Why don't I see - compact B&W portables?

[Old1625]

Originally Posted by peverett

It is correct that they can be decent sets. The quality varied a lot between manufacturers and somewhat between set models themselves.

I have models in the RCA "Sportabout" line of sets from the early 1960s. The lower end models were series string with a 6AQ5 audio output. The top of the line has a power transformer and 6BQ5 audio output. This line all has 3 IF stages, but some other models went with two if stages, usually with higher gain tubes.

Yeah, RCA had some 14" portables that were transformer powered. They were not much bigger than the 14" diag screens they had, but were long from front to back, with the carrying handle running front to back rather than from side to side as with later portables....Good and sturdy sets that were great--except that they were supplied with 2 pix IF stages using the pentode sections of 6CH8s (unobtainable at the time), with the triode sections serving other purposes. The IF transformers were all bifilar wound pri/sec configuration. I got one of those sets working--after a fashion. The ongoing problem seemed to be a battle of sensitivity vs banwidth. I was living in rural upstate New York at the time, and concluded that this was really a "city duty" set, and finally just let it lie as it was. A Philco Seventeener III I had at the same time could mop up the street with that pitiful RCA--performance-wise--without half trying. It is possible that I just hadn't mastered the art out of getting performance from one of those 2-pix-IF sets.... Or perhaps that's just the way they were. Earl Muntz made a killing out of marketing amazingly inexpensive sets with giant picture tubes to people living in cities, as he figured out that you don't need much rock 'n' roll going on in a chassis to get performance in urban reception conditions where you can look out a window and see the transmitter tower. But any hapless rural farmer looking for a good deal on a TV might've been disappointed with buying a set made by RCA, Muntz, Olympic, Setchell Carlson, or others using such simplified cktry....

For the record: I notice in poring through Sams files that I have seen nary a Zenith model that sported any less than 3 pix IF stages....