1981 Montgomery Wards Portable Color TV

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Captainclock

Which website did you find that info at? Because I went to the FCC's Website and checked that code out and nothing came back results wise. It said that there wasn't a company registered to that number.

The relevant part of the code for determining the manufacturer is the first 3 (or sometimes 5) characters. If you go to the FCC search page that I provided a link to in post 8 and enter just the A7R, it will return about 440 Orion products and none from any other manufacturer. It will not show products earlier than about 1982 or so... earlier data apparently is not on line. I have encountered the same limit whie searching the FCC site for information on broadcast stations, as well. There is little doubt that A7R is Orion and exclusively so. Your set is just too old to show up on line.

The other site I used was "fccid.io", again the specific model was not found, but the A7R part by itself returned Orion as the result.

Hope this helps,
jr

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

The relevant part of the code for determining the manufacturer is the first 3 (or sometimes 5) characters. If you go to the FCC search page that I provided a link to in post 8 and enter just the A7R, it will return about 440 Orion products and none from any other manufacturer. It will not show products earlier than about 1982 or so... earlier data apparently is not on line. I have encountered the same limit whie searching the FCC site for information on broadcast stations, as well. There is little doubt that A7R is Orion and exclusively so. Your set is just too old to show up on line.

The other site I used was "fccid.io", again the specific model was not found, but the A7R part by itself returned Orion as the result.

Hope this helps,
jr

OK, well I realize this set is from 1981 which is probably a little late for Montgomery Wards items as far as collectability goes but do you think that there is any collectors value to this TV? I mean obviously since Montgomery Wards is no longer in business.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

The first part of the FCC id code, the grantee part (A7R) comes back as Orion... would that make sense?

I used:

https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/repor...ericSearch.cfm

put in A7R in the first box and hit search.

jr

I did look up the A7R code and the furthest back the code goes with Orion is 1982, whereas my TV is from 1981 so I'm wondering if maybe the code belonged to someone else prior to 1982, but then Orion got the code in 1982?

Also I have been trying to leave this TV on for about an hour or 2 at a time to try and "wake up" the picture tube but it doesn't seem to be helping it any, it still has to have the brightness control turned all the way up in order to get a viewable picture, otherwise the picture is so dark that you can barely tell that the TV is on, the contrast and the color is good yet, just the Brightness sucks for some reason, and I'm hoping that the Picture tube isn't about shot because that would be a little strange for a low hours TV like this one was, unless the picture tube they used was known to go bad prematurely, then that would be a different story, but still disappointing none the less.

[compucat]

Originally Posted by Captainclock

I did look up the A7R code and the furthest back the code goes with Orion is 1982, whereas my TV is from 1981 so I'm wondering if maybe the code belonged to someone else prior to 1982, but then Orion got the code in 1982?

Also I have been trying to leave this TV on for about an hour or 2 at a time to try and "wake up" the picture tube but it doesn't seem to be helping it any, it still has to have the brightness control turned all the way up in order to get a viewable picture, otherwise the picture is so dark that you can barely tell that the TV is on, the contrast and the color is good yet, just the Brightness sucks for some reason, and I'm hoping that the Picture tube isn't about shot because that would be a little strange for a low hours TV like this one was, unless the picture tube they used was known to go bad prematurely, then that would be a different story, but still disappointing none the less.

Small screen CRTs generally last a long time. You might see if there is a sub brightness or brightness range control on the board somewhere. Even a G2 control (often located on the flyback) may help to increase brightness. Just watch for retrace lines. It may be a low hours set because the brightness range was never set quite right from the factory and it didn't get used much because it was so dim.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by compucat

Small screen CRTs generally last a long time. You might see if there is a sub brightness or brightness range control on the board somewhere. Even a G2 control (often located on the flyback) may help to increase brightness. Just watch for retrace lines. It may be a low hours set because the brightness range was never set quite right from the factory and it didn't get used much because it was so dim.

That's would make sense. I'll definitely check those things out.

[zeno]

If the pix is just dark but otherwise good & sharp with good
B&W try moving the G-2 ( a.k.a. screen ) control a little first.

G-2 is on CRT socket. Circuit simple, flyback pulse rectified by
D604 ( apx 300 VDC ) goes to one end of control. Other end
a 1 meg R681 to ground.
CRT pin 8 should be abt 250 VDC.

The 3 cathodes pins 1, 6, & 7 should be abt 75 V. if they
are much higher you have a video problem.

73 Zeno

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by zeno

If the pix is just dark but otherwise good & sharp with good
B&W try moving the G-2 ( a.k.a. screen ) control a little first.

G-2 is on CRT socket. Circuit simple, flyback pulse rectified by
D604 ( apx 300 VDC ) goes to one end of control. Other end
a 1 meg R681 to ground.
CRT pin 8 should be abt 250 VDC.

The 3 cathodes pins 1, 6, & 7 should be abt 75 V. if they
are much higher you have a video problem.

73 Zeno

I just wonder if the board has the low value 'lytic in the screen circuit, 10mfd @ 315vdc, that might be bad. I don't know if the cap is on the CRT board or on the main board.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by zeno

If the pix is just dark but otherwise good & sharp with good
B&W try moving the G-2 ( a.k.a. screen ) control a little first.

G-2 is on CRT socket. Circuit simple, flyback pulse rectified by
D604 ( apx 300 VDC ) goes to one end of control. Other end
a 1 meg R681 to ground.
CRT pin 8 should be abt 250 VDC.

The 3 cathodes pins 1, 6, & 7 should be abt 75 V. if they
are much higher you have a video problem.

73 Zeno

I took a look inside the TV and there didn't seem to be a screen adjustment control anywhere to be found in the TV, I know usually with the Bigger (13" and up) TVs the Screen ("G-2") adjustment is part of the flyback but the only adjustment I see on the flyback that is also adjustable from outside the case is the focus adjustment control. I know the Horizontal Size control was replaced with a resistor instead of a variable rheostat like normal, and yes other than the picture being too dark the color and the sharpness is really good yet on the picture and the black and white is still good, its just that the brightness control has to be turned up all the way in order to see the picture fully otherwise if you turn the brightness control all the way down you have no picture whatsoever, and at halfway the picture is barely visible, it has very good contrast yet, but the brightness is the only thing that's not working right.
So since the Screen adjustment doesn't seem to be associated with the flyback on this unit where else would I look for the screen adjustment?

And when I had the TV apart I did see that the pix tube did say Orion on it, so you were right it was made by Orion, although what confused me was that on the bottom right hand corner of the pix tube paper label was printed the Matsushita emblem, which to me would indicate that the pix tube was apparently made by Matsushita for Orion (kind of like how GE and RCA made pix tubes for other companies here in America for years.) Does that make any sense?

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

I just wonder if the board has the low value 'lytic in the screen circuit, 10mfd @ 315vdc, that might be bad. I don't know if the cap is on the CRT board or on the main board.

I don't know either, what would the capacitor do exactly and what circuit would it be associated with? I'm asking because I could see if I could locate it by looking around on the different circuit boards for it.

[zeno]

The G-2 is on the CRT socket.

73 Zeno

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by zeno

The G-2 is on the CRT socket.

73 Zeno

I see, well I looked there as well and I didn't see anything there I saw controls Marked RED, GREEN, and BLUE and there were 2 of them, When you say G-2 control are you referring to the second Green adjustment? Or is there another control on the CRT Socket Board that is actually marked G-2?

EDIT: Found the control you were talking about, it was marked "Screen" and it was on the bottom left hand corner of the CRT Board sitting at an angle. It definitely wasn't set right from the factory because I was able to set the control to the middle and I still had plenty of room to adjust yet before finally getting any retrace lines of any sort.I currently have it set in the middle and it gives a nice bright picture and plenty of adjustment room for the brightness control in the front. and it has probably the best picture I've seen on a portable color TV that size! Definitely a Low Hours TV Set! Sadly enough I couldn't get my camera to get a nice screen shot of the picture on the TV, it was nothing but bright light to the camera for some reason, it wasn't able to make out a discernable image on the screen.