Another gem by the General!
 

After reading about the GE 14" portable in a prior thread, I pulled a somewhat interesting 9" GE portable that came out in 1957, off the to-do shelf. GE made only one year of them, model 9T001. Many of the tubes are strange as well as the CRT.
I ordered a few of the odd-ball tubes from ESRC at the time, a couple of 10C8's and 12CT8's.
The CRT's didn't last in any of these sets and were unavailable, except from GE!
Maybe some other VKer has experience with this model.

Is that the one with the HV lead that runs through a socket pin? If so Carl Zimm was going to trade me one for some work at one point, but I forget what happened with that. Those definitely were odd sets.

Some good picture on this website: https://forum.retrotechnique.org/t/t...le-9t001/16416

OMG that's so cute! C'est magnifique!!!

Some discussion of this cute little set on an earlier thread:

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread...ighlight=green

jr

Yes! AndI believe that the jug is lightweight blown glass (like a 7jp4), rather than molded, like most CRT jugs.

jr

Anyone got a datasheet on the CRT? Pictures of the set’s internals look like typical GE build quality…

If I remember correctly.

https://frank.pocnet.net/sheets/093/9/9QP4.pdf

https://picclick.com/9QP4-9-Picture-...949501452.html

jr

I was there in Madison when you were discussing it with him. I thought you were going to bite. :D

It definately is! Maybe, that's the reason they couldn't be rebuilt.

I looked up the tube in the GE tube manual. The heater rating is 4.7 volts at 300ma. The heater looks a lot different than the heater in the usual B&W CRT.
I ran the heater at about 7volts to try to increase emission.

I thought I was too. I may still buy that set from him yet.... It's an interesting enough set without being a small colorful metal cabinet 50s portable, and I'm a sucker for colorful 50s metal cabinet portables.

There's a Portillos Hotdog's in IIRC VillaPark or Glenn Elyn IL that's built to look like a gigantic Jukebox, among numerous radios on display and ~2-3 TVs there's one of these GEs IIRC in salmon on one of the record shelves on one of the he support beams....IIRC it's the one closest to the ordering counter, but on the side facing away. Used to frequent the place when I was a kid. I even remember the inside of their previous restraunt on that site (it was part of the previous strip mall structure and was plowed down when they updated the buildings of that strip mall).

I didn't bother to restore it, the CRT is too wasted! I don't think it can be rejuvenated.

That's too bad. I just made a similar decision on a porthole set that has a rough cabinet and several destroyed adjustable coils that Sam's doesn't list aftermarket subs for...If the cabinet was nice I'd go to the effort getting coils, and if the electronics were an easy fix I'd fix the cabinet....Both issues at once are enough to convince me to let it be someone else's problem.

This very GE TV was installed in one amazing car. The San Diego Car Museum has Louie Matar's $75,000 Cadillac on display. Louie outfitted a 1947 Cadillac such that it could go phenomenal distances. He could change the oil in the engine while it was running. He could even change tires while it was running down the road. Quite a marvel.

He had the TV mounted upside down from the roof. I surmise that he reversed the yoke leads so the picture is right side up for viewing. The following link will take you to the YouTube video on this car. About 4:00 into the video, he shows the TV. If you have the time, watch the whole video. It was some amazing car!

https://sdautomuseum.org/exhibit/lou...s-fabulous-car

“reversed the yoke leads”
This reminds me of the time when I was still a teen in HS, and some adult fell for the scam of “You have won a brand new projection TV system.” all you have to do is drive all the way down and sit through this high presser sales pitch seminar presentation to get the FREE GIFT.
Which was nothing more than a cheap plastic convex lens, stuck into a cardboard box, that fit into a slightly larger one which could be adjusted for focus, which was then taped in front of any 19 inch or so color CRT TV, and then “projected” onto a cheap cardboard screen which has silver shiny paint on it. ( Best viewed in dark room, with brightness turned to max).

Instructions also said... take TV to shop to reverse yoke leads to correct “inverted image”.

Total rip off, but amusing!

Did you ever try to variac it? I did yesterday and the thing came right up with synced picture and sound! Granted I had to turn the brightness up to max with lots of retrace lines to get picture, but its somehow still going on all original parts.

My tester showed 10-20% emissions (near dead) at rated 4.7V heater, but bottom of good readings at 5.7V...
I'm debating whether to rejuvenate it or unwire the heater wires for the socket from the chassis and add the transformer from a brightener that I stole the base/socket from (once I figure out where I put that transformer) into the heater circuit. I definitely can't directly plug a brightener in given the 5.5KV HV connection in the base!

I think one of those methods could make it usable. Then I gotta debate whether I recap it or not... It's such a clean original I'm tempted to just stick it on a shelf and leave it as is.

That's probably the most interesting YouTube video I have watched in the last couple of weeks.

Been there seen the car.

Peter:thmbsp:

I had the same TV that I had gotten from a musician friend of mine who brought it up here to Indiana from Nashville where he lived previously and I tried to fix it up but I had too many problems with the set when I was trying to recap the set and replacing the tubes that as Electronic M mentioned were very odd ball tubes and some of them were too expensive for me to buy (like the High-Voltage Rectifier that this TV used which was an oddball tube that for some reason was a $30 tube on feebay and also on some of the other tube retailer sites as well, and I just couldn't justify paying $30 for that tube.)

Anyways I ended up selling it to someone locally that used to be a producer for one of the local TV stations over in South Bend, Indiana and he has it as a decoration in his mancave/museum for old Broadcast TV and TV memorabilia.

The HV rectifier tube is a rather common 1V2. The horiz out and the damper is rather uncommon and the 10C8, which was used in that set alone.
I bought those tubes from ESRC from the dollar menu. :sigh:

The electro's behind the speaker run a little warm, otherwise I had the same results as you had.

:thmbsp: It's definitely a nice set.


I agree with Dave the eBay seller you were looking at was dreaming on price. One thing I like to do is stock modern 5KV 200mA and 2KV 2A diodes. The 5KV can sub for color TV focus rectifiers (I usually put 2 in series for better PIV headroom), and 2-5 in series can sub for most HV rectifier applications in a pinch...And sometimes permanent on rare sets with hot running flybacks since removing heater load from the fly should help cool it.

The 2A parts might work for a damper tube if the right series parallel combo to match PIV and current requirements was reached.