I recently acquired an AWA colour TV, this receiver may be 30 years old. Anybody consider colour CRT TV vintage?

Any chance of a model number?

On AWA and Thorn sets of this era the model number was usually on a white sticker on the back of the set.

The model no. is C6303 , would anyone have any schematics for this beast?

This was mid-eighties and was the touch tuning version of the C6333. This set also came with an ultrasonic remote.

If your DVD player (or other video program source) has S-video outputs, you can build this filter to create prefiltered composite to feed a TV modulator (or a baseband video input jack on the TV) to feed your TV set. The purpose of this circuit is to improve image quality by removing the higher frequency luma spectrum that the colour separator circuits in the TV misinterpret as belonging to the chroma subcarrier. This circuit does that to the luma before it is merged with the chroma subcarrier to create a modified composite video. Visually this luma crosstalk into the chroma results in the crawly rainbow colours you see on sharp vertical lines, and in your test pattern, in the bands of luma frequency, the region (just below and right of the center of the test pattern) of crawly colours where you should see black and white high frequency sine waves (though with this filter, and the filtering in the TV set, you'd just see a grey area). This circuit prevents most of this crosstalk. You shouldn't see much luma sharpness loss, as the TV filters it out anyway, the idea being to avoid showing the chroma subcarrier (looks somewhat like a crawling fine checkerboard pattern (at least in NTSC, likely similar in PAL)).

I suspect the TV is not tuned or the colour circuit is not functioning , may need tuning , in these old sets you can get deterioration due to the electrolytic capacitors. I suspect I may need to change a few caps. also the picture tube may be gassy , what do you guys think? Thanks.

This set is closer to 38 years old. From the list of AWA models I have the C6303 has the K chassis which was used in the 1976-1977 models.
I'd make sure the tuning is correct and that the RF modulator you are using is putting out a proper signal before looking for faults within the TV as the K chassis is fairly reliable.
From your screenshot, the set looks to be producing a reasonable picture aside being washed-out looking. All the colours are visible and correct so I doubt there is a chroma fault.

I'm another person who regards the early colour sets to be collectable. It is now 40 years since colour TV's first went on sale in Australia. When you stop and think that the B&W era was only around for 19 years (1956-1975), early colour TV is worthy of some attention.

That would be a good project. Might need to rejuvinate the CRT if you want more brightness, but better to leave it as is...The first generation of colour sets available in Australia are of great interest to me especially as they are becoming very rare like Philips K9, HMV C221, Thorn 3000 (TX574) and 4KA, and especially the Decca hybrid 33, and a host of German and Japanese sets. And there was an almost home-made set by Tyne from the UK, anyone ever seen one of them? I worked on two of them in the mid 1980's.

I worked on a couple of them in the late 70's. Those two were the only ones that I ever saw.
The circuit boards were mounted to a welded aluminum frame.

TV collector has circuits, and some boards for them.
I doubt that any complete sets still exist.

I am directing my efforts to preserving early VCR's before they all
end up in land fill.

Wayne.

I am directing my efforts to preserving early VCR's before they all end up in land fill.

That's good, but how long will the remaining VHS tapes stored in roof spaces, garages and other tape-unfriendly places last before they shed their oxide?

I have working in-use VCRs, and you can still buy blank tapes at K-Mart.

That's good, but how long will the remaining VHS tapes stored in roof spaces, garages and other tape-unfriendly places last before they shed their oxide?

Standard video tape is usually good for about ten years and this applies to Beta and VHS as it was pretty much the same 1/2in tape though each format had different leader tape, clear plastic for VHS and metallic for Beta as the end-of-tape sensors were different for each format.

In my experience the oxide stays for much longer though. I've got tapes that still work after 25 years on both formats. Humidity is the biggest enemy and the trouble with video tape is that the oxide usually doesn't come off until the tape is working its way around fragile video heads.

Video tape is surprisingly long lived if well stored. Like Brad, I have tapes from the 1980's and 90's that still play well. The oxide shedding issue is, as far as I'm aware, specific to certain brands / formulations, not to video tape in general.

Video tapes are quite cheap at the moment, If I buy a set online I pay about $5 each or at a secondhand shop they are about 50c each.

I have got sick of the blurry digital format, it is Ok. for still pictures but as soon as the image moves it goes blurry.

Now I can watch the old classics in sharp focus without ads telling me how stupid I am!

My first colour TV was one of them.
I bought it as an ex-rental for $389 (in 1979 I think).
I bought it because it had UHF even though, then, Canberra didn't have UHF. I felt it had to come.
I knew it had provision for a remote, so I figured a wired remote would be easy.
Managed to create a wired remote volume control ( that model used DC to control the volume so running a relatively long cable wasn't an issue.

Only fault I remember it getting was when dust got into the vertical connectors for the PCB's.

I think I have a circuit diagram - I will have a look tomorrow. I know I had a complete box of spare boards and test harnesses for that model, given to me by a generous TV repairman when he went out of business.
Not sure if I still have them - again, I will have a look tomorrow. If I do, anything I have is free.

Just had a quick look, found two boards (sound I think) so I probably didn't throw the rest of the stuff away.

I will have a better look tomorrow.
Jeff

Had another look. Found another PCB, but no circuit diagram. I did have one, cant think why I would have thrown that, specifically, out.