GE TVs,1950-85...

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cfz2882

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Feb 9, 2010
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the "real"GEs,early days up until they were Thompson/RCA sets...I have ~5 "real"GEs-1978-85 and about to place one on the workbench to get it checked for next deployment.Anyone else have any old GEs-(especially any very early sets :) )
 
I don't own a GE TV. But my family's TV when I was young was a portable black and white GE. The story I heard was that my father wanted to see the moon landing, and he went and bought the cheapest TV. My parents weren't terribly into TV, and so that was our only TV until it broke around 1980, at which time was deemed (by the TV repair shop) to not be worth repairing.

One of the things I really liked about that TV were the glowing tubes that one could see if one looked through vents.
 
I'm sure back in the day I worked on a few but I never really like the way they were built or the picture they gave. Some of the later Magnavox and RCA sets weren't too bad and I actually put a new tube in a Magnavox early 80's console for my Mom and step Dad back in the day because they weren't horrible sets and showed a nice picture. I don't think I have any early sets left now but I still have bunches of tubes and some of the common parts for my favorites stashed somewhere.
 
From what I heard, their best color offering for reliability was the PortaColor and that their other early color offerings had CRTs that died early, and cheap printed circuit boards that crumbled after only a few years. GE found ways to embed fundamental design flaws into everything they built. They were the original corner cutters.
 
Back in the mid eighties, there was a little neighborhood drugstore in Nashville that still had a working GE console from what must have been the early Fifties. It seemed like it was deeper than it was wide. Maybe a 12 inch screen. The only reason I remember it was that that I happened to be in the store picking up a prescription when they were showing the Challenger explosion. It was horrifying anyway, but also seemed so odd to be watching it on a 35-year-old set.

The store owner/druggist said that the set took a long time to warm up, but otherwise worked fine.
 
First New TV

I bought my first new TV using my GM employee discount in 1985. A 19" TV with the CRT that looked blue when the set was off. They bought that piece of junk back. I got a check direct from the Charlottesville, VA operation, IIRC. I wondered if I was going to loose my job over the stink I raised over that thing.
 
'85 GE

my 1985 GE console has the blue tinted glass too-when I tried it after purchase,worked decent but had a small spot of distorted color on the screen-probably just was magnetized a little. 1982 13" porta-color I had in the work bench turned out to be in good order after awakening from a ~20 yr slumber-color was a little wonky at first,then straightend right out to perfect-nice and sharp with no streaking along the edge or nothing :)very inpressive little TV!I guess I could include my'57 hotpoint portable in with the GEs since that is who made it.The hotpoint is all original and still works,but has some streaking and other performance issues caused by some aged components :)series string set with selenium rectifiers:)My next oldest set in similar working order is a 1961 Magnevox 19"B/W.
 
'83 GE

Nice one there :)I have a similar 19"GE made 4/82,just about I yr older than your set-last time I had it on,~2003,it worked good except sound was a little weak and distorted-your set sound good?
 

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