I've come across a few of these in an area I'm organizing. Is there a branch of Sony collectors
that concentrates on this series? One box had the sidecar UHF tuner add-on with the set.

This set was shipped from WRESCO RADIO AND ELECTRIC (CAL. 95401) phone 546 6904
Wonder when ?

They were wicked back in the day to fix. I've got factory manuals with the hand entered changes.

Here are photos of one kit

Is that set NOS?

I'm sure there are a lot of collectors who want these, not just Sony collectors but early Solid State TV collectors.
I even have a somewhat grubby one I picked up recently, it still works even.

I think there is also a couple of grubby ones up there too. The may have the little suitcase as well.

A little known fact about these TVs for trivia buffs. When the Navy developed the Walleye "Smart Bomb" during the Vietnam war, the Navy used a video data link from the weapon to the aircraft. To display the video, they bought the Sony Micr-TV and stripped out the RF and PS sections and put the video guts into the cockpit of a F-4B fighter. The Sony units were built so well that they didn't have to do any modifications to the hardware. My father was the program lead and when I was a kid all of my Ham Radio projects were powered by 5-303-W AC power supplies and I used the IF sections and tuners for experimentation. I still have a couple of these in the junk box. After the successful fielding of the Walleyes, my dad only bought Sony electronics for the rest of his life.

John

I'm 46 now.....and my Dad gave me one of these Sony 5-303 'Tummy" TVs from his very modest collection when I was like 30. It has stayed in working order for all this time, and I do turn it on every few months just to see it play. It has a very odd "warm" picture than all the other "80s to 90s" little micro TVs I've recently run across on ebay and wherever.

Mine has the original AC cord (found this handy to work on a recent Sony 8-301W find). Has the little blue case it came in and it's manual/cord fits in a little elastic pouch inside. I'll ALWAYS keep the little 303 seperate from the "hobby" collection....because Dad gave it to me. I'm not sure how much work he put into it before I got it. It runs REALLY good, so maybe it was just a really decent set, or it was a recapping project on his part. I have never found any reason to try and open it myself yet. These Sony sets appear to have distinctive paint work that I wouldn't have the first clue how to duplicate...so I just keep it nice and don't mess with it. Mine is without the UHF unit, so it swayed my decision when I put together a "whole house transmitter". I keep the signal at the very top of VHF high so THIS set in particular can still live

JUST recently lost Dad, but acquired his little collection of micro TV sets...and started adding to it. These are by FAR not "antique" in any way. The oldest one is the recent 8-301 find, which is going to be my first REAL restoration.

I live in a little 2 bedroom flat.....so I won't really ever have the room in the foreseeable future to take on any actual antique sets. I'll have to be happy with these little "micro" sets....which appear to all be transistor, from the 60s and up.