Found this set at a nearby garage sale for 5 dollars, hardly working and filthy. The owner said it had sat in that garage since the early 80s. Needless to say there was other good stuff in that garage but unfortunately he claimed he threw out all the 'old color ones' years ago. Not too sure why this one was spared....

it sat beside a 1984 rca colortrak which I couldnt take due to space issues. After a good cleaning of the tube sockets and tuner, (!!! tough job at that) it works quite well and looks new. Now i'm wondering, its a series-string set and has instant-on (Did all pana's b&ws have this? Why?) but all the stickers are gone off the case except the tube chart inside. Is this a late 60s set or is it more like 70s? It cant be post 74ish b/c of the continuous UHF tuner.

I know its not worth anything, but it is completely tube-powered and most people here have agreed they are getting harder to find. Now, i also know its a Matsushita, but does that necessarily make it evil? LOL.

Oh and get a load of those tube types- some are really bizarre. I don't think I will be able to find some of those- Every one of 'em is an original, all Matsushitas of course.

Thanks for reading through this post . [Oh sry the pictures are crappy, i didnt want to use up too much space on AK]

I have its double-first-cousin,mine's VERY orange & 9". They are neat little guys...kind of the last of their breed...except for the famous/infamous GE Porta-Color, which apparently was made in an all-tube form up to 1978, anyway...

From the tube type numbers listed, they appear to be compactrons. These sets were made in the early Seventies and in my experience usually work quite well. I'm glad you saved it. Even many collectors won't look at a 12" black and white set. Matsuhita made sets are generally beter than average in performance and reliability. It looks to me like you've got a nice one. Some more detailed pictures would be nice.

The very orange 9" that Sandy refers to used to be mine. I speak from experience when I say these are nice sets. RCA made a few sets of a similar design.

Hey weren't compactrons GE technology? maybe they licensed the designs? If i'm not mistaken they were the multifunction tubes that worked like IC's (in principle) Either way, I have a 12" SS Panasonic with a green cabinet - made around 77 or so. I have always liked Matsushitas designs, and own many color sets from the 80s that wrked great as found. Oh, and i'll post better pics later this week, as I am not with the set right now.

CRT question- - is it possible that the CRT weakened during storage (lowered emission) and then came back to full operation after some use? After i cleaned up the tv, the raster had bad blooming under max brightness conditions, and would loss some focus, but after i ran it for a few hours, it acts like it was just replaced NOS. Oh, and i'm not referring to warm-up time or anything like that, as it is now strong even cold. interesting. Maybe it has to do with the instant-on circuit, but even after being unplugged for days it comes up good.

I have seen low emission on CRTs when sets have been stored for a long time. Assuming the tube was in good condition at time of storage, it will usually improve soon after being placed into regular service. I guess this is a good argument for not having more sets than one can use on a semi-regular basis - no need to worry about cathodes going to sleep from lack of use.

Regarding compactrons, I've seen them used in many different brands of sets, most likely licensed from GE since they were their technology. They made for good sets with a small footprint. They made the 9" tube TV really portable.

Most of these tubes are standard 9-pin like the 12AX7...the only different ones I see would be the tuner RF amp and sound discriminator (7-pin) and the 38HE7 horiz. output and damper. It may be a Novar type (large 9-pin) or a 12 pin Compactron, I can't quite remember. The name Compactron only properly applies to a 12-pin tube.

So the compactrons were all 12-pins. Okay now Im gonna open her up again and further observe these tubes.... Wonder why multifunction tubes weren't tried for audio equipment or were they? Seems like a very old attempt at amp miniaturization- Wonder if they would still sound sweet like a tube amp should. Anyway are there any Panasonics that are really collectable? The ony one i can think of is the 'flying saucer' b&w one

Yep, my little guy was Compucat's...I don't play it that much, but it DOES have a nice, clear pic...Very good for a 30+ yr-old set,,,

Wish I could find something cool like that. I'd like to own at least ONE kewl old set.

So the compactrons were all 12-pins. Okay now Im gonna open her up again and further observe these tubes.... Wonder why multifunction tubes weren't tried for audio equipment or were they? Seems like a very old attempt at amp miniaturization- Wonder if they would still sound sweet like a tube amp should. Anyway are there any Panasonics that are really collectable? The ony one i can think of is the 'flying saucer' b&w one

I think it's because tubes were becoming obsolete in audio before compactrons became very popular. By the mid 60's tubes were being phased out as quickly as possible (at least that's what I see in the ads from 60's magazines). Also, wasn't the nuber of tubes in an audio device seen as a selling point?

There were some Compactrons used in audio equipment...I think the 6K11? triple triode was used in Ampeg guitar amps and some Scott tuners.

7868 Novar tubes were used in Rowe Jukeboxes and several types of amps such as Bogens and Fishers...also some types of tuners used nuvistors.

Around 1964 or so I think innovation in tube design basically stopped on tube audio for the most part (except for real high-end specialty items.)
Tubes continued to be used in the later 60's and 70's in industrial/commercial items that demanded ruggedness and durability such as radio transmitters, organs, PA amps and jukeboxes, and in guitar amps for their tone qualities. Most of these items used old standard tubes such as 5U4's, 6L6's, 6550's 12AX7's etc.
There were a few new audio types developed such as the high power 8417.

After around '64-'65 mass market tube audio devices such as receivers and radios were usually older designs kept around because they were cheaper to make.
On TV's though all solid state sets were still too expensive for most people to buy until the mid 70's or so, so new tube types kept being developed for those applications, especially new types for series string sets.
I think the first compactrons were introduced in 1963 or so, right before transistor audio really took off.

Also, member WA2ISE has some articles about using compactrons in radio receivers:
http://home.netcom.com/~wa2ise/radios/compaa3.html

I made a 4 tube FM radio using an 8BM11 compactron for 1st and 2nd IF, a 17C9 tube for the RF/Convertor, a 6SL7 1st audio and 6L6 output. Sometime I need to try and sub in a compactron for the old time tubes in the audio stage.

Is this a late 60s set or is it more like 70s? It cant be post 74ish b/c of the continuous UHF tuner.


Well, it does have the "new" Panasonic logo (with the modern sans-serif font) that was introduced around 1972 or thereabouts, so that's one clue.

Say, that set happens to be pictured in an old Panasonic product-line brochure I have. I don't know the model year this brochure was for (for some reason I always thought it was from 1972, but it doesn't actually have a date anywhere on it), but it must have been during the changeover to the new logo, since some of the products pictured there still have the old logo, even though the brochure itself has the new logo. Anyway, your set looks like "The Evansdale" (AN-162). It's described as: "Portable TV with 12" screen diag. meas. Speed-O-Vision. Detachable dark-tint screen. Antique white or autumn red." Incidently, the 5" flying-saucer shaped set is also listed there. It's called "The Orbitel".

This set still has the old font on the control names plus the "National Panasonic" logo so it must have been very recently after the logo change.

I remember Panasonic kept that little "National" thing going into the late 70s as this is reflected on my Panasonic 8-track player. The scripture is an aluminum plate glued to a cast-in plastic base that makes up the front of the player.

Maybe someone here knows what or amybe where I can find *this* set that Im about to describe.
I had this set in the early 80s and was a Panasonic series string hybrid 12" color and the set was on a pedastal and could be tilted up or down or panned to the sides. The entire cabinet was a black plastic with aluminum or painted trim, used click tuners with lighted numbers and the base held the slider controls for the picture and 3 buttons on the right side marked Pana-Color, Power, AFT and were white squares with light behind them. I remember it used tubes for the horiz section, think even a 5AQ5 on the audio side and a sprinkle of other novars for the other functions. Had the set in 1984 and stupidly traded it for some bike parts, I found the set about a year later with a hammer through the CRT and everything else busted up next to the kids garbage can. Made me so mad at the time I made it a personal quest to find another like it, just cant remember the model number but know it was a Pana-color series from the late 60s. A 22 year quest man I need a life!

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In the late 80s I bought a new portable AM-FM cassette player which was prominently labeled National Panasonic. I bought it at the local freight salvage store, where many weird things are prone to turn up. I suspect it was a "gray market" import of some sort as it was obviously not intended for the US market although it was labeled all in American English.

One of my first attempts at a real repair of something electronic was to a seventies solid state Panasonic 12" bw. A TV repairman gave it to me; must have been dropped as the chassis board was cracked all the way around. I actually repaired it and it worked, though my soldering skills at the time were atrocious and the repair didn't hold.

I believe National was the brand (or at least a brand) Matsuchita used in much of the world outside the US. I remember seeing a National VCR in England.

I believe National was the brand (or at least a brand) Matsuchita used in much of the world outside the US. I remember seeing a National VCR in England.

Correct-- Matsushita (at least until some time ago) used the National brand name for most of the world. I think they originally only used the Panasonic name for products sold in the USA (and perhaps Canada), though they often used the old "N"-shaped National logo with the Panasonic name. I'm not sure if they're still using the National name though. Like bgadow, I have seen products with both names ("National Panasonic") on them and I think they may have phased out the "National" name in preference to "Panasonic" worldwide.

The fact that the controls are labeled in English might not necessarily mean anything though. Somewhere around here I've got a mid-1980's-era small Japanese portable radio/cassette-recorder that I found at a hamfest a while back. I think it was a Sharp (or was it a Sanyo..?). It was obviously intended for the Japanese market, but the control labels and other text is an odd mixture of English combined with Japanese kana and kanji. One funny thing is that it seems like all Japanese manufacturers of consumer electronic devices label their products with a "Romanized" verison of their brand-name, even in their home market. However, if you browse the electronics section of the Amazon Japan web site (www.amazon.co.jp), those same brand names are often listed in kana and/or kanji characters instead-- even if the brand is really an English word or name anyway that would have to be "shoe-horned" into the Japanese phoentic system with katakana. [Such as "Pioneer", "Sharp", or "Victor", which become パイオニア, シャープ, and ビクター respectively in katakana characters (assuming your computer has suitable fonts installed). By the way, if I transliterate those characters back into our Roman alphabet, those names would literally turn into "Paionia", "Shaapu", and "Bikutaa"]. I wonder if Amazon's frequent use of Japanese characters for brand names is in part just to discourage curious gaijin like us from browsing around the Japanese-market version of their site. :)


[Disclaimer: I am a novice at Japanese. I hardly even know enough Japanese to get in trouble...]

I figured I'd mention this. I picked up a 1962 Panasonic tube table radio while visiting a friend in Montreal while at a flea market.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM1CyMW2jjg

All other older Matsushita electronics I saw there were labeled either National Panasonic or National. This radio just says Panasonic, no mention of National on it anywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_(brand)

To go along with that, remember that The National Company was an American radio manufacturer of note, famous for its great ham radio equipment. It died just as Matsushita was taking off in the US. The existence of this National had to have been the reason the sets were renamed here, while other non-electronic products the company sold were not in conflict.