Thorn 9000 Series (9200) The NZ Version....

[GLENZ32]

Hi guys - I got a call the other day from my E-waste recycling contact to say "You'd better come and pick up this old Thorn console before it gets dismantled"...I jumped in the station wagon and headed over there thinking/hoping that it might be a 3000/3500 as most of the NZ ones were consoles.
When I arrived there was a scared looking Thorn TV poking its head half out the entrance door. It wasn't a 3500 but close enough - a Thorn 9200 series instead!

Needless to say I was still very pleased to have acquired this set as I hadn't seen one of these for years let alone actually worked on one for about 15-20 years!

This one is a 22 inch version sporting the very long life and good quality Hitachi CRT. We had a 20 inch version which used an RCA CRT and they were hopeless, the tube went low emission and flat very quickly. The 20 inch sets were not popular due to the poor choice in picture tube. The two models were the Precision 20 and Precision 22.

I like the way these are constructed internally and they are quite good to work on. This employs the cyclops power supply/line output stage arrangement. These certainly had their fair share of faults but generally went very well,one of the problems is that they weren't understood by many techs who got frustrated in trying to fault find in them due to the nature of the circuit they employed. Many of these were destroyed long before their time hence not many survive now. I got pretty good with these when they were coming in for repair on a regular basis.

I believe that this chassis is a copy of the UK based version. We did have a 26 inch version with 'TouchTronic' channel change and a convergence panel ( think the chassis was a 9450/9500/9600)? But again haven't seen one of those in a very long time.

This was the deluxe model (9250) sporting an ultrasonic remote control and six channels, even though we only had two TV stations back then. For some reason the six channel selector was configured so that each button that was pressed would go an a 1,2 1,2 sequence rather than 1,2,3,4,5,6?

I've always like the look of these Thorns, very clean lines and nicely laid out controls and of course the nixie tube for the channel number.

I wasted no time in getting this into the workshop and removing the back to see that it is pretty much all original and hasn't seen many repairs.
It has got a couple of faults - the first being a delayed lazy initial start up...the cyclops ticks and clicks at random for about 10 seconds then bursts into life (leaky diode from memory on the board) and it has a colour demod/phase fault but the CRT is excellent. This will produce a stunning picture once I've gone over it and fixed the problems so looking forward to sinking my teeth into this one when time allows.

Here are a few photos uploaded of it for your enjoyment.

Cheers!
Glen

[GLENZ32]

Rest of the pictures.....

[arjoll]

Nice find. My parents first colour TV was the Precision 20, lasted from about 1976/77 until 1983 when the colour went weird and the service tech who tweaked it back to normal advised they get rid of it before it died completely. It was replaced with an NEC Autocolor 22" console which is still going in my brother's place - it has never been serviced in 31 years.

There is a pic of the Precision 20 somewhere on the form, I'll try to track it down!

[arjoll]

Here it is, blown up from the corner of an old photo, showing a test pattern off Hedgehope.

Four channel buttons for two channels, so yes it was One, South Pacfic TV, One, South Pacific TV. Dates it a bit

[GLENZ32]

Its a shame the 20 inch picture tubes let these down even in that photo it looks as though the red gun is down even then...I did have a really tidy 20 inch example some years ago and it had a good tube but in my haste when we moved I dumped it and always regretted doing that but as there was so much pressure on at the time I had to get tough and sacrifice a few things....At least with this one I won't be doing anything silly like that again! And I did keep some spares for these..ironic as I moved the spares with realizing that I'd done it even though that set was long gone.

[ntscuser]

Originally Posted by GLENZ32

I did have a really tidy 20 inch example some years ago and it had a good tube but in my haste when we moved I dumped it and always regretted doing that but as there was so much pressure on at the time I had to get tough and sacrifice a few things....

We've all been there, I lost my entire collection of electronic magazines that way including six-year's worth of Practical Television

[GLENZ32]

Magazines..yes Ive got heaps myself..if we were to move again I think I would probably get rid of most of mine too...

[arjoll]

Originally Posted by GLENZ32

even in that photo it looks as though the red gun is down even then

That would be a scan from a 1970's colour print from Camera House - I wouldn't be too sure any of the colours are remotely close to what they were at the time! Sometime I might have to see if dad will loan me the negative to scan, it would get a better indication.

Not wanting to hijack the thread, but looking at the pic I posted years ago I am now really curious about what it says at the bottom of the test pattern - my recollection was they would normally say something like "TV ONE" or "TV2" at the top and "NETWORK" at the bottom, but that looks different at the bottom.

The pic would have been from when my parents renovated the lounge and bought a new colour TV to put in it, which would probably be 1976 or early 1977. I wonder when Hedgehope went colour and got TV2/South Pacific?