Should I save it ??
 

Someone is offering this to me free. its a very early transistorized color set from around 1969. Wood cabinet, tabletop 19" complete with all knobs.

I have no idea of the condition of the CRT, etc. --I can't complain too much with the price. The owner is going to toss it if no one picks it up. I hate to see it go to the crusher, but it is about an hour away and I still don't know if it will fit in my car :sigh:

What do you TV nuts think? Should I grab it and get it working or let it slide...?

The TV in question:
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/att...1&d=1181369672

What will the wife say? Mine finally got her fill one day.

I'd grab it. I like earlier Japanese sets. It's a 19" so it isn't that hard to move and it doesn't take up that much space.

Aww, go for it, Jordan. You know you'll hate yrself later if you don't....<grin>

I'd get it...I have one of these sets and it is very well built. Mine works just fine...It does have instant on, on the CRT filament though so that may have diminished CRT life...my CRT seems to still be OK.

That's a really beautiful set! don't let it get destroyed!

I have a 15" Hitachi from the same generation. It even has the same red Hitachi logo and square knobs. It's a well made set and works even though I haven't done anything to it yet. My Avatar is actually taken from its screen.

This Hitachi TV appears to me made from the late 70s, one of the last ones to be Made in Japan. I grab it. My mom bought her first TV, which is a 1980 Hitachi 19" TV, and it was Made in USA. Reliability was just so-so. It needed repair every seven years, and it was finally junked out in 1995 and replaced to a 2000 Funai-made Philips-Magnavox 19" TV.

By the way, this Funai Magnavox TV actually has already outlasted the Hitachi. It's now 7 years old and still trouble-free. Sounds like to me that old TVs sometimes are not better.

I'd save it if possible. Those are getting very rare lately, and it is indeed one of the first all-solid state color Japanese sets. That Hitachi had a solid state tripler, while the Sony still had a 3A3. My mother bought one of those new at Fedco, but it was the 12" version. It was a CWA-200. It was our first color set, replacing a GE 21" console B&W. I can't remember for sure, but it was probably Christmas of '69 or '70 at the latest, because we had it before we moved to West LA from South Central.

Charles

Well after a long journey, its home. Gonna clean it up, do some tests, check the CRT and see what happens.

Stay tuned...

It's alive!!
 

I cleaned out layers upon layers of dirt and dust fuzzies. According to the owner it had been in stroage and not used in over 6 years.

The hitachi is now alive. I gave it a soft start on the variac. The HV didn't come up until about 105 volts, but was strong.

The CRT was...well...old. It was weak, but responded very well to rejuvenation It is borderline good now, but tends to bleed on intense colors. However, when you adjust the picture properly it doesn't look half bad.

I gave all the pots a shot of contact cleaner, did a grayscale and convergence setup. Pretty decent now. Pictures were taken from an off-air program with no antenna from a station about 20 miles away. This set has a very strong tuner.

1st pic : model ID tag
2nd pic: lotsa dust
3rd pic: first power up
4th pic: after control cleaning, and setup adjustments
5th and 6th pics: off-air program.

Holy split chassis Batman!!! Wow what a chassis.

polaraman

well....bad news.

The CRT is quickly dying. I've had it up for a few hours now, and the guns are falling back to what they were before rejuvenation.

The green gun especially.....On a bright scene the picture just gets fuzzy and washed out to the point where details are no longer visible.

Does anyone have a good CRT? the number stamped on the tube is 490BMB22. There is another number M1B144884, perhaps a serial #.
I'm not sure what this crosses to in an american number (if it even does) Its a very shallow 110 degree tube. Doubt I can get one. :(

This kind of CRT was often used in early European sets...

nice set
 

Thats a really nice set . you should be able to find a crt for it , i am sure . They are a lot of rectangular crts out there which are sitting in storage and the electronic dealers are actually wanting to give them away practically . Met a fellow at the flea market on saturday and he closed a shop years ago and has a bunch of rectangular crts like 25ap22 , and he only wanted like 40 bucks each .

If i had the room , i would grab more sets but i have reached my limit . Actually i have to find homes for a few sets i have .