fixed a GE compactron B&W set
 

http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/gemo14pav2.jpg
The sound would cut in and out every so often. Popped the back off, wiggled the sound tube, looks like a bad solder joint. While warming up the iron, finding all the screws necessary to remove to let my pull the main board out enough to get at the solder joints. Start resoldering the tube socket pins, figuring there's a hairline crack there. Then spotted a resistor lead nearby that looks to never been soldered to its circuit board trace since day one. :thumbsdn: Took care of that, looks like it is fixed. :thmbsp: Seems GE's quality control was lacking... :thumbsdn:

Have not seen one of those in ages. Looks to be from the mid '60's? I think they made these in several different colors.

We had a similar set bought November 1963. In about three or four years a shorted yoke sent it to TV heaven.

I like that, a cute little set.

I was at a flea market over the weekend, saw a neat little compactron B&W/radio/alarm clock, PCBs angled all over the place to fit the back (which was missing, did not see it laying around but he prob had it, he had s vintage electronic shop with a bunch of stuff in it.

That looks a bit like the ones we brought back from SC. I would agree that those sets were refined for maximum cheapness. The compactron tubes seem to be fairly reliable though.
It always feels good to find something simple like that and know you got it fixed.

I have several GE B&W sets that are similar to this but of an earlier vintage. The compactrons were ok, but they PC boards fried early!

As a side note, I was at a conference today where Cisco was presenting how they do quality control on their boards. They use X-Rays to look at soldier joints, board traces, etc. The X-Rays are changing the memory chip retention times temporarily, causing issues.

Come to think of it, I have had a couple of those sets with the built in clock and AM radio. The radio chassis was GE's standard 5 tube chassis that was used in their last AM tube radios.

And, I've also had a few of these sets that were VHF only.