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Vintage Television and Video Vintage television and video equipment, programmes, VCRs etc.

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Old 3rd Oct 2016, 10:32 am   #1
Panrock
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Default Television in the car

From another thread:
Quote:
Originally Posted by 60 oldjohn View Post
I understand the BBC used a few TBM272s in their outside broadcast units as monitors. I would also expect remote farms and dwelling without mains supply would be high on list of customers. A few may have been installed in "high end cars" but I would not expect them to be very successful.
Given that a working television visible from the driver's seat is illegal, this thread refers to (analogue) television sets for use by rear seat passengers, as installed many years ago in a few "high end cars". I'm not interested in modern installations that play DVDs. I understand the Ekco TMB272 was a popular choice for this application in the old days.

But what were the results like in a moving car? What aerials were used for VHF and UHF reception on the move?

Back in the '70s, I tried this myself using a dual-standard transistor set with its whip aerial poking out of a window, but obtained generally poor results. On Band I, the reception was fairly stable but suffered badly from ignition interference from other cars. On UHF Band IV, there was much less interference but terrible 'flutter' as the signal varied as we drove along. I wonder if professional installations used diversity reception to overcome this?

Does anyone know how well television in the car worked when it was installed properly?

Steve
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Old 3rd Oct 2016, 11:05 am   #2
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Default Re: Television in the car

I believe Sony did manufacture a mono or colour UHF set for car use, with a dedicated
parabolic dish aerial. I assume only Rolls Royce owners could afford it !
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Old 3rd Oct 2016, 11:19 am   #3
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Default Re: Television in the car

I had a Sony portable colour telly in my old Landrover, I used to watch it in Tesco's car park while my wife was doing the shopping.

Lawrence.
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Old 3rd Oct 2016, 11:20 am   #4
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Default Re: Television in the car

R-R Silver Wraith

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Old 3rd Oct 2016, 11:33 am   #5
60 oldjohn
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Default Re: Television in the car

My Ekco TBM272, in retirement.
John.
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Old 3rd Oct 2016, 11:39 am   #6
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Default Re: Television in the car

I have never tried TV in a car, but some of the canal boats we used to hire for holidays had them. They usually had short Yagi aerials, and while reception on the move was possible, pictures usually suffered from noise and/or multipath.
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Old 3rd Oct 2016, 12:13 pm   #7
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Default Re: Television in the car

I can just see Test Card C on the R-R advert - I assume that's as good as the contrast would get with all that glass!
I would be surprised if they were meant to be used on the move, though might have been handy for the chauffeur waiting for his boss - if he was allowed in the back, that is.
Glyn
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Old 3rd Oct 2016, 12:27 pm   #8
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Default Re: Television in the car

My first experiment with a TV in a car, (well it was actually my Ford Thames van) was with that marvel of those times the all transistor Pye TT1.
The TT1 was designed to work from a car battery or even it's internal NiCad battery pack.
The set worked fine on Band 1 but as Steve mentioned ignition interference was a problem. This was the sixties and there was plenty cars still on the roads without any proper interference suppression.

DFWB.
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Old 3rd Oct 2016, 3:11 pm   #9
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Default Re: Television in the car

Old friend of mine from way back, Arthur Parkes of Parkes Radio Dudley got himself into the paper as the first or one of the first to do this, I think the basic setup was the TMB272 plus hefty rotary converter to supply mains voltage AC, must have been a mighty drain on the batteries!.
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Old 3rd Oct 2016, 3:34 pm   #10
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Default Re: Television in the car

Why the rotary convertor I wonder, as the TMB272 has a vibrator power supply built in.
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Old 3rd Oct 2016, 6:47 pm   #11
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Default Re: Television in the car

Hi my Mercedes ML had a command sat nav that had an add on TV unit to play analogue TV (never found the add on unit) and TV was disabled when the car moved.

Dave
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Old 3rd Oct 2016, 7:36 pm   #12
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Default Re: Television in the car

Quote:
Originally Posted by HamishBoxer View Post
Why the rotary convertor I wonder,as the TMB272 has a vibrator power supply built in.
Hi hamish,
It's a dim and distant memory of what was really just a publicity stunt, i'm not absolutely sure what was used, like you say the tmb272 is sort of portable, old Arthur may have used some other tv, I was talking to an old works colleague who also remembers it well.
Greg.
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Old 4th Oct 2016, 7:30 am   #13
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Default Re: Television in the car

It looks like actual experience of how much it was used on the move, and how well it then worked, will be hard to come by. For that, you would probably have needed to have worked in the chauffeur trade.

My guess is that reception on the move was never stable, particularly on UHF. Also, interference suppression had to be top-notch, just as it had to be with early VHF car radios.

Steve
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Old 4th Oct 2016, 1:00 pm   #14
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Default Re: Television in the car

Hello.
Would I not be correct in saying the 1999 Rover 75 had analogue TV in the connoisseur SE models with the Hi Line ICE set up?
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Old 4th Oct 2016, 1:43 pm   #15
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Default Re: Television in the car

You would indeed. As it happens I still have my Rover 75 Connoisseur, bought in 2003, but not the SE model - so it lacks the High Line setup. Since the screen was in the front, the television mode cut out when the car was in motion.

So we'll never know what it would have made of reception on the move!

Steve
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Old 4th Oct 2016, 3:59 pm   #16
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Default Re: Television in the car

A friend of mine repaired then used the Sony dual standard portable set on the passenger seat of his van. Plugged into the cigarette lighter socket and a telescopic aerial fitted to the outside of the passenger seat window he got quite good results on 405.
Around Bath he could pick up the band 3 405 line signals from the Bathampton relay quite well. As you went out into the country reception from Wenvoe on ch5 and St Hilary on ch10 was more patchy. UHF 625 reception from the Bathampton relay or main station at Mendip was not quite so good and in many places non existent. It was interesting to note that car ignition interference even on band 1 was not a problem, presumably the suppression on the Ford Escort mk2 van must have been good. I know it was back in the mid to late 1970's but he never got caught either by the police or by our boss.
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Old 4th Oct 2016, 4:28 pm   #17
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Default Re: Television in the car

When I visited Japan for business, around 2001, at one point I was driven in a car which had TV on the screen in the centre of the dash. Presumably Japanese law didn't require it to be disabled when the car was in motion and the driver was paying as much attention to it as the other traffic! Picture quality was fine.
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Old 4th Oct 2016, 9:00 pm   #18
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Default Re: Television in the car

I had a friend who had an Audi A8 which had a 625 line analogue system a few years back which appeared to have a diversity aerial system which gave reasonable reception on the move in the Manchester area, I assume from Winter hill, it had screens in the dash and the two head restraints with the dash screen going into sat nav on the move. He said hacks were available to enable the front screen on the move as not all countries ban the use. That said he didn't like the car much and swapped it for a Lexus which only had a DVD player again with the front screen disabled on the move.
Chris
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Old 5th Oct 2016, 5:42 am   #19
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Default Re: Television in the car

Quote:
Originally Posted by chriswood1900 View Post
I had a friend who had an Audi A8 which had a 625 line analogue system a few years back which appeared to have a diversity aerial system...
I'm interested in what type of aerials these were. Perhaps built into the windows with some sort of combiner and wide band pre-amp?

It's hard to see how any UHF car analogue system wouldn't suffer from at least some flutter and ghosting, especially in urban areas.

Steve
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Old 5th Oct 2016, 6:14 am   #20
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Default Re: Television in the car

Many years ago, before the advent of today's mobile 'devices', I tried using a portable TV on a train, using its built-in telescopic aerial. It attracted a great deal of attention from fellow passengers, but reception was too variable to provide worthwhile entertainment.
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