Interesting '65 Montgomery Ward B/W Portable

[pendulum]

I picked up this Montgomery Ward model GHJ1566A from the same home I got the '66 rca ctc-20. Set looks like it sat somewhere damp but luckily the chassis coating prevented a lot of rust. Seems pretty well made, it actually uses a power transformer. The circuit breaker blew at some point and has been bypassed and there is a sticker saying the tuner has been rebuilt, but other than that I don't see any evidence of work or even tubes being changed. I haven't tried powering the set up yet because a thermistor is missing and I don't know its value yet. The set also has a feature called pictomatic, which I think is supposed to adjust the brightness and contrast based on the lighting? There is no motors or anything, so it must be some circuit. I am curious to see how it actually works.

[rca2000]

I, for one would NOT toss that set !! Nicely made, cold, and NOT common. A CTC-20 is easier to find now--that THAT one !!

[zeno]

Originally Posted by rca2000

I, for one would NOT toss that set !! Nicely made, cold, and NOT common. A CTC-20 is easier to find now--that THAT one !!

This one is a keeper, Ive been in tens of thousands of sets & I
never seen one like it. Who built this thing ?? Its US for sure.
Wells Gardener ?
Warwick ?
Packard-Bell ?
Its none of the big or medium makers.

73 Zeno

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by zeno

This one is a keeper, Ive been in tens of thousands of sets & I
never seen one like it. Who built this thing ?? Its US for sure.
Wells Gardener ?
Warwick ?
Packard-Bell ?
Its none of the big or medium makers.

73 Zeno

It could be a Hoffman! They had a plant in Chicago that Admiral ended up buying, sometime in the 70's, or so. They built some sets for Wards.
The Hoffman color sets, were just another CTC15 clone.

[Electronic M]

I've got the channel knob for it....It's size and number indexing make it a functional replacement VHF knob for a portacolor in a pinch...

[jstout66]

I just noticed the pictomatic" . I bet it's a photocell to adjust brightness depending on room light. Some Magnavox and RCA sets had that in the 50's, then you didn't really see that feature again until the late 70's and 80's. (Zenith Color Sentry & I remember it on Colortrac sets)

[pendulum]

I started some initial work on the set. The open wire is a fuse for the tube filaments. I replaced it and after a slow power up got a rastor and some distorted sound but no video. After about five minutes, however, the filament fuse blew and now it blows instantly if I try to power up the set. My first thought was that a cap on the filament line shorted out, but there are only a few disc caps on the audio section. The electrolytics felt fine as well. Now, if a filament was shorted to ground would the tube still light? If not my thought was that the issue might be near the video output tube, since the audio is picked off right before the video output. If anyone else has suggestions of components that may be a potential source of the issue I would welcome the suggestions. Thanks!

[zeno]

If it has any 12 ( vid amp often) volt tubes they are tapped & maybe
one is out. Other than that either measure draw on variac or
pull half the tubes & take it from there either pulling or putting
back in.

73 Zeno

[Electronic M]

Maybe there is a heater cathode short.

[Eric H]

I thought this looked familiar, I had one almost exactly like it a while back.
The one I had was in excellent condition and worked fine but it was dirty inside so I took it apart and gave it a bath.

I sold it to a local collector about five years ago, don't know if he still has it.

[pendulum]

Thanks for the pics Eric! Looks like yours has a slightly different control layout than mine. I finally had time to mess with the set again and by pulling out tunes was able to successfully determine the short is in the audio section. By leaving the three audio tunes out I got video and it came in really well! Only some vertical wavyness which may be from the caps or the diodes, I'm thinking.

Edit: sorry the image is flipped, it does that with photos from my phone for some reason.

[pendulum]

I replaced one of the electrolytics. It had a shorted section that was involved in the audio section. The set at the moment is working fine, I am going to run it for a half hour or so and see how things go. The only problem now, besides the bad power switch, is that there is a slow vertical wave on the screen. When the screen is blank you can actually see what looks like a sine wave turned vertically on the center of the screen. Any idea what this may be due to? The set still has one electrolytic in the power supply area that could be causing problems I suppose.

[wkand]

You said it, electrolytic... waviness in pic is usually a bad filter cap.

[DaveWM]

tighten up the screws that provide the grounds to the sweep board. may want to clean up the chassis a bit under the screw head. Its is for a very slow wave like 20-30 second to work thru. I think its a beat freq of the AC line freq to the vert sweep freq. Had an old Maggie with screw mounted sweep that nearly drove me nuts. IIRC I finally figure it out by power the heaters up with 6v DC that cured it, so I knew it had something to do with line freq AC modulating the sweep and not the B+. I then confirmed it was the AC heater to the sweep only by only using DC on that board. the key word hear is the VERY slow humbar. I ended up soldering a ground strap from the sweep board directly to the chassis so I did not have to rely on the pressure of the screws making the grounds. Of course checked for HK shorts 1st.