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Old 15th Nov 2016, 9:30 pm   #1
clay shooter
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Default What is your earliest memory of radio, TV's etc?

Mine is from when I was about 4 or 5 (early 60s) my father was fixing the TV a huge thing with just 3 channel buttons ! As I remember it had a dodgy vertical hold adjuster , he had the back off and I asked him what he was doing, as we were watching a western when it went wrong he told me he was cleaning out all the dead cowboys and Indians from the back of the set ....... The sad thing is the next time there was a western on the tv, I asked him if he had to remove them once more !!!!! 😕
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 11:12 am   #2
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

My earliest is from around 1948, when my grandfather had an ancient (even then) Mullard TRF receiver in the railway booking office where he worked. I recall that the on/off switch could give you a tingle if you grasped the shaft, since it switched both the LT and the 120V HT!
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 11:52 am   #3
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

My Father had a pre-war EKCO Battery Radio, which I first knew about in the late 1940s. Don't recall the model number, but it had several pre-set station buttons, used a 120v HT Battery and a 2v Accumulator, plus possibly a grid bias battery. Later, in about 1955/56 he bought a new Sky Queen battery radio, plus a HMV table model, which he built into the cabinet of our wind-up gramophone. All of these are long gone now.
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 11:56 am   #4
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

My first real memory of TV was having to ask my mum each morning to switch on the TV and clunk the switch over to BBC 2 for Playschool on our Ferguson dual-standard set.

My little hands were unable to properly rotate the turret tuner and also engage the 625 circuitry at the same time. Around the age of 5 I thought I was big and old enough to attempt this myself. After repeated attempts I called in my Mum who discovered my repeated attempts at partially turning the turret had managed to fry the insides of the set. Yet more calls to the TV repairman and the set never really worked properly after that and went through horizontal output tubes on a monthly basis.

Eventually replaced with a Philips colour set in 1977.
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 12:23 pm   #5
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

When I was small we did not have a TV but had an EKCO radio. It was battery mains but I think generally used on mains. I was always fascinated by it and was very young when I first took the back off (probably pre school). My parents were obviously not around at the time (I was not left completely alone as such but things were very different in those days! I loved looking at the valves lit up in the back, but I remember being very careful as I was well aware of the dangers of electricity from an early age. I think I was about 4 when we got our first TV, but, although of obvious interest, it never had as much meaning to me as the radio had.
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 12:27 pm   #6
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

My parents told me that when I was very young (before I could talk) I was fascinated by the insides of their radio (a Hacker RP18 Sovereign, and yes I still have it). My father would open the back and I would look quitely for a surprsingly long time (for a child of that age).

I probably only noticed all the pretty colours of the components, but as I got older I wanted to understand what it all was for. And 40-odd years later I am here...
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 12:31 pm   #7
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

Strangely, I've never thought about this before! Considering how significant radio and TV were in our lives, that is surprising. Having thought about it, my first conscious recollection of TV was my father wangling a large console colour set, a Baird I think, on approval to watch the first moon landing. I recall being very impressed by what appeared to me a massive, brand new colour TV being delivered and installed, and how it smelt for some days afterwards.
For radio it was the sudden appearance of a brand new, amazing looking for the time, Philips, Philigrand, multiband, sideboard top set. One of the last valve sets made, it was and is a very large radio, with speakers at each end to give the impression it was stereo, which it could be on gram but not on radio. It also had a reverbeo feature, wow!
I still have that very set, it went between two other family members before coming back to us upon a bereavement. It has been very well cared for by all concerned and still looks immaculate, also sounds excellent.
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 1:12 pm   #8
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

We had a mains radio (possibly a Cossor 484) on a shelf in the living room. We listened to the news at 6pm, then the comedy programme following it (Navy Lark, Men from the Ministry etc.).

From time to time there would be some clicks or other interference. My Dad was convinced that one of our neighbours was doing this deliberately (I never found out why he thought this) so to retaliate he would switch the waveband knob back and forth a few times. This certainly made clicks at our end, but I doubt if it affected anyone else!
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 1:38 pm   #9
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

In the late 50's we had a Bush DAC90a radio on a shelf in the alcove by the chimney breast. I found that by putting my hand against the side of the cabinet that I could boost reception of the weaker stations. This puzzled me for ages, and I had to find out why.
So I unplugged the set, turned it around and whipped off the back.
That was my first sight of a frame aerial, and the rest of the gubbins fascinated me too.
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 1:49 pm   #10
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

My first memory wasn't a good one and it's surprising I'm interested in old radios.
As a young kid I remember a knob coming off my parents Pye radio exposing the metal post. I touched it and the electrical shock shot me across the room!
My parents weren't around at the time and I told them what had happened and my dad calmly said he'd have to screw the knob back on.
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 2:20 pm   #11
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

Quite right too!

The set itself punished you for fiddling with the bare shaft, but you survived and learned.

If Dad had made a huge fuss, he'd probably have had to answer to Mum about why the knob hadn't been fixed on properly in the first place!
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 3:00 pm   #12
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

My early recollections come from the 60s. My grandad ran a B&B and had a valve radio with 'piano keys' (Bush? Phillips?) in the lounge. I remember trying to put it on and getting one of the keys stuck down. Must have been about 5 or 6 at the time.

The other memory is from home, where we had our first TV, a 405 line B&W set - not sure what make or model (CRT filling the complete front, wooden probably laminated case, rotary band selector, tuning and speaker all I think on the right hand side, PCB board folded out, something like a Philips TG17100 or 19TG100 but I don't recall the wide bezel). It was still in my dad's garage when he passed away and like an idiot I let the house clearance people take it. It might have made an interesting restoration project! I saw the 'telly man' come and fix it on a couple of occasions and was very curious (i.e nosey) and watched him repair it. I remember seeing the tuner PCB, the valves glowing and him cleaning the channel selector switch. This is also the TV we also watched the moon landings on, and I remember excitedly getting up very early one morning to do so!

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Old 16th Nov 2016, 3:02 pm   #13
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

During the war we had an upright radio, make unknown, that had a small window behind which the tuning scale moved driven by a slow motion drive. It was damaged when the window was blown in by a bomb. The replacement was a horizontal shape with a proper scale but was DC only and around 1948 was converted to run on AC when the street had a new supply installed. They fitted a small selenium rectifier, a dropper of some kind and these were screwed to the inside of the cabinet. Next came a better radio that had 3 wave bands. First TV was a 14 inch Bush with a 13 channel tuner about the time ITV started.
My grandparents had a Bakelite Bush in the late 40's which I think was a 9 inch. I was allowed to watch children's TV on a neighbours Bush console with a magnifier fitted.
Those were the days.
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 3:51 pm   #14
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

Finding a chocolate button under my nan's 14" B&W set which was mostly cabinet and eating it. I have no idea what the model was unfortunately. This was in the 1970s and it was old then.
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 4:17 pm   #15
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At my granddad's in Chadwell Heath at about four years of age or so (early sixties), I was confused that the dial was always lit even when I tuned away from the Light Programme. He was a bit of an east end wideboy, mother (his only child) said that even during the war there always was fruit on the table, enough for visiting children too. I reckon it must have been quite a good set.

Many years later, Sunday lunch with home grown veg (grandmother was a fine cook, I especially remember the carrots, the size of ones index finger and cooked whole for only a few minutes), and a Murphy baffle set (an A104 I think) listening to the Navy Lark, "oh it's gone all whoosh bang nasty", I still love the Navy Lark on BBC 4 Extra, brings back memories and is funny.
 
Old 16th Nov 2016, 5:50 pm   #16
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

Radio, a Ferranti Nova my parents had, I remember it from late 1940's.
Television, a Bush TV22 for the coronation 1953, in our next door neighbours.

John
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 7:13 pm   #17
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

What great question. Hmm, curiously, my first recollection of wireless (radio) was not in my own (my parents) home but nextdoor's. On odd occasions I would be left with Mrs Newton who would give me her elder boys' Beano annuals to read. I distinctly remember all the black comic characters in them and certainly, in today's society their general 'feel' although not 'nasty' as such, would be deemed racist. But I digress, they had a Bush DAC 90. I was far too young to read the name on the front, but it's image was etched on my brain, this little, loaf sized, bakelite wireless set that stood on their chest of draws in the living room, and twenty years later as a collector I would learn was a 'DAK90'. My earliest TV memory was of our Pye TV with a 12" screen. Even though I have collected and restored most of the popular post war sets in my time, I don't have a clue which model it was. It wasn't a vee fronted one - it was before those - and it had ITV on it with a tuner that went around forever in clunky, scratchy steps. In later years I discovered that the intermittent picture quality could be 'fixed' by violently rotating the tuner control a few dozen times (but not while my dad was around!) - basically cleaning the dusty tuner switch in the process. I recall that you could advance the brightness control enough to show a washed out picture overlaid with a couple or three diagonal lines, and I also figured out how to use the contrast control in conjunction with the brightness control to get a good picture. It was of course greatly affected by sunlight and yes, you guessed it, it was positioned in a corner that got the early evening sun.
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Old 16th Nov 2016, 7:54 pm   #18
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

The first telly I really remember was a Murphy V929U at the age of five or six. That would be about 1973.
It was probably the first set we actually owned. We had just moved house. In the previous house there was a Rediffusion monochrome dual-standard set. I know that from family photographs, not personal experience. It got relegated to the loft when a big Decca colour set came.

The family radio was a Roberts R200, the first version. In Oxford Blue. It was always on continuously from breakfast to after tea, so imagine how many PP9's it had probably digested since 1962.
My parents received a radio as a wedding gift, but didn't like the tone. It was returned & with more cash they bought the Roberts. It's appearance deteriorated over the years: The strap broke, the finish faded and the back catch broke.

This radio is now mine. Forum Member Ron Bryan serviced the electronics while Howard was working on the case. Ron said it was about the worst example he had seen on account of the amount of components that required replacement.

As for the Murphy telly.... It is long-gone now, alas. But it did escape the loft in late 1985 and I used it for TV-DX, as well as normal viewing. My best achievement was the 'RUV-ISLAND' PM5544 test pattern from Iceland with just a wide-band Band 1 dipole and no amplification. It went because the CRT was getting low and a re-gun job was way beyond my means.
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Old 17th Nov 2016, 1:26 am   #19
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

The first thing I remember about TV was our old B/W TV had a rotary channel change control on the side and the channel we watched the most was channel 6 but I was too young to know if this was BBC1 or ITV. I can also remember the classic shrinking white dot when it was turned off. This would have been in the mid 1960s. Probably the biggest thrill was when we bought our first colour TV. It looked huge! I remember my dad being really excited and I can remember running down the street to tell my mates that we had got a colour TV.
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Old 17th Nov 2016, 8:22 am   #20
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Default Re: What is your earliest memory of radio, tvs etc

we had a Regentone Multi99radiogram,I have 5 now, the autochanger always fasinated me to keep me happy Softly Softly by Ruby Murray was always on the gram and when the record got broken the hole in the centre was an inch across my dad woud use his thumbs to centre it. Our first tv was a 9 inch PYE console, don't know the model number, it had belonged to my grandad and was given to us when he got a new tv ready for the start of ITV. The PYE went up in a cloud of smoke while we were watching the wooden tops. It was put in the loft of the house we lived in then and for all I know could still be there. The replacement was a Robinsons Rentals set. 17inch with On/off vol contrast ,channel change and fine tuning on the top of the set. would love to know who it was made by. The chassis was mounted vertically and I would be around the back of the set anytime the repair man was called out watching what he was doing and he would give me any faulty valves.
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