1979 Orion portable B/W combo

[Kiwick]

Hi you all,

I have just found a 1979 Orion portable combo with a 5 inch b/w tv, AM/FM radio and cassette recorder, model 7252 at the local bulky waste dump, it's one of those chunky military/industrial style taiwanese things with a large speaker and a 70degree (or less) CRT

The TV works perfectly as well as the cassette recorder section, but the FM tuner has something wrong with it, whenever it's switched on, the sound is loud for a half second then it collapses into something you have to crank the volume all the way up to be able to listen.

also the tuner seems to have a narrow/shifted tuning range, in other words, instead of doing 88-108 Mhz it's doing like 92-98 Mhz over the entire scale, and the sensitivity seems to be somewhat poor too.

Any suggestions on what might be wrong?

[zenith2134]

I wouldn't spend too much time on this set... They weren't exactly high quality devices when new. The tuner may just need aligning... but good luck finding a shop that'll work on it.

[Sandy G]

It's kinda amazing its still w/us all the way from 1979, & it MOSTLY still is alive 'n' kicking...Those guys WEREN'T meant for a "Long-Term Relationship"...

[zenith2134]

Sandy, that IS true...even the bare-bones stuff from then lasted. Solid quality control from a bygone era we'll never meet again.

[Kiwick]

Actually, this thing is incredibily well made, the ICs are mounted on sockets, the tape mechanism is made of 100% thick sheetmetal, and the sound from the built in 5 inch speaker is incredible, the TV picture is also really bright and crisp.

I also have another combo just like this one, but with a color TV, a JVC CX-500ME, this one had quite a few bugs too but i had been able to fix it, the color CRT is inline but has a traditional dot phosphor pattern just like early portacolor CRTs

Anyway, i have already tried to realign the tuner, but i can't get it to work any better than this, maybe it's worth to replace the capacitors around the IFs and front end?

[bgadow]

I don't recall every seeing an Orion product that was that old. Their 80s reputation wasn't that hot, but then most things electronic tend to get progressively cheaper.

[dr.ido]

Is it actually designed to tune the full 88-108MHz band? I've encountered quite a bit of gear here that was sold before FM broadcasts started. Some of it is Japanese market stuff that tunes their FM band of 76-90MHz. Some of it is European stuff that only tunes 88-102MHz.

[zenith2134]

I came across a Daewoo from the late 70s with an Orion CRT in it once. It worked well and actually looked good. The set was So. Korean, FWIW. Seems like Orion was an OEM for a lot of Japanese Co's (Toshiba) later on too

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by zenith2134

I came across a Daewoo from the late 70s with an Orion CRT in it once. It worked well and actually looked good. The set was So. Korean, FWIW. Seems like Orion was an OEM for a lot of Japanese Co's (Toshiba) later on too

Orion is a Japanese OEM assembler and builds products for major brands in Thailand. They used to make Emerson. Today (after 2001), they make Toshiba CRT TVs and DVD/VCR combos.

[Kiwick]

I also have a much older Orion product, a wooden early 70s am/fm 8 track stereo, this one is actually VERY well made, the tuner is excellent and has a great MPX decoder, and the 8 track player has a large powerful AC induction motor! (not even a shaded pole motor, it actually has a run capacitor)

Both this and the TV combo are designed to tune the full 88-108 FM band