An interesting 1986(?) Aiwa, similar to the J09, but without an equalizer or recording, but it receives UHF and VHF in addition to TV audio. https://www.goofish.com/item?spm=a2...c2V0td0U&id=1054105127378&categoryId=50025387
Plus it's red! I love these players with other bands, I'd love to see marketing research back then that said it wasn't viable in the USA, I would have loved to have TV sound on my portables.
Think selling viability was only one of many aspects, another being US having very high trade barriers on imported electronics from Japan in the 80s. Back then a certain percentage of a product had to be manufactured in US to qualify for lower tariffs or be sold without restrictions. Besides, many of these walkmans tend to have been expensive so even official SONY/Panasnonic/AIWA shops brought them on demand rather than keep these in stock. So for something high-end that costed 712$ (original retail price adjusted to inflation) which very few people would buy anyway, adding duties on top of that may have simply made the product not viable. https://walkman.land/aiwa/hs-uv9
Would the TV band receive TV audio in North America? The frequency assignments may be different. HS-J9's with TV reception don't.
That's a good question. From what I find it was as follows: US channels Low VHF (channels 2-6): 54-88Mhz High VHF (channels 7-13): 174-216Mhz UHF (channels 14-83): 470-890Mhz Japan channels Low VHF (channels 1-3): 90-108Mhz High VHF (channels 4-12): 170-222Mhz UHF (channels 13-62): 470-770Mhz The bands do overlap to a significant degree, but they're not identical.
Intersting. Do the TV audio channels overlap? It may be differences between North American, European and Japanese AM and/or FM frequencies was the reason for the three versions of the Aiwas with radios, such as the J9/09/600 and J36/360/85.
The Japan low VHF (90-108Mhz) overlaps with FM radio (76-108Mhz). However many of the channels themselves were also the same, with only difference on TV you also have the image. Definetely one of the reason for having different models for different markets is radio bands. Another is regulations: EMC compliance (many didn't require any at that point), output power (later on there were limitations in some regions) and even the thing with being manufactured in a certain way to avoid duties. Also those that came with AC adaptors in the box had different adaptors for different markets. Back then those adapters were linear, so each market had its own transformer.
