Portable color sets from the sixties - Videokarma.org TV - Video

captainmoody · #1 02-02-2003, 12:42 PM

Here's my 1968 RCA 19" color portable that I purchased at an estate sale about 8 years ago, It even has the original stand, Although not shown in picture. Took a while to find this model, The last one I saw was when I owned a tv shop back in 1981!
Seems that heat related failure, I.E. caps, Tubes, P. C. boards and tube sockets (becoming brittle from heat)were a problem with these models. I saw the most come in when I was working for a shop in the mid to late seventies. Most were done by then, As I remember replacing a 6GH8 in one and having the socket crumble, When trying to replace that the pc board itself began to give way! It was a loaner we used for our customers so rather than have more problems, We tossed it into the dumpster!
This set in the picture had only been serviced by RCA under their service contract which ended in 1980. The elderly lady that I got it from stopped using it in 1981 due to a dirty tuner. So if she hadn't decided to put it in the basement, It would have been in the landfill years ago!

drh4683 · #2 02-03-2003, 08:01 PM

Thats an excellent tv captainmoody! As you know, it is one of my favorites cabinet styles by rca and have never found one like it! Like any old tv, they are rare but the rca table models are impossible to find! They just would not hold up like the zeniths (even though they are gone too!) I will need to get a photo of my ctc22 up here one of these days!

rcaman · #3 02-03-2003, 08:31 PM

captain moody , i also have one just like yours. i playes great i replaced the picture with a nos rebuilt one. the only thing i dont like is the replacement tube is whiter than the original. this set weighs a ton. steve

#4 02-03-2003, 09:33 PM

About '75 or so, I plunked down $60 for a 15" (?) RCA color portable which I think had the "New Vista" trademark on the control panel. It had a fungal CRT that got progressively worse even over the short time I had it. This was a cute little set and I'd like to find another, for no other reason that to attempt delaminating the safety glass and effecting a repair/cleanup. Three years ago, a neighbor had an estate sale in which there was an identical, working set. She was supposed to save it but it got tossed a day or two prior to the sale. She later added that it had "something wrong with the way the picture tube looked..." Yeah, I know...
I later picked up a Penncrest (Toshiba?) with the 15"-er but it's just not the same.

andy · #5 02-04-2003, 02:52 PM

Here's mine of the same model. I found this at the side of the road when I happened to glance up a side street on my way to a bowling league. It was in pretty rough shape with bad cataracts. It had most of its original tubes (and several very weak ones), but the CRT was in excellent condition.

The first time I plugged it in, it had no vertical deflection (bad connection to vertical tube heater) and the degaussing VDR started smoking because the thermistor was bad. I used a wire brish wheel to remove the rust and repaint the back, bottom, HV cage and IF cage. The chassis cleaned up ok. I scanned and reprinted the warning label on the HV cage after cleaning it up in paint shop. The only real electronic problem it had was failure of the degaussing thermistor/VDR pair and a few high ESR caps. It's now the TV I used every day in the work shop and hasn't given me any trouble in the year or so that I've been using it.

I'd love to get a new control door for it because the original was rusty and there's no way I can think of to reproduce the wood grain and the Zenith logo.

andy · #6 02-04-2003, 02:54 PM

Here's what it looked like when I found it. I think it was outside for a few years. There's something more satisfying about bringing back a set that's is really bad condition.

andy · #7 02-05-2003, 12:59 AM

I just found yet another portacolor at the side of the road near my house on my way home today. It's in pretty good shape apart from the broken shafts to the clock/sleep timer. Any idea wht kind of knobs it would have had? What remains of the shafts is the same size as a a typical volume pot shaft. I'm thinking it may have had the same type of knobs as the volume, color,... knobs. It also seems to be just a clock and sleep timer with no alarm or on timer function. It's model WM229HWD-3 and has a 1969 date code on the CRT. It worked as I found it, but the tuner and controls need to be cleaned. I also can't completely get rid of the green raster; hopefully it's a probelm with the green video circuit and not the CRT. If it is the CRT, I might cannibalize my mid 70's porta-color since this is a nicer set. It's the first portacolor I've had that didn't have a constant buzz in the audio. GE must have made millions of these!

captainmoody · #8 02-05-2003, 07:35 AM

Nice find Andy! That second generation model with the clock is harder to find nowadays. Here's a pic of my first gen, Also found in the trash! My friend said he got it at a sale, Then later confessed he found it when "picking"! It needed several cracked solder connections on the vertical output tube socket repaired, But works fine now. It has a date code 68-26 and has to be the last of this model, As your style started late 1968.

kc8adu · #9 02-05-2003, 07:51 PM

http://www.rwhirled.com/portacolor/
i have 3 of em.
considered the yugo of color tv but decent if they have good tubes

kc8adu · #10 02-05-2003, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by andy
I just found yet another portacolor at the side of the road near my house on my way home today. It's in pretty good shape apart from the broken shafts to the clock/sleep timer. Any idea wht kind of knobs it would have had? What remains of the shafts is the same size as a a typical volume pot shaft. I'm thinking it may have had the same type of knobs as the volume, color,... knobs. It also seems to be just a clock and sleep timer with no alarm or on timer function. It's model WM229HWD-3 and has a 1969 date code on the CRT. It worked as I found it, but the tuner and controls need to be cleaned. I also can't completely get rid of the green raster; hopefully it's a probelm with the green video circuit and not the CRT. If it is the CRT, I might cannibalize my mid 70's porta-color since this is a nicer set. It's the first portacolor I've had that didn't have a constant buzz in the audio. GE must have made millions of these!

if the crt is good there are 3 2w resistors in the rgb amps they change value.
replace with metal film types.common problen with greyscale issues.

#11 02-05-2003, 09:16 PM

For some more info on GE's Portacolor sets, check out "In Living Portacolor" http://www.rwhirled.com/portacolor/index.html
It provides some interesting history on this set plus photos of several different versions that GE--and others--made.

Come to think of it, I've got an old Scott 370 tuner that uses Compactrons.

Michael

***Eric H*** · #12 02-05-2003, 09:44 PM

I had one of those back in the late 70's. I got it from a TV repairman friend of mine.

It had a bad heater on one of the guns but I was able to get it working by whacking the neck of the CRT with a screwdriver handle.

I had to do that a few times but it finally seemed to take and worked for quite a while before I sold it at a garage sale.

It must have been an early one because I remember it had a really coarse dot pitch and really lousy color!

Later I had a 71 or 72 RCA XL-100 19" portable which I seem to recall was one of the first sets to use a slot matrix 110 deg CRT?
It was a solid state modular set and had great color.

Eric

andy · #13 02-05-2003, 10:44 PM

That's a great web page about the portacolor. Is there any chance you can send me a better picture of that first portacolor with the clock? I need a close up of the clock and it's knobs so I can figure out what mine should look like.

I think if the CRT is bad, I might try making the CRT from an early 80's solid state GE work in it. I would have to change the pinout of the CRT socket, drop the heater voltage to 6.3 and move the focus bleeder into the portacolor, but I think it would work. It has a 10VAHP22 CRT and it has external connections to each cathode, G1 and G2.

kc8adu · #14 02-05-2003, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by andy
That's a great web page about the portacolor. Is there any chance you can send me a better picture of that first portacolor with the clock? I need a close up of the clock and it's knobs so I can figure out what mine should look like.

I think if the CRT is bad, I might try making the CRT from an early 80's solid state GE work in it. I would have to change the pinout of the CRT socket, drop the heater voltage to 6.3 and move the focus bleeder into the portacolor, but I think it would work. It has a 10VAHP22 CRT and it has external connections to each cathode, G1 and G2.

the later (1975) uses the 10vah or 10vad p22 tube.
btw the old portacolor crt's rejuve well.
i did 2 a few weeks ago for another collecter.
both were really crummy looking till i hit them with the 467
so anyone with that adapter with the switch on it can dust it off and put it to use

andy · #15 02-06-2003, 12:29 AM

Here's an interesting stat I found today at this URL http://www.lancasterglasscorp.com/history.html

"1965-1977 Produced 2,250,000 portacolor GE TV bulbs"

Apparently they were the company that made the the glass bulbs for the portacolor's CRT. I guess that gives us a rough idea of how many were made.