Solid State Finds
 

I keep saying I'm not going to drag home any late 70s/80s stuff. Well, I didn't drag this stuff home-my wife did! It was on sale dirt cheap at a thrift store. She called me and I told her, sure, go ahead and get it. At least they're small.

First, and most interesting, is the later version of the Panasonic VintageCollect has. A 1977 7" color portable. Dot matrix crt, AC only, works fine save for some dirty controls.

Second is a 1979 Sears 13" color. Not too exciting. Made in the USA, believe it or not...almost certainly by Sanyo at the old Warwick plant I guess. The crt is inline and made in Japan. Works great.

Third is a 1983 Teknika. Kim thought this was interesting because it is a remote set, original remote included. I had seen a Sams for a 70s Teknika, a 25" I think, that was made by Wells-Gardner. Well, on the back sticker there is a manufacturer code and when I looked in the EIA index there it was, Wells-Gardner. They couldn't have had too much to do with making it, though. The crt (13" inline) is a Toshiba and there is a lot of NEC stuff inside. Nowhere does it say where the set was assembled. Maybe W-G put it all together in Chicago or maybe they were just a go-between. Anyway, it also works, including the remote. Nothing fancy as it uses a pushbutton varactor tuner, 12 position, and the remote just lets you pick channels-no direct entry here. Also has power, mute, volume.

So, there they are...more sets on the pile!

A thrift store probably doesn't sell 3 80s CRT sets in a year... and then to a woman? Guy behind the counter probably thought he was on a hidden camera show. :D

Yeah, she said he gave her a look! She just told him about her goofy husband and his weird hobbies. She actually bought them out of TV sets. Maybe that will encourage them to stock more?

Goodwill opened a dollar store around the corner from me. This is the first find from there. I picked up this Hitachi CFA440 for $3.00 last week. SAMS 1241-1. This set is from around 1971-72. It is one heavy set. I get a picture but the color is messed up. The CRT tests good. I Will have to troubleshoot the color circuit.

They had another 1978 Magnavox SS color portable that I passed on.


polaraman

[QUOTE=Carmine;]"A thrift store probably doesn't sell 3 80s CRT sets in a year... "

The one here does, usually to me!

A few years ago when I was in Berkeley, I had found a set on the curb which looks exactly the same as that Teknika, with the same remote control, but it wasn't called a Teknika, it was called a Supra-Macy.

I like that little white Panasonic!

Charles

My wife has been on a thrift store kick lately which is fine with me. After the flea market Saturday morning (nothing interesting this week) we went to Goodwill. Hardly any electronics at all, and no TV sets. I did pick up a copy of the American TOP 40 with Casey Kasem from 1979 for $1. Next we went to the Salvation Army. They had rearranged things since I had been in with a larger furniture/appliance dept. I kept expecting to see something interesting but no luck. Then, on the other side of the store past a row of nice Radaranges, sat this TV. Not solid state, which is a good thing! A Wards Airline (Admiral from Taiwan) hybrid portable. This is a better model with auto color and a black matrix tube. I have a cheaper one which JCFitz gave me. They really "muntzed" that one! I sure didn't need this but it was just $10 and it has tubes, is color, might as well save another one.

Is the American Top 40 a record set like they sent to the radio stations? Good find. I have some of those but I got all mine on E-bay. I have never seem them at trift stores. I lots of the shows on cdr. I love listening to them.
John

...

Yes, that is right. I picked a couple episodes up at an antique mall a few years ago. I never knew these existed and thought they were always sent out via satellite. Then I found a copy of American Country Countdown one day at the flea market. I have since built a collection of ACC & Lee Arnold on a Country Road (I like 80s country) all via ebay. Much easier on the wallet buying locally!

In the 70's most radio stations did not use satellite's to receive programming.
LP's were the only format that all stations could play.

[QUOTE=bgadow]. Then, on the other side of the store past a row of nice Radaranges. . .


Wow, they had a row of Radaranges?! Were they the early chrome ones?

Yes, they were chrome. Late enough to have touchpads. The one I looked at most closely had the owner's manual inside. I figured I better get away from it before my wife saw me admiring it....I really don't think I could get away with one more hobby!

Earlier this year a brand spanking new Goodwill opened 10 minutes away. I didn't stop in there for the first time until a few weeks ago and was surprised by the fact they had several tv sets. Nothing overly exciting. There was a later 70s RCA console and a 19" Zenith which looked for all the world like it was mid-70s, but turned out to be a 1983 model. (dual click-stop tuning) Must have been the cheapest thing they made that year. The other set they had also fooled me on age-a 13" that looked mid-70s but was an '80 model. Though it was only $7 I decided to pass. But it ate at me, so last Saturday I went back and got it. The clerk even let me know that it came with a full money back guarantee!

There is just something about this cabinet style that I like, and it doesn't take up much space. Works well, of course. I touched up the controls as they had everything cranked all the way up. It does have a very bright picture. I was able to cure a noisy volume control from the front-there was just room enough to snake the nozzle from the aerosol can into the pot. The VHF tuner needs cleaning badly. They probably just tuned in the local UHF station to test it. The other reason I wanted this set is it was made in the US, in Missouri.

I actually ended up with more solid state stuff today. Someone I know had tenants abandon several sets in their rental property. I was hoping they were older-'89 Emerson 25", '91 Zenith 19" & a 13" Monkey Wards that I guess is late 80s. If they work I'll try to give them away to somebody.

bgadow, I remember that Panasonic color set. Every neighborhood has it's cool family. The place where all the kids hangout. Well they were the Tuckers in the late 70's during my childhood. and Mrs Tucker had that Panasonic on their kitchen table. which we would watch while my friends would finish their breakfast before starting our day of adventure. That tv brought back some nice memories. Logan

A couple more that came my way recently. These sets are pure "white bread". A pair of GE's: first is an 'AB' from the early 80s. JCFitz gave it to me not long ago. Just needed a new speaker (old one was intermittent.) The other one is its big brother, an 'AC' from about 1980. I guess its the only thing I have right now with the "Performance Television" label. Woo-hoo, exciting! A woman I met through freecycle remembered me when she was on the way to the dump with it. She said it just quit but it powered up fine for me. Usual intermittent tint that I've seen on all of these and the old portacolors, too. This one has "color monitor". I wouldn't have paid money for either set but for free I thought I should give these Portsmouth-built portable a home.

I also have both of these sets. I have gotten the larger one working. It was also intermittant on power up. If I remember correctly, it was a bad soldier joint. Mine has been used with a video game or something of that affect, so has numbers burned in the screen. This does not seem to be noticable when the set is operating, only when the set is off. I also have a version of the larger one with a cream colored case. It works also, but the CRT is not in the best of shape, so the color is not as good as other wood grained one.

I have a Portsmouth 13" from 1984. It has an outstanding picture, by anyone's standards. Some lady down the block was chucking it about 2 years ago, it had the usual loose solder and dirty contrast/tint controls.

Cool thing about this one is that its got electronic tuning and remote. makes a good kitchen set.

Also, when did GE stop putting the folded-up service manual in the back of the cabinet? I was shocked when I saw that!

As I recall both of these sets have the mini-manual. Maybe they kept using them until they bought RCA? As mundane as some of it is, I always have a soft spot for GE stuff. It's what I grew up with.

The last GE chassis I saw with the small service manual inside was the PC chassis. I think that particular chassis was around until '87. I have an '86 console PC chassis set that has it. There were other GE chassis out in the mid to late '80's that did not have the manual. These were the chassis that were made by someone else.

Me too! When I was a kid I had a portable just like your "Performance Television" it died:tears:if I find another I'll get it to "capture some of my youth"

I saw one not too long ago that might be one of the last of the type. It was also a Zenith, 19", with the dual click tuners, '70s in basic design, but all black (no woodgrain and minimal brushed "aluminum"/chrome). The year? 1988!

I had one of those that said "Zenith Custom Series" on it. I think about '88 was when most major manufacturer's phased out rotary tuners. The only thing newer that I've seen them on were some off-brand stuff from the early '90's. I've got an all black Sears LXI set from '90 that has rotary tuning. The chassis looks like a GoldStar.

That was the one. As I was looking at it, I was wondering what exactly was "custom" about it! Still, I should have picked it up just for how unusual for the time it was.

In the early '90's, our school had some 25" table model Zenith "custom series" TV's in a particleboard cabinet. These had digital tuners; but, a standard pull on/volume knob. These sets did not have any sort of A/V jacks like the early '70's RCA "Mural TV" tube sets that were replaced by the newer Zenith's. BTW, I liked those old RCA's better than the newer Zenith's.

Maybe those custom series sets were built to spec for someone like Kmart or something, that just wanted a bare-bones set to sell? '88 sure is late for a "major" player like Zenith to be building such things.

"Custom Series" was just a name that Zenith put on their low-end sets for a while in the mid-80s until early 90's. You had "Custom Series" -> "System 3" -> "Advanced System 3" -> "Digital System 3". The "Custom Series" line name was essentially replaced with the "Sentry 2" line name.

I remember still seeing a few bare-bones switch-tuner color sets (mostly lowball "house-brand" sets) in stores right up until 1993 when the FCC mandated closed-caption decoders on color TVs 13" and larger.

Funny, I was just thinking about those little mini service manuals last weekend when I found a weird little mid-80's GE "Omni 5" microwave oven-toaster-conventional oven-broiler combo unit at a thrift store. Kinda strange little combo unit-- basically a suped-up toaster oven combined with a low-power microwave oven. I bought it just out of sheer curiosity just because it seemed so weird. Anyway, when I took the top cover off the thing, I noticed an envelope pasted on the inside of the cover-- and yep, inside was a folded-up mini service manual much like those that were found inside GE TVs. (!) [Oddly though, while GE did make microwave ovens in the USA at that time, this particular one was labled as made in Japan; I think the GE TV manuals only appeared on USA-made TVs]. I wonder if other GE appliances were like that?

Beggers can't be chosers...
 

An old friend of my father stopped in a few months ago and told me to come by his house someday and get the tv sets from his garage. From his description I pictured an 80s console. I was in no hurry. Today he stopped by again, teasing me about not getting those sets yet. Turns out he brought them along. Well, I'm glad he thought of me. Not sure what I'll do with 'em. Top is another 10" GE 'AB'; bottom is a 19" Midland (Taiwanese) that I had half a hope might be a late hybrid but nope. And the third set is an el Cheapo 'Action' 12" bw made in China; runs off a wall wart.

Someone else stopped by last week and asked if I wanted their 'garage' tv. From their description it could be anything from a '66 Admiral :) to a '76 GE :boring: Time will tell.

I remember those Action B&W sets. They were sold in the early to mid '90's for $29.99, I think. These were probably the last sets to use a rotary tuner.

Does anyone remember how miserable those GE sets were? I had one as a kid and could never ever keep that thing working. Must've been in the shop 25 times...would last about a week then die again. Were those made by Thompson or was that before they bought GE?

Those sets are GE, through and through. They hung around into the mid-80s I guess (this one is an 83) but were gone by the time Thomson came into the picture (along with all of the other 'real' GE stuff.)

Sony KV-32S36
 

My buddy Jeff gave me his old set this weekend, it's a '98 32" KV-32S36 in good cosmetic shape. It has a crack in the bezel by the Sony badge but thats it. It does have some issues that I'll have to deal with, I don't know what they are yet, haven't had time to troubleshoot yet. All I know is the set has partial power{HV shuts down leaving other things powered ie. sound power to some of the CRT pins ect.} Set shuts down right away and the standby light blinks continuously. If I measure the HV and turn the set on, it will spike for a second and then it shuts off. I have to get the schematics on this one for sure! Usually I don't mess with the newer stuff but this has had a new picture tube and tuner put in recently and thought it would be worth saving.http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/i...1/100_1423.jpg

It sounds like its going into AKB shutdown because of a weak picture tube. I have looked at several of these and do not like them!
You wouldn't think it would be doing this with a new CRT but the longevity on those things doesn't seem to be too long...

I've seen several of these with weak tubes and the picture would blink on and off. On the tubes I tested, the green gun was always weak while the other two were good.

It might be the tube again, he had it replaced under warranty a few years ago.
The problem is that a transformer blew up by his house causing the power to surge. He thinks this is what may have damaged it, but it did work after that but then died. At least this thing was free, just thought it was worth taking a look at before it goes to tv heaven. I'll try a few more things and if that don't work, it's gotta go! I have no room! Thanks for the input!

AKB won't cause the HV to shutdown, it would just blank the picture.

I think I made mention of this next one earlier in the thread. A friend asked if I wanted the tv in his garage. You shouldn't say no to that, right? I was very curious as to what it might be. The clues: it was his first color set, a console GE he bought from Schmick's TV in '76; Mr.Schmick replaced the crt before he died. The puzzle: Mr.Schmick wasn't a GE dealer, and he died in '77. So, my imagination went wild. Could it have been an Admiral (the main line he carried?) and maybe my friend said '76 when he meant to say '66? (seems odd that he would have waited that long to go color, as he had a good job) I remained hopeful, and tonight I found out. Well, I knew that Mr.Schmick also carried Sylvania. And, sure, there isn't much difference between GE & GTE, is there:D So, it is a '76 GT Matic. Mr.Schmick's successor replaced the crt in '87 with an Empire rebuild.

The set powers up but doesn't tune anything. Now the usual dilemma-this set can't stay, there is no room. I know there are some Sylvania fans out there-anybody want to take the ride out here to save it? I'm serious, it may just have weeks to live :( Space will only get tighter as Saturday I am going to get another pair of unknown sets that were free on craigslist.

I thought this would happen-I decided to treat this "guest" properly and I brought it in from the cold shed to my warm tv room tonight. (my back did not thank me) I have to wonder what my neigbor must think. Anyway, I kinda wanted something to tinker with.

The tuner is very weak...actually, I haven't yet tuned in anything on VHF. (haven't tried a dvd player or anything) I can get only the strongest of the UHF stations, and then only with a very strong antenna. I cleaned the tuner, poked and prodded...dug out the Sams and gave it a once over, adjusted the agc. I pulled the IF module, which has no obvious problems. Then I got to remembering, and as dumb luck would have it, the lone Sylvania module I have is the very one! NOS Sylvania part. Swapped it in, no change at all. So I'm guessing it's something tuner related, I don't know. Any ideas? Chassis E41-1, Sams 1687-2. CRT tests good. An honest to goodness solid wood cabinet. (just a little bit of particle board down bottom) So I hate to junk it, but again, it is only a guest...there is no room at the inn! I won't invest much time in it, and no money, but will play with it just a little more. Would love to find a home for it.