Another RCA portable working as-is

[Eric H]

I pulled another RCA off the shelf to see what it would do without any repairs.
This one is not a "Deluxe" model which I think means it uses a voltage double and not a transformer/5U4, however I haven't pulled the back yet to confirm that.

I brought it up slowly on the Variac over a few minutes to see if it would respond, it started humming at 60 volts, audio kicked in at around 85 and the screen started to light up.

By 100 volts it had a picture that was flopped over and rolling but it eventually pulled itself together into a coherent image, although a bit vertically squashed, I tweaked the height and linearity and got a really good image and sound, temporarily.

Eventually as it got hotter the vertical started to roll and eventually couldn't be stopped so it needs some caps but basically it's in good shape.

My plan is to get all my RCA's from this era running and maybe taking a group picture of them all playing at the same time.

[miniman82]

Originally Posted by Eric H

My plan is to get all my RCA's from this era running and maybe taking a group picture of them all playing at the same time.

Mmmm, Com Ed is gonna love you!

[Einar72]

Sarnoff is grinning somewhere...

[truetone36]

All playing at once? You must own some PG&E stock.

[Tubejunke]

There is another thread about a similar set where I told my story about having one of these in the early 80s and carrying it onboard an airplane to get it from Alabama to Virginia. The reason I bring it up again is that both threads mention vertical or other sync issues, but otherwise plug and play sets.

Over 30 years ago (has it been that long) my yard sale find had exactly the same issues. The vertical would start rolling after playing for a while. Then you could lock it and it would drift again. The horizontal would be a little touchy, but not as apt to loose sync. Today, it would be wonderful to get a set with only these issues. Many sets/models have an inherent weakest link circuit I think. I didn't know much more than tube testing at that time and unfortunately I don't think I ever really repaired it. A lot of nice old "junk" (as my dad would say) sets got torn apart and parted out or just trashed after I was done tinkering. Old 40s-60s sets were everywhere back then and often you had to beat them to the landfill and repair shops would clean out and take truckloads of them to be buried. Mine mostly came from the high school electronics class or the TV shops. Some from Goodwill if they were still working.