Thought I'd post a photo of this unit. Manufactured in February 1982.

The picture is surprisingly good and the general quality quite good too. Runs off 240V or 12Vdc or Batteries.

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb306/jeffn2102/Stereo%20Stuff/PA310087.jpg

http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb306/jeffn2102/Stereo%20Stuff/PA310088.jpg

I had its double 1st cousin. Here in the States, it was marketed as the JVC CX-500US, but I've seen 'em wearing other brands. Watch the door to the cassette, the hinges are weak & will snap on you easily. Otherwise, a good unit- it was small enuff to take "out in the field" & do impromptu DX work. The FM radio, especially, I remember as being quite sensitive.

I have a very similar tv, mine is a JVC CX-500ME from 1981 (ME stands for middle east, my uncle brought it from Saudi Arabia) it has 4 small knobs on the front panel instead of 3, the additional one is for microphone mixing.

Also, mine has a selectable color system, it works on both PAL and MESECAM, and also has 115-220-240 selectable mains voltage

It has an inline gun CRT but with a delta gun style dot matrix screen, and a nice sounding 5" speaker, mine is mint, complete with accessories, user and service manuals and original warranty...

While I doubt the resemblence is a coincidence I don't think the Princess Walkabout is a rebadged JVC CX-500. It doesn't have a delta CRT. I don't think JVC TV's were rebadged here.

Princess was (and still is) a brand owned by Palsonic. I don't know who made the walkabout, but some of the Princess/Palsonic sets were made by Onwa.

I kinda know what de-guassing does, but you don't see it very often ........... why would this unit have it?

Any color CRT needs some type of degaussing circuit to remove any magnetism from the tube. A magnetized tube will have color splotches in the picture. Most recent AC operated sets have an automatic degaussing circuit to degauss the tube when the set is turned on. Most portables have a switch to manually degauss the CRT whenever it's needed. The standard automatic degaussing circuit found in AC operated sets would not be pratical for battery operated portables because it would drain the batteries very quickly.

...

I once rode a ferry with a 27" color set installed. They turned it on when we were in the port and it looked great; once the boat got moving it was instantly clear how much purity changes with movement.

I once rode a ferry with a 27" color set installed. They turned it on when we were in the port and it looked great; once the boat got moving it was instantly clear how much purity changes with movement.

I too rode ships with CRT sets - they call them Aircraft Carriers. Our biggest problem wasn't the orientation of the ship - it was the ship's degaussing system for protection against magnetic mines. The system ran on two modes - auto and manual. In manual, you knew when to expect the TV to go squirrely, but the auto mode was a pain. Get into the good part of a movie, and suddenly Bruce Willis is all purple and green. Good thing MCM carried cheap degaussing coils - I purchased two with the credit card - one for me and one for my Department Head (yeah, I was a suck-up!).

Changes in the ship's orientation brought only mild purity changes, unless you operated near the equator - then all bets were off. We operated off Panama in the summer of 1989 and had bum purity on our 19" metal-cabinet Teknika (lowest bidder, I'm sure) set for a week. The set's deguassing came close, but never quite got it cleaned up. Upon return to more northern 'climes, it was sufficient to return the purity to normal.

Worst part about TV on an aircraft carrier? The dang Seatel satellite feed - one channel in each polarization. CNN International on one, and EUROsport or MTV India on the other. I never got into Soccer or the MTV India, so it pretty much was CNN all the time.

Cheers,

MTV India...Oh, Dear God...The mind boggles at the mere thought of that....