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Originally Posted by bgadow
Interesting stuff...on that click tuner set, that doesn't look like it has stops for each UHF channel, and the VHF dial appears odd, too.
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I noticed a set much like that about 10 years ago at a Montgomery Wards store. It appeared to be a one-time special purchase item, and was a no-name 12" B&W with click-stop VHF tuner but a continuous UHF tuner (covering to channel 69). At the time, I wondered about that mis-match in tuner types, given the FCC "equal access UHF" rule, but figured, eh, probably nobody even cares anymore.
:shrug:
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Originally Posted by bgadow
I have seen some of those drugstore 5" sets being sold with mail-in rebates where the final price was $9.95 or less. The wholesale cost of those things must be $5 each.
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Yeah, those things have gotten *really* cheap.
There must be at least two manufacturers of those things that I've seen in stores lately. A few months ago, I bought one at CompUSA for about $12 that had a built-in AM/FM radio; both the radio and TV tuners were separate but had 'direct' tuning (just a pair of knobs with numbers on it), with the radio tuner being a variable cap that rotates 180 degrees mounted one one side of the cabinet, and the varacator-type TV tuner being tuned by a variable capacitor that rotates 270 degrees (or whatever) on the other side of the cabinet. Ease of tuning wasn't too bad even on UHF, even though it covers to ch 83. The cabinet is very plain and cheaply made of black plastic, and (taking it apart) it appears that liberal use was made of a hot-glue gun to hold the internal wiring in place.
Picture quality is fairly 'soft' and geometry isn't great either (and not really adjustable), and there's no DC restoration (you'd think in a TV that's mostly made up of IC's, they could have bothered to include at least a measly diode in the circuit for DC restoration...). However, the front end is almost *amazing*. It picks up every local channel here reasonably clearly on its little telescoping monopole antenna, which is more than I can say for just about any other TV I've seen, even with dipole rabbit ears. It has A/V input jacks, which seems a bit overkill for a little B&W set, but, hey, that's a pretty fancy feature compared with most small B&W TV's, so I won't complain..!
It came with a 12VDC car-cord, but no AC adapter, and for some reason the built-in battery holder takes 10 (yes, 10 -- not 8) size 'C' cells, though the DC power input is intended for 12 volts.
A week or so after getting that set, Best Buy had their little Sylvania-branded 5" B&W set on sale for $12.99, so I went over there to check it out in the store. The Sylvania looked much like some Coby-branded sets I've seen before, so it's probably the same manufacturer. It had slide-rule tuning, but it's misleading-- there's no "dial cord" or other gearing involved, so it's actually direct tuning with a linear indicator. Like the CompUSA "Norwood Micro" set, this one also had an AM/FM radio, but this time the tuning cap (for the radio) was evidently ganged together with the variable resistor (for the TV), so the TV tuner only uses 180 degrees of the tuning knob's travel. This made it really tough to tune UHF, especially since the knob also has a lot of friction and sticktion (in part due to being mechanically coupled to that slide-rule indicator), and the fact it covers up to channel 83. It also didn't seem to be nearly as sensitive as the CompUSA cheapie, and picture quality was no better. ...But it did have a white plastic case in a pearlized-like finish, and came with a few interchangable faceplates in different colors. (!) Fit and finish didn't look so good though. I think it came with both a DC car adapter and an AC adapter, and the internal battery holder was for 8 'D' cells, which makes more sense.
In any case, how in the world can *anyone* make money on a brand-new TV set (no matter how modest in size or performance) that sells for 12 bucks retail??
For that matter, I wonder how many buyers of these little portables realize that none of these TVs will be able to receive TV programs by antenna in the not-too-distant future..?
