RATS! Portable set wasteland!

[Charlie]

Today, I drove to Vidor... about 45 minutes away... to answer a CL ad about a bunch of antique sets for 25 dollars. I could see in the photo they looked pretty rough. I figured that I would get a few good CRT's out of the bunch... throw away the rest.

I get there, and it looks like no one has lived in the house for a while. The guy drove from Houston... come to find out the house was his father's, and used to run a TV business back in the day. All of the TV's and several other old items were recently found in the attic.

When I walked into the garage, that familiar yucky smell hit me pretty good... dead rat! God, it was GROSS!

I give the guy the 25 bucks, and his grandson is helping me load these sets in the back of the truck. Just couldn't get away from that smell! Got 3 of the sets in there, and he says, "Wow! Look at those maggots! I think they came out of that blue set!" Guys, I've seen maggots now and then thru the years, but let me tell you.... I've never seen them like this! They were huge! Come to find out, that dead rat smell was coming from the blue Motorola!

All I could think was GROSS!

I get home and get the tester out. I have all the sets on the ground behind the truck.... plugging them in one at a time... and not a single one was any good!! Even cranking them up to 8 volts only brought the meter halfway up into the "bad" range.

Actually, there are still a few chances. The RCA deluxe model has a different plug... I need to find one for it... but not gonna hold my breath. There's a small portable on the tailgate... I think it's a Commadore... looks like it takes the same plug. Threre's also that baby Hitachi... I'm not even going to bother with that one.

So, it looks like this trip was a bust! Nothing worth saving... nothing but rat droppings in all sets, and dead rats with maggots in at least one set. What a let-down!

Man, you have no idea how many times I washed my hands since dealing with these. Hell, right after I left the guy's house, I stopped at a gas station restroom to wash up!! Then I went in and bought hand sanitizer... smeared it all over my hands, the steering wheel, and the stick-shift!

Thank goodness I live on a decent sized piece of land... I don't have to keep them near the house!! I can put them out in the woods!!

What sucks even more... now I have to get rid of them all. Hmmmm.... maybe I could put an ad on CL tonight!!

[Username1]

I got a Emerson like this one in your take...... My favorite set.

I gotta hand it to ya- I would have left.....

Yukie to think she is all covered in rat poopies.....

[Eric H]

Charlie, if that Blue & White motorola set is a 14" I desperately need the plastic safety screen out of it!

[Charlie]

Not a problem Bubba... I will check it out when the sun comes up!

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by Charlie

Not a problem Bubba... I will check it out when the sun comes up!

Cool, thank you!!

[Charlie]

Found my adapter for the small base tubes. The RCA is really weak, but the little Japanese Commadore set (on the far right side of the tail gate) has a good tube in it. Later I will look a little closer in there. It never really occurred to me that it may or may not be tubes.

I have to run my truck through the car wash. Even with the bed empty, it still smells like dead rat back there!!

[marty59]

And out of all those sets, I would have thought of you having better odds at some salvagable/usable crts too! Maybe some of them will wake up after a few tries...

[Electronic M]

Sometimes you have to let a tube sit for a few hours at 8 volts to wake it up.
If your tester is one of the models with a safe rejuvenation feature that might help too.

I have gotten decent pictures from monochrome tubes that test fairly weak so all is not lost even if they are weak.

Dead rat smell goes away after awhile. We had one die inside the walls of a house my family used to own it stunk in that room for a while but was gone in a less than a month. Leave the worse ones outside for a couple of months beneath one of those tailgating/flea-market wall-less tents, to keep the rain off it, and the smell should go away.

One year squirrels had got into the family cabin many months prior, they caused a ton of damage knocking things over and chewing everything in sight, but aside from that damage and their pelts and bones nothing was left of them. Once a critter is done rotting and has been completely dry for long enough the things needed for micro-organisms to subsist run out and it becomes more a less a sterile pile of dust and bones.

Sorry if what I wrote bothered anyone with a weak constitution.

[Eric H]

I have one of those Japanese sets under the name of Tel-O-Master, it's actually a very well built little set. If yours has a good tube and is in decent condition it's probably worth fixing.
http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...0&d=1281403297

That Black & Blue set is a Sylvania isn't it? What condition is it in other than a dead CRT?

[Charlie]

Yes, Marty, I had the same thought.... get a handful of old portables and get at least a few good tubes out of them.

I tried the magic button on my 470 with a few of those tubes. It did nothing. Those tubes were really played out. Hell... even had some of them up to 9 volts. Perhaps this guy put those sets up in his attic years ago because of weak or dead CRTs... thinking maybe he could use other parts if he needed them.

Yes, Eric... you are right. That is a Sylvania. Pretty cool looking cabinet, isn't it? That set was a tube only.... no chassis in there.

Actually, they were all pretty cool looking sets... way back in the day!! They are all cool color combos, and that RCA Deluxe is really neat, too. It's a shame they are all so nasty and rusty.

Wow, Eric... that Tel-O-Master you have is really cool looking... and so clean! Out of all the sets in this bunch, that little one seems to be pretty clean on the inside... chassis still looks nice.

[Kamakiri]

I'm desperate for a picture tube out of one of those GE 14" portables, if you happen to be parting them out

And I'm no stranger to mice

[andy]

...

[Reece]

Charlie, your frogs could clean out any remaining maggots...

[Boobtubeman]

Is that a moto 17 inch to the far right next to the rca?

SR

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by Boobtubeman

Is that a moto 17 inch to the far right next to the rca?

SR

There was only one Moto.... the blue/white one. The set your mention has already made it to the dumpster (it smelled the worst).

Previously, the sets were all full of maggots. Currently, the sets are all FULL OF ANTS!! I left them out on the ground, and it would seem that damn near all of them have a critter buried in them considering the amount of ants in them now.