Speaking of 60's portables...

[Eric H]

Where are they?

I just don't see any of these sets around.

Other than the Sears that I tossed and the cosmetically challenged RCA that I took the tube out of I haven't seen any, not on eBay, not in thrift stores, not on the Web.

Were they just so pathetically bad that they didn't survive in any quantity?

Eric

[Erich Loepke]

I don't know about such sets in general, but all the ones I've had like that (with the exception of a 15" Zenith and a later model RCA) never worked or worked right. I had a RCA CTC-22 that never worked at all, a GE HB 10" set with screwy color blotches in the picture, and a Sears like you threw out that had a dim picture with wrong colors (the CRT was good).

I wouldn't mind having a few of these old portables myself, especially the chance to get a fixable CTC-22 again.

I sold a 1972 RCA 14" hybrid set on Ebay a few years ago. Someone just had to have it, I guess, it brought over $150. The thing played beautifully and all, but I didn't expect to get much more than $20 for it at the time.

The GE HB color portables show up on Ebay from time to time, if you're interested in one of those. With the exception of the RCA I sold on Ebay, I haven't seen one of these tube-type color portables since the ones I had mentioned above in the mid-80's. Perhaps they were smaller and therefore easier to leave out on the curb for the trash collector.

Come to think of it, I don't see too much of the older 19" tube sets either.

[kc8adu]

the theary that they were easy to carry to the curb when they died may be true.
but they are still around.
got a portacolor he at a hamfest for $5
found a rca 19 incher color on the curb a while back.
both work well.
still find the small 60's sony color portables around too.
kv-9000u for $5 last week.
just a bad plug.

[Kamakiri]

If you guys want early color portables (portacolor, etc).....I'll get them, they are still plentiful in this area.

[andy]

I also like color portables. Here's my Zenith 15Y6C15 from 1968. It looks washed out because of the flash, but has the best picture I've seen on an (almost) all tube portable. It has decent focus even though it uses a low focus voltage CRT.

When I got it it was in really bad shape with the bottom cover, HV cage, yoke clamp and IF box completely rusty. It looked like it was either outside, or in a very leaky shed for a few years. It doesn't look too bad after sanding and painitng all the rusty parts. Anyone have a decent looking control door for one of these? Electronically it wasn't in bad shape. It had most of its original tubes with many very weak ones and the degaussing thermistor/varistor pair was bad. The chassis also required lots and lots of cleaning. It had a bad case of cataracts, but the CRT looked great, so I managed to remove the cloudy resin. It's now the TV I watch in my workshop and hasn't had any trouble since I started using it last year.

I had a CTC-22 a few years ago, but it had an awful picture (very bad focus) and I gave it away. I have a 12" Panasonic hybrid from the early 70's that has a decent picture and a 14" magnavox hybrid (mostly solid state) that I'll probably use as a CRT donor if I get another CTC22 with a bad CRT. I also have a couple of portacolors, but I don't care for them because they have such crappy performance.

[wiseguy]

if you guys are looking for a ctc-22 i think i know who has one,and i think a unsold set that was used for display at a rca dealer,is a ctc-22 the first rectangular set?
terry

[andy]

The CTC22 was RCA's first color portable. It used a 15" square CRT like the Zenith I posted.

[kc8adu]

i too collect older small color sets.
i believe the ctc 22 was the first rca small screen color portable.
i have fixed a few with the most common problem being filter caps in the doubler.
and bad cataracts.