Ferguson 3645 16" 1400 chassis.

[radioredcat]

I had 2 17" identical ferguson portables brown coloured case for tv dxing the first one (as in the pic) i acquired in 1980 and modified the system switch.

The second ferguson was like brand new and was modified and they were excellent receivers i would say bomb proof the only faults were caused by faulty valves.
These sets were on most of the day every day so they had a hard life the uhf tuner was rubbish though.

andy

[Mikey405]

That's a really nice set John, and well worth sorting out. Many many years ago I used to have one of these sets with a terribly battered cabinet and a rusty chassis which was kept in a horrible damp shed and which I was going to use for spares. One day a pal of mine came round and saw it and asked if he could have it so I said okay and we dragged it out of the shed. When I wasn't looking he'd wedged the ends of the mains wires into a mains socket underneath an old plug and powered the set up (without so much as a toaster in series). The set came up and gave a slightly non-linear but perfectly bright and watchable picture. If he'd asked beforehand I'd have said that it was far more likely to catch fire than produce a watchable picture. I think it was the same as your HMV version John - It was green rexine too.

[Heatercathodeshort]

That does not surprise me at all Mike. They use good quality capacitors and the printed circuit boards of all Thorn receivers have generous print and very well thought out.
I don't remember a model with a combined toaster but looking throuigh the service data sheets discovered a small portable version 'intended' for the kitchen. It is designated the
1400/T and appears to have a toaster device slotted into the top of the cabinet. I've never seen one....
Regards, John.

P.S. I like your mates style..

[gec2110]

i knew these sets had an impolsion guard of some sort and i think that they used to go a bit olive green with age

[BGmidsUK]

John, your set is identical to mine. I did have to re-tune the VHF channels in use here (6, 8 & 13) and will set the others up in due course but I suspect they hadn't been set for quite some time if at all. It's a fantastic performer, even on UHF with very little inter-carrier buzz. I will need to have a look at the caps in the frame stage as the bottom is creeping up a bit after an hour or so.

The cabinet is clean with only minor scratches but the UHF knob looks a little tarnished, I did give it a bit of a clean up yesterday which has made an improvement.

These sets are surprisingly light!


Brian

[Capacitorman]

The Callins capacitors were made in Shannon, and actually where quite good caps. If you wish to know more about these parts, please visit

http://callinscapacitor.com.

It is a USA website all about Callins capacitors.

Thank you for your post.

[Heatercathodeshort]

The unreliability problem with this particular type of capacitor employed in the UK in mostly Thorn television receivers in the 1970's and 70's, was confined to the black plastic cased single ended types with a dark red sealer.
They really were very bad going short circuit in even very low voltage circuits. The Thorn 2000 suffered with them as did the 3000 colour chassis. Both 1400 and 1500 monochrome chassis suffered breakdowns caused by these capacitors as any TV engineer of the period will confirm.
When overhauling these receivers it was normal practise to replace all the black cased series callins capacitors on sight to ensure reliable operation.
I have no doubt that Callins did produce excellent capacitors. It is just this design that gave the problems.
HUNTS a capacitor company in this Country did manufacture excellent components including high voltage electrolytics but a minor number of their designs were not successful. This is common with all manufacturers, you can't get it right all the time.
I would also add that this particular design of Callins capacitor often failed very early on in it's design life [less than 18 months service] The unreliability of this particular design I feel confident does not represent the other 99% of excellent capacitors that Callins manufactured. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since the days of the nasty ones. Regards, John.

[dazzlevision]

Hello,

I would have to agree with Heatercathodeshort's comments about the "consumer" grade "Callins" electrolytics used in many UK manufactured TV and radio products in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s. They had short lives and undermined the reliability of the products into which they were fitted.

However, I have often wondered where the "Callins" name originated, so many thanks to "Capacitorman" for posting the link to the definitive history of the brand and the person responsible for it.

Regards,

Dazzlevision