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  #16  
Old 01-16-2006, 09:14 AM
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This Moto was assembled in April, 1975. Has a sticker that says assembled by Matsushita electronics Franklin Park, Illinois. Has all identical components as my Motorola made one from early 1974, it even still says "Quasar a product of Motorola, INC" on the front control door. Matsushita must have been using what parts were left over instead of switching over completely to their designs in late 1974.
Maybe someone here can clarify this, but about 20 years ago I was told by a retired Motorola engineer that Matsushita had suddenly canned most of the engineering staff as well as people in r&d and assembly soon after the buyout.
They originally said the jobs were secure then let the hammer fall after the purchase. I was told it left a lot of hard feelings and people out of work.
The fellow that I heard this from had retired several years prior to the purchase so I am not sure of the facts and would like to hear from someone that is "in the know"

Last edited by captainmoody; 07-04-2007 at 10:49 AM.
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  #17  
Old 01-16-2006, 09:21 AM
El Predicta El Predicta is offline
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Motorola Quasar sets get my vote for the first really reliable color tv. They came out in 66 or 67 and were 'way' ahead of the market. Maybe not the best picture, but easy to service and many are still out there!! I sold a ton of them. Wish I had one for my collection.
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  #18  
Old 01-16-2006, 12:11 PM
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I had a late model Motorola Quasar 19" hybrid. Unfortunately it was too far gone for me. Lots of rust & corrosion on the chassis plus the crt was real weak. It had a black matrix tube which should have made it capable of a great picture. But that chassis sure seemed rinky-dink. Inside it was sad looking, really. Not much of a chassis. Later I found an early 80s Panasonic 19" in a ditch. From the outside the 2 were very similiar. The sticker on the back said it was assembled in Franklin Park, though I found another sticker inside that said Mexico. Anyway, the newer set wasn't modular & it, too, went to the dumpster.

I had assumed that Motorola was making its own picture tubes but apparently not. The older set had a tube with an EIA number that comes back to Westinghouse. I didn't know that they ever made color tubes. As for the newer set, that crt was from Japan.
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  #19  
Old 01-16-2006, 12:14 PM
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I saw that exact early Solid State WL859FP model as in Captain's post, sitting in the day room of a nursing home... Is it worth going there to see if it's still there? Doubt it is still there, as this was 1991.

Charles

Last edited by Kaye-Halbert TV; 01-16-2006 at 12:16 PM.
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  #20  
Old 01-16-2006, 01:19 PM
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You never know Charles, might be worth looking into! Sometimes those old sets get put in a storage room or basement and forgotten. Then again, minutes after you saw it, it could have been tossed in a dumpster! Like my stuff in NC!!

Last edited by captainmoody; 01-16-2006 at 01:21 PM.
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  #21  
Old 01-16-2006, 01:44 PM
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Here is a pic of the '68 working today, my youngest was watching sesame street on it!
It works pretty good, but my Zenith combo is the preferred everyday set in the basement...

Last edited by captainmoody; 07-04-2007 at 10:49 AM.
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  #22  
Old 01-16-2006, 05:21 PM
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This is our second-row daily watcher, a 1972 Metz color tv set. In Germany Metz is a very reliable brand. This model is a hybrid set with a 90° delta shadow mask (A66-120X) and was famous for its fantastic contrast-rich picture. Our first daily watcher is a Metz color tv set too, bought in 2003. Today, Metz is one of the two brands which produce tv sets in our country.
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  #23  
Old 01-16-2006, 05:24 PM
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P.S.: it is a PAL color tv set with a tint control. NTSC is greeting
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  #24  
Old 01-17-2006, 05:00 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yagosaga
Today, Metz is one of the two brands which produce tv sets in our country.
The other one would have to be Loewe, Grundig are now out of the race but I still own one from '94 & it needs some work on it.

This is my daily watcher & I'm working on a Philips '29 Flatscreen circa 2000 to be the main set.
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  #25  
Old 01-25-2006, 07:27 PM
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Been workin on quasars since about '81. That one in Captain Moody's post is a TS-915, Moto's first SS set that orig. in '67. It marked a return to RGB drive to the crt and good dc restoration. A variation of this is the 21" TS-919 in a table top cab. that uses the same modules as the 915 except sans drawer - the modules are on a flat slide out fold down chassis kinda like first gen Zenith chroma - only not. These sets have only a coupla ic.'s and a ton of fairly generic type xstr's - even the hot's are nothing special. They are fairly reliable and can make a good picture when tuned up - the agc - noise gate adjustments are real interactive though. There is also a resistor in the brightness control ckt. that goes bad alot. I'm starting to see alot of leaky old Motorola transistors on the IFpanels lately. Next up is the TS-929, 931, 934, 938 series sets. These are also known as "Quasar II". These are easy to spot as they are a 4 tube hybrid set with a completly new set of modules and a lot of changes during it's life span. The oddest being the TS-938 that borrowed it's vert. and horiz. modules from the TS915/919 chassis and had no tubes and a completly solid state switching power supply, the first one I remember seeing in a domestic set. These were kinda rare even 25 years ago - I got One!The final Motorola Quasar series was the TS-94x sets. These had a whole new module complement and were probably the most reliable. I've got a 942 port. with no back i use as a module tester. Actually all my Quasars see some duty as module testers. This series of sets was in production when Matsushita took over. I haven't kept up with those later sets. I've actually been collecting these things for about 20 years. Why? No idea. (well, they were plentifull at one time)
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  #26  
Old 08-14-2008, 09:26 PM
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Bringing back an old thread here. Im curious if anyone has a TS-919 chassis. Ive seen pics of one in the service manual and they look really neat. Id like to see one of those. Ive really become interested in motorola TV's over the last year. Im trying to learn all the details of the different chassis. Id really like to see one of those WID hybrid Quasar II's someday as well. Ive got a few color motorola's, two TS-915's, two TS-929's (4 tube hybrid type), and an all tube type TS-921. I really enjoy these sets. The picture is very nice on them too, so I can't knock Motorola's as being TV's with a blah picture. Then again, my eyes are getting worse. My glasses are getting thicker everytime I go for my annual eye exam...........
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  #27  
Old 08-15-2008, 07:46 PM
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I forgot about the 919 - I seem to recall it was a set of way too expensive modules trying to be less costly by using a smaller picture tube.

The first all solid state set had patented color demods that processed the luma and chroma in a single circuit where the luminance was the common-mode current and the chroma was differential. There were three independent sections for red, green and blue. This was theoretically fine, but in reality there was non-linear interaction that gave a different "gamma" curve to the picture luma and chroma. As a result, the pictures had color that was different from anything else on the market. Not bad, just different.
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  #28  
Old 08-15-2008, 10:01 PM
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"the quality goes in before the name goes on"

Quote - Captain Moody 1-16-2006 9:14am

...Maybe someone here can clarify this, but about 20 years ago I was told by a retired Motorola engineer that Matsushita had suddenly canned most of the engineering staff as well as people in r&d and assembly soon after the buyout.
They originally said the jobs were secure then let the hammer fall after the purchase. I was told it left a lot of hard feelings and people out of work.
The fellow that I heard this from had retired several years prior to the purchase so I am not sure of the facts and would like to hear from someone that is "in the know"


My apologies for being sentimental with these threads. Captain Moody is not wrong, middle management was hit hard because there was a glut of middle management before the buy-out, but the real story is still more complicated than that. People were very racist about the Japanese in the early 70s and what the Japanese brought to Franklin Park was a steady progression of strict discipline. I heard that before Japan's 1974 purchase and management decisions, the Motorola workers in Franklin Park on the line were subjected to some really rough conditions. Things I can not describe on this public forum. There isn't a company today that deals with buy-outs, fairly, in my opinion. But the 1974 buy-out was horrible for those workers who were let go because life long employees in a single company, and post WWll pride was still the norm unlike today. Lay-offs were unheard of at middle management level.
Obviously no union to protect them. It wasn't emotional fair.
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  #29  
Old 08-16-2008, 11:42 AM
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Subject matter interesting and very topical. The fact is that in the years'50 and 60 'the TV SET, like other equipment, were built to last over time. I imagine that, especially the RCA them built with specifications "MIL" that is, as if they had equipment for military uses. And I am convinced that the selling price of TV SET CT 100 was below the real cost. in practice they were made only 5000 units and virtually "on hand". a craft production. unthinkable for a giant like RCA. were real masterpieces.
it should be noted that many brands build their own individual components. resistance from within the electrolytic capacitors, valves, transistors, IC, etc.. etc.. , Here in Europe were philips and telefunken, then there are the industries which assemble. that is trying to market individual components and then built apparatus as saba, nordmende, grundig to name a few.
There are positive and negative things about these two philosophies, Who manufactures everything from whether the resistance to kinescope, could have someone they are not up to quality. who assembles what they found on the market may be free to choose what is best quality. That's why we have TV SET 30 to 35 years that work perfectly today. but we know it's all theory today. today the factory with the concept of savings and limited duration, is unthinkable today manufacture a TV set that lasts 50 years and more. a real disaster for the factories, is news these days hesitate for a TV SET sealed. that is, you can not do the service for repair as impossible to open. then we think the manufacturers of components, or build circuits "custom", that is marked with symbols that did not match or shortly after the cease production and thus forcing you to throw garbage in your equipment.
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  #30  
Old 08-18-2008, 09:51 AM
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Actually, in-home consumer electronics design differs from military in a couple of ways:

Military gear must stand up to much rougher environments (similar to automotive electronics). Home consumer gear, on the other hand, should last a decent length of time in a home environment without needing repair.

In designing TV sets, it is necesary to trade off cost vs. lifetime. By comparison, military gear must perform flawlessly for a short period of extreme stress, and regular maintenance can be planned to keep it prepared.

A prime example of the difference is plastic-encapsulated transistors, which initially met some mil specs, but (some) were found to fail in too short a time for consumer gear. This lead to the development of "pressure cooker" tests and revised epoxy formulas to qualify these parts for both consumer and military use.
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