Just picked this up, have yet to fire it up. Saw it working in a pic.

The sticker is gone, so I'm unsure what year it is. For 30 bucks I had to say yes.

My '74 Trinitron is dead (never figured out why), I hope this will take its place.

Nice set.
Don't forget to rinse and repeat. :D

So its hooked up, I had to tinker with the color and vertical controls. The picture isn't as clear as I'd like and there's still a yellow tint to the screen. The color tuner is very touchy, as in if I touch it wrong the picture will go black and white.

I'll pull the back this evening and give it a quick look, then see if I can clean the color tuner.

Could one of the guns be going bad or is it likely this sketchy color tuner?

Clean the tuner & customer controls & you should be OK. Its hard to
tell but the pix looks to bright.
To rough check the CRT turn the color all the way DOWN so you get
a B&W pix. If its not B&W the CRT is probably getting weak.
Some adjustments may help that out.

BTW we sold Sampos for a few years. They ran & held up good for
a low priced set. Yours is apx late 70's

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

It goes B&W when the color tuner is turned down, the picture is nice and bright. So I assume the CRT is still strong.

I can't find my deoxit so I'm putting off cleaning the controls.

As for now, I'm home and watching one of my favorite movies "Night of the Comet" :)

I kept a similar Sampo around because it has a radio. We once had to contact the company to order a part and they shipped us a complete chassis.

After playing for seven hours, being tinkered with, the yellow tint is now nearly non existent. The picture even seems a tad crisper.

The controls are still touchy but I am very happy with this old set. I will try and get the case cleaned tomorrow and the controls cleaned this weekend.

Look on the top of the IC's for the date codes, something like 8034 or 7921. 8034=34th week of 1980 when the part was actually made, figure a few weeks of time between factories and this will help narrow it down.

I kept a similar Sampo around because it has a radio. We once had to contact the company to order a part and they shipped us a complete chassis.

With a radio built in like that, I wonder if your set was a hospitality set? :scratch2:

After playing for seven hours, being tinkered with, the yellow tint is now nearly non existent. The picture even seems a tad crisper.

The controls are still touchy but I am very happy with this old set. I will try and get the case cleaned tomorrow and the controls cleaned this weekend.

I've heard of CRTs taking a while to "wake up" after sitting for years and years. Sounds like yours is nice and strong and just needed to be used for a bit.

I cleaned the TVs outside and opened the case to blow it out, heres what I found out.

1. Wear a mask and goggles next time!
2. On the inside diagram it says the tube is a Hitachi cs-13A , but on the tube it says Hitachi 379ECB22-TC06.
3 the i.c's are all NEC brand, the huge one is marked upc580c, but had no build date.
4. The tuner is a Mitsumi Elec. Co. LTD with a build date of June 1983.
5. The Sharpness control on the back has been repaired with a trio of resistors in parallel.
6. The channel knob was broken and badly repaired.

I'd like to determine the correct resistor to replace the 3 that are soldered together.

I can't find my deoxit, so I just ordered more. I'll try cleaning the touchy tuners when it arrives.

Beyond these minor issues I am loving this old set.

Tuner cleaner: what’s the best stuff?

Tuner cleaner: what’s the best stuff?

I favor a product called "De Ox Id" it's cheaper than deoxit(which went ripoff level last time I saw it at radio shack) and seems to work comparably well.

Thats probably the case here. More use will help & warm up time
will come down. If you dont drive it hard with a lot of brite & contrast
it will look better too.
Zeno

I've heard of CRTs taking a while to "wake up" after sitting for years and years. Sounds like yours is nice and strong and just needed to be used for a bit.

Tuner controls are cleaned. Noticeably a bit better than it was, still not perfect. The Color control is still a bit touchy.

The yellow tint that it had has faded away, looking good.

I've about 20 hours on this lil set now, I love it. I'm calling it "good enough", its going in the bedroom.