes (11 or 12?). Cool looking GE tubes, big ol' fat ones with lotsa 'stuff' in em! : )
I took mine to work during the "shock and awe" in Iraq, that was cool telling everybody that stopped by to watch it how old the tv was. Nobody touches my Portacolor!...Frenchy

[Chad Hauris]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

At Motorola, one of the things we did was competitive design analysis, (would be called "benchmarking" today). The GE sets were the most cost-reduced of any. Where other manufacturers had at most a 3-step design process (research, advanced development, and chassis design), GE followed the first 3 steps with a formal cost-reduction step before production. Resulted in such things as three potentiometers on one substrate for the set-back secondary controls. (The controls' carbon tracks were all three on one phenolic substrate, and there was no metal enclosure.)

I have seen this problem with GE adjustment pots...just replaced them with regular pots installed on a bracket. The GE performance seems quite good to me when the sets are working, but is seems like there is a bigger tendency for intermittent problems due to the cheaper components....also GE circuit boards can be tough to work with as they tend to crumble.

[compucat]

That looks like the set I sold to you on Ebay. (I recognise the volume knob from an older Portacolor.) I'm glad to see it is still working. I hope you are enjoying that set. I sure had fun restoring it.
When I got it the picture was barely watchable. My first color tv was a '60s portacolor.

Originally Posted by tv beta guy

Nice Portacolors bgadow! They look great!

I myself have taken a liking to these little TVs. I have a 1976 Portacolor and with some tweaking, really looks great for what it is. I even have a GE 19" solid state modular color TV from the following year that uses the same cabinet style and dials.

That looks like the set I sold to you on Ebay. (I recognise the volume knob from an older Portacolor.) I'm glad to see it is still working. I hope you are enjoying that set. I sure had fun restoring it.

Yeah, I did buy that TV off of you on Ebay! It is still going strong even now (that picture is 2 years old.) That TV did go for quite a bit of $$$, but I had some birthday money and I wanted it

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by Chad Hauris

I have seen this problem with GE adjustment pots...just replaced them with regular pots installed on a bracket. The GE performance seems quite good to me when the sets are working, but is seems like there is a bigger tendency for intermittent problems due to the cheaper components....also GE circuit boards can be tough to work with as they tend to crumble.

Last year at ETF, some guys were looking at an old GE broadcast camera of Steve's and reminiscing how their PC boards used to crumble.