Just bought an original Famicom (RF)

[Kirito]

    I just got a Famicom system, not the AV, but the orignal with RF, and I'm using a Model 1 genesis adapter to power it, works fine on channel 95 and all that good stuff, other than the usual quality you'd expect from RF.

    I wasn't paying much attention at first, it came with Dragon Quest III, and everything picture-wise looked fine, but after buying Super Mario Bros for it, I've noticed that it has a lot of verticle lines across the screen, especially in the solid blue area of the game, I'd say they are spaced about an inch or so apart, I never noticed it that much with Dragon Quest since there was more black area than blue in the starting spot.

  So I guess my main question is, are the vertical lines like that common with the RF famicom?

I know the nes toploader was notorious for that, and I've read a few other posts, seen videos that talk about that, but I wasn't sure about the famicom systems and the lines, which I guess is the same jailbars problem just like the nes toploader?

They don't bother me, other than I wanted to double check if that was common or if my Famicom was bad, never had a top loading unit like that until now.

I took a couple of pictures to show what I was talking about just in case.

http://i.imgur.com/X55gpBH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/brSPta5.jpg



Any information is greatly appreciated, thanks! 

[xIceMan]

Since you're using the RF output it is normal. You can reduce vertical lines my modding it to use AV instead.

[Finfami]

Yeah, as far as I know those are normal, here is mine:

http://aijaa.com/Rj6DMr

in that picture it is hooked to CRT TV so unfortunately there is the CRT flicker in the picture also which of course is just because of camera, but I think you can see that it has those bars as well.

[Kirito]

 Thanks for the replies so far, greatly appreciated.

I feel a bit better seeing that It's more of a common issue the RF Famicoms have rather than meaning something might have been wrong with the console.

Guess it must just be a factory design flaw with the boards or something in them, maybe lack of shielding or something of that nature.

[FAMICOM_87]

You can add capacitors to reduce those vertical lines

http://vaot.mydns.jp/fc/noise5.htm

do this, but do not cut any traces because RF will not work (this step is only for A/V moded units for total reducing vertical lines  , only change caps or just add new ones in parallel .
(I modem my famicom to AV but leave RF if I decide to use it sometimes ,so I still have samo vertical lines.

[Kirito]

  I'm not too confident in my ability to mess around with adding things. I would be afraid I would mess something up,
but it's good to know something can be done to suppress them some.

As for right now, I'm okay with the way RF signal looks. I just wasn't familiar with jail bars being common on Famicoms. I never saw
them on the original toaster style NES with RF, but I guess the boards for the US toaster-style NES were designed as to get rid of that
problem that appears to be normal with the Famicoms in Japan and the US top-loaders?

Either way this being my first Famicom I guess I've learned something about how they work now, haha, now I'll know that early non AV famis will most likely commonly
have jailbars due to their design.

I was mainly worried that I had gotten a broken Famicom.

[Kirito]

   Since my Fami has the jail-bar problem, I got bored and decided to look at the bottom to see what stickers were on it, so I took a picture of what is on the bottom.
http://i.imgur.com/K3jjvT3.jpg

   Just curious if those stickers mean it's a newer model or older model. 

  I guess the next thing will be deciding if I should have it AV modded (and finding someone who's good and trustworthy if I decided to). Which I'm not sure I want to do, because I usually try to keep my consoles original, at least as much as I can anyway, and I'd want to find someone trustworthy if I had anything done to it.

I'm open to any suggestions.

Thanks again!

[zmaster18]

You have the newer 'FF' model of Famicom. I believe that adding the caps in between the points specified reduce jailbars much better than the older model. I always recommend AV modifying because the clarity is much better picture-wise. You will no longer have a fuzzy, static-y image. You will also be able to use it on any TV without a problem hooking it up.

There are a couple people here who mod Famicoms, including myself, who have being doing them for years. This site probably has some of the best Fami-modders online. There are a few styles of AV mod that will keep the original look of the console. You can even keep the RF functionality and have AV jacks installed on the side or back, or you can have a video cable running out the back where the controller cable is. Or you can have the RF jack removed and have 3.5mm headphone-style jack put in place where the video cable would get plugged in.

[FAMICOM_87]

I thing my idea is perfect to you, just remove ch1- ch2 switch and put 3.5 mm female jack  and RF functionality is here too

http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=12059.0   

[Kirito]

     I may have to consider having that done, I certainly don't trust myself to do it, haha.

     I've seen Famis that have had the AV mod and use the 3.5mm on the back, those seem to look pretty good, and for the most part they look like they were that way stock just from exterior appearance. I'm just a bit concerned about spending the money to have it done would be (I've seen 60$ and up prices for the mod) and what the outcome would be, since Famis seem to be so hit or miss with jail-bar reductions, or at least from what I've seen.