Stunning but BROKEN eBay 1978 CROWN Portable TV / Radio 5TV-65R - TRYING TO FIX 

In 1971 I was stationed in Vietnam with the 45th Engineers, my wife was home and very pregnant, so in order to get home to be with her at the time of our son's birth , I took a short re-up for 12 months and extended my tour for 2 months so I could get the bonus and take a re-up leave. On my way, our plane stopped at Yakota Air Base and while there I went to their PX for a bit of shopping and purchased a CROWN Television/AM-FM Radio. It was much more compact but did run on AC/DC taking a bunch of C cells or plugging into a car 12 volt system, or had an AC adapter that replaced the battery pack. It was much more compact then yours but she served me well on my last 7 months in Vietnam. When I got home and plugged it into the 110 volt power it blew a resistor. I took it to the on base repair center at Fort Bliss but they could not repair it as the model was never sold in the US and there were no schematics on it. So I took it home and found the bad resistor, or what was left of it, no bands left as she blew, and I just wrapped a bit of wire around the two leads and the little set ran just fine for the next few years. I finally sold it to a fellow who worked part time as a security guard driving his car around some warehouses, he mounted the set under the dash of his 65 Chevy and used it to watch TV on the job. She was still working last I talked to him in 74 when I transfered up to DC to be a ceremonial soldier with The Old Guard.

All the power connectors have built in switches (mains, 12v barrel jack) so that when a power source is connected it disconnects from the battery. Often the internal switches in the sockets go bad. The CH Radio/TV switch is a charge switch for rechargeable batteries. When in CH position it isolates the power to the Radio/TV.

This is so cool! I've been thinking of buying one of these to fix for a long time. Just haven't done it yet. Anyway, great find and great video!

This is legendary! The repair apart this ought to go into the Guinness Book of World Record. Playing the PS5 on a 1978 portable TV. Much respect 🙏 This an engineer retro lover's dream

You should do a live stream of these repairs. The viewers could give tips.

The satisfaction of bringing a piece of equipment back to life is so rewarding ... I spent 25 years as a field service engineer repairing all sorts of office equipment around the U.K. so I know the feeling of getting any type of object back to life. You follow a sound path in fault finding thats for sure as many people jump here there and never follow a tried and tested format as you do ... also you have patients which is a must ... really enjoyed this video ... congratulations on the repair.

I used to own a lot of arcade machines, and I always HATED working on the CRTs (which was a pain really because most of the machines needed re-capping!) - still it was very satisfying when I fixed them!

Hi Vince. Coincidentaly. I bought one of these last year on ebay, exact same colour and model. It also had the exact same issue, no power on. So while watching this video I got mine out (it was already opened up) and I cleaned the same switch you did, and now it works. What are the chances eh? lol

That compartment was to store the mono earpiece so you could watch/listen in private, Great video, I miss old tech that actually worked when you wanted it to !

Had a similar one to this in the 80's. I used to watch Dangermouse on it in my Dad's office after school, lol. Nice video Vince - really enjoyed the process on this one.

1 hour video!? Glad we're back to classic Vince length videos. I can't wait to watch

I think that huge noise that you got on RF is because you forgot to solder stranded wire ground on the prong end of the switch 33:12

These repair videos are so good that over the last week I have had a binge watch and decided to subscribe. I only subscribe to quality channels and this channel is quality. Massive respect for the education and enjoyment. I love old gadgets and electrical equipment.

Bit of a testament to older tube type technology. Wonderful work Vince!

you can use baking soda as a super glue activator, and also use it to build up a areas by putting super glue and sprinkling baking soda on, and repeating until the gap is filled in. much cheaper and just as rock hard. and you can sand to shape it, and paint it if needed.

Just be sure to connect the ground to the tube if you decide to turn it on, in this case it was those prongs I'm guessing. Lots of noise. Might have to be with the lack of grounding on the signal cable you re-soldered. The braid seemed not to be connected.

Great job! On radios and TVs with string tuning mechanisms, although the drive knob will slip at either end of the travel, the important bit is getting the displayed frequency to match what the tuner is set to. For radios you can set them by tweaking the pointer mechanism when you are tuned to a known frequency station -ie slip it along whilst not allowing the tuning capacitor wheel to move . You'd have to do the same for the TV in the days the signals were still being sent out.

Nice repair, Drill a tiny hole in the powders cap, then you can add small amounts of powder by tapping the bottle. 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 Thank you for the mention😊

The CH-ON /TV-RADIO switch on the side is actually to permit charging of NiCd cells fitted in the battery compartment (someone will probably have beaten me to this). Used to be common on battery/mains radios back in the 1970s.

I got one similar to this mini tv And used to watch “the young ones” on it It was my pride n joy for many years

I had one of these in the day, fitted it under the dash of my mgb roadster on a switch that turned off, when the ignition turned on to keep it legal. so I could watch the TV when parked. Worked great at the time.

Man, seeing the PS5 playing on something from the year i was born is awesome. Great repair, well done. Cheers!

Gosh, this takes me back to my parents' old Hitachi TV that needed a good minute to warm up after being turneod on. The image would slowly fade into life while the audio was there immediately.

That superglue job was phenomenal. You practically just threw those broken pieces onto the spindle and they placed perfectly. I figured you were gonna spend 20 minutes fitting those pieces together.

The first connector (with the 4 wires), for the tube you were concerned about is the connection to the deflection coils on the tube, they will not hold a charge from the tube, although when powered up can give a fair walk. A B&W tube of that size is only about 14KV whereas a large screen colour is nearly 30K. With older CRT sets, best not to start twirling any preset pots as you have what’s called the B+ voltage and if that is too high, the tube can emit x rays!!!. Other risks of CRT is knocking the back of the neck off.

You sir , have the patience of a saint. Roll on the next video and 1 million subs.

I remember my grandparents had one of those when I was a kid around the late 90s/00’s and they’ll have it on the front porch watching tv. Watching the video of you fixing it brings me my childhood memories going over there and watching my grandmother watch her soap opera shows while smoking and having her tea outside. 😅

This so cool. It almost makes me want to tear up. It reminds me of my childhood when my grandfather drove Semi. I remember sitting in his Semi watch the football games with him.

I think EXT is 'External' as in external antenna,and not 'Extension', and rod is the telescopic.Brilliant video btw,I was engrossed the whole time.I love watching folk using their hands and know-how to renovate things and get them working again.

Hi Vince, great repair. The large wheel with the spring is attached to the tuning capacitor, it is that which is turned to tune the radio. It is the position of the indicator strip relative to the position of the large wheel that's important. The other wheels simply provide a path and means of tensioning the string. The tuning capacitor assy is the clear plastic housing that can be seen on the opposite side of the PCB to the large wheel.

Your patience and perseverance never fails to amaze me. What a cracking little telly and great video as always.

Very cool! A elderly lady who was a youth leader at my church brought one of these and instantly hooked us kids' attention! :D .. after our lesson I remember watching the Wonder Woman tv show on it. Great memories!

Mr. Vince you're a wild man, heading into any unknown territory. Nice to watch your vids.

Use SERVISOL for switch cleaning, not IPA. IPA washes grease out of the switch and its needed to lube the clamp in the switch. Also get two household paint brushes, one Black bristle cheapo and a quality fine brush to clean out stuff from dust.

Crown was never a premium brand, but it's nice to see that all of the faults are due to usage rather than component failure. Wear and tear faults mean that it was used and very much enjoyed way back when it was actually relevant. I expect it was a caravan dweller and amused the family on rainy days, which in the UK, was probably all of them. Pity it's now obsolete as a TV, but that's progress for you.

When I was a kid back in the 90s, we had one of these for when we went on camping holidays. It got good use and was great back in the day.

Very nice fix, we had a portable color tv when I was a kid that we'd hook the nintendo up to sometimes depending on where we wanted to play

I think yous call them 2 in 1.very nice vince.my dad you have one 3 in1 with tv radio and tape

I have one just like it, I had 2 but Dads one is still in its original box- from Dixons, probably 1982. Dads was less used than mine but both us were ‘campers’ and our one was in our tent!

My sister had one of these, I think its brand was Panasonic. Black and white video. The picture was crazy grainy. Still, camping it kept us from running off in the woods for a few minutes. Until the 10 C cells or so died! When the batteries started to die I remember it would loose v sync, you could still get another couple minutes out of it by messing with brightness and such. Then another couple of audio only.

Wow this brought back memories of when my dad bought the exact model and we were amazed how small and portable it was , we had it in our kitchen/ dining room

Use baking soda and superglue for filing gaps - it sets like rock and will be considerably cheaper than commercial stuff

Vince "there's a tube in here." Me "that's just the back of the CRT, isn't it?"

21:40 You have black lead on +12V and red lead on GND measuring -12V at the DC input so when you measure around the switch and see -0.5V and you say "nothing" it's actually 11.5V caused by the voltage drop through a dirty switch. Use the leads properly (black on GND, red on +12V and everything else).

Nice fix very retro always wanted one as a kid, probably would benefit from a recap to reduce noise, they have done well for forty years well done for saving another piece of tech from history.

A fantastic restoration of a rare retro piece of kit there Vince! Great job!

When my girlfriend (now wife of 38 years) first moved in together we used one of these as our main TV for several months! That would have been 1982.....There's a chance it's still in a box in the loft... We had it on a fairly high sideboard and used to draw our 1960s bucket chairs as close as we could. Happy days.

Wow thatt make's me feel old Vince . Its crazy how big that was, and now you can watch tv on your smart device, thanks for the video

The switch on the side you cleaned first is for CHARGE. A battery charger is built in, and a lead acid battery was available for this model which sat in the battery compartment and positive was connected to a pole in a small recess. When in charge mode, tv and radio was inoperable. Lovely little set, I got mine in 1980 and it still works!

I had one of these back in 1983, it was the TV I used with my Zx Spectrum. No colour for me just glorious black and white.

I really love watching you Vince

That tube was actually a tube, it's a CRT, so it is a Cathode Ray Tube. It works by heating up a filament to emmit electrons that are accelerated towards the front of the tube using high voltage cathode and focused into a ray by an electromagnet (that big coil of wire arround the CRT) and the TV signal is an analog signal that it's split into a signal that modulates the strenght of electron ray to make a brighter or darker point on the screen and a signal that controls the sync of the electromagnets that divert the electron ray into a scanning motion left to right line by line. There is a phosphoros coating in the glass that emmits light when it's hit by the electrons.

Hi Vince. You can use bicarbonate of soda and superglue as an alternative to qbond

I have something similar to this made by Radio Shack in the late 80s. I used to carry it in my work truck when I worked emergency service and was on standby with nothing to do. It still works, but the TV side can't pick up digital signals obviously.

The worst shock I have had and probably was the closest to electrocuting me was from an old CRT monitor I was working on. It had been years since it was plugged in and I stupidly assumed it would be discharged.... NEVER ASSUME. In the words of Dr. House "You know what you do when you make an assumption? You make an ass our of you and some guy named Umption."

i remember using one of these as a kid to watch startrek next gen in the 80s .... i had fun learning about electronics and getting a nintendo to run on it etc.. one thing i do remember is that it was heavy

I had one of those, used it to play ps1 games when I went to uni in the late 90s. I've still got the ariel from it!

excellant repair i remember having a mini tv radio in my kitchen when i was married haha love taking things apart to figure out how they work hence why i am a mechanic now thanks for sharing new sub here.

I still have my NTV one from 1982, it has extra tech on it, red LED clock on it lol, been by my bed since then, only use it for the clock and radio, I tecently hooked up a SEGA megadrive on it, brilliant.

My mum had one of these, used mainly on holidays but she also used it for her video work as a small monitor and she produced quite a lot of videos on the thing. Its use came to an end when I built up a PC for her that could handle full video input and she hooked a jogger board and second monitor to it and the poor old portable got chucked in the end as it was pretty knackered by this time.

These repair videos are pure ASMR for me. Especially parts where you try test the connections and voltage.

17:35 excellent mug shot!

I love the way you over play the "High Voltage" danger, on a set that hasn't been turned on in years! You are correct when you say you have little experience in the electronics field. But it seems you do in the field of overkill and drama!

Nice long Saturday Video before work tonight Cheers Vince 👍❤️

I am pretty sure that EXT on the EXT / ROD switch stands for "external" rather than "extension". Also, as mentioned, you may want to investigate where the shield of that little coax that came off is supposed to go.

Very cool device and fix :)

Great video. I had a JVC equivalent (I think - this is a huge ask for memory). What people now do not realise, is that I could be the only person watching Wimbledon in the garden or the snooker final. You soon gained friends travelling to park with one of these :-)

Been watching this m8 since 2017 never gets old keep at it Vince

And when you run out of Q Bond try using super glue and baking soda

Keep up the good work fella and stay safe!

Just wearing those surgical nitrile gloves can make a difference in getting shocked - they won’t protect you all the way, but will be enough to keep your conductive skin from any live contacts

Great fix, it looks so good. I was a bit nervous for you with the crt high voltage thingy. Q-Bond worked really well for me when I repaired quite a big chunk of cast aluminium on a cam cover…

Man that's nuts running a pre 2020 PS5 console into a 1978 portable TV - radio system. Both timelines couldn't be further from one another in the concepts of time and progress here. But in a rare form they're aligned here for all of us to see. These TV - radio systems were still sold in the 1980's via Tandy/Radio Shack among others although not as big/sturdy built. Get some mates to play your PS5 like this and it'll be the talk of the town here. That Radio TV system is as old as me and is a sheer piece of electronic ingenuity as well. Nice fix.

For 1978 this was very very ahead for it’s time😁

Love the "***" on the repaired little 1978 Crown portable TV/radio haha! And in case anyone's wondering, yes, you can get smaller "dedicated" RF modulators than a VCR :P I've got a Goodmans Quadro 905 5" B&W portable TV/clock/radio/cassette but the cassette door is broken, and judging by a photo I just saw online of one with it broken in the same way it seems to be a common problem.

Don’t ever sell yourself short my mate Vince if I ever had something that I needed fixed and it was a matter of life or death I would put my trust in you as you have a never give up attitude and are very knowledgeable 👍👍

Amazing to think that they went from making portable TV's to making paint.

This is so cool, as a child we had a similar unit in our family van and had our NES hooked up to it for road trips

This is really neat. And somehow really relaxing watching you do these. Maybe it's the nostalgia.. maybe.

As much as I enjoyed watching this video, the big question is now what? Digital TV has made 1978 TV tuners obsolete beyond a poor monitor which you demonstrated. The dump would charge me $15 to dispose of that TV.

When you rebuild the plastic with superglue reinforce it with more superglue and bicarbonate of soda inside the drum. You can use graphite with superglue too

I have one of those AM/FM VHF/UHF B&W set that was given to me at work back in 2000. I knew right away what novel thing I could use it for -- spinning through the analog dial tuner in the high UHF range to pick up cell phone conversations!

Vince to the rescue to save my night. Greetings from the EU!

I have a very similar Crown TV/Radio that still works other than no TV stations to watch. It has a rotary type TV tuning and Radio dial. I even have the service manual for it, when manufacturers still supplied manuals... An interesting video as I've never had mine apart...

Just found your channel yesterday - superb! Binging now!

Love the channel Vince 👌 I'm sure you don't need to say "I'm not an expert anymore".

I have a newer set like this it was ment to sit in the kitchen mounted over the microwave and you could even take it in the car and camping and stuff its a GE spacemaker I didn't get all the accesories with it so I just use it to watch tv when I workout on the treadmilll. It is a color tube set which is pretty cool!

𝙒𝙊𝙒 ! 𝙄 𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙫𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙤 𝙑𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙚, I loved these miniature telly's when I was a wee boy, always wanted one, to the extent I bought a Casio Watchman not long ago, knowing full well I'll only be able to watch 'snow'. Please keep em coming. 👍🏻

Also, the weird little receptacle with a door was meant as a store for a mono headphone.

Love that you connected a PS5 to it. Genius.

You make this look so easy! Excellent as usual...

That brings back memories for me. I had the superior JVC model which also had a cassette player in it.

10:08 in the grey plug with yellow blue and red and green wires are for the the horizontal and vertical deflection. They attach to the yoke on the tube neck. The yoke is the large coil wrapped around the tube neck. The other attachments on the tube are the tube base and the E.H.T. cap (the red wire from the black line output transformer leads to the E.H.T. cap). The E.H.T. cap has a very high voltage (several thousand volts) on it when running. This voltage can be stored in the tube for a long time so great care should be used when removing the E.H.T. cap. Maybe discharge it with a screwdriver to the chassis or the outer "aquadag" coating on the tube body while holding the insulated handle of the screwdriver. There will also be an earth wire on the "aquadag" coating running to the chassis or tube base. Well done on the tuning dial cord - they can be very tricky. Would be interesting to know if it still works or whether components have started to fail through re-use after sitting around unpowered for who knows how long. Maybe post something if it goes faulty?

Nice repair Vince. Thankfully no shocking flyback transformer fun 🌩⚠🙂

Very nice done, Vince! Your patience at these Objects is incredible. And it's a very cool outcome :D

Very Well Done Vince. Remember my dad bringing one of these home around 1978 when I was 10 years old and I thought it was amazing, so happy to see you fixing this as it brought back lovely memories. Have you heard from Roger as I haven't seen him on in a while? Mick 👍🍻

Cheers Vince I love your videos but i find myself shouting at the phone when spot things like the cathode-ray-tube 😂😂😂👍👍👍

Hello,Vince, That selector switch on its side has 2 separate switches inside. All it does is connecting the middle pin either to the left pin or the right.

I've accidentally touched that red H.V. lead many times working on set in a repair shop. Didn't get shocked.

Lovely fixes Vince =D