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Old 11th Mar 2023, 6:02 pm   #81
G6Tanuki
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

Thinking about TV aerials, as a pimply-faced-youth (who had just got his driving-licence) I spent quite a few weekends delivering-and-installing TVs for a family friend who owned a local TV shop. [In exchange I got to use his Mini-van for 'nocturnal assignments' and had access to his RS Parts catalog].

Back then I was installing a lot of 625-only colour sets to replace first-generation dual-standard monos or early colour sets. Lots of people who'd gone for 625 early in its existence had UHF antennas that had been installed with the thin original coax rather than 'low-loss' - while that might have got them a watchable mono BBC2 signal it really wasn't good enough for colour.

Derrick, the TV-shop-owner, taught me the art of the 'upsell' - telling the customer they've just spent hundreds of pounds buying the latest colour-telly but their 15-year-old aerial means they're never going to get the full performance...

And of course we knew someone who could visit to install a new 625-line aerial/feeder and remove the old 405-line 'H' from their chimney at the same time.

The 'someone' similarly did the upsell-thing, two UHF antennas and 'low-loss' downleads were often sold, one pointing so the customer could get Midlands ATV, the other for North-West's Granada.

Oh, happy, profitable days! [I got a commission from the antenna-riggers if one of my customers bought an antenna-upgrade].


How time passes.
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Old 14th Mar 2023, 12:17 pm   #82
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

Quote:
Originally Posted by robinshack View Post
.........
On reaching almost the top of the ladder, my assembled pole and aerial that I was carrying touched the bare telephone wires. I started getting shocks which I think must have been from back emf on a phone circuit? Most unpleasant. I think the shocks made my muscles contract and grip harder, as I did not drop it.
Maybe you were unlucky enough that the phone line was actually ringing at the time?
To ring a phone there is a significant AC voltage put on the line. Was it a throbbing (AC) effect? (25 Hz I believe to ring)
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Old 14th Mar 2023, 8:10 pm   #83
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

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Originally Posted by colourking View Post
Maybe you were unlucky enough that the phone line was actually ringing at the time?
To ring a phone there is a significant AC voltage put on the line. Was it a throbbing (AC) effect? (25 Hz I believe to ring)
There's a static 50V DC on an old phone-line, which gets replaced by 50V 25Hz '[ring signal]' when there's an incoming call, and grounding the static 50V when you lift the receiver 'seizes' exchange circuits in readiness for you to place a call.

Touching a static phone line puts you across the exchange's 50V supply...

All long since obsolete; I don't remember when I last saw a bare-wire suspended-on-porcelain-insulators subscriber-pair.
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Old 14th Mar 2023, 9:35 pm   #84
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

G6Tanuki wrote:- he 'someone' similarly did the upsell-thing, two UHF antennas and 'low-loss' downleads were often sold, one pointing so the customer could get Midlands ATV, the other for North-West's Granada.

Yes I often spotted similar set ups with yagi's pointing in different directions to get regional variations. These days it would seem overkill but of course in those days, we only had 3 x channels so probably worth the effort & expense.
In late 60's, our 405 Line TV came from Sutton Coldfield but when BBC2 625 lines arrived, the new yagi was pointed towards Waltham. The TV was a dual standard Monochrome Stella.

I can't recall if dad had to pay for the new aerial or it came as part of the rental package from the Co Op ?

Rog

Last edited by Roger Ramjet; 14th Mar 2023 at 9:36 pm. Reason: Add word
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Old 14th Mar 2023, 10:01 pm   #85
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

At Setchey, Kings Lynn on the East Coast we have Maxview.
https://maxview.co.uk/product-catego...radio-aerials/
I remember back in 1966, my Saturday and holiday job, occasionally seeing their grey haired rep visiting our workshop.
Yes, we did buy their Band 1 & 3 aerials and diplexers.
Rob
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Old 15th Mar 2023, 10:55 am   #86
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Ramjet View Post
G6Tanuki wrote:- he 'someone' similarly did the upsell-thing, two UHF antennas and 'low-loss' downleads were often sold, one pointing so the customer could get Midlands ATV, the other for North-West's Granada.

Yes I often spotted similar set ups with yagi's pointing in different directions to get regional variations. These days it would seem overkill but of course in those days, we only had 3 x channels so probably worth the effort & expense.
In late 60's, our 405 Line TV came from Sutton Coldfield but when BBC2 625 lines arrived, the new yagi was pointed towards Waltham. The TV was a dual standard Monochrome Stella.
Yes the big thing about the 'two antennas on different ITV regions' thing was that with quite a few of the popular series back then - typically the Lew Grade ITC productions - different ITV regions would either be showing different episodes on a given day, so you could choose which one to watch, or if you were really lucky they would show different episodes of the series on different days of the week, so you could get double your viewing-value and see ~Thunderbirds~, 'The Saint' or "Department S" twice in a week.

Our two 405-line TV antennas pointed at Lichfield for ATV and Winter Hill for Granada. When 625 came on the scene we found the signal from Sutton Coldfield was pretty hopeless, because The Wrekin was in the way. The problem got resolved some time later when a transmitter was built on The Wrekin! Some people had their 625 antennas re-oriented to point at The Wrekin Tx but ours had a sufficiently wide beamwidth [and the Wrekin signal was so much stronger anyway] that no visit from a man-with-a-ladder to swivel the antenna was deemed necessary.
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Old 15th Mar 2023, 6:33 pm   #87
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by colourking View Post
Maybe you were unlucky enough that the phone line was actually ringing at the time?
To ring a phone there is a significant AC voltage put on the line. Was it a throbbing (AC) effect? (25 Hz I believe to ring)
There's a static 50V DC on an old phone-line, which gets replaced by 50V 25Hz '[ring signal]' when there's an incoming call, and grounding the static 50V when you lift the receiver 'seizes' exchange circuits in readiness for you to place a call.

Touching a static phone line puts you across the exchange's 50V supply...

All long since obsolete; I don't remember when I last saw a bare-wire suspended-on-porcelain-insulators subscriber-pair.
Yes but the AC ringing is much more likely to shock ( a bit more than 50 Volts AC). I have in the past touched two fingers (same hand) across a phoneline and felt nothing from the on-hook DC voltage (dry skin though and I didn't press hard on the terminals either, just touched them) . The DC voltage was nearly 50 volts.
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Old 15th Mar 2023, 7:01 pm   #88
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

I've never employed anyone to erect a TV aerial.

We live in a semi with a lounge extension with a flat roof, so it's easy enough to put a ladder up to the flat roof, then another up to the eaves of the roof.
The roof tiles are substantial concrete with a rough surface finish, so it was easy enough to walk up them to the chimney and stick an aerial up. The last time I changed the aerial, was twenty years ago, when I was 60.

That's no longer used since we had cable TV installed.
But over forty years ago I put an old 1950s dipole aerial in the loft for my audio gear in the other downstairs reception room.
I used the thin co-ax cable available at the time.

When Freeview TV came out, I plugged it into a TV I put in there and got a perfect picture. I have since changed the cable.
I couldn't be bothered to run a different cable down the other side of the roof.
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Old 15th Mar 2023, 7:39 pm   #89
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

Quote:
Originally Posted by colourking View Post
Yes but the AC ringing is much more likely to shock ( a bit more than 50 Volts AC). I have in the past touched two fingers (same hand) across a phoneline and felt nothing from the on-hook DC voltage (dry skin though and I didn't press hard on the terminals either, just touched them) . The DC voltage was nearly 50 volts.
The AC ringing voltage is superimposed on the 48v -Ve DC, so it's the negative peaks which do the shocking.

Do telephone ringers shock? Yes, look up "Tucker Telephone" if you have a strong disposition.

David
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Old 15th Mar 2023, 8:22 pm   #90
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

If asked what it had felt like, before I had read these comments, I would have said it was giving a trembling sensation, so does seem it was the ac ringing voltage.
Rob
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Old 15th Mar 2023, 8:29 pm   #91
Dave Moll
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

... but was it continuous or cadenced (as in "ouch, ouch ... ouch, ouch ... ouch, ouch")?
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Old 15th Mar 2023, 9:18 pm   #92
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

Can't recall exactly, so one or the other!
Rob
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Old 15th Mar 2023, 11:22 pm   #93
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

My Aunt & Uncle in Higham Ferrers had 2 UHF Ariels fitted, one for Waltham & the other for Sandy Heath (I think).
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Old 15th Mar 2023, 11:50 pm   #94
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

This thread and the mention of 405 line transmissions, reminds me of the early sixties when I was around twenty-one and I managed a branch of a chain of radio, TV and electrical appliance stores, in London.

We were a self-contained unit. There was me, a salesman, a cashier, a driver and an engineer, (who could use a soldering iron and read a circuit diagram). We were all around the same age.
TV reception was never a problem, a set-top aerial was all many people needed.

The biggest problem, was the quality of some of the sets.
We had a big rental business, the most popular sets were the Ferguson FR21 and the Ultra1775.
The latter had a design fault, after a few months the picture would start to roll.
A "quick fix" was to replace the PCL82 valve.

The engineer visited one old lady who reported this problem.
.
She told him she'd screwed the control in as far as it would go, but it wasn't rubbing hard enough against the screen to stop it rolling!
He fixed it and noticed it also had a partial frame collapse, leaving a big black line at the top and bottom of the screen.

"I'll fix that for you."

"What?"

"Those lines at the top and bottom of the screen."

"Is that a fault? I thought everything was being shown in CinemaScope like at the pictures!"


Happy days!
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Old 15th Mar 2023, 11:53 pm   #95
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

In the nineteen eighties, I had several and still have, aerials in the Rammy roof. Only one was actually external on a chimney stack pointed south at the new
Rammy Relay. One Xmas Day Night there was a, much anticipated, Coronation Street Special and also a power cut [not unusual then] which left our end of the valley still ok but took out the Winter Hill TV Signal from the Relay. I dashed up stairs and swopped leads over to the Haslingen TX for the house feed. I was the hero of the hour briefly

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Old 16th Mar 2023, 1:35 pm   #96
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

Further to the Frame Collapse [previous post]. I had this with a rented set in the early seventies. The engineer came late in the evening minus his tools [I didn't ask why?] so he borrowed a screwdriver and my soldering iron
I'd been watching the original Hunch back of Notre Dame film. Charles Laugton in crisp B+W and wide screen with the black bands Doghouse mentions. It looked pretty good and I was a bit sorry the "fault" was fixed although some program material looked better back in the 4x3 format.

Viewers may remember that, in later years, the BBC deliberately broadcast some programs to demonstrate "widescreen" with the black bands although some people then started complaining that they didn't pay the license Fee to "lose" a proportion of the screen. I thought these transmissions were great and I still have a 21" Matsui? 4x3 set with white stickers I put on the case to remind me of the "cinema" shape. One Xmas they broadcast 2001 A Space Odyssey. I was really looking forward to this but they replaced the black infill with silver Xmas Tinsel that destroyed the entire atmosphere of the film Stupidity all round.

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Old 16th Mar 2023, 4:05 pm   #97
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

A yagi on a pole was a godsend for my better half when we had a camper van. Rutland water was the best spot because you could see the Waltham mast in the distance... she could sit watching soaps with a panoramic view of the reservoir through the window by the side our basic 12v CRT TV. This was her Nirvana !

On a campsite just north of Cromer I pointed the yagi due North & managed to pick up some faint channels [maybe from across the Wash] ? Then I spotted a hilltop relay mast just inland so rotated the yagi & got brilliant signal, albeit analogue 5 x channels.

I suppose nowadays it would be streaming via a smartphone - mirrored to a modern TV.

Rog

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Old 16th Mar 2023, 6:25 pm   #98
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Default Re: Demise of the TV aerial.

Quote:
the BBC deliberately broadcast some programs to demonstrate "widescreen" with the black bands
One of my pet hates is broadcasters refusing to show old programmes in the correct aspect WITH black vertical side bands, if necessary. At the moment ITV4 are re-showing 'Robin Of Sherwood' and they are showing it stretched to 16:9, apart from a split-second before each ad when it briefly reverts to the correct 4:3 aspect. Maddening.

This is swerving some way away from the core subject of TV aerials, but may deserve a thread of its own.
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