Sony KV-1520R
 

Hi all,
I picked this little guy up from an estate auction recently and I can’t find any information on it. I’m assuming early 70’s? I’m new to collecting vintage televisions and want to know if this is a keeper/valuable?
Thanks!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...84366c059a.jpg


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I think that's a little later in the 70's than you think. Sweet find!

Not a lot of remote Sony's that old remain in existence. Between that and the good condition it's in I would consider that a keeper or (since I try not to collect solid state sets) a good set to keep as trading stock for something else I might want (I've encountered some collectors that will trade, but won't sell).

Congratulations! Your model is close to the original first generation KV1510, from 1972. There was a 1511 and 1512. You can find a service manual for this set available at EBay. Have you checked the operation? If in good condition, will produce a beautiful image.

That is a very handsome set, plus it has a remote! I'd say it's a keeper! It looks to be in very nice condition, you certainly found a real gem!

That looks like it may have been a shelf queen all its life since it has all of the original paperwork with it yet and everything. Nice find, I wish I could find one an early remote control set like that (all of the old vintage sets I've found were sets that were remote control capable but weren't equipped with the remote control circuitry.)

Is that a varactor diode tuner on a rotary knob (like RCA used)? I didn't know Sony used that on any of their TVs.

Yes it is. Note the "numbers" sheet in pix. Much like the Zeniths used.
Most of the Sony remotes had a slide rule tuner in these days like on the 19 & 21 inch sets. Also used the same hand unit.
Funny thing is for all its engineering Sony was late with varactors & random access ( RAT ) keyboard tuners. You could get it all on a cheap GE.

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

I was actually recently chatting with someone about how I don't remember seeing rotary varactor tuners on the Japanese brand TVs (Sony, Hitachi, etc).

I'm sure they existed (clearly...this TV right here) but all I ever saw was the old ratchet tuners, followed immediately by the pushbutton preset style varactor tuners.

On the flip side I remember seeing a bunch of RCAs with the rotary varactor tuners, and a few Zeniths.

I have a great-aunt and great-uncle out in Myerstown, PA that had one of those old rotary knob Veractor tuner Zeniths from the early 1970s, I believe it was a Chromacolor TV set.

If this Sony doesn't have UHF and has a normal VHF tuned it could be a Canadian model....IIRC Canada waited till some time in the 70s to mandate UHF tuners.

I had two great-aunts, now deceased, who had a Sony color portable TV similar to yours. Theirs was a 12-inch all-channel TV from, IIRC, the late 1960s or maybe the early seventies; I'm not sure, but since it was all-channel I'd guess 1970s. Their set did not have remote control, that I was ever aware of, but since they were always within a few feet of the set when watching it they really didn't need a remote. They lived in a third-floor apartment in a Cleveland suburb; the TV worked very well, as it should have in a third-story dwelling (their building did not have any kind of master TV antenna service, and this was long before their area ever had cable), using only its built-in VHF dipole and round UHF antennas. I don't know what became of the TV after they died, but I do hope it found a good home since it was working extremely well as long as they were alive and needed no service, that I was ever aware of.

The accessories pictured include a UHF loop and a 14 to 83 channel number sheet, it is likely a UHF model.
It will be interesting to find out how the tuner/remote functions on this set. I am not ruling out mechanical 12 channel with a few extra positions for UHF....yet.. :scratch2:

jr

You're right, don't how I missed the loop. The standard mechanical tuner with extra positions seems plausible to me. Most varactor tuner sets I've seen didn't have a concentric fine tuning knob like this so my intuition expects it to be a mechanical tuner.

You're right about the UHF mandate though. I have the late 60s Portacolor without UHF to prove it :D

I think by 1970 our sets all had UHF. Everything 1970 and after that I've found had UHF tuning.

That’s a keeper unless the jug is shot. Did it work when you bought it? I believe 1970 would have been the first year Sony would of had that large a screen size. In 1969 all they had was the 7” and 12” size picture tubes. First came the KV -7010U for a very limited run than the KV-7010UA these were the very first color Sony sets. Than the KV-1200U, KV-1210U, and the KV1220U, these were the 12” size. I believe the 17” and 15” size came out in 1970. The 17” had 114 degree deflection as the tube was shorter and the tv could be closer to the wall. I think I’m correct on this but correct me if I’m wrong. The KV-1722 was a sleek tall set with a small depth due to the 114 degree deflection jug.

You are spot on with everything you said. The 7 inch versions were from 1968 and IIRC, the 15 inch came after the 1970 KV 1722. It seems counterintuitive, but I don’t remember the 1510 out prior to the 1722. At the time, was on the hunt for a larger Sony after purchasing both the 7010UA and 1210U. It could be that both came out in the same year as you say and I would have chosen the larger set. I purchased the 1722, that was 52 years ago!

Everything seems to work except for the remote control. I don’t want to dive into it without some knowledge of how to troubleshoot it. If this set is a white whale for someone or a collector I wouldn’t mind letting it go!


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I have 2 Zenith TVs, one from 1958, and one from 1964, that both are equipped with UHF tuners besides the VHF tuner (the one from 1964 says "All Channel" on it) which I think that TVs that had UHF on them prior to 1970 were considered "Higher End", more expensive sets because sets that had VHF only were cheaper and weren't as high end at that time. At least that's my understanding anyways.

US mandate was March 1964 IIRC. Any new sets had to have UHF
& NOS could be sold off. Canada came later with there mandate. Probably
most Canada sets after the mid 60's had UHF to get all the UHF from US stations. There was a second US mandate apx 1974. UHF had to be
as easy to tune as VHF. Thats why detents got added to UHF tuners or
the set had varactor tuners with presets.

73 Zeno:smoke:
LFOD !

The guy I bought my VHF-only Portacolor from said they won it in 1966, so that seems to line up with your mid 60's timeline for Canada.

It turns out the lack of UHF is kind of a pain for me, since I have a handful of analog channels modulated in my house, and all but one are on UHF.

UHF was typically an added cost option before 1964. Usually the rest of the set was normal, just UHF was added. Most cabinets had provisions for mounting the tuner. If you lived in an area with local UHF (especially some UHF only markets where VHF wasn't recievable) EVERY TV sold in that region would have UHF...The stores would be smart enough to realize sets wouldn't sell without it and would order it on every set...Distributors probably knew not to deliver VHF only sets to those stores in those market areas either.

Correcting my post #17. It was the Sony KV 1720 that was purchased in 1970. I later purchased the 1722 in 1973.

My parents 1954 Trav-ler had a UHF tuner which we watched channel 18 out of Milwaukee.

Some areas, such as Youngstown, Ohio, which has channels 21, 27 and 33, not to mention PBS channel 49 in nearby Alliance, were close enough to areas such as Pittsburgh, which has channels 2, 4, and eleven, not to mention a few UHF stations, so any TV sold there (or in any area close enough to cities with UHF TV stations) would almost have to have a UHF tuner, so as to receive every local channel.

Other cities, such as Fort Wayne, Indiana and Fresno, California, are in fact UHF-only, so any TV sold in such a market would absolutely have to be equipped with a UHF tuner. In the 1960s Blonder-Tongue, et al. marketed UHF converters for use with VHF-only televisions; these units converted all UHF stations to VHF channel 5 or 6, to allow these older sets to receive the then-new UHF channels.

I'm sure these converters must have sold like crazy in UHF-TV's early years, since most if not all televisions of the time were VHF-only until, as was mentioned, 1964, when the government mandated UHF tuners in all new sets. I remember seeing more than one TV in the '60s, such as a Sylvania console my aunt and uncle had, which had provisions for UHF. This TV had a knockout plug on the front panel which covered the mounting hole for the optional UHF tuner; the plug had the words "for UHF tuner" printed on it. The TV (in fact, every television in the United States at the time) could receive only VHF channels, which was all that was needed in my area (Northeast Ohio) until 1965. The very first UHF channel in Cleveland was NET (now PBS) channel 25, which signed on in '65, followed three years later by channels 43 and 61 (which both signed on three years after channel 25). UHF converters were usually used to allow these older sets to receive the new UHF stations; I don't know anyone who actually went to the trouble of having their old VHF-only televisions converted by a TV shop to UHF by means of having the optional UHF tuner installed. Most just bought a UHF converter and used it until the TV had to be replaced, at which time the set was replaced with an all-channel one.

My family did not get an all-channel TV until the mid-'60s; the new set was a Sears Silvertone 17" b&w portable. The reception of channel 25 (the first and only UHF channel in Cleveland at the time) was terrible in our area, an eastern suburb of Cleveland, but that was a moot point at the time since the station was originally meant to be viewed by students in the area's schools, and was not intended to be watched by people at home after school hours. The station was then (in the '60s) and probably is now almost impossible to receive with an indoor antenna in the area in which I live today, as this village is some 40 miles from the southwestern Cleveland suburb in which the city's TV stations' towers, all six of them (channels 3, 5, 8, 25, 43 and 61), are located.

Channel 25 eventually installed translator stations to allow the station's programs to be seen in schools in outlying areas which the station's signal did not reach very well or, in many cases, at all; however, I am all but certain these translators were deactivated in the late '80s or nineties, as they are not needed these days, thanks to cable TV and satellite services.

Getting a decent picture with today's DTV demands a very strong signal, which is why many if not most schools, universities, etc. which make use of channel 25's programs either have cable, satellite, or a very powerful antenna atop a tower. The elementary school I attended as a kid in the '60s, located in an eastern Cleveland suburb, had just such an antenna, probably with an amplifier either at the antenna itself or at some point in the feedline. The problem with an arrangement like this, of course, is the TVs closest to the antenna almost always received a better signal than sets further down the feedline; in fact, the further away from the antenna, the weaker the signals probably are. It would not have surprised me if there was a separate amplifier, just for channel 25, installed somewhere close to the antenna. As it was, however, the antenna distribution system was set up to downconvert channel 25 to channel 4. The reception with this arrangement was great, although every TV set in my school was an RCA all-channel table model. THe reason the antenna distribution system was not set up for UHF is probably because such a system would have cost much more than the owner of the school building would have been willing to pay, although since only one channel was to be downconverted to VHF, this was not even considered or, more likely, even thought of. They sprung for a system which converted channel 25 to channel 4 and left it at that.

There was nothing else done to the system that I was ever aware of since, as I said, the TVs were in the school for one and only one reason: to receive educational TV programs from channel 25 (with one exception, as I will explain). The only thing that was ever added to that distribution system, again to the best of my knowledge, were several Ampex 1/2-inch reel-to-reel video tape recorders (remember, this was in the '60s-'70s, long before video cassette recorders), so teachers could record channel 25's programs to show at their convenience.The junior high school I attended from 1969 to 1972 also had a similar TV distribution system, with RCA TVs on carts in the classrooms. These TVs were used not only for viewing by students of channel 25's educational programming, but also so the students could watch network news broadcasts from the commercial TV stations.