I found another Sony 303W on ebay that I got for $9.99...as parts. The description was "doesn't turn on" and it looked pretty rough, but I got it in the hopes it had a decent CRT since it looks like it sat a VERY long time.

My very first set in my collection was a Sony 303W my dad gave me around 15 or maybe even 20 years ago. I noticed last year that set was having an odd brightness problem...and then noticed the faces were a very odd "silvery" look like there was a weird contrast problem. Someone had mentioned on here that this was almost certainly the CRT...which I suspected because the pic was getting pretty dim as well.

Well...I LUCKED OUT!!

That parts set had alot of little hardware things that Dad's set was missing. I messed with the ebay set long enough to get power to it and I suddenly had a big bright raster on it, but no tuner. I really only wanted to see if it had a decent CRT...and looked fine so far since I have no CRT checker.

Spent the last three hours to tear Dad's set completely to bits and do a real nice detail to it's chassis....replaced a pot that kept making the vertical height change, and then R&R'd the CRT with the eBay set...and now...

SHE LIVES again!!!

I'm very attached to this little Sony...because my dad isn't around anymore...and he gave this to me. I'm very happy to see it with a complete antenna and good CRT again...and even found the little "stand" to put back underneath it. I have no idea why Dad gave me a set that was a bit incomplete...but it was neat nonetheless when he gave it to me...and now IS complete. I even got an unexpected extra Sony AC cord with the eBay set (Those are CRAZY hard to find by themselves!!)...and tucked in the little "suitcase"....a perfect instruction manual :thmbsp:

Awrite ! The 1st TV I ever had, Christmas, 1962.. I saw one in Knoxville, at General Products, & threw a FIT over it, around Thanksgiving... I was SO SICK that Christmas, Daddy carried me into the living room, & showed it to me..I said, "That's Nice.." & he carried me back to bed..Had that set til the summer they landed on the Moon...

Ah, very, very good. :) Considering the picture on my XL-100, I may need a jug for that sometime.

Curious, got either one of these?

http://halifax.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-electronics-TV-Radio-Cassette-Recorder-W0QQAdIdZ500218912
http://halifax.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-sell-electronics-2-TV-AM-FM-cassette-radio-W0QQAdIdZ493385941

The sets in my collection that have a "story" behind them...are my favorites. This one was given to me when I saw dad tinkering with it back in around 1993 (Just after I brought him to the states from Hong Kong). His priorities when he first got here.....WORKSHOP in the garage, even before we got him a bed and rice cooker :scratch2:

Mom and him lived up in L.A. at our "big family" house....because I didn't want them living alone in their 60s, and....that is just how us Chinese roll. NO sending the elders off to wherever and forgetting them!! :nono:

Dad built up a little workbench in the garage to play with little electronic projects. I suspect he found alot of things to play with when he did his big long morning walks. Like me, he liked to work on smaller items (probly because he dragged them home from some curb :yes: )

I liked that little set...and I had no TV collection at all at the time. When I got him a 27" Sony and DVD player, he gave me that little 303W. I thought it was cute.....and I would turn it on every few months just to see it run, but didn't really think much about it.

When I lost Dad (quite suddenly one morning almost two years ago)....I came up to L.A. and was surprised he had a small collection of (mostly boring) very small TV sets he had resurected on his little workbench in the garage. Everyone else in the house was a bit surprised as well. One day I heard that the workbench was going to be reclaimed....and the TVs ... "dunno...who would want those anyway".... led me to put them all in the car and take them home with me. I now had a little collection of about seven sets.....AND, found a little "wish list" of some odd descriptions like "Quasar Pac-Man", Sony 301 and "panasonic tiny".

This little Sony 303W and then the REST of my dad's collection is what started my collection. I found a few sets on his wish list....and decided that since the Quasar "Pac-Man" was so quirky...that I would stay weird and get the more unusual sets.

KV...I don't have either of those in particular, but do have three of the "briefcase" TV/Radio/Cassette sets of that era. Two of them are of the Toyomenka reference design and are 5" B/W sets.

I also do have the similar but color JVC CX500-US as well. I just recently had to replace the two voltage regulators in the CX-500....but it's back up good as new. One of the two had went titsup...and the color TV would take like ten minutes to VERY SLOWLY come up to a picture, and then washed out like I was having a voltage/current issue.

Those briefcase sets are a bit big for my collection...but I pretty much had to have them when I saw them, especially the JVC color one. I remember as a kid wanting one and the thing was like $3500HKD (around $500)...so I was NEVER going to be that kind of rich and have one :-P

I also do have the similar but color JVC CX500-US as well. I just recently had to replace the two voltage regulators in the CX-500....but it's back up good as new. One of the two had went titsup...and the color TV would take like ten minutes to VERY SLOWLY come up to a picture, and then washed out like I was having a voltage/current issue.
I had a Beta deck with a bad voltage regulator at one time, it was blowing caps left and right.

I bought a CX-500US from one of the "Camera Shops" in NYC in late 1981-82, IIRC. Mine had INCREDIBLE range...We'd take it up on this hill outside of town & "DX" TV..It would pull in a BUNCH of stations that the local cable system didn't offer..

Mom and him lived up in L.A. at our "big family" house....because I didn't want them living alone in their 60s, and....that is just how us Chinese roll. NO sending the elders off to wherever and forgetting them!! :nono:
Good stuff. Too much of that crap here. By the way, I hear that it's now illegal in China to ignore one's parents. I can't imagine why parents would want offspring with such an attitude to visit anyway though.