Thursday 28 November 2013

Found! Pre-loved Blaupunkt

Check out this beauty:

My latest find! A vintage Blaupunkt

It's been a long time since I went on a hard rubbish scavenging mission. Mostly I just scour eBay and Gumtree for SCART televisions these days. Hard rubbish hunting is time consuming and can often lead to disappointment... you might find something good but it's damaged or wrecked.

That said, when something like this happens, and it makes me think I should be out there on the weekends while people still have CRTs to junk. I can't help but think some prized TVs must be sitting out on a suburban street right now. It eats at me. If people would only list their TVs for 99 cents on eBay I wouldn't have to face such mental anguish!

Anyway, here's how it happened: I was driving to band rehearsal last night and I spotted the distinct styling of a European television. I knew at a glance this was a Blaupunkt. The ubiquitous Samsung and Panasonic CRTs simply don't have these kind of lines:

Front
Back
I made a mental note about the location of the TV and kept an eye out for it at 11 pm when I was driving home. All the cars and garbage bins made it hard to see and I had to park the car and walk up the road before I finally found it again.

It was worth the effort though! A nice vintage 1990 model with trimpots inside! I plugged it in before work this morning and she fired up. Excellent!

Blaupunkt MS 70-109 VT M (chassis FM 500.70)
"Please take me home... In good order."
The TV has obviously been sitting on the side of the road for a while now. There are lawn clippings, dirt and water marks on it. However, the 30 degree heat yesterday probably did a good job of drying out whatever moisture this unit has endured.

We have snow!
SCART ports and S-Video
Audio outputs
This guy has serviced so many of my finds...
Can't wait to the weekend when I can get a chance to test this out with some actual RGB material! Could be a good candidate for some external pot modifications if the Service Manual is correct...

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