In the fall of 2017 I found a General Electric 803 10” AM-FM table model set with Channel 1. Channel 1 frequencies were re-allocated to Police Band right around the time this set was manufactured and it appears that no television stations ever broadcasted on the 44-50 megahertz band. Future TV sets were produced without channel 1, and channel numbering started with channel 2. This set was found on Craigslist near Rockford Illinois, about 125 miles away. The owner was asking too much for the set, and because the cabinet had been painted white, nobody was interested in it. Eventually I was able to negotiate a much more realistic price and drove down to Rockford to purchase the set. These photos are what the set looked like when I got it home prior to beginning restoration.
The set had a General Electric brand 10BP4 picture tube so I think it may have been the original one installed at the factory. I ran the tube on my picture tube tester overnight and it held a reading of 400 on a scale of 1000, in the low end of the good area. Although it did not test real strong, it seemed good enough that it would produce a watchable picture.
I wanted to see what was under that ugly white paint, so I decided to strip and re-finish the cabinet. The first step was to remove everything from the cabinet. I was very fortunate that the set had a very pristine front glass panel, all the original knobs, and the original back, complete with the impossible to find safety interlock plug. The front speaker grill, grill cloth and rubber picture tube mask were also removed. The grill cloth was in poor condition and was replaced with something similar during the re-assembly.
Cabinet Re-finishing
I spent the first afternoon applying paint stripper and removing gobs of white paint and old varnish. Under all that was revealed a very nice mahogany veneer cabinet. I washed the surface of the cabinet using lacquer thinner and 0000 steel wool to remove all traces of the old varnish and stain. I was very careful to try and save all the original decals on the front of the set as well as the original tube placement chart inside the set. Then I re-stained the mahogany veneer using a custom mixed shade of water based stain to replicate the original color of the cabinet. Here are some photos of the stripped and re-stained cabinet prior to lacquering.
I use “water based” stain because it allows me to use a soft rag to blend the stain so I get a nice even coverage all over the set without light and dark spots. Because I use a water based stain, I can leave stain on the surface of the wood to build color in areas that are to light; and after the stain dries, it will not cause “fish eyes” when I spray the clear lacquer finish on top of the stain. I have found that if I use an oil based stain, and if I leave stain on the surface of the wood, I will have problems with fish eyes. The fish eyes are caused by the oil in the oil based stain. You will get fish eyes even after the oil stain has been allowed to dry for several weeks. I use a water based stain made by General Finishes.
The final step in the re-finishing is to spray the cabinet with 3 coats of post-catalyzed lacquer. I buy my lacquer from Mohawk Finishing Products. I use their M612-34407 lacquer which is a satin finish with a brilliance of 40. This is a high end commercial grade lacquer and costs around $70/gallon. This product is easy to use and will dry quickly. It can be sanded in about 1 hour. I sand with 400 wet emery paper after the first two coats to remove any roughness. There is no sanding after the third and final coat. Here are a couple shots of the cabinet with the lacquer finish applied and a photo of the Mohawk post-catalyzed lacquer that I use.
This is what the empty cabinet looks like after refinishing and re-assembly. I was able to do the cabinet refinishing without damaging the decals on the front panel. The original grill cloth was in very poor condition and so I replaced it with something that looked appropriate.
Electronic Restoration
Now it was on to the electronic restoration. The GE 803 is covered in Ryders Volume II so I pulled the schematics from my library and made a list of all the capacitors I needed to order. This is a photo of the chassis underside prior to starting the re-cap procedure.
I always start by re-stuffing the electrolytic can capacitors. This set had 5 electrolytic cans. If you are interested in my method for re-stuffing electrolytic cans, click HERE and it will take you to a write up on the method I use to re-stuff the cans. The rest of the work replacing all the old wax paper capacitors was very straight forward, although it was rather extensive. I replaced 49 wax paper capacitors and 9 out of tolerance resistors. Here is a photo of the capacitors that were removed, and an underside view of the chassis showing all the new capacitors.
Prior to power up I tested and replaced several weak vacuum tubes. Then I powered up the set to see how it would work. After some initial adjustments, I was able to get reception on Channels 4 and 6 but nothing on the higher channels. It took a couple of days of constant trouble shooting to narrow down the problem. Finally I discovered that the 7F8 dual triode loctal tube in the tuner section had a poor contact on one of the pins. After cleaning the pins of the 7F8, I got good reception on the channels above 6.
There was also a problem with the FM radio section. I couldn’t tune in anything. After a number of hours searching for the problem, I discovered that there was a mechanical problem with one of the guillotine tuning capacitors. Someone had lubricated the moveable blade of the capacitor with the wrong kind of product and the lubricant turned sticky and seized the moveable blade of the capacitor. As a result the small wire that connects the blade to the elevating mechanism, broke off. After removing the sticky lubricant and re-attaching the broken wire, the FM radio began to work well. An interesting feature of this set is that when you are in AM/FM radio mode, the tubes in the TV section, along with the picture tube, are all turned off to prolong the life of the television tubes. In the early years, the daily hours of television broadcasting were somewhat limited, and during non-prime time hours there was little programming to watch. Society was still primarily in “radio only” mode most of the time.
I discovered this set had the flyback transformer replaced at some time, along with it’s matching horizontal width coil. The flyback and the coil were different from the originals. And for some reason the horizontal width coil did not work. Perhaps the width coil is not wired correctly, but I may never know for sure because the original schematic is different from the wiring of the replacement flyback and width coil. As a result I had a hard time making horizontal adjustments and getting rid of a neck shadow on the lower right side of the picture. I made some further adjustments was finally able to get acceptable picture symmetry, and was presented with a fairly good picture. Here is a photo displaying a test pattern from my B&K Television Analyst.
And finally here are a couple of photos of the fully restored and re-assembled GE803 in operation.
Some final thoughts:
The GE 803 was manufactured in 1948. This was a period in our country’s history when we were recovering from World War II. The men had come home from serving in the military, they were getting married, buying their first home on the GI bill, and starting a family. I am one of those post war baby boomers. I was born in 1947 a year before this set came off the assembly line at the General Electric plant. This was a time in our history when American industry was re-purposing itself after having been dedicated to production of war materials for the military. The men who came home from the service needed jobs and companies like GE, put those men to work learning new manufacturing and servicing skills in the rapidly growing electronics industry. This was a time when products were being manufactured with quality and durability in mind; and this GE 803 is no exception. I am incredibly impressed with the quality of this set. The highest quality individual components were used and no expense was spared to make this the best product it could possibly be. As the years went by, and as competition grew, manufacturers were forced to sacrifice building a quality product, in order to reduce cost and stay competitive in the market place. This GE 803 was made in an era before competition started to chew away at quality. Although this set is small in size, it is probably the heaviest table top TV set I have ever lifted, weighing around 70 pounds.
The original selling price of this set was $450. In 2018 dollars that would be equivalent to $4748. This set was truly a top of the line product.
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoyed reading about this wonderful General Electric TV set.