GE knob tuners, Save or scrap?

[midnx]

I find my self scrapping discarded TVs on the regular.
Every now and then I find a set that appeals to me and I keep it.
I found these knob tuners in a house that was being torn down and while they don't appeal to me, I was wondering if any of you would want them or any of their parts before they get scrapped. Free for cost of postage.

[zenith2134]

Where are you located?

[Jon A.]

That one on the right, probably a CTC136. The others, probably from before GE got RCA. I don't see many GE-branded sets from this era.

[midnx]

Located in nw wisconsin. Eau claire/twin cities close by.

[Fairlane500skyliner]

Are they all solid-state chassis sets?

Chris

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Fairlane500skyliner

Are they all solid-state chassis sets?

Chris

They look like late 70's to early 80's, all solid state.
The upper left set is a genuine GE. The lower left set, could be a Matsushita sourced GE, made in the Quasar plant in Franklin Park, IL and the lower right set is a GE badged RCA, built after the merger.

[midnx]

Yep, pulled a cover and they all are solid state color sets. 2 even have the service manuals enclosed!!!! All the line cords have been snipped off allready so I made no effort to try to power them up. I can try if anyone is interested?

[rca2000]

I think the one set is an "AA" or "AB" GE set--the one wiht the griplets that ALWAYS need resoldered--or even bypassed. Not too much else went wrong with them, at least not "back in the day". The tubes always seemed to be good in the 13" and 9" sets with this chassis. ...the "portacolor III" sets.


The one below it looks like either a "YA" or maybe an "EC" chassis, the EC also have griplets all over that need resoldered and such. Both late 1970's sets. The YA is better, but liked to lose yokes and safety caps, IIRC. Flys also went in the YA chassis sometimes. The tube is a GE inline tube--they NEVER were real good. But I thi8nk the set is an EC chassis...has that "look" about it.

Never liked either chassis. But I suspect some here do.

[radiotvnut]

The one on the right is a GE/RCA and possibly made after Thomson bought the names. It's a CTC136 and one of the last knob tuned GE/RCA's (was also sold under the RCA XL100 badge). They were decent sets and I have one in a woodgrain plastic cabinet from '87, along with the remote version from '89. The '87 does not mention Thomson, the '89 mentions Thomson Consumer Electronics. The electronic tuned version had the infamous MTT tuner/control module that always has bad solder connections.

[radiotvnut]

I haven't worked on or seen a "YA" set in close to 20 years; but, I liked this chassis a little better than the "EC" and "EM" sets. Those were a real pain to work on and if I saw one on the side of the road, I'd probably leave it there.

Actually, the only genuine GE chassis that I really liked was the "PC" chassis that was used in both 19" and 25" models.

[zenith2134]

I've had both a 17AC and a 13AC and the tubes are really something in those..the emission on both was extremely strong, with blues and reds and greens that were absolutely blinding. and deep in a good way. But the chassis did need work..funny how they enclosed the full schematics and service manual, whereas most mfrs would just paste a simple schematic on the inside of the cabinet.

[rca2000]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

I haven't worked on or seen a "YA" set in close to 20 years; but, I liked this chassis a little better than the "EC" and "EM" sets. Those were a real pain to work on and if I saw one on the side of the road, I'd probably leave it there.

Actually, the only genuine GE chassis that I really liked was the "PC" chassis that was used in both 19" and 25" models.

The PC chassis was not too bad. Not hard to repair, but fly's did die on them some, in the 1980's early 1990s. that cap in the vertical and the one in the B+ line accounted for probably 75% of repair on them, (along with the centering control) back then The PM was thew cold version of the PC< often with a stereo amp and AVIO setup.

I have one EM console set. At least they have a VRT with a cold power supply, but those griplets ruin everything else. Mine has a picture --not good, not sure about the tube. It is a modern looking inline tube.


And I thought the YM chassis was not too bad. A lot like the YA/YC, but it had a VRT cold power supply and was in 25" sets. It had that not-too-good inline GE tube too. I have one with the digital tuner in my mom's old room, a 79 model. tube is fair, that Ep77X70 fly has been change twice--since I got it in 1988. Until I moved to this house....it was a "daily driver" . Since then--it has seen almost no use. I turned it on some time ago--and it seemed not to have much green in the snow....the green looked a bit weak...but I did not leave it one long either.

And you may not remember the "MA/MB" chassis GE had--from the early 1970's. It was modular and pretty reliable. The tubes were not too bad--in the 1980's--the last time I saw one. I actually like that chassis. It looked a lot like it's successor--the YM. No doubt the YM's layout was influenced by the MA/MB chassis.

[rcaman]

i have 3 ge 19" ya sets all have a great picture i pulled these out of the shed a few months back and fixed all 3 of them. i always liked them and they did have a good bright picture. my 3 have excellent crt's and they have been used. i have a 1975 a 1977 and a 1978 one of these is a yc chassis

[Fairlane500skyliner]

As a matter of curiosity, when did GE release its last colour television model line using a tube/tube-hybrid chassis? I'm guessing sometime in the 1970s?

Chris

[radiotvnut]

GE made the 10" tube porta-color at least until '77 and possibly as late as 1980. I think the last 19" hybrid was the CD chassis, made until around '75-'76. The CD was an updated version of the older C-1 and C-2 chassis. Somewhere over here, I have a C-2 19" from around '72. The porta-color used an inline tube. The others that I mentioned used a delta gun tube. I think I've seen the photofact on a 15" GE tube chassis color TV with an inline tube; but, I've never seen an actual TV. I have seen an early-to-mid '70's 15" solid state GE color set with an inline tube and I think it used a QA chassis.

I've had my hands on one MA chassis set, a 25" console with a delta gun CRT. The CRT was toast with a brightener hanging off of it, along with the HV circuit having gone through a meltdown; so, that set got junked. The few YM's that I've had all had bad flyback transformers and/or weak CRT's. I replaced the flyback in one during the mid '90's and the the local parts house happened to have one left in stock. It was also on the expensive side - about $60, IIRC.

I've also seen one or two KD and KE chassis tube consoles from the late '60's/early '70's and I had one cheap GE console from the early '70's that used the same power transformer-less hybrid chassis as the 19" portables.

There was also a BC chassis, used in 13" and 17" sets during the early-to-mid '80's. The main chassis module was supplied by Matsusushita and was a flyback blower. I think the tuner was the same used in other GE's (these sets still had a manual in the back). Not long before GE sold out, they started using a Matsushita chassis in some of their 25" sets. This chassis was a dog that also liked to eat flyback transformers (TLF14423F was the flyback part number, IIRC). Right at the end, there was the MK-II chassis that was made by Matsushita. This one had an orange disc cap in the HOT collector circuit that would burn and the CRT's didn't hold up well in these. GoldStar also supplied some sets to GE. Currently, I have an '86 13" GE (NF chassis, IIRC) that's GoldStar all the way). The label says it's made in the USA and it might have been assembled at one of the GE plants; but, it's really a GoldStar. Except for the BC chassis, none of the other sourced sets that I mentioned had a manual in the back.

The main B&W's I remember were the SE and SF chassis tube sets of the early '70's and the XA 19" solid state and the XB solid state that was used in 12" and 15" sets. The XA and XB was used from the mid '70's until the early '80's, when GE started sourcing their B&W sets. I have a 12" GE from '83 that uses an XC chassis; but, I think it was actually sourced from Samsung. I also remember those mid '60's GE B&W's that were so cheap that they did not use an actual CRT socket. Instead, the terminals simply slipped over the CRT pins. I don't remember the chassis number; but, there was also a version that contained a built-in clock radio (AA5-tube chassis).

Speaking for my area, GE's really didn't stand the test of time like Zenith and RCA; so, by the time I started picking up old TV's in the early '90's, most of the older GE's had already been dumped. The only exceptions were the porta-colors and the 12" B&W's. Today, I don't even see those very much.

In '86, GE bought RCA and quickly closed down the old GE plants. At that point, GE TV's were either rebadged RCA's or one of the imported sets. Around '88, GE sold the RCA/GE names to Thomson and it was all over at that point.