TV screens started off small, got progressively larger and then became small again as extreme portability and battery operation became possible. The three items seen here are pure technojunk, being of absolutely no use today. All are in working order but, of course, picture and sound can only be obtained from the output of a VCR.
Back in the 1970s my father had been contemplating buying a tiny telly for the boat for some time (the standard 12 inch portable would have taken up too much space on our 23ft cruiser). Eventually, in 1979, there was something he really wanted to watch when we had planned a weekend away on the river, and so he went out and bought the JVC 3040UKC (left) as a result. After the boat was sold in the late 1980s it remained in use as my parents’ kitchen set up until the digital switchover, when it was duly presented to me “for the museum”!
It’s a multi-band receiver, something of an overkill for cruising the inland waterways of England, let alone as a kitchen set. The model number suggests that it’s a UK version, but this probably applies to the AC input alone. The cabinet used to be gleaming white but many years of sunlight have turned it into a not particularly fetching shade of yellow. The whip aerial is intended for VHF only; a loop aerial which clipped onto this was provided for UK UHF reception, but this got broken sometime in the past. Since the set spent the latter part of its working life connected to an external aerial, it wasn’t needed anyway.
Power is obtained by one of three methods: AC mains, external 12 volts DC or an expensive set of 9 x ‘D’ cells, which are accommodated in the base of the unit. DC power consumption is rated at 6.5 watts, so the current draw from the batteries is around half an amp, similar to that of a large torch. This would have been barely one evening’s viewing with 1970s battery technology; internal battery operation was strictly for catching up with the day’s news only!
Front panel controls are volume, two tuning knobs and the band selector switch, plus a power switch on the top surface. The VHF tuning knob has a simple 270 degree arc, whilst the UHF tuner is a multi-turn geared device. On the rear there’s a contrast control (no brightness!) plus smaller knobs for horizontal and vertical hold. There are also a number of preset controls which can be accessed without opening up the set. AC and DC power inputs (both of which automatically disconnect the batteries when a plug is inserted) and VHF and UHF aerial connectors are on the rear and an earphone socket is located on the right-hand side, which I can recall got used for recording TV sound before we acquired a VCR!
One ‘feature’ of this set was, when it was new, it could receive the old 405-line transmissions – in a sense. With very careful adjustment of the VHF tuning and horizontal hold controls it was possible to make out a negative image with no sound – it may have been a multi-band receiver but not a dual standard one.
Small colour tubes, at consumer level, would have started off in very expensive flagship models from the likes of JVC, Panasonic, Hitachi and, of course, Sony with their unique Trinitron design, but by the mid-1980s the technology was mature enough to be found in lower cost Taiwanese products, such as the Ingersoll XK512B TV/radio unit (centre). My uncle bought this for his wife when she went into hospital in 1986, sadly, he subsequently spent the final quarter-century of his life as a widower.
Despite being advanced tech it has all the garishness of the usual mid-1980s tat. ‘PORTABLE COLOUR TELEVISION’ is emblazoned across the top in very large letters just to hammer home what it is, plus ‘5.5 INCH COLOUR TELEVISION’ in smaller print in two places. Unfortunately, like the JVC set it too has suffered from an excess of sunlight so the tri-colour flashes have lost their impact.
Once again it has three-way power options but goes one better than the JVC in that it takes no less than ten ‘D’ cells. The stated current draw at 12 volts is an eye-watering 1.2 amps! We’re strictly in alkaline territory here; old-style zinc-carbon cells simply won’t be able to deliver the goods. I get the feeling that not many purchasers would have used this set on internal battery power.
The phosphor stripes and aperture grille are finer than those on larger screens but not proportionately so, therefore the picture is somewhat coarse. On this set, though, it’s the sound which really lets it down. Just a paltry 7cm diameter speaker is fitted, and it’s on the top panel towards the rear, so the volume has to be turned up louder than it would need to be if the speaker was front-mounted.
The power button and TV/FM/MW band selector switch (the TV section is powered down on the radio bands) are on the top panel, whilst TV and radio tuning knobs and volume and tone sliders are on the front panel. The dial pointers are not easy to see and the tone control, in view of the speaker size and placement, doesn’t make a huge amount of difference, in practice merely adjusting between ‘muffled’ and ‘more muffled’. Meanwhile on the right-hand side can be found: earphone socket, contrast, brightness and colour saturation knobs, AFT (automatic fine tuning) switch, degauss button and finally AC and DC power inputs. Thus, with the exception of channel presets, it has all the trappings of a big telly (the degauss function is built into the power button on these).
A coaxial aerial socket, which seems to apply to both TV and FM radio, is on the rear. A projecting piece of wire terminated in a pin can be inserted into the centre of this socket in order to connect the telescopic whip aerial. Radio performance is mediocre on AM and quite good on FM, which was fairly typical in the 1980s. It’s noticeable that radio stations are much louder than the TV sound; I would guess that there was less difference with the transmissions of the day. But despite all its flaws, it would have been a pretty cool piece of kit to have at the time.
We return to black and white for the Realistic Portavision 100 (right). I bought this around late 1989/early 1990, naturally enough from the local Tandy store. It’s an example of what appears to be a 1980s re-invention of the cathode ray tube, also used in the Sony Watchman, but in fact the concept was nothing new (q.v.). Instead of the electron beam hitting the rear of the screen as normal, it’s a ‘front projection’ setup with an angled screen which is viewed through a ‘window’. At 4.5 inches diagonal, this is probably the largest version of its type. In practice, this design was quickly superseded by the first LCD colour screens.
Electrical efficiency had come a long way since the 1970s, this set requiring just 4 x ‘C’ cells and still with a current draw similar to that of a large torch. The supplied AC adaptor is rated at 700mA.
Small and fiddly controls for contrast, brightness and vertical hold are positioned on the left-hand side, otherwise it’s very similar to a radio, with volume and tuning knobs and a radio-type dial. Sockets are arranged in a seemingly random fashion on both sides, with power input and earphone output on the right and external aerial and A/V input on the left. The latter means that it can be used as a playback monitor for a camcorder, which was useful for a while, then the next generation of camcorders all had fold-out colour LCD screens, rendering it unnecessary. The external aerial connector is a 3.5mm jack socket; adaptors for both coaxial and ribbon downleads are supplied.
A soft carrying case is also supplied, and this highlights a major design flaw. The power button is located on top, just like the others, but in this instance, when in a holdall or rucksack, it’s very easy for the set to become inadvertently switched on – and in its case it’s not easy to see when it is! As things turned out, it was something I bought too late. I had already given up on TV news by this time, seeing it as nothing more than a promotional vehicle for the latest whiz-bang digital graphics and picture transitions, and I had a VCR for everything else! I used it just once, when I spent a few days travelling round Devon and Cornwall in the summer of 1990, although I probably took it with me on other trips back then.
Equivalent-sized widescreen TVs are still available today (although the very small ‘pocket TV’ sizes have been largely superseded by smartphones); flatter, lighter and they don’t guzzle batteries. How technology moves on…
The Technojunk Files 