Colour TV Gallery Page 4 (BETA)

South West England Vintage Television Museum
Colour Television Gallery Page 4 (BETA)

Updated: 20th November 2008

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When the TV Museum is finally in it's new premises in Devon, these sets will all be on display properly. At the moment a lot of the sets are in storage, however, if you would like to see any of them in the flesh in Solihull, UK or if you have a pre 1970 colour set for sale, please email me at mike@tvmuseum.co.uk.

Click on the Quick-Links below to find a particular TV.

Alba CTV Description.

Evil Alba Single Standard Colour TV

This first set was a model that I'd been after for many years when this one was extremely kindly donated to the museum by the excellent Steve Pendlebury from Lancashire. (See the "Links" page for Steve's site.) It is almost identical to the Murphy equivalent model CV1912 and it uses the same folded-up version of the Rank MK3 Hybrid Dual-Standard chassis. (See page 2 of the CTV Gallery for the Murphy CV1912.) When I say that the set uses the "Folded-up version" of the chassis, I mean that the standard chassis fitted to the 25" versions of the set was too big to fit in a 19" cabinet so they took the I.F. panel, turned it around 90 degress and then up-ended the decoder and mounted it parallel to the I.F. panel. It's a somewhat unusual arrangement but it seems to work fine. Click here for a picture of the circuit board layout from the Murphy version. (It's identical to the Bush.) Click here to change the picture back.

Bush CTV163

Bush CTV163 Dual Standard Colour TV

This next colour set is an Ekco although I'm not entirely sure whether it's a model CT100 or a CT101. I bought it from a great chap called Danny from Norwich for a small fortune, but it is a fantastic set and worth every penny that it cost my Barclaycard. The set is a prototype colour receiver which was originally designed and built as a 625 line NTSC set, but was subsequently factory-converted to 625 line PAL-S (Simple PAL). I'll post some more information and pictures of this set when I have some.

Ekco CT101

Ekco CT101 Single Standard Colour TV

This set is a Ferguson 3727 and it uses the Thorn 8004 chassis, which is a development of the earlier 8000 chassis. This particular set is in very good condition and looks like it has had very little use; the condition of the tube would also indicate its low use. These sets (and the similar 8000, 8000A, 8500, 9800 chassis sets) were pretty much unloved by the trade but I've never had too much to moan about with them, and this one is a cracker of a set.

Ferguson 3727 Single Standard Colour TV

This next set is a GEC 2112 and came from a pal of mine called Tony in Exmouth. It really only needed minor adjustments to get it to go and it did have a very good picture until the tripler went bad and caused nasty fuzzy blurry lines all over the picture. I have a new (second hand) tripler to go in it, but I haven't had a chance to fit it yet. These sets were generally very hard on their tubes, but this one seems to have survived pretty well on its original tube. At least I think it's on its original tube.

GEC 2112 Single Standard Colour TV

I guess this set is really a little bit modern for these pages but I thought I would include it anyway. This set was the first colour TV we ever had and, despite having one of those awful Hitachi directly-heated-cathode type tubes, the picture is still first class. The benefit of this type of tube was that the picture appeared almost immediately the set was switched on; the downside being that the tubes never used to last very long at all. When you ordered a new tube for this set, Hitachi would send you an indirectly-heated version of the tube and a little modification kit. The set has only ever broken down twice - once when the boost capacitor went short circuit soon after we bought it, and again recently when the replacement boost capacitor went short circuit again. The company that initially repaired the set (Fords of Sidmouth) fitted a prehistoric Hunts Mouldseal capacitor in place of the original, so I'm very surprised that the set lasted as long as it did.

Hitachi CBP220 Single Standard Colour TV

This next TV is a Hitachi CNP190. These sets, despite being very popular and fairly reliable, never really did anything for me. They always seemed to have a pretty wishy-washy picture and I never liked them. They had a horrible tuning system where the carbon tracks for the tuning controls were printed directly onto the circuit board; this meant that when they wore down after many years use you couldn't fix them without replacing the entire assembly, which of course was long obsolete. They were always a bit heavy on their tubes too; the picture being displayed below being the clearest brightest picture that I could muster from a tube that was completely clapped out. The colour was working, but because the set wouldn't stay tuned in (those horrible dodgy tuning pots) I didn't manage to photograph it with any colour on the screen.

Hitachi CNP190 Single Standard Colour TV

This is the Invicta version of the much loved (by me) and much hated (almost universally by everyone else except a few other brave or foolish masochists) Pye CT205. The Pye CT205 is one of those sets that started life as a cracking idea but really lost a lot in production. The Pye CT70, the set that used the original dual-standard version of this chassis was a masterpiece - well built, wonderful picture, excellent sound, and terribly reliable. Hmm, well, actually, it wasn't all that reliable but it was at least well built and had a good picture. Oh, and come to think of it, the sound wasn't all that good either, but you get the idea... Anyway, by the time it had been hacked about and made into the much cheaper Pye CT205 / Invicta CT7052 etc., it had lost its 405-line capability, it had also lost any kind of EHT regulation, and this made the picture flutter wildly with transient brightness changes. But it wasn't all losses - It did gain a nasty printed circuit line timebase board which used to crack and cause all manner of faults, it also gained a horrible chipboard cabinet with plastic-wood that was glued on: the focus control and other plastic items now simply stapled to the inside of the cabinet, their over-use meaning that they would gracelessly fall inside the set. These sets, more than any other I can think of, had a huge pile of stock faults which did make them fairly easy to maintain, and, until a good few years ago, they could be found at recycling centres, jumble sales etc. on a fairly regular basis. I recently parted with this particular set and gave it to a mate of mine called Neil in South Wales as I already had the Pye version and I thought that having 2 was depriving some other lucky soul of some wonderful Invicta CT7052-shaped enjoyment.

Invicta CT7052 Single Standard Colour TV

This is a Murphy CV2214 and is about as boring as TV cabinet design comes. This particular model came from an excellent chap called Colin who owned it from new and kept it in immaculate condition. Colin also modified it quite heavily, improving the set with a slow-start power supply, modified flyback blanking and RGB drives, and changes to the interlacing, which was never terribly good on these sets. The set uses the very common A823-AV chassis, a chassis which never really liked me very much and one which I never really cared much for either. Even when new, the pictures on these sets could never beat the likes of the Philips G8 and the GEC solid-state chassis with which they were competing. They were usually very reliable though, although when they did go wrong, they weren't very easy to work on - some components (particularly in the timebase and EHT sections) are absolute swines to replace, and trying to work on the I.F. or decoder boards with the set running meant having to use special extension leads, which wasn't all that practical sometimes. Never mind, I do like this set a lot, and it's not required too much work on it since I acquired it. Thanks Colin. It's a smashing set.

Murphy CV2214 Single Standard Colour TV

This is the trendy-looking Murphy CV2215 "Accoustic Deluxe". Despite its HUGE speaker grille, the speaker behind it isn't much bigger than the one fitted to the bog-standard model CV2214 (see above) and the sound is only fractionally better than its more basic sister. This particular set came from a chap in London who very kindly donated it to the little museum in Devon. It required a little bit of work to get it to its current state, but now it is working properly, it's an excellent set. Thanks nice-man-from-London.

Murphy CV2215 "Acoustic Deluxe" Single Standard Colour TV

Well, here we have yet another Murphy colour set. Yawn. This is an older set than its Murphy siblings above, and it uses the slightly different A823 chassis (as opposed to the A823-AV chassis). This set was wider than any other Murphy colour set of its era, a special extension-piece being attached to the back of the set as the back cover does not entirely cover the full width of the set. I bought this set from eBay, and went down to collect it from a good chap from Norwich, the name of whom escapes me. Thank you for the set, good-chap-from-Norwich. It still needs quite a bit of work to get it going, but I thought it would be fun to show the picture as it is now.

Murphy CV2516 Single Standard Colour TV

This next TV is a National TC85GA. I'm not sure what to say about this set as these were always so reliable I've never even had to take the back off one. This model of set had a pre-heated tube so that the tube heaters were left on permanantly even when the set was turned off (although there was a "main" power switch too which could turn the heaters off if required). Interestingly, the instruction manual advises the user to leave the heaters turned on to protect the tube...

National TC85GA Single Standard Colour TV

This next set is an experimental Pye 405 line NTSC Colour TV from 1956 and belongs to a good pal of mine. It's had a reasonable amount of electrical restoration but the cabinet has yet to receive any attention. There is a problem with the frame linearity which is yet to be fixed but the fault seems to be a bit elusive at the moment. If only I could get rid of all the junk in the background of this photo. :-)

Pye 405 Line Colour TV

Pye 405 Line Single Standard Colour TV

This next set is one of my favourites; it's a Pye CT71 "Olympic" and it was very kindly donated by an excellent chap called Malcolm. The set uses the same chassis as its bigger brother, the Pye CT70, and, although fitting the big Pye dual-standard chassis into a cabinet this small was a miracle of engineering, everything is somewhat cramped inside and it is a little bit difficult to work on. I've not really done much with this set yet other than removing the remnants of a mouse-nest, although a good pal of mine called David Boynes gave the top of the cabinet the once over with his magic polishing technique, and an excellent company called M.A. Lloyd in Birmingham (see the Links page for their web site) made a nice new anodised aluminium metal strip for the bottom of the set (which looks identical to the original) and then charged me absolutely nothing (Thank you M.A. Lloyd). I sourced a new "Pye" badge (which was missing from the front of the set) from a 1960s Pye radio (Thanks Steve), and I now have everything ready to make the set look spick-and-span again. I have not done any electrical work on the set, but it is a set that I plan to start on pretty soon. Thanks Malcolm - It really is an excellent set.

Pye CT71 Dual Standard Colour TV