Hi, my name is Ray and I'm a new member of VR&T. I'm wondering if anyone out there can help pinpoint the manufacture date of a Thorn colour TV I recently acquired.

The model number is 9405, made in Japan. It's a teak cabinet model with 22" olive-green screen. It has large silver knobs for VHF and UHF tuning and a smaller push-pull on-off/volume knob. It has minor controls hidden behind a flap that opens along the bottom.

(I've seen a very similar TV on-line, from 1982, an AWA Deep Image, but with push button channels and slider volume, and minor controls concealed behind a vertical door on the right hand side).

This Thorn TV is in great nick and the picture is fabulous - I'm using it to view my collection of 4:3 aspect 70s TV shows on DVD.

I realise there may be a factory date stamp somewhere inside the cabinet, but I'm not a tech buff so I don't really want to take the back off.


Cheers.

Might be a Mitsubishi. Let's see the photos.

Approximate date of manufacture for this model is 1977/1978 & first sold for $769.00

The illustration I have shows it with a stand on castors. I'm not sure if the stand was standard or an optional extra.

Similar to an AWA C660.
A very reliable chassis, the only problem from memory were dry joints on the small horizontal drive transformer.
I think every unit suffered from this minor dry joint problem, even if it took years to develop.
JJ

Yes if 1978 that will either be the Mitsubishi G or K chassis. Fact that it still goes and has a good picture leads me to believe it's a K chassis.
Shared by AWA and Thorn.

Could be '77-78? Wow, that's good information guys, thank you. I've submitted photos, so they should be available soon. It's interesting to read the comment about the stand and castors. My TV is supported by chunky 19cm wooden legs which created the "furniture" vibe that was so trendy at the time - but it also has four black-rubber feet screwed to the underside of the timber cabinet to allow for removal of the legs and sitting the TV on a shelf or table,etc.

I welcome any other info or memories of this model.

As said it will be a Mitsubishi from the late 70's.
They are very reliable unlike their UK based predecessors which were abysmal (3000 - 4KA)
The only faults I commonly encountered back in the day were oxidised board edge connectors which required a clean and a small squirt of CRC2.26.
Also the UHF tuners were often seized.

My guess at Mitsubishi is because I used to own one of these units. It was a wooden case with 4 square wooden legs (no castors). It has a red power light and a green AGC light. It has 2 tuners, a rotary VHF one and a continual tune UHF one. It has the flap at the bottom, and the pull-push power switch.

The problems were that the green light rarely worked; and the colour was rather poor. Eventually the UHF tuner seized, and then the focus went. I'm not a TV repairman, so out it went.

It was a very sensitive set though. I was able to watch the amateur TV transmissions on UHF, way before that allocation was stolen away by the authorities. It was also the time of great TV DX in the 90s, where this TV could get stations all the way up the NSW coast and into QLD, without any kind of amplifier. Even Newcastle was watchable every day. A great TV for that kind of thing.

Still no photos, but assuming it's the same, it should work well for you for quite some time.

Whenever job cards only stated 'AWA' extreme anxiety always turned to joy upon walking into the customer's lounge room
and facing a Jap AWA.

My two sets were later models than that one and they had the vertical and horizontal hold controls directly on the motherboard and not accessible to the user. The sets were that good that the picture never rolled. Very simple inside too - just one PCB and not the myriad of smaller troublesome ones that companies like Philips put inside their sets with more cabling than the Harbour Bridge.

Thanks for the photos, yes that is exactly the same as my TV.

Yes it is the same TV, albeit with legs instead of a stand & castors. It would appear the stand is indeed an optional extra & its frame would bolt into the holes where the legs go into.

Thanks for all those comments and additional info. It's encouraging to hear so many positives - I hope I can get lots more good viewing hours from her. So the consensus would be 1977 or 78 for date of manufacture? Cheers.

Does anyone have an AWA set with the purple phosphor, visable when the set is switched off.

Surely there must be one preserved somewhere. Otherwise no-one would believe that they existed.

Wayne.

Wayne,

I have vague recollections of a CTV model which had a purple tint on the glass only visible when switched off.

But I didn't think it was part of the phosphor, I thought it was some kind of coating or treatment often seen on high
quality camera and telescope lens glass.

I cannot remember the brand unfortunately.