Goodwill Walkman in wrong country

[MasterBlaster84]

Picked up a minty Sony Walkman WM-FX822 with remote control headphones, external battery case and charger from Goodwill. It has some Japanese only stickers on it which I thought odd but I didn't care. When I put a battery in it and scanned for FM stations it scanned from 76 to 90 Mhz FM then the light bulb went off, this is a Japanese market walkman in California. Checking the voltage of the charger verified it, the charger is 100 volts.
Oh well it's still a cool walkman even if it only picks up one FM station in my area plus, AM and the tape work. First and formost this is a nice Walkman mainly for cassettes anyway, it's barely bigger than a cassette tape case.

 

[Boom Shaka Laka]

Don't apologize for this little beauty! A Japanese-issue Sony Walkman is a BIG DEAL no matter where you find it, and it's a HUGE DEAL when you snag one at a thrift store. Some people (like me, for example) would kill for a find like that. So... wave it around and tell people how wonderful and unique it is. But most of all, listen to it, 'cause I'm sure it sounds fantastic!

(Watch out for the AM band, though, since it goes up in increments of 9 KHz in Japan [as opposed to 10KHz here], just like in Europe and most of the rest of the world. Fortunately, with AM, if you just get close to a frequency that's active in your area, you'll be able to pull it in.)

Pat yourself on the back with this one. You done real good!!!

 

[MasterBlaster84]

Thanks BSS, I agree that it's still very cool. I probably looked funny when I first played with it and things weren't working the way I expected then the light went off and I knew what I had. I'm not dissapointed at all, for what I payed for it I stole it since walkmans like this are selling on ebay in the $100 + range. I actually grabbed it out of the cart they just wheeled out from the back, If it made it to the shelf I can guarantee it would have been gone within minutes.

 

[babya]

Vety nice find of a Japanese model Walkman-hope you can use the battery case (as the charger is 100V-US is 120V).

 

[MasterBlaster84]

hope you can use the battery case (as the charger is 100V-US is 120V).

Not a problem, the external case holds one AA battery. The charger is 100V but it's for the internal stick battery which it's missing anyway.

 

[eldorado]

pretty

 

[TW5]

Weard but I found one of them too at the Goodwill.
But dident have the remote with it.
And the same "FM problem".
Maybe the remote is still there someplace.
A bit different model.

Its actually an AIWA walkman.
Because Sony bought the AIWA company.

Its a WM-FX613.

 

[bibox]

I'd bet internally there is a spot on the circuit board where solder is either applied or removed to give you tuning up to 108mHz. Basically a switch that needs to be thrown. If you ever decide to shell out for a service manual that info is likely in there. If SONY sold a similar model in the US, I doubt they had (2) unique versions. More like one batch that gets configured for US use and the other batch for Japan.