NATIONAL (MATSUSHITA) TP-22NU YEAR 1966.

The NATIONAL (MATSUSHITA) TP-22NU is a 30 cm b/w portable style TV set with CCIR B/G standard VHF turret & UHF dial tuner, telescopic antenna, earphones jack port.
Weight: 9 kg / 19 lb 13.2 oz (19.824 lb)
Television receivers currently being manufactured for consumer use are capable of operation in either the VHF (very high frequency) or UHF (ultra high frequency) bands of frequencies. In order to provide this capability, however, it is necessary to include two separate tuners or tuning circuits in the television receiver with one of these circuits being utilized for VHF reception and the other being used for UHF reception. The VHF tuner conventionally is a turret type of tuner having 13 detented positions which accomplish the coarse tuning or channel selection of the VHF tuner and a separate control is provided to effect the fine tuning at each of the channel positions. UHF tuners generally employ a separate control mechanism or a tuning knob and use a dial indicator of a type commonly found in manual radio receivers. The use of two separate tuning control mechanisms in order to effect the VHF and UHF tuning of the receiver is  at best; and when a receiver is provided with remote control capabilities, generally only the VHF band of frequencies may be remote controlled and the UHF channels still must be selected manually at the receiving set location.

The set is tubes technology based and doesn't weight much.

National was a brand used by Panasonic Corporation (formerly Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.) to sell home appliances, personal appliances, and industrial appliances and was the first name used by Konosuke Matsushita's electric firm to sell his battery-powered bicycle lamps, hoping that they would be a product used by all of Japan, hence the name "National". It was arguably the first well-known brand of Japanese electronics.

National was formerly the premier brand on most Matsushita products, including audio and video and was often combined as "National Panasonic" after the worldwide success of the Panasonic name.

After 1980 in Europe, and after 1988 in Australia and New Zealand, Matsushita ceased the usage of "National", and sold audiovisual products exclusively under the Panasonic and Technics nameplates. Perhaps due to trademark issues, Matsushita never officially used the National name in the United States, except for early imported products, but rice cookers bearing the National name, imported from Japan, can be found at many ethnic Asian markets in the United States.

National is well-known throughout Asia as a reputable manufacturer of domestic appliances, such as rice cookers and electric fans. In 2004, the "National" brand was gradually phased out in Asia, the last market it was used in, with most products being rebadged under the "Panasonic" brand due to trademark restrictions with other companies worldwide containing "National" in their name and Matsushita's desire to unify their businesses under the Panasonic name for greater recognition.

Due to its historical significance and recognition in Matsushita's native Japan, non-audiovisual Matsushita products (mostly home appliances or white goods) were branded "National" until September 2008. As of October 1, 2008, Matsushita changed its company name to Panasonic Corporation. Non-audiovisual products that were branded "National" in Japan are currently marketed under the "Panasonic" brand.

Neither National Semiconductor nor National Car Rental are related to Panasonic or the "National" brand.

National bicycles were imported into the United States under the Panasonic label. The brand was known for producing high quality cycles at a relatively low price, as the result of a very high degree of factory automation and a resultingly low labor force with attendant savings in salaries and benefits. One of their models featured the unusual Shimano front freewheel system.

JAPAN IS STRANGE

Strange how situations change. It seems not so long ago that Japan and its industries, particularly electronics, could do no wrong. They taught us how to make cars and TV sets properly. They invested heavily and came up with a seem- ingly endless stream of desirable, innova- tive products. Both outsiders and insiders could see no end to this success story. We were told, by more than one leading Japanese electronics industrialist, that the 21st century would be the Japanese one, when Japan became predominant industri- ally and culturally. For the last couple of years the situation has been somewhat different. Japan is still the world's second largest economy, but the previous confidence has gone. The econo- my has stalled, and doesn't look like getting going again for some time. Profitability has become appalling, and the talk now is all of restructuring and job losses. Sony has announced that some 17,000 jobs will be lost worldwide, ten per cent of its workforce, while fifteen of its seventy factories are to be closed. Mighty Hitachi, whose activities span a much wider field and whose turnover is equivalent to over two per cent of Japan's gross domestic product, has launched a detailed review of its businesses. 6,500 of its 66,000 parent company employees are to be made redun- dant by March next year. On a consolidat- ed basis Hitachi is Japan's largest employ- er, with 330,000 staff. Businesses are to be dropped or reorganised. The story from Mitsubishi Electric is similar: there is to be a "sweeping restructuring of its portfolio of businesses". In the UK, the latest manifes- tation of this is the closure of Mitsubishi's VCR plant at Livingston. 14,500 jobs will go (8,400 in Japan) at Mitsubishi Electric, nearly ten per cent of the workforce. Other manufacturers who have announced poor results and restructuring recently include NEC, Matsushita, Sharp and Toshiba. It's all a long way since the time when, it seemed, all the Japanese had to do was to get the product right and produce more and more of it. Some of this was foreseeable. Markets reach saturation point; new products are not always a runaway success; if investment in new plant is excessive you end up with too much capacity; and so on. Then there is the fact that Japan is not isolated from econom- ic problems elsewhere: no economy that is heavily dependent on exports can be. But there are also more specific Japanese prob- lems. The banking system is beset by non- performing loans that Japanese bankers are reluctant to write off. The bubble economy of a few years ago, when asset values rose to unrealistic levels, collapsed. This is part of the cause of the banking system difficul- ties. Then there is the practice of cross - ownership, with firms owning substantial stakes in each other. This can work nicely when everything is doing well: when reces- sion looms, it aggravates the problems. Japan's unemployment rate hit a new high of 4.8 per cent (3.39m) in March, part- ly because of the corporate sector restructur- ing. Japanese industrialists hope to improve their profitability in the second half of the year, and will be helped by improved condi- tions in SE Asia. But it will be hard going, particularly to improve domestic market conditions. The Japanese have always had a high propensity to save. This increases when the economic climate is poor, with unemployment a threat. Right now Japanese consumers are saving rather than buying. No one seems to know how to alter their behaviour. There is also a demographic problem: the Japanese population is ageing. Japanese interest rates are negligible. So borrowing is not a problem. But conversely all those savings are bringing in little income. In the Western world interest rate changes often have a considerable impact on the economy. This economic tool is not available when interest rates are negligible. The Japanese have been advised to get their banking system sorted out, but that's not the sort of thing that can be done overnight. Right now the best opportunity for Japan seems to be to export its way out of its dif- ficulties, something that shouldn't be too difficult once worldwide expansion has resumed. But the high value of the yen is a drawback. From the economic viewpoint it's an extremely interesting situation, one in which the laws of economics have little to offer. This could be because such laws are, basically, descriptive rather than prescrip- tive. In the real world you can't always ini- tiate economic activity through monetary or fiscal means. Some commentators have gone so far as to suggest that the Japanese government should spend, spend, spend and print money to kick-start the economy. This is a dangerous course that can go badly wrong. It has already been tried by the Japanese government to a limited extent, with similarly limited success. The one thing that we do know is that economies are not stable. Change is ever present in one form or another. The prob- lem lies in trying to control it. This is all rather humbling, and certainly something of a comeuppance for the rather arrogant Japanese industrialists who had talked about the century of Japanese economic hegemony.

A good point  on good  old  B/W Televisions.....................

The Sixties was a time of great change for TV. At the start of the decade there were just monochrome sets with valves, designed for 405 -line transmissions at VHF. By the end there was 625 -line colour at UHF, with transistorised chassis that used the odd IC.

The following decade was one of growth. The "space race" had begun in 1957, when the USSR launched Sputnik 1 and terrified the Americans. Thereafter the USA began to spend countless billions of dollars on space missions. This got underway in earnest in the Sixties, with the announcement that America would be going all out to get a man on the moon by the end of the decade. There followed the Mercury series of earth - orbit missions, then the Apollo launches. Success was achieved in 1969. Most of these missions were televised, and in those days anything to do with space was hot stuff. It was inevitable that everyone wanted to have a television set. At the time an average receiver would be a monochrome one with a 14in. tube - there was no colour until 1967. It would cost about 75 guineas. 
TV sets were often priced in guineas (21 shillings) as it made the price look a bit easier on the pocket. Anyway 75 guineas, equivalent to about £78.75 in 2000's currency, was a lot of money then.  For those who couldn't, rental was a good option. The Sixties was a period of tremendous growth for rental TV. 
Much else was rented at that time, even radios, also washing machines, spin driers, refrigerators and, later on, audio tape recorders (no VCRs then). 
For most people these things were too expensive for cash purchase. 
There were no credit cards then. And when it came to a TV set, the question of reli- ability had to be taken into account: renting took care of repair costs. 

TV reliability.........The TV sets of the period were notoriously unreliable. They still used valves, which meant that a large amount of heat was generated. The dropper resistor contributed to this: it was used mainly as a series device to reduce the mains voltage to the level required to power the valve heaters. These were generally connected in series, so the heater volt- ages of all the valves were added together and the total was subtracted from the mains voltage. The difference was the voltage across the heater section of the dropper resistor, whose value was determined by simple application of Ohm's Law. 
As valves are voltage -operated devices, there was no need to stabilise the current. So the power supply circuits in TV sets were very simple. They often consisted of nothing more than a dropper resistor, a half or biphase rectifier and a couple of smoothing capacitors. If a TV set had a transformer and a full wave rectifier in addition to the other components, it was sophisticated!
 As the valve heaters were connected in series they were like Christmas -tree lights: should one fail they all went out and the TV set ceased to function. Another common problem with valves is the cathode -to -heater short. When this fault occurs in a valve, some of the heaters in the chain would go out and some would stay on. Those that stayed on would glow like search- lights, often becoming damaged as a result. Dropper failure could cause loss of HT (dead set with the heaters glowing), or no heater supply with HT present. When the HT rectifier valve went low emission, there was low EHT, a small picture and poor performance all round. CRTs would go soft or low emission, the result being a faint picture, or cathode -to -heater short-circuit, the result this time being uncontrollable brightness. On average a TV set would have twelve to fourteen valves, any one of which could go low -emission or fail in some other way. All valves have a finite life, so each one would probably have to be replaced at one time or another. The amount of heat generated in an average TV set would dry out the capacitors, which then failed. So you can see why people rented! 

The CRT could cause various problems. Because of its cost, it was the gen- eral practice to place its heater at the earthy end of the chain. In this position it was less likely to be overloaded by a heater chain fault. But during the winter months, when the mains voltage dropped a bit, it would be starved of power. This would eventually lead to 'cathode poi- soning' with loss of emission. The 'cure' for this was to fit a booster transformer designed to overrun the heater by 10, 20 or 30 per cent. It would work fine for a while, until the CRT completely expired. At about this time CRT reactivators came into being - and a weird and wonderful collection of devices they turned out to be. Regunned tubes also started to appear. You couldn't do this with the `hard -glass' triode tubes made by Emitron. These were fitted in a number of older sets. Yes, they were still around, at least during the early Sixties.



Developments................... A great deal of development occurred during the Sixties. Many TV sets and radios made in the early Sixties were still hard -wired: the introduction of the printed circuit board changed the construction of electronic equipment forever. The first one was in a Pam transistor radio. PCBs were ideal for use in transistor radios, because of the small size of the components used and the fact that such radios ran almost cold. 
They were not so good for use with valve circuitry, as the heat from the valves caused all sorts of problems. Print cracks could develop if a board became warped. If it became carbonised there could be serious leakage and tracking problems. In addition it was more difficult to remove components from a PCB. Many technicians at that time didn't like PCBs. As the Sixties progressed, transistors took over more and more in TV sets. They first appeared in a rather random fashion, for example in the sync separator stages in some Pye models. Then the IF strip became transistorised. Early transistors were based on the use of germanium, which was far from ideal. 

The change to silicon produced devices that were more robust and had a better signal-to-noise ratio. 
Car radios became fully transistorised, and 'solid-state' circuitry ceased to be based on earlier valve arrangements. Many hi-fi amplifiers had been transistorised from the late Fifties, and all tape recorders were now solid-state. 
Both reel-to-reel and compact -cassette recorders were available at this time. Initially, audio cassette recorders had a maximum upper frequency response of only about 9kHz. 
To increase it meant either a smaller head gap or a faster speed. Philips, which developed the compact audio cassette and holds the patents for the design (which we still use in 2000!) wouldn't allow an increase in speed. Good reel-to-reel recorders had a fre- quency response that extended to 20kHz when the tape speed was 15in./sec. 
This is true hi-fi. In time the frequency response of compact -cassette recorders did improve, because of the use of better head materials with a smaller gap. 
This led to the demise of the reel-to-reel audio recorder as a domestic product We began to benefit from spin-offs of the space race between the USA and the USSR. 
The need to squeeze as much technology as possible into the early computers in the Mercury space capsules used by the USA lead to the first inte- grated circuits. 
This technology soon found its way into consumer equipment. Often these devices were hybrid encap- sulations rather than true chips, but they did improve reliability and saved space. The few chips around in those days were analogue devices.  To start with most UHF tuners used valves such as the PC86 and PC88. They were all manually tuned. Some had slow-motion drives and others had push -buttons. They didn't have a lot of gain, so it was important to have an adequate aerial and use low -loss cable..............................