i have one that is very smiler to that one. mines from '83, its color, i got it at a garage sale for 5 bucks and it has rechargeble battories(which i think are still in there) and it takes dry cell batories. mine doesnt play cassets though
Do you have a collection of vintage equipment on display, or do you resell these items? What do you find works best for cleaning dirty volume controls and such?
@RadioRex72 None of this stuff is really on display, but it is used and does move around the house. As far as cleaning controls goes, the cheap option is Radio Shack's TV tuner (and control) cleaner. The expensive but generally very good option is Caig Labs' DeOxit. (You can buy a version of this at Radio Shack sold as corrosion preventer.)
We had one of those in the guardhouse in the mid./late 80's on that closed base near you but only used the radio unless you were on late mid shift and traffic was minimal. At the time I would have loved to have one but they were expensive as heck. We used to slam Japanese products but many brands we actually decent quality then. Now the overseas stuff is pure crap. Saw a tee shirt on sale at Kmart with "American Pride" screened on it - made in Haiti, printed in Vietnam. Yeah so much for that.
I was a tv tech from 1979 to 1981 even got my my certification for it . Is is a lot more to make a color tube and the electronics that drive it. I still have a old 5 " tube in my basement from a old 1977 JVC portable tv I can remember replace a tube in one of those back in the day I thought it cost more to replace the tube than buy a new one then the customer said I paid $900.00 for it . Wow thats a lot now
you can buy it for $5.00 at a yard sale . Nice unit brought back memories.
I just trash picked a small 5" portable black and white tv. Believe it or not, I was able to get at least 2 channels on it! Which makes no sense at all since it was an analog tv and all tv broadcasts are supposedly digital! One was WCIU the U, and the other was Me TV.
@DRWebster93 they wheer probly low power tv stations the digital switch over didnt effect low power stations altho some low power stations are also broadcasting in digital as well as analoge
My friend had one similar to that back in the day, but like most, his was only black & white. You may be able to fit the guts of a DTV converter in that battery compartment, or it will receive channels 2 to 13 without any modifications if you still have analog cable TV in your area.
@Jallge I halfway expected to see one somewhere, although early 80s VCRs were monsters, easily as big and heavy as this is by itself. If this had been made a few years later, a VHS playback transport would have almost made sense. It probably would have reduced the battery lifetime to almost nil, however.
@Jallge Update...I did find some pictures of its internals on the 'net. And...wow. Is it ever packed with stuff. There isn't room for more! Lots of point to point wiring between circuit boards, at least two major boards, what looked like a power board and I couldn't even see the tape deck. I hope it never breaks down! It doesn't look like a lot of fun to fix.
blast from the past, they don't make them like they use to, I have a couple of old portables, I remember my Aunt & Uncle had the JVC like yours but with the B&W tv, yours looks very clean nice find!
I'm glad to know I'm not the only poor soul out there who buys dollar store ritz crackers.... :-D
No low power stations transmitting analogue in your area anymore, Bill? Here in Dallas I can still pick up a couple of the creepy super-religious channels over analogue, I guess they get around the digital transition requirement by being such low power stations.
@thegeekredneck Heh...the dollar store crackers are just as good to me. :-)
There are some very distant low power stations that are still on the air, all of them on UHF. I can just barely get them with a rooftop antenna and only when conditions are just right.
@bojanglesbeast It would be mainly useful to those who simply must watch TV on the go, where AC power is not available. Funny thing is, one of my 12" B&W sets would be lighter than this and most of them can run on 12 volts DC as well.
@umajunkcollector Short wave radio would be pretty cool to have in one of these. Somewhere around here, I have a big Sanyo boombox with two short wave bands.
That thing is so large, you could "hide" a 12v converter box away inside the TV, and hook the internal antenna up to the converter box circuit board, and hook the output from the circuit board into the TV tuner.
wow! i never saw a thing like this! Just a friend of mine used to have a portable B/W tv like that (don't remember the brand) that worked on 9V batteries and DC. Pretty cheap actually, the tube was barely working and strange noise came out of the speaker!
@MaurizioM89 I have a TV that is probably lot like that. It cost $20 in a grocery store and receives AM, FM and analog TV broadcasts. It is very cheap and the tuning knob has broken. The picture is still pretty sharp, although every part inside is a no-name Chinese part.
Amazing the tape transport belts are still good after all these years!
It would have cost a small fortune to buy back in the day!
They turned off the VHF 405 line TV transmittors in the UK back in 1985...But the UHF 625 line system with Nicam Stereo Audio is still running along with our digital 'Freeview' service.
They plan to switch off the UHF 625 TV transmittor at Crystal Palace which covers London UK (my area) in 2012...It will be a Very Sad Day!!!
@88GTi I should research it a bit more and see if I can find a brochure or price list. Given the shape that this thing is in (basically perfect), I was a little surprised that the owner's manual and purchase receipt didn't follow it here.
I was a little surprised that the tape transport worked as well as it did! I guess they weren't cheap-skating on the parts. And I suppose that once its owners realized how fast it pulled down batteries, it sat a lot.
Please, uxwbill, please use The Key Keeper's iPhone for your future recordings. The microphone is worlds better, and the resolution to me is the same, except that with this, it doesn't keep pausing to buffer on me. You do have a point on the aspect ratio, though.
@laptopboone The Keykeeper has already expressed a little bit of annoyance when I want to borrow his phone. And while I can appreciate the vastly better audio quality, I like being able to make use of the whole Youtube player's size. Video quality from the other camera is better--its focus and sharpness are better and it does not tend to shift its white balance around as suddenly as the iPhone does.
@Zagroseckt I think there are some low power stations in Illinois that are still broadcasting. However, none of them are near enough to me. I can only just barely pull them in with a rooftop antenna...and only when conditions are right.
@CavemanPerson Those D cells won't live very long. I have a 5" "Avanti" portable color TV that can recharge NiCad batteries if they are present. At best, it runs for an hour or so before the picture starts to dim and shrink. As NiCad and NiMH batteries deliver more energy than do alkaline batteries, runtime would be even shorter with alkalines.
Your monitor dimmed the lights because of its degaussing coil.
i had the same dam thing in the trash o man she was beat i used it in my shede as the radio but she died so i ripit it aprt and save a the wires and chucked the rest
@HDXFH It is possible to record video to an audio Cassette. But the tape has to move a very high speed to have enough band with to work. Do a search for "pixle cam" on you tube.
@HDXFH Fisher-Price sold a little video camera that used audio cassettes for video recording. From what I've read about it, the tape speed was pretty high and the quality low. If I'm remembering things correctly, it was also black and white only.
Those that survive today are sought after, mainly by amateur filmmakers looking for a "lo-fi" result in their films.
Nice device! I hade one a time ago, JVC is great!
olds1978 1 week ago
awesome!
ibprofin100 1 month ago
fuck this 3D, HD, and other plasma bullshit
all i need is this !
didogazeto 1 month ago
i have one that is very smiler to that one. mines from '83, its color, i got it at a garage sale for 5 bucks and it has rechargeble battories(which i think are still in there) and it takes dry cell batories. mine doesnt play cassets though
MrNachoman01 7 months ago
Too bad the TV does'nt have a built in digital channel tuner.
wtf66611 11 months ago
love it )) wish I could have one now ))
JVC models used to have a lot of those mixing options
moscowandy 1 year ago
is that a serial/vga port back in that battery holder or is it just a switch
TheCatMilton 1 year ago
Do you have a collection of vintage equipment on display, or do you resell these items? What do you find works best for cleaning dirty volume controls and such?
RadioRex72 1 year ago
@RadioRex72 None of this stuff is really on display, but it is used and does move around the house. As far as cleaning controls goes, the cheap option is Radio Shack's TV tuner (and control) cleaner. The expensive but generally very good option is Caig Labs' DeOxit. (You can buy a version of this at Radio Shack sold as corrosion preventer.)
uxwbill 1 year ago
We had one of those in the guardhouse in the mid./late 80's on that closed base near you but only used the radio unless you were on late mid shift and traffic was minimal. At the time I would have loved to have one but they were expensive as heck. We used to slam Japanese products but many brands we actually decent quality then. Now the overseas stuff is pure crap. Saw a tee shirt on sale at Kmart with "American Pride" screened on it - made in Haiti, printed in Vietnam. Yeah so much for that.
rhblakeman 1 year ago
That thing is real impressive, ive got an identical Emerson one, its got a color TV, radio, digital clock/alarm, no tape player on min though...
I imagine you could end up spending a three digit sum on batteries for powering that thing for any reasonable amount of time!
clubcar98 1 year ago
I was a tv tech from 1979 to 1981 even got my my certification for it . Is is a lot more to make a color tube and the electronics that drive it. I still have a old 5 " tube in my basement from a old 1977 JVC portable tv I can remember replace a tube in one of those back in the day I thought it cost more to replace the tube than buy a new one then the customer said I paid $900.00 for it . Wow thats a lot now
you can buy it for $5.00 at a yard sale . Nice unit brought back memories.
ncrdisabled 1 year ago
I just trash picked a small 5" portable black and white tv. Believe it or not, I was able to get at least 2 channels on it! Which makes no sense at all since it was an analog tv and all tv broadcasts are supposedly digital! One was WCIU the U, and the other was Me TV.
DRWebster93 1 year ago
@DRWebster93 they wheer probly low power tv stations the digital switch over didnt effect low power stations altho some low power stations are also broadcasting in digital as well as analoge
compwiz878 1 year ago
awesome video cant wait to see ur next computer video
nsub6 1 year ago
That is a nice piece of equipment Bill! I like that top-loading cassette, very retro! In Canada, we still have analog TV until 2013.
talldude123 1 year ago
@talldude123 2013? I thought we (canadians) switch over to dtv in 2011...
carrierpilot1357 1 year ago
@carrierpilot1357 That's not what Shaw told me...
talldude123 1 year ago
@talldude123 show tends to get thing wrong alot... :P at least in my case....
carrierpilot1357 1 year ago
That looks to be a very high end unit. It probably cost a pretty penny back in 1981!
Take it to Canada, and you'll be able to watch it, but they are switching over to digital next year.
JeffN727 1 year ago
this made me remember that i have one of these lol.
nissan501 1 year ago
My friend had one similar to that back in the day, but like most, his was only black & white. You may be able to fit the guts of a DTV converter in that battery compartment, or it will receive channels 2 to 13 without any modifications if you still have analog cable TV in your area.
vwestlife 1 year ago
@vwestlife That's a good idea! I hadn't thought to try it on analog cable and we do still have that here!
uxwbill 1 year ago
a built-in VCR would have been cool
Jallge 1 year ago
@Jallge I halfway expected to see one somewhere, although early 80s VCRs were monsters, easily as big and heavy as this is by itself. If this had been made a few years later, a VHS playback transport would have almost made sense. It probably would have reduced the battery lifetime to almost nil, however.
uxwbill 1 year ago
@uxwbill true, but it would have been cool if it had been developed later to use a camcorder style tape system or something
Jallge 1 year ago
@Jallge Update...I did find some pictures of its internals on the 'net. And...wow. Is it ever packed with stuff. There isn't room for more! Lots of point to point wiring between circuit boards, at least two major boards, what looked like a power board and I couldn't even see the tape deck. I hope it never breaks down! It doesn't look like a lot of fun to fix.
uxwbill 1 year ago
@uxwbill i think she'll be ok for a little while yet bill
Jallge 1 year ago
blast from the past, they don't make them like they use to, I have a couple of old portables, I remember my Aunt & Uncle had the JVC like yours but with the B&W tv, yours looks very clean nice find!
mattd28 1 year ago
I'm glad to know I'm not the only poor soul out there who buys dollar store ritz crackers.... :-D
No low power stations transmitting analogue in your area anymore, Bill? Here in Dallas I can still pick up a couple of the creepy super-religious channels over analogue, I guess they get around the digital transition requirement by being such low power stations.
thegeekredneck 1 year ago
@thegeekredneck Heh...the dollar store crackers are just as good to me. :-)
There are some very distant low power stations that are still on the air, all of them on UHF. I can just barely get them with a rooftop antenna and only when conditions are just right.
uxwbill 1 year ago
Cool but why would anyone want such a small tv???
bojanglesbeast 1 year ago
@bojanglesbeast It would be mainly useful to those who simply must watch TV on the go, where AC power is not available. Funny thing is, one of my 12" B&W sets would be lighter than this and most of them can run on 12 volts DC as well.
uxwbill 1 year ago
I've seen a version of this rig with a short wave radio.
They still can go for over 100$ on epay.
umajunkcollector 1 year ago
@umajunkcollector Short wave radio would be pretty cool to have in one of these. Somewhere around here, I have a big Sanyo boombox with two short wave bands.
uxwbill 1 year ago
That thing is so large, you could "hide" a 12v converter box away inside the TV, and hook the internal antenna up to the converter box circuit board, and hook the output from the circuit board into the TV tuner.
presto. instant digital TV.
THEtechknight 1 year ago
That's seriously an awesome piece of 1980's tech Bill.
MacintoshUser1986 1 year ago
...you finally have a better quality cam :D
TheGeek1028 1 year ago
Congratulations on your 250th video.
weasel2htm 1 year ago
@weasel2htm Thanks!
uxwbill 1 year ago
wow! i never saw a thing like this! Just a friend of mine used to have a portable B/W tv like that (don't remember the brand) that worked on 9V batteries and DC. Pretty cheap actually, the tube was barely working and strange noise came out of the speaker!
MaurizioM89 1 year ago
@MaurizioM89 I have a TV that is probably lot like that. It cost $20 in a grocery store and receives AM, FM and analog TV broadcasts. It is very cheap and the tuning knob has broken. The picture is still pretty sharp, although every part inside is a no-name Chinese part.
uxwbill 1 year ago
yes the smaller the more cost for the color circity and the tube it self bill
itscool1968 1 year ago
That's a Beautiful piece of kit Bill!!
Amazing the tape transport belts are still good after all these years!
It would have cost a small fortune to buy back in the day!
They turned off the VHF 405 line TV transmittors in the UK back in 1985...But the UHF 625 line system with Nicam Stereo Audio is still running along with our digital 'Freeview' service.
They plan to switch off the UHF 625 TV transmittor at Crystal Palace which covers London UK (my area) in 2012...It will be a Very Sad Day!!!
88GTi 1 year ago
@88GTi I should research it a bit more and see if I can find a brochure or price list. Given the shape that this thing is in (basically perfect), I was a little surprised that the owner's manual and purchase receipt didn't follow it here.
I was a little surprised that the tape transport worked as well as it did! I guess they weren't cheap-skating on the parts. And I suppose that once its owners realized how fast it pulled down batteries, it sat a lot.
uxwbill 1 year ago
cool vid :)
5outa5
nofgood4live 1 year ago
Please, uxwbill, please use The Key Keeper's iPhone for your future recordings. The microphone is worlds better, and the resolution to me is the same, except that with this, it doesn't keep pausing to buffer on me. You do have a point on the aspect ratio, though.
laptopboone 1 year ago
@laptopboone The Keykeeper has already expressed a little bit of annoyance when I want to borrow his phone. And while I can appreciate the vastly better audio quality, I like being able to make use of the whole Youtube player's size. Video quality from the other camera is better--its focus and sharpness are better and it does not tend to shift its white balance around as suddenly as the iPhone does.
uxwbill 1 year ago
@laptopboone I disagree... use the digital camera. awesome find!
HappyDiscoDeath 1 year ago
my mom bought one of those brand new in 1982... it was color and would tune in just about every channal.... thanks Bill for the momery's...........
cbhonda90 1 year ago
Have you checked your UHF dial those stations tended to hang onto there analog transmishion
Zagroseckt 1 year ago
@Zagroseckt I think there are some low power stations in Illinois that are still broadcasting. However, none of them are near enough to me. I can only just barely pull them in with a rooftop antenna...and only when conditions are right.
uxwbill 1 year ago
Nice find! It's very interesting that a few D cells can power a five(?) inch color CRT.
Back when CRTs were all the rage, I had a 19" computer monitor that could actually make my desk lamp dim at start up.
CavemanPerson 1 year ago
@CavemanPerson Those D cells won't live very long. I have a 5" "Avanti" portable color TV that can recharge NiCad batteries if they are present. At best, it runs for an hour or so before the picture starts to dim and shrink. As NiCad and NiMH batteries deliver more energy than do alkaline batteries, runtime would be even shorter with alkalines.
Your monitor dimmed the lights because of its degaussing coil.
uxwbill 1 year ago
your father picks up the coolest stuff!
thebibleisfiction 1 year ago
Now this is cool!
mgospeed31 1 year ago
I had a similar looking one and threw it out few weeks ago... :(
andruha11234 1 year ago
having to connect it to a converter box renders this unit as non-portable.
muchosa1 1 year ago
@muchosa1 Do a search on kipkay's channel, he found that a DTV box is easily hackable to run on 12V
weasel2htm 1 year ago
Over here in Florida, there are actually a few analog TV stations broadcasting...
In Spanish.
mikeycomputer 1 year ago
i had the same dam thing in the trash o man she was beat i used it in my shede as the radio but she died so i ripit it aprt and save a the wires and chucked the rest
james91ireland 1 year ago
wow! thats old!
ongchorcool 1 year ago
It is Not possible to record Video on an Audio Cassette, As far as i know
HDXFH 1 year ago
@HDXFH It is possible to record video to an audio Cassette. But the tape has to move a very high speed to have enough band with to work. Do a search for "pixle cam" on you tube.
BlueFoxTV 1 year ago
@HDXFH Fisher-Price sold a little video camera that used audio cassettes for video recording. From what I've read about it, the tape speed was pretty high and the quality low. If I'm remembering things correctly, it was also black and white only.
Those that survive today are sought after, mainly by amateur filmmakers looking for a "lo-fi" result in their films.
uxwbill 1 year ago
@uxwbill Maxarcade has one posted on his channel. He used it at one of the conventions he goes where people dress up in animal suits.
JeffN727 1 year ago