Magnavox 15" tube set Cheapest model ever?

[kx250rider]

I hated these Magnavox hybrid sets in the 80s when they were 15 and 20 years old... It has about 8 tubes (the RF-IF and chroma is Solid State, and the rest is tubes). My mother's Avon lady had one that needed weekly repairs. I finally sold her a nice CTC-38, and took pleasure in personally tossing the Magnacolor 15" into the hopper of the trash truck one gleeful Wednesday morning before school

Now all these years later, I was fascinated by this one. It turned up in an estate garage, and I had never seen one quite like this one. It looks like the common ones, but this one has a cheap beige cabinet and has no rabbit ears, no fancy woodgrain and NOT EVEN A HANDLE! There were 2 or 3 variations of the Magnacolor portable with this chassis, but all the ones I ever saw before had rabbit ears, woodgrain case, and most had a channel window with pilot light. (and the VHF knob was coming out the top where the "MAGNACOLOR" plackard is on this one.

This TV was SO HYPER-CLEAN and mint condition that I couldn't bear to junk it. So I saved it, and got at looking into it this New Years weekend. It had 8,722,502 cold solder joints (well, maybe a SLIGHT exaggeration). I fixed all those, and it came to life and the chassis actually works well! But the bad thing is that the CRT is defective.

The CRT problem is that the green gun filament is WAY WAY brighter than the other 2 (see photos). The result is that I can't get gray scale, and ofcourse the picture is way off color. And with how bright the green gun filament is, I expect it would burn open in a few minutes. I checked the tube with my B&K 470 to see if there might have been a problem in the TV causing it, but indeed it is a faulty tube. It's a 15SP22.

So I would like to either get a 15" tube for it if anybody has one, or get another 15" Magnacolor. This tube is weird in that the gun is "upside down". (Blue is bottom when anode well is ontop). This is a delta gun tube, and may be the same as the ones in the Zenith and RCA late 60s portable sets.

I think this TV is SO WEIRD AND UNUSUAL with the cheap cabinet, and being so clean, that it needs to be saved!

Charles

[Chad Hauris]

The tubes where the blue gun are at the bottom are the low focus voltage tubes as used a lot in the RCA portables.
Sounds like there is a bit of metal somehow shorting out part of the filament causing it to burn brighter....have you tried gently tapping on crt neck or maybe use a CRT rejuvenator on it to burn away the foreign material?

[kx250rider]

Haven't tried zapping it yet, since at least it has a picture. I was REALLY tempted to shoot it, but when I put the 470 in the CLEAN-BALANCE mode, the faulty filament went like a 60-watt lamp. I agree it's probably debris in the tube, or possibly an open connetor in there causing the filaments to run in series this way? That would explain one bright one and the others low.

Thanks for the tip on the RCAs having the upside down gun too

Charles

[andy]

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[bgadow]

I have a Portacolor like that, with a plain beige cabinet, no handle, no ears. Just as cheap as they could possibly make it. It doesn't even say "Portacolor" or have the color crests, just "General Electric". I guess that let them chisel the price down below $200.

The Magnacolor sure looks clean. I've been playing with a series of 15" sets lately, including RCA, Zenith, Sylvania & Airline (Admiral). I know I've seen that crt # in one of them. As you might guess, the Zenith was a dream compared to the others, & worked pretty well as found. The RCA has color problems, the Sylvania has vertical problems (compounded by a pc board that lifts traces if you look at it funny) & the Airline was just plain built on the cheap, with tons of empty holes on the pcb & on the back of the chassis; you can tell what they left out by the crummy picture it gives. Why didn't they all just build Zenith clones?!