Someone save this '70's 19" GE tube color set - Videokarma.org TV - Video

radiotvnut · #1 12-25-2007, 08:25 PM

Check out ebay item #140192104220 for what appears to be a decent looking 19" GE tube color set. This appears to have a click stop UHF tuner and the knobs look like the ones that were used on late '70's or early '80's models. They say the chassis is a 19CD. This was probably the last 19" GE tube set from the mid '70's. I'd like to have it; but, it's too far (as usual). So, someone please save it from the dump!

bgadow · #2 12-27-2007, 01:15 PM

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...0%3D%26fvi%3D1

I have a couple sets with that chassis. A miserable TV to work on, if you ask me. The older of the pair has a terrible, terrible picture; the newer one, not much different from the one listed, is not too bad. Once I had one of these rebadged as "Bradford" (W.T.Grant house brand) If anyone is down this way and wants one just let me know. I won't pay you to take them...but I will load them for free!

radiotvnut · #3 12-28-2007, 12:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bgadow

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...0%3D%26fvi%3D1

I have a couple sets with that chassis. A miserable TV to work on, if you ask me. The older of the pair has a terrible, terrible picture; the newer one, not much different from the one listed, is not too bad. Once I had one of these rebadged as "Bradford" (W.T.Grant house brand) If anyone is down this way and wants one just let me know. I won't pay you to take them...but I will load them for free!

Well, I see the one on epay sold for $1. I wonder if an AK member got it? The more I think about it; I may have worked on a similar GE model. Is that the chassis that is constructed on a PC board and housed in a plastic (not metal) frame? I think they also had a plastic piece that slid out from under the chassis for ease of servicing. As far as GE pictures, I never was too crazy about them. Even the early '70's solid state GE's were not that great. I think a Motorola would be better. Some of the later GE tube sets and the SS sets from the late '70's on had a somewhat decent picture. My favorite GE chassis was the PC solid state chassis from the '80's. About the only thing that went wrong with them were caps in the vertical circuit and the power supply. But, most of those today are found with weak CRT's. Those sets are between 20 and 25 years old now.

bgadow · #4 12-28-2007, 01:19 PM

Yeah, that's the one. It's a pretty crowded chassis with many things hard to access. The sliding plastic grille underneath was a nice thought but not enough. In the Sams for those sets they picture a 23" console version-you can tell how good they were as that is the single most dog-eared, coffee-stained, solder-splattered photofact that I have! The guy I got it from was a GE dealer so I'm sure he had a steady diet of them in the service department! What I'd like to find is a KE chassis, like the console we had when I was a kid. The one we had displayed a nice picture. (but, then, I didn't have much to compare it to when I was 7 years old!)

MRX37 · #5 12-28-2007, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bgadow

In the Sams for those sets they picture a 23" console version-you can tell how good they were as that is the single most dog-eared, coffee-stained, solder-splattered photofact that I have!

Repairmans best friend eh? mor at the very least, job security...

*zenithfan1* · #6 01-14-2008, 09:15 AM

This set is now in my collection. It works great. I bought it for a daily watcher. Needed only a few simple fixes. Only cost 51 dollars to ship, not bad for 70lbs.
Mark

radiotvnut · #7 01-14-2008, 10:25 AM

I figured it would cost much more than $51 to ship and I'm happy you got it in one piece. If I may ask, who shipped it for you? I think that is one of the last GE tube color sets from around '75 or '76. I saw a late '76 PortaColor once and it seemed to have a better picture than the earlier ones. I guess GE was starting to get their act together by then.

KentTeffeteller · #8 01-14-2008, 10:39 AM

Hi,

This set has an OK picture, they were very prone to repairs even when new. Not one of the easier sets to service or align. The only GE Color TV sets I much like are the RCA based Roundie console and Portacolors.

*zenithfan1* · #9 01-14-2008, 11:39 AM

Tell me about it, I am still trying to troubleshoot my black one like this{ it;s a little older has continuous UHF but the chassis is almost identical} The raster is flashing red the green and nothing seems to help. It may be a bad pot, but I don't know. The more I look at this one the more I think it is a '75 or '76. My favorite thing about a GE is the way it produces it's blues, the reds are a little orange but not too bad. Good enough to watch while I keep the others safe! I had it shipped via UPS and they did not break it! yay! I hate when you are all exited about a "new" set and you open the box after two weeks of waiting and there it is... all smashed. It happened to me recently.
Mark

radiotvnut · #10 01-14-2008, 01:11 PM

It could very well be bad pots especially if they are the ones that have several controls in one unit. There was one such pot in the P'colors that had boost voltage on one end of it and the pot would carbonize and the boost voltage would leak over and mess up other circuits. Also, you may want to get that soldering iron cranked up and resolder all the connections on the PC board. GE's were bad to have loose solder connections. I fixed a lot of P'colors that way!

KentTeffeteller · #11 01-14-2008, 01:47 PM

Hi,

Definitely check the solder joints on a GE set. Soldering is a weakness on GE sets and yes, many Portacolors were repaired by redoing cold solder joints.

andy · #12 01-14-2008, 02:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

I figured it would cost much more than $51 to ship and I'm happy you got it in one piece. If I may ask, who shipped it for you? I think that is one of the last GE tube color sets from around '75 or '76. I saw a late '76 PortaColor once and it seemed to have a better picture than the earlier ones. I guess GE was starting to get their act together by then.

This big improvement with the later Portacolors was the CRT. They went to a much sharper high focus voltage CRT in about 74.

*zenithfan1* · #13 01-14-2008, 02:09 PM

{black GE}Excellent! I will definitely check the solder joints. And yes, they are the type of pots that are three in one. It acts like a leak or a short. I noticed when I turn the brightness up to where I want it the raster seems to become more agitated and flashes more and faster. Also it won't let me set up the greyscale, It refuses to produce white, grey, or black. Safe to say, the picture sucks! But I'm getting off subject, Maybe I should have started a new thread about the black GE.
Mark

*zenithfan1* · #14 01-14-2008, 06:02 PM

Back to the GE off Ebay, The only repairs needed was a .1 @400VDC cap in the power supply. It's funny that the cap cost more than the Tv at $1.15! Also I fixed the broken VHF knob {this was not in the listing and was not from shipping but not a big deal} Now all I need to do is figure out why the fine tuning does not work, I hope it's stuck like others i've seen, thats an easy fix. Right now the set works fine hooked up to my stupid satellite dish. I have been doing over time on some of my sets so I can enjoy the wonders of NTSC before it's gone. Boy will I miss the days of DXing on UHF and pulling in stations from across Lake Michigan. Northern WI and some of IN.
On a clear night I could pick up an extra 10 stations or so. I should have been born about twenty years before '82!
Mark

bgadow · #15 01-15-2008, 12:02 PM

Some of those 19v GE sets had AFC and were designed without fine tuning knobs. I found that out in a service manual for the motel version. They called it something like "fiddle-free" that came as a kit which included a new VHF knob designed to work without the fine tuning one. Yours is probably just stuck though.

One of these that I had years ago worked fine though the picture had a dark look to it. When I opened it up I found that the big white cap in the power supply had fallen apart. At the time I didn't know anything about caps and couldn't really solder so I just left it that way. That cap seems to be a sore spot in those series string GE color sets.