1981 Montgomery Wards Portable Color TV

[Captainclock]

Hello everyone, today I found in the recyling at Goodwill where I work a 1981 Montgomery Wards Portable Color TV which I bought from them usding my 50% employee discount for $6 and I got it home plugged it in and turned it on and the screen didn't come up right away like I was expecting (its solid state) so I fiddled around with the controls a little bit and even monkeyed around with the Auto Color button on the front and sure enough the screen came up and it still has fairly decent color yet. it has a drum style tuner where you turn a single knob and it goes through all of the different channels and you use a switch to go through the different bands VHF Low (2-6) VHF High (7-13) and then UHF (14-83) and I had a converter box hooked up to it because it had external 300 Ohm antenna terminals built in to the unit, and the picture wasn't too bad for what it was (its about a 5" Screen.)
The battery Compartment is as clean as a whistle, looking like it was never used.
I have some pictures of the unit posted below.

[jr_tech]

Even though the *set* is solid state, the CRT still requires a warm up time before the brightness can come up.

jr

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

Even though the *set* is solid state, the CRT still requires a warm up time before the brightness can come up.

jr

Yes I realize that, but this set's CRT took a little longer than usual to warm up, is what I meant by that. the color is still good but the brightness and contrast is pretty dim for it being a TV that most likely saw very little use except for in a camper or in a kitchen.

The TV is dirtier than all get out on the front and I noticed that the control knobs up front are a little touchy like they need a good cleaning because they kind of have a hard time locking in the brightness, contrast, color and tint adjustments without having to be twiddled a few times. The Auto Color pushbutton switch is also a little weird, it actually dims the picture by quite a bit.

Is there any way of figuring out who made this TV for Montgomery Wards?

[tom.j.fla]

Well what is the model number? With Wards sets you most times can tell who made the set by the model number. So if you can find the model number post it, mybe one of we older hands can help you out. All the best, Tom.J

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by tom.j.fla

Well what is the model number? With Wards sets you most times can tell who made the set by the model number. So if you can find the model number post it, mybe one of we older hands can help you out. All the best, Tom.J

Many of the Ward's electronic products at the time were made by Sharp. The first three letters of the model number designated the supplier.
The picture of the back nameplate would be helpful, as well.
It was a good find! Probably, all the control pots need a contact spray clean.

[Captainclock]

OK So here's the sticker that tells the model number and everything. The thing could be powered off of 10 "D" batteries @ 15 Volts DC (1.5 volts X 10 = 15 Volts), or a 12 Volt car adaptor or 120 Volts AC so it was quite a versatile set back in the day.

What was a real treat was that the Battery compartment was extremely clean almost like it was never used, no corrosion, no rust or anything, its like brand spanking new, and the TV is almost flawless condition wise like it was hardly ever used the only flaw it has is that the built in rod antenna had the top cap broken off and the bottom of the antenna rod is bent slightly other than that it looks almost like it might of been a low hours TV, like it may have only seen use as a camper TV or a kitchen TV and that was it.

I actually tried looking it up by the FCC ID number on the unit but turned up empty handed as the FCC said they didn't have any records of that number in their database...

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Captainclock

OK So here's the sticker that tells the model number and everything. The thing could be powered off of 10 "D" batteries @ 15 Volts DC (1.5 volts X 10 = 15 Volts), or a 12 Volt car adaptor or 120 Volts AC so it was quite a versatile set back in the day.

What was a real treat was that the Battery compartment was extremely clean almost like it was never used, no corrosion, no rust or anything, its like brand spanking new, and the TV is almost flawless condition wise like it was hardly ever used the only flaw it has is that the built in rod antenna had the top cap broken off and the bottom of the antenna rod is bent slightly other than that it looks almost like it might of been a low hours TV, like it may have only seen use as a camper TV or a kitchen TV and that was it.

I actually tried looking it up by the FCC ID number on the unit but turned up empty handed as the FCC said they didn't have any records of that number in their database...

It's probably a Sharp built set. Still a good save!
Can you imagine the cost of running the set on "D" cells? Possibly, four hours max on 10 Alkaline cells.
There was possibly a special rechargeable battery pack that fit into the compartment.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

It's probably a Sharp built set. Still a good save!

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

[jbattles]

need to let it play so the crt will wake up. It will get brighter and track better after awhile. its been left dormant probably for a long time.

[zeno]

Orion would make sense. There style screws.
Orion ( Emerson) & Gold Star were first with a cheap 5" set. Jap
built 5" sets were MUCH more. They sold well under
a lot of names & turned out to be pretty good sets.
A bit of a bitch to work on though......

Not many main chassis problems. Most common on both
were cold joints at the hoz drive transformers. That would
give you an int. pix if it acts up again. On the PS end
regulators & cold PC cons behind AC socket.

73 Zeno

[dieseljeep]

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

After I saw the picture of the nameplate, it seemed that Wards used the GEN prefix on a lot of non-Sharp products, as well as Sharp. The set does say "Made in Japan".
Orion and Funai were originally Japanese firms.

[Captainclock]

Yeah I used the FCC ID Reverse Lookup page and typed in the FCC ID on the bottom of the unit and it returned nothing. It would make more sense that it was maybe a Sharp built unit rather than a Funai or Orion built because I don't think those companies made TVs that early on, plus the "Made in Japan" sticker on the bottom seems to point to Sharp (not that Funai or Orion weren't Japanese firms as well but like I said I thought that they didn't get into the TV business until the mid 1980s more whereas this TV is from 1981.)

Like I said this TV is I belive a low hours set and has the unusual feature of having the 300 Ohm External Antenna Terminals on it which is nice because one can easily hook up a converter box to this TV without any special cables or adaptors.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

The set does say "Made in Japan".
Orion and Funai were originally Japanese firms.

"A7R" indeed seems to be the designator for Orion... I found this on another site:

Full Company Details: ORION ELECTRIC CO., LTD. - A7R
Company Code: A7R
Address:
ORION ELECTRIC CO., LTD.
41-1 Iehisa-cho Echizen-city
Fukui-Pref 915, N/A N/A
Japan

jr

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

"A7R" indeed seems to be the designator for Orion... I found this on another site:




jr

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.

[Steve D.]

No mater who built the set, TV has a "Ward's" name plate on the front. At what point was the "Airline" brand dropped by Montgomery Ward?

-Steve D.