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TM-102 Aww...and it's so cute!

Dan ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

Dan ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

Peanut Head
Got a nice little Realistic TM-102 tuner from Westend yesterday. Other than a little tweaking on the AM's RF stage and a new dial lamp, it was good to go! Reception, selectivity and sound quality on both AM and FM are better than one would expect in an economical tuner.
Using a 5' length of 18 gauge wire as an antenna, I picked up stations in usable stereo as far away as 100 miles on FM and spent some time listening to WWL AM in New Orleans last night. It sold for $79.95 in 1980 and featured a 3 gang tuner, ceramic filter, phase lock loop and Motorola MPX IC. Cute lil feller, ain't he? :)

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Great tuner

I own this model also.
Garage sale for $2. I also bought the associated Realistic amp SA 102 for $3 but it did not work so I gave it back !!!

This tuner really pulls in FM great !
My classical station in San Francisco is tough to get but this tuner grabs it without a problem or fading, cross noise etc. !!!
I have it plugged into my Mac MA 230. Nice combo ! :music:

Thanks for posting Celt !!
 
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I have a TM-150 which is the same size but lets you select mono/stereo. It seems like the AFC is on all the time - in fact, I thought the PLL referred to the FM detector, not just the multiplex decoder. A PLL receiver would have the equivalent of undefeatable AFC.
 
Celt, between this and the Pro-ject you have a thing going with little tuners. Lovely piece. What 'tweaking' did you do to the a.m.?

s.
 
The TM-102 needing nothing more than minor re-alignment. It was made back in the days of wider bandwidth spacing, so audio sounds great on it. Selectivity is down a bit as a result, but if the station is strong, it isn't an issue. BTW, I have since sold it in BT.
 
Good to excellent tuners, even if budget. They are amazing performers. The late 1960's models will compete with anything but the highest class tuners. And they were inexpensive new, and cheap used. Recommended highly!
 
I just picked up one of these from my uncle. It gets better reception than any other tuner in my house, including the digital Phase Linear 5100, my Pioneer SQ-4000, Sony STR 7045, and a 90's Harmon Kardon AVR. Very pleased!

Charles.
 
TM - 102 SA- 102 Minimus 17

Hi,

I realize I am responding to a thread that is 5 years past due, but...

I just acquired this lot in a garage sale near my house. The guy was a Realistic fan, and told me that this kit would not disappoint... And he was right!

In the end rather than haggling down in price he practically gave whole set that you see her to me for $5.00 Canadian ( For those of you in the US, that is about enough these days to buy a can of Pepsi in a vending machine).

Included is:
TM-102
SA-102
2x Minimus 17 Speakers
All original cables

also with some other small bookshelf speakers from JVC

I guess being an older gentleman, he wanted to see it go on to a good home rather than find its way to some hard life being a work site garage radio.


Anyhow, after seeing Celt's post and hearing about the fact that this tuner has a back light; I just had to get mine working again. -- The major difference is I chose to go along with Blue LEDs. I can always change it back as i made sure that it was not permanently affixed to the tuner.




Celt said:
Got a nice little Realistic TM-102 tuner from Westend yesterday. Other than a little tweaking on the AM's RF stage and a new dial lamp, it was good to go! Reception, selectivity and sound quality on both AM and FM are better than one would expect in an economical tuner.
Using a 5' length of 18 gauge wire as an antenna, I picked up stations in usable stereo as far away as 100 miles on FM and spent some time listening to WWL AM in New Orleans last night. It sold for $79.95 in 1980 and featured a 3 gang tuner, ceramic filter, phase lock loop and Motorola MPX IC. Cute lil feller, ain't he? :)

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Anyhow, after seeing Celt's post and hearing about the fact that this tuner has a back light; I just had to get mine working again. -- The major difference is I chose to go along with Blue LEDs. I can always change it back as i made sure that it was not permanently affixed to the tuner.[/QUOTE]

lol I am also responding years later but love the blue LED's I just bought the SA-102 and TM-102 off eBay I look forward to playing with them. One problem with FM reception in my house I have so many switch mode power supplies they almost kill FM signals. I get great reception outside though. I will see what I can do to eliminate some of this RF radiation I may end up building a separate metal box to hold most of the switch mode power supplies in my room and ground the box and add inductor loops to incoming and outgoing cables.
 
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