The local second hand store had not one but TWO more of the "portable" sets for $10 each. I grabbed the better of the two (the eject lever was not broken and the tuner had its front cover) and brought it home.
This one has a slightly smaller tuner with a different control arrangement and less channels. The VHS deck is seemingly identical to the one I already have besides the top is silver, no record lock and the remote jack is on the front.
Swapping units around found that nothing at all works until the power button on the VCR is pressed so I'll be verifying that the button and circuit on my first deck isn't faulty.
In the meantime I also found a Panasonic PK-958 so now both units have a color Newvicon camera to go with them.