A Ferguson portable that wasn't?

[Colourstar]

Monochrome portables don't exactly set the pulses racing, but I'm intrigued by a model spotted in a 1986 Ferguson brochure entitled 'Design for the Future'.

The one at the top of the page, the 38030 was very popular and the 14" 38050 is also familiar, but what about the one in the middle, the 38060, which takes the 12" crt of the top set and the 'monitor' styling of the bottom set. In fact it could be their lovechild!

I can honestly say I have never seen one, not in shops or catalogues at the time and latterly not on ebay, not at car boot sales... It makes me wonder if it actually went into production.

Out of interest, has anyone encountered one in real life?

Steve

[Vauxfan2k]

I had the set on the top, pretty sure it was both mains and 12v powered. The casing had yellowed over time so I had it painted black and it looked a lot more modern.

[unitaudio]

The top set, I remember when you couldn't move for them, I've had 2. Never seen the other 2. The middle one may have seemed too blatant to put into production since the set it was so obviously based on was already everywhere. Having said that, plenty of other manufacturers never worried about that...

Regards,
Paul

[Nickthedentist]

I agree with your thoughts Steve.

The 38030 was v. popular c.1984. ISTR it was as cheap as the Korean (etc.) imports, but was a true British product. It worked well enough for what it was though the PCB-mounted mains transformers often buzzed. It employed the Motorola "Monomax" jungle chip.

The 38050 14" "monitor-style" set was a real looker IMHO, and made the 38030 seem pig-ugly in comparison. It seemed to often be bundled with home computers like the Electron, but cost at least a tenner more than the 12" 38030.

As for the 38060, no, I've never seen one either illustrated or in the wild. I suspect you're right, they may never have been produced.

N.

[jayceebee]

Same here, at D.E.R. the 38030 was often given to customers as a free rental product as long as they had a CTV account, any returned as terminations were used as loan sets. The 38050 was sold in huge numbers by Argos and the like, to me the 38060 styling looks rather ugly.

John.

[FERNSEH]

Sold quite a few 38030 sets and the 14" version but I've never seen the model that appears in the middle of the brochure.

The circuit was designed around the "Monomax" IC. This device was developed for low cost TV receivers. These UK made sets did help to stem the import of cheap sets from the Far East, only for a while though.

Fidelity Radio Ltd marketed their UK made 12" portable TV sets about the same time as the Ferguson 38030 was being made.

DFWB.

[neil29]

I had a 38030 as a Christmas present around 1986 and it was my first new tv . but it went a couple of years later to my sister when I had another new tv for Christmas a Hinari TVA1 .


Cheers
Neil.

[cashaw1972]

I got a 38030 free when I bought my first video recorder from Rumbelows. (Did Ferguson actually sell any of these !)

But to be honest, I found the picture soft, it suffered from buzz and the build quality felt cheap. Especially the controls which felt small and fiddly.

I already had a Sanyo AC/DC set which sold for around the same price but just seemed to perform better and gave an amazing picture.

[Colourstar]

Thanks for the replies everyone and for confirming the popularity of the 38030. At launch I think it even made the cover of Television mag sometime in 1983. (Editor John Reddihough always seemed pleased to champion home grown sets).

My dad bought a 38030 from the East Midlands Electricity Board (EMELEC) shop for my mum as a kitchen tv. I could never decide whether the set looked incredibly cheap or neat and functional. There was no coloured trim or brightwork at all on the case- just cream plastic all the way. It was probably the last UK-made b&w portable and seemed to have a reasonably long production run of three or four years.

The 38060 must remain elusive then- presumed never made!

I must admit I started this thread and immediately regretted it in case it was too boring, so I'm grateful for the interest!

Steve

[hamid_1]

I have quite a collection of monochrome portable tellies - partly by accident as not many other people are interested in them, so they end up being given to me.

I can honestly say that I've never seen the one the middle (38060) either. But there are one or two other Ferguson monochrome portables that I haven't come across in real life, only on paper. The 17" Ferguson 3831 is one such model that I've not actually encountered. It used the 1600 chassis, which Heatercathodeshort of this forum said was a bit of a disaster and sometimes caught fire (!) Consequently they were soon withdrawn from sale and are therefore rare. I can't imagine any such problems with this 1986 series of Ferguson monochrome portables - they were very reliable and safe.

The 38030 and 38050 were sold by a number of retailers in 1986 including Boots The Chemist and Argos : see a page from the 1986 Argos catalogue here https://www.***********/photos/lavala...7619081815831/

The 14" Ferguson 38050 was much more stylish in my opinion but the 12" model 38030 is much more common and must have outsold its bigger brother by a large margin, because of its lower cost. Indeed some of the low-priced 12" sets were given away as sales gimmicks. I have an example of the monitor-style 38050 in my collection, but oddly I don't have the more common 38030.

Thorn were competing against Far-Eastern imports which were selling for a similar price (£50 or less). There can't have been a lot of profit in it for Thorn. Presumably, if the mystery 38060 model was ever produced, it must have been dropped quickly due to being unprofitable.

I suspect however that the clue is in the title of the brochure "Design for the Future". I reckon it was a proposed model, not produced in any great quantity if at all, due to there being no money in it. The brochure also talks about monochrome monitors for computer use. In 1986 all home computers offered colour graphics displays. A monochrome monitor would have limited appeal. Business computers still used monochrome displays back then, but usually came with dedicated monitors. Again, I've never seen any Thorn mono monitors like that, and I suspect they didn't make many of them after all.

[emeritus]

Our former next door neighbour worked for Ferguson in the 1980's and '90's and I remember him saying that their budget B/W TVs were assembled as quickly and cheaply as possible.The operatives were not supposed to spend time aligning them accurately, but many did anyway as years of experience meant that they could do it quickly and they liked to do the job properly.

He mentioned that Ferguson had manufactured Aifix's own version of a model railway train controller system that operatued similarly to, but was completely different from, Hornby's Zero 1 ststem, where the track is energised by AC and an electronic module in each loco allows it to be controlled independently of other locos without the need for track sections. They were left with a lot of unsaleable stock when Airfix went bust and didn't know what to do with them, having been provided with no technical info on how the system worked. I think that eventually they went for scrap, which would not have helped their finances. He gave me one, and the kids used it for a couple of years as a play control panel, as it had plug-in curly lead controllers with knob and switches to twiddle, and the base unit and some slide selector switches. I never attempted to fit the chips to my old Hornby Dublo locos, and AFAIR it ended up in the electrical goods recycle bin many years ago.

[Welsh Anorak]

The 38030 was the set that would have given the cheapo imports a run for their money - just five years too late as everyone wanted colour.
Most of the faults we had were the two front controls and the odd PSU failure. Anything more involved and the customer wasn't interested.
I have one on the shelf with the usual junky tuning pot. Actually it comes in useful occasionally when we're fitting a 'Sky eye' to another room to check the signal's coming through OK - it's quicker than waiting for the interminable analogue search tuning on a modern TV!
Glyn

[FERNSEH]

Look for the article in Television magazine about the concept and design of the Ferguson 38030. Might be 1984.

DFWB.

[Focus Diode]

The styling of the middle set reminds me a little of the 960 range of portables. The speaker is in the same position!

[wd40addict]

Interesting titbit above about the Airfix controller. I was with my dad at the London model railway show where the Zero 1 and Airfix systems were being launched. At the time the Airfix system seemed to have the edge in a couple of respects, although I can't now remember what they were.

I wonder if it was offered to them by a lone inventor and they then went to a known electronics company (Ferguson) to produce it?

Airfix were never a big player in model railways so presumably Hornby's name and dealer network got them ahead. Even the standard DC controller market was volatile and Hammant and Morgan (H&M) were swallowed by Hornby in the early eighties.

[FERNSEH]

Originally Posted by FERNSEH

Look for the article in Television magazine about the concept and design of the Ferguson 38030. Might be 1984.

DFWB.

And here it is, in the February 1983 Television magazine. The Motorola MC13002P video processor IC is fully described.

DFWB.

[Clydeuk]

There were a couple of very nasty things about these sets that I can remember. The weight of the transformer tended to break the print, the mains switch was cheap and nasty and could fall apart, but the worst from a servicing point of view was the mains input wires were terminated on 2 uninsuated tags just inside the back cover, right at the edge of the PCB. As hard as i tried, I always got bitten by it, every time.

[Vauxfan2k]

Just managed to get the top set, the exact same type I had years and years ago.

In very nice condition too


I was correct in my earlier post about it being 240 and 12v.

[Heatercathodeshort]

Incredible performers. Loads of gain and as stable as a Rock. Fiddly tuning control yes but I can't remember it actually giving any trouble. Thorn certainly produced the best UK built monochrome portables. I can't think of a single manufacturer that produced such well made, reliable good performers as the 'Ferguson' range. Some came close but most were only 'fair.'
I used to put a couple of lengths of sleeving on the mains input tags.
They were a good wake up call for those who had overindulged the night before. Regards, John.

[unitaudio]

That's my experience of the 38030 too. It creaked when it was picked up but with the rooftop aerial plugged in it gave an absolutely stable clear picture. It never gave me any trouble (which is as well, I don't do tellies) and it was never opened up in my ownership.

The only thing that wasn't great was the built in speaker. I used to plug a separate speaker into the earphone jack and it sounded much better.

I gave it to an ex-girlfriend years ago. Shouldn't have!

Regards,
Paul