Thread: Recent HMV haul
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Old 12-25-2016, 12:56 PM
dieseljeep dieseljeep is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fairlane500skyliner View Post
I recently embarked on a 12-hour drive south to Canberra (where I currently am until later in the week), and made a stop along the way to visit a fellow collector (RetroFormat32) and make a trade. I ended up trading several 1970s/80s colour sets and an early 1990s B&W portable for two vintage B&Ws - a 1960 HMV "Rangemaster" P1-AH and 1970 HMV "Trent" V6-BN. I also had a HMV at my dad's house in Canberra - a 1968 HMV "Wentworth" PU-AF that had been rescued for $50 from a recycling centre shop.

The HMV Rangemaster in the first photo is in rough shape. I was originally considering stripping it down for parts, but have since changed my mind. I've only ever seen one other of these, and it's a relatively old set, so it's worthy of restoration. Even if the CRT is buggered or the chassis requires some "unobtanium" part, it will make a nice "display-only" set when the cabinet is finished (same for any set of the era that can't be electronically restored). It will need a fair bit of work - Refinishing the cabinet, re-building the bottom of the cabinet, replacing the tuning scale, finding four knobs, re-plating the badges, and repairing a missing chunk on the plastic control panel.

The HMV Trent is in much better shape. The cabinet top and sides need to be stripped and re-finished, the legs need to be re-finished (as with most low-boys), and I need to find a replacement knob for it (as one is missing). Electronically, it's already had some work done by someone else, though is still suffering from loss of vertical deflection.

The HMV Wentworth is, aside from some small nicks, essentially mint. It's been very well looked after, though was quite dusty inside. The set is suffering from a problem in the Horiz. Output/EHT circuits, resulting in the EHT from the flyback (haven't yet checked the voltage on the circuit diagram) failing to reach the CRT. I've checked the usual suspect resistors and tubes to no avail, so I'll look into it closer at a later stage.

I also have a 1965 HMV "Windsor" V1-AH console in my collection (last two photos), so the addition of the Rangemaster and Wentworth means that I have a complete line-up of the three HMV console television styles of the 1960s. HMV low-boys of the era used the same designs and went through the same design changes as their console counterparts, so I can pretty much say that I have a line-up of the three main HMV television styles from 1960s Australia.

I have developed quite a liking for the mid-1960s to early-1970s HMVs due to their "serviceman-friendly" chassis. The "drop-down" design enables unobstructed and easy access to both sides of the chassis, as well as the other components (tuner, CRT and speakers). I'd like to eventually build up a larger collection of 1960s and possibly early-1970s HMV sets, as the easy-access chassis and appealing design make them nice sets to work on and collect.

EDIT: Be sure to check out my Youtube videos of the sets! There are several restoration-progress videos for the HMV Windsor.

1960 HMV Rangemaster - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWSDh2TiZj4
1965 HMV Windsor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYUgni30mjE
1968 HMV Wentworth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CILlokJuk8s
1970 HMV Trent - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOKxHq9E_N4

Chris
I'd like to see the Schematic of the set. Schematics are the universal language of the collector crowd!
The set sure looks like it was built in Chicago, USA.
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