Opinions on Radiation, er.. Air King TV

[Tom9589]

I'm going to repeat an urban legend here (which means it may or may not be true).

I heard the x-ray problem was due to GE not wanting to pay RCA royalties for using the 6BK4 and came out with their own shunt regulator which generated the x-rays. The story goes that a woman had a cat that liked to sleep under the warm console TV when it was on. The cat started losing hair and the source of the problem was then discovered. I do know that GE replaced a lot of their first generation shunt regulator tubes as a part of a recall.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by Tom9589

I'm going to repeat an urban legend here (which means it may or may not be true).

I heard the x-ray problem was due to GE not wanting to pay RCA royalties for using the 6BK4 and came out with their own shunt regulator which generated the x-rays. The story goes that a woman had a cat that liked to sleep under the warm console TV when it was on. The cat started losing hair and the source of the problem was then discovered. I do know that GE replaced a lot of their first generation shunt regulator tubes as a part of a recall.

Knowing GE it probably was a matter of them not wanting to add $0.10 worth of shielding metal for the shunt reg/HV rect.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Tom9589

I'm going to repeat an urban legend here (which means it may or may not be true).

I heard the x-ray problem was due to GE not wanting to pay RCA royalties for using the 6BK4 and came out with their own shunt regulator which generated the x-rays. The story goes that a woman had a cat that liked to sleep under the warm console TV when it was on. The cat started losing hair and the source of the problem was then discovered. I do know that GE replaced a lot of their first generation shunt regulator tubes as a part of a recall.

This really happened to my parents cat, but in this case (mid 60s Sylvania set) the cat slept on the top at the left side, which was the warmest spot, right above the horizontal and hv section. The 6BK4 was replaced with a leaded version, Cindy recovered and lived to a fairly old age (14 or 15 years).

jr

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by Tom9589

I'm going to repeat an urban legend here (which means it may or may not be true).

I heard the x-ray problem was due to GE not wanting to pay RCA royalties for using the 6BK4 and came out with their own shunt regulator which generated the x-rays.

The problem came about due to faulty manufacturing in which the tube elements were not properly aligned. If all the elements were straight and concentric, the X-rays generated by the anode were blocked by the lower tube elements, but if mis-aligned, the tilted elements would allow some X-rays to escape around the edges.