I have a 27in Panasonic CRT from the early 00's I saved from my parents back in 09 when they bought their first flat screen, I keep it in my media/game room as my CRT for retro, and 2nd TV for sports, etc.. using a ROKU box, as it has component input, and stereo output, and the picture is just as bright, and clear as the day it was bought. Same can be said for the optical drives they made for Nintendo for the GameCube, Wii, and Wii U systems. I've rarely come across one that was not abused by some idiot kid thats failed, where as I have 6 Sony Playstation 2 systems I've collected while out thrifting(a combo of fat, and slim models), and all of them have bad lasers even though they look nearly new, and it's not uncommon for those to randomly fail with no easy fix. So yeah other than bad sourced caps over the years which is the electronics industry in general, Panasonic stuff seems to hold up, and is quality for the money.
Back in the mid 70's before I got my Sergeant's strips, I had the undesirable duty of pulling Arms Room Guard. They would give us a M1911A1 .45 ACP Pistol and put us in the outer part of the Arms Room, not where the arms were but outside the door, and lock us up for 4 hours at a time. We had a field table and folding chair, and could bring a radio along for entertainment, and a pocket book if we were readers. A buddy of mine had an earlier version of that and it qualified as a radio to the Sgt of the guard, so we would borrow it and take it down to the Arms Room, sit it on the table and watch TV. It passed the time much better than a book, and kept us awake. I later bought the brother, a Panasonic TV that ran on batteries and was so close to olive drab that it looked like a commo tool. I would carry it along with me when we went to the field on training exercises so I could entertain myself while locked in the Radio Teletype hut on the back of a 5/4 ton truck. I still have that little set, perhaps one day I will plug it in and see if it still plays.
We had, growing up, a Matsushita-built 1986 GE TV that had thousands and thousands of hours on it. Was our living room TV from then until the early 00s, was used nightly as a bedroom tv until the analog shutdown and was retired fully functioning in 2009. It needed serviced one time. It was a rock of reliability.
Yep because unless your buying from the drop shippers on bulk items, or mass market items, it's getting harder to find free shipping anymore. It also does not help UPS workers are planning on striking wanting more, and more pay/benefits for less work which is going to drive shipping cost up even further, so I can't blame companies like Amazon using their own people wherever possible.
I really enjoy seeing you work on this era of equipment. I have a couple of Panasonic boomboxes from this era. They still work perfect and they're still beautiful imo.
Better check for leaking (not electrically, but physically) electrolytic caps. Especially the small blue and purple ones. They got green legs when they're bad... And will corrode the PCB traces if left for too long. Especially if the caps are exposed to heat.
@@Synthematix No Nintendo did the design work on the original GameCube, and Panasonic made the disc drives to get around DVD patent royalties(same for the Wii, and Wii U with Blu-Ray royalties), however Panasonic did make an agreement with Nintendo, and designed, and sold the Panasonic Q DVD player in Japan(also Hong Kong grey market)that can play GameCube games along with the special Gameboy player adapter for it, that's specific to the Panasonic Q as it's a bit taller, and a slightly different shape. It's the same type of deal Nintendo had back in the day with Sharp that made the Famicom disk system drives for Nintendo where they got to make, and sale the Sharp Twin Famicom, and a line of Sharp TV's in the US with a built in NES, and in Japan a line of TV's with a built in Super Famicom that stuck out the top of the TV.
SWEET! This brings back fond memories of my great aunt, this model TV was on the kitchen table at her house. It replaced an 8" (?) Delmonico B/W TV that had been there many years before. It also played a lot of ball games on the radio in addition to the soaps and game shows on TV. Thanks again for doing these videos!
You ask about its sensitivity - her house was located in a small town about 50 miles from the closest TV transmitters, and it never had a problem picking up all 4 stations.
My Grandfather had one of these. He'd keep the portable on top of his regular TV set and then could watch 2 sporting events at once. Mostly the topmost TV was regulated to golfing or watching competing football games on Sundays. Got a lot of hours.
First TV I ever had was a Panasonic TR-515RC back in 1979. And yes, it got surprisingly decent reception in the North Carolina mountains off the standard antenna. I also had kept it until 2016. Replaced the capacitors around 1999-2000. Worked great up until the analog shutoff. After that, I really only used it for the radio. Finally gave it to Goodwill in 2016.
Love Panasonic stuff. Their 2000s plasma TVs are full of features and practically indestructible. I have a DVD changer home cinema unit from around 2004 that still works flawlessly. Sadly they're not what they used to be, but still better than 99% of the crap out there and there's enough of their old stuff floating about that's either still in full working order or needs only minor repair to last me for a while yet!
I have a 2007 50" plasma, it's a good TV but a power surge killed all the video inputs. Currently, the motherboard is with my repair guy; I already bought the official Panasonic bag of parts to get the inputs working again.
Got a TR-555 for Christmas 1978. Loved that little unit. Used to receive some great TV DX on it with the built in 7' whip during the solar peak of 1979-80. As I remember, it held something like 9 D cells !
I bought a 5 inch TV with a Radio back in 1979. I still have it and it works. Can only get a TV Picture on it if I run a VCR through it. These sort of Sets were popular here in the UK too in the 70s and 80s.
Prices are NOT dropping on vintage stereo receivers, amplifiers, turntables. Makes you wonder when the bubble will burst. I bought all of my collection pre covid and I'm glad I did. You are right though, other things, prices have come down and you can find a good deal here and there.
More and more people want them and the supply slowly dwindles year by year. Prices will finally drop when the devices all start dying from old age and the only people buying them know how to fix them or are willing to part with the cash to have it repaired.
The last TV I had was a Radio Shack 6" B&W in 2009 watched Super Bowl on it as the days of NTSC were almost gone. Never got another TV and was already past any desire for modern content. I got a laptop instead. Watch some RUclips and play a boat load of vintage jazz that I have collected. Never liked color it didn't look right, Lots of great memories on those old sets during the FL storms.
Back in college in the early '80s this model was the only television set in our shared apartment. I remember one night nine people crowded together watching West Side Story.
Basking in the quality of that set for 41 minutes, your commentary and taking it to the fringe for testing:) Thank you for putting all the effort into your content!
Later models included an alarm clock function and used a pair of the slide-in PV-BP50 "stubby" camcorder batteries using the snap-on clip to make the electrical connection based on the PV-BP88 used in the full-sized camcorders.
Not really surprised at the hours on it. Most of my friends had one of these in Jr. and High school as their bedroom tv. I had/still HAVE my original panasonic 12" set from 1975. It was used so much that I eventually replaced the CRT and many years later re-capped it. Mine is a very rare set, it turns out. It has a flat, rectangular CRT with a touch pad instant on/off. Panasonic made some very good stuff.
Nice set! A night time AM dx test would be interesting. I had a GE combo set like that in 1980 and the radio reception on it was fantastic. I think I'll look for another one. Thanks for the great video!
My mom had the next newer version of this with the rounded front, it had an excellent sharp hi contrast crisp picture. She fried the batteries from leaving it on the charger 24/7 and never replaced them.
Back in the 80s, a friend had one of those for his wife when she would go camping with us. It lasted a long time, and even took a swim in the lake when the boat rolled at the dock! It worked fringe OK, but it was snowy in deep fringe!
shango i love the fried rice sing along to. you are the best electronics technician i have ever seen. no one can trouble shoot a circuit like you and you are a great entertainer at the same time. your videos are priceless and i can't wait for the next one
Great video Shango! I had this set it was a Christmas gift from my Parents. It was a great set and as I recall it had a pretty sensitive tuner uhf/vhf. Living in Baltimore I could get the Washington,D.C. uhf/vhf station’s extremely well with the whip. A very sturdy build. The radio was very sensitive on AM and FM tuning was a bit tight on FM but still very good. An example being if stations were 200 kHz apart it would be tough to DX but 400 kHz separation would work just fine. Thanks again for your videos and hard work sir! Have a wonderful weekend!
I have this model and several other Panasonic TV portables. I always thought they were super cool in style and engineering. Especially liked the "Mil-Tech" styling they offered.
We had a similar tv when I was a kid, It usually went in my room when I was sick. My dad won it from his job in the mid 70s. It lasted until the early 90s, probably a victim of the bad capacitors. At one point I played my NES on it, that was fun. It was a TR-475, probably from around 1974 the year I was born.
I have a panasonic music centre bought new in 77 .Not only is it still working perfectly it sounds fantastic compared to some of the rubbish on sale today .15 years ago against everyone's advice i bought a panasonic 50 inch plasma Tv that is also still in everyday use and working perfectly
I like these little sets. re: 'high hour' - Nice to see some were used and still able to live. Perhaps not just dirt, but campfire smoke included. Thanks!
yep my family back in the late 80's - through the mid 00's when analog TV was still going, always had a portable TV/Radio combo unit of some kind for the news, weather, and the radio by the campfire picking up football games when we went camping.
Panasonic. Quality brand. We had a Panasonic main dealer in our town in 80s and 90s. Everything was top notch. VCRs, TVs. Hifi. Even the "cheap" hifis had full logic cassette decks with Dolby NR. Panasonic and Hitachi were THE brands for TV in 80s and 90s. Still have my technics separates to this day.
I had one of these years ago. I was liquidating and trying to de-crapify my life and ended up selling it. Still wish I had that little sucker. Enjoyed the video! Keep making them and I’ll keep watching. Sparkle pony master charge.
I have such a small portable TV (but without the part that pops up). The reception is really excellent and I even still get an analogue channel that is broadcast by some repeater 😀👍
I’ve got one of these, missing the battery pack assembly. I have it hooked up to a digital to analogue converter with a flat antenna against the garage window. It works fine and picks up 8 over the air stations in North Vancouver, BC. Mostly coming from Bellingham , Wa. I think.
40:07 Reception of Airband communication on an Image Frequency would be happening at 2 times IF above the set frequency. So at 108MHz on the dial the received image was at 108 + 2*10,7 ~129,4 MHz. And if the Airband transmission is heard very clear, the AM supression in the FM ratio detector is misaligned or a bad design.
Loved Panasonic, super well worth the money & ran a DR-31/RF-3100 for years pulling in stacks of HF stations especially catching hams & lots of merchant ship traffic on SSB including radio telephone & ship to shore on 12MHz & plenty aviation HF traffic on 8MHz before I sold it to get a Yaesu FRG-7 in the early 1990s which I still have. Remember hooking up the DR-31 to receive HF WEFAX on 5100kHz which it easily did using Tom Moffat's XR2206 decoder & some shareware software running on PC-XT under DOS. Had originally tried to get the National Panasonic DR-28/RF-2800 but they kept continually selling out (despite being on a wait list!) so finally got the DR-31. Bought the Panasonic as a teen saving up paper round money & trading marbles & honestly one of the very best purchases I've ever made. Had other Panasonic boom boxes, portable cassette players which were simply awesome quality & have a CRO2 Panasonic tape deck. Had a Toshiba KT-AS1 portable "Walkman" I used going for a run at the beach but never lasted anywhere as long as my Panasonic "Walkman" as no way I could afford the real deal from Sony. They had a few name changes ie National Panasonic but if you ever opened them up the thing oozed quality plus Panasonic service manuals were super easy to get for about $20. Can't say I'm surprised it performed so well as I'd get Queensland/VK4 & which are like 1500km away from Victoria/VK3 & even some Asian stations on AM broadcast bands & even managed to get Sydney FM stations during summer (possible sporadic E skip) or tropo. Used it to tune into Greek ERA-5 SW broadcast which it did easily with a short piece of wire, even though I had a bodge long wire antenna later on for it which caught so many SW stations it was crazy & many times with the longwire antenna it would actually pull in ERA-5 SW station even when they weren't beaming towards VK!. Thanks for showcasing this unit, Shango & God bless
I remember building a kit in the 80's that did WEFAX and RTTY, and it ran on the commodore 64, the program listing was in the magazine as well and in assembly language from memory. The magazine was ETI. I remember getting FM from sydney to wangaratta vic one time in the early 80's on Xmas day. There was no FM back then in this area apart from tv audio and vision carrier.
My first job after college was audio retail. We pushed all of the Matsushita lines because they were built to top quality but the brands were not expensive. Panasonic. Technics. Late 1970s.
@@danielknepper6884 audio gear was widely respected. Yuppies felt channeling with hippie music; uptight white dudes obsessed on gear; the wealthy had icons with techie lights.
@@KameraShy local chains Dow Stereo and Mad Jacks drove out Pacific Stereo and bipolar owned San Diego County. There was also a one store audiophile store with 90% exclusive brands. I could sell Onkyo and Yamaha by mentioning we were THE local chain chosen by those audio gear gods to carry them concurrent with the exclusive phoo phoo joint.
My uncle had one of these in his pool room (double garage closed in as a gaming room. It still was working fine at the end of the nineties last time I was in that house.
I was born in the early 90's and my dad had a similar TV that I got. It did not have the flip-up screen, it was mounted on the front, but I think it was from around the same age. It was cosidered old even then in the late 90's but I remember bringing it with batteries on a camping trip once. Being able to watch TV out and about like that was really someting for me, even tho it was not a new thing at all anymore. But it was something else, than todays smartphones, in so many ways. Just the fast that you watched a grainy, small, sometimes broken-up image really made you feel that you were way from civilization, just on the edge of it all. 'Cause where TV is no longer recieved, that's where civilization ends, in my childhood eyes.
My Panasonic RX FM45 is IC based but still kicks ass, and is a station magnet! That thing can regularly pull in AM stations from hundreds of miles away via skywave.
The scrolling display held up very well! Looks as good as new. Generally the types I've come across are on their last legs, brittle, yellowed, numbers and text falling off.. Just as I was concentrating on two things , Shango and soldering a battery into my multi component tester back to front. Immediate smoke. How did I do That? I'm blaming Shango. I'm sending him a bill for distracting me and causing damage.
, fui poseedor de una de estas máquinas no puedo creer que en el año 23 la vuelva a ver nuevamente me, dedicaba reparar toda clase de equipo en esos años, grandes recuerdos que no se olvidan😪
Neat! I once had the older cousin to this one, a TR-425R. Radio worked great, I think the TV sync was having trouble because it could never get a clear picture. Now I kind of wish I hadn't eBayed it, but supposedly it went on as a prop in a sci-fi movie somebody was making.
The front ends in these things were amazing, my aunt had one of these and the tuner side of the TV was awesome and so is the radio section so I’ll bet it would work if you took it way out in the middle of nowhere 7:07
Sure is great watching you fix stuff on a 12" Sears black and white, running from my PC through a HDMI to RCA converter to my VCR, then coax to antenna hook adapter :)
I bet that whole dial cord assy comes out as a replaceable unit. Panny did that on a lot of radios. This stuff was a ball to work on & Panny always was the most serviceable of the JA stuff. Damn good ! LFOD !
Regarding reception- I had a couple of the super cheap "Bentley" TV's back in the 90's that I would take camping in the Bradshaws and up by Humphreys peak, in Arizona. They worked, but you would only get maybe two stations in (usually one). If you grew up watching TV on a B&W 13" using rabbit ears decorated with Reynold's wrap, they were fine. On longer trips when i would camp in the back of the truck, it was usually good for some amusement, and if you were near a town/city it actually worked quite well. I messed with adding leads to the antenna, which did not significantly improve reception. The downside was it used D cells, and would eat them up very quickly. I later rigged one to run off of the deep cycle I later installed in the truck's camper area. They went to the thrift shop when the stations switched to digital.
There should be similar devices in the UK. I know Panasonic made a European version of an older model, the TR-475 EU, under the "National" brand. I have a National TR-475U, it's a great little unit.
@@frankowalker4662 Yeah, those aren't as appealing. After looking into it some more the National TR-475G seems to be the British model. They must not be very common. The classiest portable TV I've seen was an Astor Royal R11P/7, it has a beautiful timber case with brass and chrome trimming. It does start to stretch the definition of portable though.
Shango, you are definitely my favorite author on youtube - I adore your respect to other people’s engineering thought and really careful and weighted judgement, cause you are really a historian - you bring to life things from the past and explain some context - which is not necessarily about circuit engineering, but about days long gone. Thing is - very soon folks wouldn’t really have a clear picture how it was back then and why this portatv is a great thing, heavy though. One awesome channel you make. Greetings from Russia.
I actually have one of these, it came out of the Panasonic test lab, a friend growing up's father worked there. I'd love to get my hands on a battery. Mine still works on original everything, but my picture is a little brighter.
We used to take one of these on camping trips. Yeah a little bulky to carry. The radio nor TV are big signal pullers. You better hope a few strong stations are around. The AM tuner will pull in a lot of in and out stations at night. The TV is just watchable if you can tune in a station, but good luck if you are in the middle of nowhere receiving a lot of anything with this. Great to see one of these again.... I think the power transformer blew up in the one we had. Cheers! 🍻 -Al
Still puzzling to me ... WHY do people go out "camping" into the wilderness, to commune with nature and think they need to bring along a TeeWee. The could more easily just stay at home. And avoid the mosquitoes.
I used to be able to hear air traffic on a cheap sony clock radio i had back in the 90s as a kid in eau Claire wi and even the Motorola radios the facility used too and channel 13 weau little after the 100 mhz dial
Interesting, great made product for the time. Even now many flat panel TVs and monitors die in 3 to 5 years for many the problem I have found was the weak capacitors, most show no signs of going bad visually. Replace them all (computer monitor 10-15) (TV mainly the power supply 25-45 caps) and they work just fine. As for this TV showing signs of use, I can bet it was in a child's room, or teen room and often then never turned it off since just closing the TV made it appear to be off. People do that with their laptop, close the lid and think it was off. Before solid state hard drives they often would screw up the hard drive with a small or large bump.
my Grandfather had a ( around 1979) a Sony with a screen that rotated, they used it for camping, looked like a military TV, in a Black plastic case, had a radio also, if I remember right, it took D Batteries, as well as other means to power it, edit just saw one on ebay, it was a Vintage Sony TV-511
i still have my crazy expensive plasma tv i bought when i worked for circuit city back in the day and honestly it’s getting old on the television tech but it is still the best room heater in the industry i love the thing as long as i don’t have to move it as i got a big one and it is over a hundred pounds but you talk about quality i remember the Panasonic rep would come in and the big selling thing he would do to show how tough the TV was he would throw his keys at the screen and it would never break till one day after a year of doing that it did i died laughing but dang that screen is stupid strong against impact not burn in oh the tears we used to see 😂
Yeah that's the only downside to them, the power consumption and the amount of heat they throw off. Otherwise... for me the zenith of display technology. I have 2x 43" and 1x 50" Panny plasmas, all bought for £50 or under (one of the 42" ones was free.) Deep blacks, no lag, great sound and even burn-in is less of a risk now that they all have a few hours on them. Good if you have small kids too as unlike the thousands of scrap LED sets with smashed screens seen on FB Marketplace, they are generally resistant to thrown toys / game controllers. And even then if the outer glass cracks the inner screen usually continues to work. I'm not bothered about 4k or 'smart' functionality (that's often obsolete before you get the thing home - I'd rather plug in an external upgradeable dongle.)
My Panasonic microwave is used everyday and is 44 years old. Wife's Toyota is still running its original Panasonic battery after 17 years. Good stuff.
True story about Panasonic being good quality, everything I ever bought even in the 90's by Panasonic was a good piece of stuff.
Even the made in Hong Kong crap that everybody hated back then was still built better than the crap we have today.
I have a 27in Panasonic CRT from the early 00's I saved from my parents back in 09 when they bought their first flat screen, I keep it in my media/game room as my CRT for retro, and 2nd TV for sports, etc.. using a ROKU box, as it has component input, and stereo output, and the picture is just as bright, and clear as the day it was bought.
Same can be said for the optical drives they made for Nintendo for the GameCube, Wii, and Wii U systems. I've rarely come across one that was not abused by some idiot kid thats failed, where as I have 6 Sony Playstation 2 systems I've collected while out thrifting(a combo of fat, and slim models), and all of them have bad lasers even though they look nearly new, and it's not uncommon for those to randomly fail with no easy fix.
So yeah other than bad sourced caps over the years which is the electronics industry in general, Panasonic stuff seems to hold up, and is quality for the money.
I used to get their car stereos everytime I got a different vehicle, straight to Best Buy to get a Panasonic
National
(National) Panasonic
Technics
Matsushita
A great world brand.
@@martinda7446 Matsushita is an oem component maker for panasonic
7:35 Shango in his most loving voice "look at the little flyback....."
Back in the mid 70's before I got my Sergeant's strips, I had the undesirable duty of pulling Arms Room Guard. They would give us a M1911A1 .45 ACP Pistol and put us in the outer part of the Arms Room, not where the arms were but outside the door, and lock us up for 4 hours at a time. We had a field table and folding chair, and could bring a radio along for entertainment, and a pocket book if we were readers. A buddy of mine had an earlier version of that and it qualified as a radio to the Sgt of the guard, so we would borrow it and take it down to the Arms Room, sit it on the table and watch TV. It passed the time much better than a book, and kept us awake. I later bought the brother, a Panasonic TV that ran on batteries and was so close to olive drab that it looked like a commo tool. I would carry it along with me when we went to the field on training exercises so I could entertain myself while locked in the Radio Teletype hut on the back of a 5/4 ton truck. I still have that little set, perhaps one day I will plug it in and see if it still plays.
BUT ... open it up and check the caps!!!
yes the caps...
_"It's from_ *Panasonic,* _just slightly ahead of our time!"_ 😀
We had, growing up, a Matsushita-built 1986 GE TV that had thousands and thousands of hours on it. Was our living room TV from then until the early 00s, was used nightly as a bedroom tv until the analog shutdown and was retired fully functioning in 2009. It needed serviced one time. It was a rock of reliability.
Prices on ebay may be softening but the cost of shipping has skyrocketed
Yep because unless your buying from the drop shippers on bulk items, or mass market items, it's getting harder to find free shipping anymore. It also does not help UPS workers are planning on striking wanting more, and more pay/benefits for less work which is going to drive shipping cost up even further, so I can't blame companies like Amazon using their own people wherever possible.
Amen. Last month I sent a shirt-box package USPS and it cost $17. Shocked.
I remember those old Panasonic's were super high quality...Panasonic anything Radio, TV, Vacuum cleaner was QUALITY.
I really enjoy seeing you work on this era of equipment. I have a couple of Panasonic boomboxes from this era. They still work perfect and they're still beautiful imo.
Panasonic was the best. They make a look alike one now with Bluetooth.
A piece of junk.
Better check for leaking (not electrically, but physically) electrolytic caps. Especially the small blue and purple ones. They got green legs when they're bad... And will corrode the PCB traces if left for too long. Especially if the caps are exposed to heat.
I have a Panasonic ToughBook CF-53 laptop from 2011 and is still going strong after 12 years.
It can still run on battery for hours.
I have one as well, with the touch screen on it. I put Linux on it and it is doing great!
I love those things.
Panasonic designed the Gamecube, it was a massive success
@@Synthematix No Nintendo did the design work on the original GameCube, and Panasonic made the disc drives to get around DVD patent royalties(same for the Wii, and Wii U with Blu-Ray royalties), however Panasonic did make an agreement with Nintendo, and designed, and sold the Panasonic Q DVD player in Japan(also Hong Kong grey market)that can play GameCube games along with the special Gameboy player adapter for it, that's specific to the Panasonic Q as it's a bit taller, and a slightly different shape.
It's the same type of deal Nintendo had back in the day with Sharp that made the Famicom disk system drives for Nintendo where they got to make, and sale the Sharp Twin Famicom, and a line of Sharp TV's in the US with a built in NES, and in Japan a line of TV's with a built in Super Famicom that stuck out the top of the TV.
Not too surprising that a 12year old laptop still works, especially from their most durable lineup...
SWEET! This brings back fond memories of my great aunt, this model TV was on the kitchen table at her house. It replaced an 8" (?) Delmonico B/W TV that had been there many years before. It also played a lot of ball games on the radio in addition to the soaps and game shows on TV. Thanks again for doing these videos!
You ask about its sensitivity - her house was located in a small town about 50 miles from the closest TV transmitters, and it never had a problem picking up all 4 stations.
I can imagine. haha! Oh those memories......how they linger!!!
My Grandfather had one of these. He'd keep the portable on top of his regular TV set and then could watch 2 sporting events at once. Mostly the topmost TV was regulated to golfing or watching competing football games on Sundays. Got a lot of hours.
First TV I ever had was a Panasonic TR-515RC back in 1979. And yes, it got surprisingly decent reception in the North Carolina mountains off the standard antenna.
I also had kept it until 2016. Replaced the capacitors around 1999-2000. Worked great up until the analog shutoff. After that, I really only used it for the radio. Finally gave it to Goodwill in 2016.
"The serviceability here just melts my sponge."
Yeah, I am glad I subscribed.
45 years old and it just plugs in and works. Absolutely amazing the quality of some Japanese electronics.
Love Panasonic stuff. Their 2000s plasma TVs are full of features and practically indestructible. I have a DVD changer home cinema unit from around 2004 that still works flawlessly. Sadly they're not what they used to be, but still better than 99% of the crap out there and there's enough of their old stuff floating about that's either still in full working order or needs only minor repair to last me for a while yet!
I have a 2007 50" plasma, it's a good TV but a power surge killed all the video inputs. Currently, the motherboard is with my repair guy; I already bought the official Panasonic bag of parts to get the inputs working again.
Got a TR-555 for Christmas 1978. Loved that little unit. Used to receive some great TV DX on it with the built in 7' whip during the solar peak of 1979-80. As I remember, it held something like 9 D cells !
I bought a 5 inch TV with a Radio back in 1979. I still have it and it works. Can only get a TV Picture on it if I run a VCR through it. These sort of Sets were popular here in the UK too in the 70s and 80s.
Yea, i remember the JVC 5" black and whites with the built in radio.
Prices are NOT dropping on vintage stereo receivers, amplifiers, turntables. Makes you wonder when the bubble will burst. I bought all of my collection pre covid and I'm glad I did. You are right though, other things, prices have come down and you can find a good deal here and there.
More and more people want them and the supply slowly dwindles year by year. Prices will finally drop when the devices all start dying from old age and the only people buying them know how to fix them or are willing to part with the cash to have it repaired.
Vintage audio gear will sustain its price points.
These are luxury devices and will be among the first to drop off.
The last TV I had was a Radio Shack 6" B&W in 2009 watched Super Bowl on it as the days of NTSC were almost gone. Never got another TV and was already past any desire for modern content. I got a laptop instead. Watch some RUclips and play a boat load of vintage jazz that I have collected. Never liked color it didn't look right, Lots of great memories on those old sets during the FL storms.
I haven't watched "TV" for two years. Don't miss it.
Back in college in the early '80s this model was the only television set in our shared apartment. I remember one night nine people crowded together watching West Side Story.
Basking in the quality of that set for 41 minutes, your commentary and taking it to the fringe for testing:) Thank you for putting all the effort into your content!
Later models included an alarm clock function and used a pair of the slide-in PV-BP50 "stubby" camcorder batteries using the snap-on clip to make the electrical connection based on the PV-BP88 used in the full-sized camcorders.
That TV/Radio, I imagine would have been such a fun thing to have at times back in the day.
I owned one during my grade school years. I remember video reception crisp and clear on that little screen. A great piece of bedside gear.
My dad got one of these. Brings back memories.
Wow, what memories because I owned one of these and I don't know what happened to it or where it is but it was still nice to see it thank you.
Such Kool videos! Always something happy and really interesting to watch on your channel. 😊
My aunt still has the same set and last I checked, it still worked perfectly.
Not really surprised at the hours on it. Most of my friends had one of these in Jr. and High school as their bedroom tv. I had/still HAVE my original panasonic 12" set from 1975. It was used so much that I eventually replaced the CRT and many years later re-capped it. Mine is a very rare set, it turns out. It has a flat, rectangular CRT with a touch pad instant on/off.
Panasonic made some very good stuff.
Nice set! A night time AM dx test would be interesting. I had a GE combo set like that in 1980 and the radio reception on it was fantastic. I think I'll look for another one. Thanks for the great video!
My mom had the next newer version of this with the rounded front, it had an excellent sharp hi contrast crisp picture. She fried the batteries from leaving it on the charger 24/7 and never replaced them.
Back in the 80s, a friend had one of those for his wife when she would go camping with us.
It lasted a long time, and even took a swim in the lake when the boat rolled at the dock!
It worked fringe OK, but it was snowy in deep fringe!
Yes panasonic were extremely good quality. their Quintrix CRT sets were unbeatable
I have one of those quintrix era sets, yeah it works pretty good.
shango i love the fried rice sing along to. you are the best electronics technician i have ever seen. no one can trouble shoot a circuit like you and you are a great entertainer at the same time. your videos are priceless and i can't wait for the next one
Great video Shango! I had this set it was a Christmas gift from my Parents. It was a great set and as I recall it had a pretty sensitive tuner uhf/vhf. Living in Baltimore I could get the Washington,D.C. uhf/vhf station’s extremely well with the whip. A very sturdy build. The radio was very sensitive on AM and FM tuning was a bit tight on FM but still very good. An example being if stations were 200 kHz apart it would be tough to DX but 400 kHz separation would work just fine. Thanks again for your videos and hard work sir! Have a wonderful weekend!
All I got from my parents as a Christmas gift was a stick. "You're lucky to get that" they said.
I have this model and several other Panasonic TV portables. I always thought they were super cool in style and engineering. Especially liked the "Mil-Tech" styling they offered.
We had one like this, i think older TR-475. Sat on the kitchen bench for years and used every day. I plugged it in recently and still works.
I've got a National TR-475U, it works well. I really like the pop up screen.
Very cool little set. You find some real neat stuff!
We had a similar tv when I was a kid, It usually went in my room when I was sick. My dad won it from his job in the mid 70s. It lasted until the early 90s, probably a victim of the bad capacitors. At one point I played my NES on it, that was fun. It was a TR-475, probably from around 1974 the year I was born.
I would have loved to have owned that bit of kit back then as a teenager, and it still sounds wonderful!
I had one of these. It was great way back then. I never hiked with it, but for a dorm TV, it did the job.
I have a panasonic music centre bought new in 77 .Not only is it still working perfectly it sounds fantastic compared to some of the rubbish on sale today .15 years ago against everyone's advice i bought a panasonic 50 inch plasma Tv that is also still in everyday use and working perfectly
Wow it works so well as is quality for sure you dont see that anymore nice fun to watch video thanks mike
We had one of these when I was young and I thought that it was the most amazing thing ever!
I've got a similar vintage with front CRT. Runs off 12 D batteries. Great picture always.
I like these little sets. re: 'high hour' - Nice to see some were used and still able to live. Perhaps not just dirt, but campfire smoke included. Thanks!
I’ve taken portable TVs everywhere growing up. If you’re close enough, or high enough, yeah, you’ll get stations. Good idea for news, and weather.
yep my family back in the late 80's - through the mid 00's when analog TV was still going, always had a portable TV/Radio combo unit of some kind for the news, weather, and the radio by the campfire picking up football games when we went camping.
excellent, really enjoyable content Shango066
Panasonic. Quality brand. We had a Panasonic main dealer in our town in 80s and 90s. Everything was top notch. VCRs, TVs. Hifi. Even the "cheap" hifis had full logic cassette decks with Dolby NR. Panasonic and Hitachi were THE brands for TV in 80s and 90s. Still have my technics separates to this day.
what you said around the 14:30 mark is so true! A lot of the older stuff was built to last forever, unlike the disposable junk they have today
Beautiful piece👌
Have this exact little Tv with the original accessories and the batteries. One of the best tuners i own.
I had one of these years ago. I was liquidating and trying to de-crapify my life and ended up selling it. Still wish I had that little sucker. Enjoyed the video! Keep making them and I’ll keep watching. Sparkle pony master charge.
I have such a small portable TV (but without the part that pops up). The reception is really excellent and I even still get an analogue channel that is broadcast by some repeater 😀👍
I’ve got one of these, missing the battery pack assembly. I have it hooked up to a digital to analogue converter with a flat antenna against the garage window. It works fine and picks up 8 over the air stations in North Vancouver, BC. Mostly coming from Bellingham , Wa. I think.
40:07 Reception of Airband communication on an Image Frequency would be happening at 2 times IF above the set frequency. So at 108MHz on the dial the received image was at 108 + 2*10,7 ~129,4 MHz. And if the Airband transmission is heard very clear, the AM supression in the FM ratio detector is misaligned or a bad design.
Loved Panasonic, super well worth the money & ran a DR-31/RF-3100 for years pulling in stacks of HF stations especially catching hams & lots of merchant ship traffic on SSB including radio telephone & ship to shore on 12MHz & plenty aviation HF traffic on 8MHz before I sold it to get a Yaesu FRG-7 in the early 1990s which I still have.
Remember hooking up the DR-31 to receive HF WEFAX on 5100kHz which it easily did using Tom Moffat's XR2206 decoder & some shareware software running on PC-XT under DOS.
Had originally tried to get the National Panasonic DR-28/RF-2800 but they kept continually selling out (despite being on a wait list!) so finally got the DR-31.
Bought the Panasonic as a teen saving up paper round money & trading marbles & honestly one of the very best purchases I've ever made.
Had other Panasonic boom boxes, portable cassette players which were simply awesome quality & have a CRO2 Panasonic tape deck.
Had a Toshiba KT-AS1 portable "Walkman" I used going for a run at the beach but never lasted anywhere as long as my Panasonic "Walkman" as no way I could afford the real deal from Sony.
They had a few name changes ie National Panasonic but if you ever opened them up the thing oozed quality plus Panasonic service manuals were super easy to get for about $20.
Can't say I'm surprised it performed so well as I'd get Queensland/VK4 & which are like 1500km away from Victoria/VK3 & even some Asian stations on AM broadcast bands & even managed to get Sydney FM stations during summer (possible sporadic E skip) or tropo.
Used it to tune into Greek ERA-5 SW broadcast which it did easily with a short piece of wire, even though I had a bodge long wire antenna later on for it which caught so many SW stations it was crazy & many times with the longwire antenna it would actually pull in ERA-5 SW station even when they weren't beaming towards VK!.
Thanks for showcasing this unit, Shango & God bless
I remember building a kit in the 80's that did WEFAX and RTTY, and it ran on the commodore 64, the program listing was in the magazine as well and in assembly language from memory. The magazine was ETI. I remember getting FM from sydney to wangaratta vic one time in the early 80's on Xmas day. There was no FM back then in this area apart from tv audio and vision carrier.
I got a 5" Panisonic AM/FM in '83. Worked well for ten years or so anyway.
My first job after college was audio retail. We pushed all of the Matsushita lines because they were built to top quality but the brands were not expensive. Panasonic. Technics. Late 1970s.
They really did have their crap together back then.
Makes me think of Musicraft in Chicago.
@@danielknepper6884 audio gear was widely respected. Yuppies felt channeling with hippie music; uptight white dudes obsessed on gear; the wealthy had icons with techie lights.
@@KameraShy local chains Dow Stereo and Mad Jacks drove out Pacific Stereo and bipolar owned San Diego County. There was also a one store audiophile store with 90% exclusive brands. I could sell Onkyo and Yamaha by mentioning we were THE local chain chosen by those audio gear gods to carry them concurrent with the exclusive phoo phoo joint.
I had one of these TVs mine works really well thought they were pretty neat little set
Really tempted to buy one now
My uncle had one of these in his pool room (double garage closed in as a gaming room. It still was working fine at the end of the nineties last time I was in that house.
I was born in the early 90's and my dad had a similar TV that I got. It did not have the flip-up screen, it was mounted on the front, but I think it was from around the same age. It was cosidered old even then in the late 90's but I remember bringing it with batteries on a camping trip once. Being able to watch TV out and about like that was really someting for me, even tho it was not a new thing at all anymore. But it was something else, than todays smartphones, in so many ways. Just the fast that you watched a grainy, small, sometimes broken-up image really made you feel that you were way from civilization, just on the edge of it all. 'Cause where TV is no longer recieved, that's where civilization ends, in my childhood eyes.
My Panasonic RX FM45 is IC based but still kicks ass, and is a station magnet!
That thing can regularly pull in AM stations from hundreds of miles away via skywave.
The scrolling display held up very well! Looks as good as new. Generally the types I've come across are on their last legs, brittle, yellowed, numbers and text falling off.. Just as I was concentrating on two things , Shango and soldering a battery into my multi component tester back to front. Immediate smoke. How did I do That? I'm blaming Shango. I'm sending him a bill for distracting me and causing damage.
, fui poseedor de una de estas máquinas no puedo creer que en el año 23 la vuelva a ver nuevamente me, dedicaba reparar toda clase de equipo en esos años, grandes recuerdos que no se olvidan😪
Neat! I once had the older cousin to this one, a TR-425R. Radio worked great, I think the TV sync was having trouble because it could never get a clear picture. Now I kind of wish I hadn't eBayed it, but supposedly it went on as a prop in a sci-fi movie somebody was making.
I concur on the quality standard for Matsushita products. They do melt my sponge as well. Gracias Jesus... Damn straight!
I've a mid 80's Panasonic getto blaster that I've owned since 1990 ..... still works perfectly
The front ends in these things were amazing, my aunt had one of these and the tuner side of the TV was awesome and so is the radio section so I’ll bet it would work if you took it way out in the middle of nowhere 7:07
Sure is great watching you fix stuff on a 12" Sears black and white, running from my PC through a HDMI to RCA converter to my VCR, then coax to antenna hook adapter :)
I bet that whole dial cord assy comes out as a replaceable unit. Panny did
that on a lot of radios. This stuff was a ball to work on & Panny always was the
most serviceable of the JA stuff. Damn good !
LFOD !
Extremely rare!! I was 7! You had to have a lot of money 💰 for this then!!!
Great set ! Perfect for taking on camping ect !
Regarding reception- I had a couple of the super cheap "Bentley" TV's back in the 90's that I would take camping in the Bradshaws and up by Humphreys peak, in Arizona.
They worked, but you would only get maybe two stations in (usually one).
If you grew up watching TV on a B&W 13" using rabbit ears decorated with Reynold's wrap, they were fine.
On longer trips when i would camp in the back of the truck, it was usually good for some amusement, and if you were near a town/city it actually worked quite well.
I messed with adding leads to the antenna, which did not significantly improve reception.
The downside was it used D cells, and would eat them up very quickly. I later rigged one to run off of the deep cycle I later installed in the truck's camper area. They went to the thrift shop when the stations switched to digital.
Nice performer even with chips in the radio. Imagine it would be much better re-capped. Thanks for another trip to the mountains, too.
Had a fx f35 boombox by panasonic still have it , it used to pick up amazing stations on FM radio. I think their FM radios were always good
That’s an awesome set
Amazing how it just works fine. Little spray oil and a fuse she’s good to go.
Quality went in before the foreign name went on. Lol
My dad bought that back in the 70's. Still got it, ain't gotta clue if it works.
Leave it to Shango to come up with my YTube's favorite video on a Saturday afternoon!! Good stuff right here. :o)
I love stuff like this.
Thanks Shango..
Hello from Bishop California. You must have been in Mammoth. Yes, it was a record setting winter in the Sierras.
I love that TV/Radio. I wish I could get things like that here in the UK.
There should be similar devices in the UK. I know Panasonic made a European version of an older model, the TR-475 EU, under the "National" brand. I have a National TR-475U, it's a great little unit.
@@toomanyinterests The only ones I've seen are those 80's TV's with the 3 or 4 inch screens. Nothing as classy as this.
@@frankowalker4662 Yeah, those aren't as appealing. After looking into it some more the National TR-475G seems to be the British model. They must not be very common. The classiest portable TV I've seen was an Astor Royal R11P/7, it has a beautiful timber case with brass and chrome trimming. It does start to stretch the definition of portable though.
Shango, you are definitely my favorite author on youtube - I adore your respect to other people’s engineering thought and really careful and weighted judgement, cause you are really a historian - you bring to life things from the past and explain some context - which is not necessarily about circuit engineering, but about days long gone. Thing is - very soon folks wouldn’t really have a clear picture how it was back then and why this portatv is a great thing, heavy though. One awesome channel you make. Greetings from Russia.
He does it well I think too
YEAHA!!!! Now we're talkin', old school ridiculous t.v. radios :)
I actually have one of these, it came out of the Panasonic test lab, a friend growing up's father worked there. I'd love to get my hands on a battery. Mine still works on original everything, but my picture is a little brighter.
We used to take one of these on camping trips. Yeah a little
bulky to carry. The radio nor TV are big signal pullers. You
better hope a few strong stations are around. The AM tuner
will pull in a lot of in and out stations at night. The TV is
just watchable if you can tune in a station, but good luck if
you are in the middle of nowhere receiving a lot of anything
with this. Great to see one of these again.... I think the power
transformer blew up in the one we had. Cheers! 🍻 -Al
Still puzzling to me ... WHY do people go out "camping" into the wilderness, to commune with nature and think they need to bring along a TeeWee. The could more easily just stay at home. And avoid the mosquitoes.
I used to be able to hear air traffic on a cheap sony clock radio i had back in the 90s as a kid in eau Claire wi and even the Motorola radios the facility used too and channel 13 weau little after the 100 mhz dial
10:36 I love that use of the word "puketastic" we need to get that word into the Oxford English Dictionary.
The first sign of life from the 1977 Panasonic.... Power 106 playing 'Robot Rap'. LOL
Interesting, great made product for the time. Even now many flat panel TVs and monitors die in 3 to 5 years for many the problem I have found was the weak capacitors, most show no signs of going bad visually. Replace them all (computer monitor 10-15) (TV mainly the power supply 25-45 caps) and they work just fine.
As for this TV showing signs of use, I can bet it was in a child's room, or teen room and often then never turned it off since just closing the TV made it appear to be off.
People do that with their laptop, close the lid and think it was off. Before solid state hard drives they often would screw up the hard drive with a small or large bump.
I like how you sarcastically talk about the politics of what going on
my Grandfather had a ( around 1979) a Sony with a screen that rotated, they used it for camping, looked like a military TV, in a Black plastic case, had a radio also, if I remember right, it took D Batteries, as well as other means to power it, edit just saw one on ebay, it was a Vintage Sony TV-511
Love the mountains
No joke, My granpa has this EXACT SAME TV in the garage; Just collecting dust!
That's really cool
i still have my crazy expensive plasma tv i bought when i worked for circuit city back in the day and honestly it’s getting old on the television tech but it is still the best room heater in the industry i love the thing as long as i don’t have to move it as i got a big one and it is over a hundred pounds but you talk about quality i remember the Panasonic rep would come in and the big selling thing he would do to show how tough the TV was he would throw his keys at the screen and it would never break till one day after a year of doing that it did i died laughing but dang that screen is stupid strong against impact not burn in oh the tears we used to see 😂
Yeah that's the only downside to them, the power consumption and the amount of heat they throw off. Otherwise... for me the zenith of display technology. I have 2x 43" and 1x 50" Panny plasmas, all bought for £50 or under (one of the 42" ones was free.) Deep blacks, no lag, great sound and even burn-in is less of a risk now that they all have a few hours on them. Good if you have small kids too as unlike the thousands of scrap LED sets with smashed screens seen on FB Marketplace, they are generally resistant to thrown toys / game controllers. And even then if the outer glass cracks the inner screen usually continues to work. I'm not bothered about 4k or 'smart' functionality (that's often obsolete before you get the thing home - I'd rather plug in an external upgradeable dongle.)