Earliest memories of 625

[Hybrid tellies]

My earliest memories of 625 line TV go back to the Christmas of 1967/1968. We had, on rental, a Pye dual standard 19" mono TV with the 6 push button tuner. Back then we only had BBC1 and ITV on 405 lines. My Dad in his wisdom decided to try and get BBC2 just by using the 405 line aerial. We ended up with a snowy picture. Unfortunately when he tried switching the set back to 405 the switch jammed. With the wrath of the family hanging over him he took the back off and managed to push the switch back over to 405 restoring household peace and harmony

Our first BBC2 set was a not so good GEC 19" dual standard, it was OK, but not as bright or sharp as the Pye set had been.

[unixmanuk]

Our first 625 line set was a Ferguson single standard 20" with the Thorn 1500 chassis and a four button "piano key" tuner, (you know, the one with the bar at the rear that detached itself over time and needed resoldering) back in 1970. It stood on legs and the massive corner unit we had the old EKCO perched on, had disappeared.

I remember coming home from school and being impressed at seeing the shiny new J-Beam MBM46 on the roof that has replaced the "X" and eight element band 3 array. The aerial rigger had "spliced" the new low loss cable (and it was then) into the old stuff in the loft though..

John

[michamoo]

The first time i saw 625 uhf was some time around 1968. I came home from school and our old Philco 405 only set had been replaced with a shiny new 19" Pye Olympic. Was just like this one below.

[ukcol]

As a young TV engineer in the 60s I remember the coming of BBC2 and 625. There were a lot of convertible sets about as well as fully operational dual-standard sets.

About 1968/9 I owned a 405 only HMV 1867 console set. I bought an IF strip and a tuner which were designed for one of the convertible sets and set about butchering the HMV to make it UHF/625 only.

Although it was a success and worked well for a number of years, looking back I regret what I did.

It was a nice 21" set with VHF radio and flywheel sync. It used a similar chassis the Ferguson 317T but was in a long cabinet on legs with a large speaker on the right hand side. I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing now but it seemed a good idea at the time.

I’ve got I photo of it somewhere, I’ll see if I can find it.

Colin M

[toshiba tony]

I remember our workshop stocked up on PC86 and PC88 valves, even some of the new ones were no better than the ones we had taken out.

[radioredcat]

At around 1969 our Ferranti 17SK4 broke down and we were loaned a Ferguson dual standard but I can't remember the model and we could receive BBC 2 on an indoor aerial as we did not need a roof aerial here.

The Ferguson set never broke down while we had it but we gave to my brother in 1973 when we got our first colour TV.

Andy

[ukcol]

Originally Posted by ukcol

I’ve got a photo of it somewhere, I’ll see if I can find it.

Loudspeaker on the left hand side as it turns out.

The "viewer's" name was Dixie.

Colin M

[radioredcat]

I forgot to say my parents were told that the Ferranti was not repairable so they decided to buy the Ferguson set.
The Ferranti was given back and we gave it to the science teacher at my school as he used to collect old TVs and that's when I leaned how to safely let air into a tube with a hammer and screwdriver .

Andy

[KeithsTV]

When we moved house in 1967 we exchanged our rented Ekco T326 for a dual standard Murphy with the TV141/TV148 chassis with set top aerials provided by the rental company. I remember watching Pot Black on BBC2 with the balls in different shades of grey and Kenneth Clark's civilisation.

Later in 1973 I converted a Ferguson 506T to 625 lines (Is that a 506T in your picture Colin?) following a couple of articles in Television and a surplus Philips IF strip.

Keith

[AndiiT]

Originally Posted by Hybrid tellies

....My Dad in his wisdom decided to try and get BBC2 just by using the 405 line aerial. ....

Hi,
We attempted a similar feat with our rented Granada set (which I think may have been an Ekco of some description but it just said Granada on the front).
In our case I'm pretty certain that we had a UHF aerial fitted pointing to Bilsdale but were still viewing from Pontop Pike/Burnhope on 405 line VHF.

It also appeared that the system switch had been disabled on our set as, from memory there was a 405/625 rotary knob on the right hand side of the set which also doubled up as the VHF fine tuner, the UHF tuner being of the continuously variable type.

I'm pretty certain that we did receive something that looked like a BBC2 broadcast but, as an adult, am not now convinced.

My truest memories of 625 lines were when we had our first colour set installed, once again rented from Granada; one of their versions of the Thorn 8000A.

Andrew

[Andrew2]

We got our first 625 line set when we moved from Manchester to the midlands in 1967. 'Twas a Pye Hybrid IIRC. One of my memories from that period was watching the American 'Andy Williams Show' with a black border all around it due to the somewhat basic standards conversion.
The move was only temporary and a year later we were back in Manchester, where I went to tech college. Every day I walked past a couple of telly shops and marvelled at the tennis in colour!

[radiolot]

For me it was Christmas 1980, on the colour Sony (? I think) 14" portable we had at that time as the main set. My clearest memory is seeing the premiere of the Snowman in 1982.

My grandparents had a dual standard until 1983. I vaguely remember granny turning a control on the front which moved a scale block changing the wave from UHF to VHF to Radio. They mostly watched 405, usually just the news, as granny was used to that freq' and the set wasn't colour anyway.

I regret not remembering transmitted 405 clearly though.

[Peter.N.]

My earliest memories were of system switches burning out.

Peter

[Heatercathodeshort]

I was 15 when BBC2 went on air one day late, in April 1964. I was determined to see these exciting new transmissions [Ha! Ha!] and set about converting an old Pye Continental 17" that dated from around 1956. This model like many in the Pye range at that time had a preset trimmer to adjust line speed in addition to the usual customer control. I managed to 'obtain' a UHF tuner from a friend in the rental business and connected it in place of the original incremental unit. With a home constructed aerial fitted in the loft just above my bedroom and fiddling with the preset trimmer, I managed to get a sort of picture on channel 33. Reading Practical Television I realized that the vision detector diode needed to be reversed and the cathode bias resistor of the video amplifier needed to be reduced in value to obtain reasonable amplification of the negative going signal. With this done I received a very good picture but no sound of course. An old FM I.F.strip removed from a Ferguson 436T was pressed into service and after fiddling with the alignment and rigging it's input to the video anode via a small capacitor, managed to get a fair bit of sound. It had a bit of intercarrier buzz as you can imagine but it did work! Great fun at 15.
Our first dual standard receiver was a Decca DR404, the one with two smoothing chokes that activate the system switch. Great model and reliable. Seems like yesterday. John.

[gec2110]

My Parents brought our first 625 set was a Ferguson 1500 ,with those awful piano keys
channel changer.
It lasted well in to the 80"s the first thing to go wrong was the tuner bar and the resistor for the sync seperator
otherwise a good set
Remember watching the Home made car, Tradetest colour film on BBC2

[Peter.N.]

A man after my own heart.

Peter

[Outrun_uk]

I remember getting home from school to see our first colour set which I think was the jump to 625 for us. All I can remember was 4 black round channel buttons in a vertical line then colour, contrast, vol and brightness knobs underneath. Possibly a Ferguson but really can't remember. It was quite unreliable though and eventually was replaced with a Hitachi Instavision which never missed a beat until it was upgraded.
I can however vividly remember our first VCR, a Sony SL8000ub. My brother had recorded Hong Kong Phooey for when I arrived home from school and I was in awe with the (wired) pause remote control with orange LED, having the ability to control in a limited way what happened on the screen!

[MrElectronicman]

I do not remember exactly when it was, but our old 405 line TV sets were playing up so my dad brought a Bush TV161u dual standard B/W, but we could not use for BBC-2 as full time 625 service has not yet started, and we did not have a UHF aerial.

I remember putting up the UHF aerial in the loft, and some time later changing the "keys" in the push buttons to switch one button to UHF and 625 lines

[dragonser]

Hi,
Well I can remember, just, going over to a neighbour's house and watching a children's program on BBC2 and then wondering why I could see it at home the next day at the same time. Well we didn't have BBC2 at the time. One of the sets we had about 1969 was I think dual standard and I can remember seeing a clip of the moon landings on it (I think I had to stay up way past my bedtime though)! ]. One of my earliest memories of Colour TV was going on holiday with my parents to the New Forest and the motel room had a Colour TV in it. This was probably early 1970's

I think that sometimes it is easy to forget how expensive the early Colour TV sets were.

[Aub]

We didn't get BBC2 in our house until 1971, when my dad brought a new TV, so I missed out on shows such as, "Rowan & Martins Laugh-in" and "The Virginian". Before then, we'd had a dual standard set or, should I say, a potential dual standard? There was a knob on the side, to change between 405 and 625, but the 625 position did nothing.

I was facinated, though, by those new exciting "BBC 2" aerials - the yagis that began to appear rapidly in the late 60's. Also, there were the halo style aerials which, I think, were usually supplied with the early colour sets. I never understood why a yagi wouldn't suffice.

Hope you're all not too depressed!

Cheers

Aub