What's been happening on the site and other general nonsense.

This section has been reversed - All the latest news etc. is at the bottom for easier reading.

16th April 2000: The Philips G25K500 in my living room is now working (to a fashion). The HT3 dropper resistor had gone open circuit causing the set to be dead. Also the OA81 AGC rectifier diode had gone open circuit causing low contrast on weak stations. I replaced it with an OA85 - I'm not sure what the difference is, but it seems to work (for now anyway...) The 82K resistor in series with the vertical linearity (top) control had been replaced by a 150K causing bad linearity - I couldn't find any reference to an official mod, so I changed it back to 82K and good linearity was returned. Overall the picture seems quite good - the tube is fair, not amazingly good, but the results are quite pleasing. For some reason, the tuning indicator still doesn't work correctly, but that's something for another rainy day I think...

18th April 2000: I was very kindly sent a G6 line output transformer today from Andy Beer (See "Links" page). I am in two minds whether to put it in the Philips single standard G6 or in the Philips K4. The G6 is much simpler and a guaranteed-fix, but the K4 is much nicer, but a lot more difficult to modify and work out what-goes-where and there's always a chance of damaging the trannie too. What a dilemma... :-\

2nd May 2000: Work has started on the Philips K4 (See update on the colour TV gallery page.) The set is now almost 100% complete, but still requires a PF86 audio pre-amp valve - Does anybody have one? It seems to be very unusual and a hard-to-come-by valve. The primary and the EHT overwind of the line transformer are both faulty - The overwind can be easily replaced with a Philips G6 / Pye Dual Standard CTV part, but the primary will be more awkward to replace. After studying the circuit, I am not confident that a Philips G6 primary will work so I must try and locate the correct K4 one. At least this means that I can get the single standard G6 going. Hmmm...

9th May 2000: Domain name www.oldtechnology.net has now been registered as a redirected URL to this page. Unfortunately somebody registered www.oldtechnology.com a few weeks before I got there. Never mind. The real address for this page might change soon when British Telecom get ADSL installed in my local telephone exchange, but www.oldtechnology.net will remain the same and will point to this page where ever it is. :-). I don't think it will work for a few days though...

10th May 2000: I now have a PF86 valve for my Philips K4. I was very kindly sent one in the post by Tony from Birmingham, the chap who gave me the K4. Thanks Tony. The set now fires up with the top-caps removed from the line output and efficiency diode valves. No picture, but the valves all light up and the motorised controls work. Fantastic.

11th May 2000: Work has started on a 22inch colour Pye model CT152. It has had the wiring loom removed and the panels are all loose. Hmm. I wonder if I should be bothering with this set...

12th May 2000: The Pye CT152 is progressing. A wiring loom has been sourced from a scrap Pye CT205 and fitted. After a line output transformer transplant, there is the remnants of a picture. The frame is squashed, unlinear and rolling and there is no colour. A cracking tube though...

13th May 2000: The Pye CT152 is now working somewhat better. The resistor R38 in the sync-separator circuit on the IF panel had changed from 390K to 500K. A replacement seems to have cured the frame roll problem. A new 500R frame linearity control cured the lack of height and the unlinear picture. The lack of colour was quite a baffler, but biasing the colour-killer transistor (VT19) on with a 9v battery and a 33K resistor between base and emitter revealed that the 7.8KHz ident signal was not locked to the regenerated 4.43MHz sub carrier. A simple tweak to the 7.8KHz phase detector bias control brought colour back to the television's cheeks. This control (RV10) is quite critical and must be adjusted very slowly so that the the ident locks in quickly when the signal is removed and then brought back. A quick tweak of the convergence and the tele now has a cracking picture. :-)

15th May 2000: The Pye CT152 still has a chroma and a possible R.F. / I.F. fault. :-( There is an awful lot of 4.43MHz patterning on the luminance. (Even with the colour control turned to minimum.) Also the set seems to lose ident lock on areas of high saturation. Does anyone have any ideas?

17th May 2000: An old picture of the Pye CT152 is now in the TV gallery. It's all a bit blurry though. :-( Maybe I'll take another picture of it when I have a spare minute.

18th May 2000: A much nicer picture of the Pye CT152 now in the TV gallery.

19th May 2000: 2 new sections added to the Old TV section - "Old TV Mods" and "Common TV Faults." There is nothing in either section just yet, but I will try and remember some mods and faults and I'll also see what I can find in my old TV magazines and books etc.

22nd May 2000: The only panel in my Pye CT152 that didn't have a fault has now developed a fault! The picture fades from a red hue on the left to a green hue on the right. I seem to remember that there are some big 5 Watt resistors on the CDA panel that can cause this problem. I can't be bothered to fix it just now though...

24th May 2000: The Pye CT152 is now working again - there was a faulty 12K wirewound resistor on the CDA panel that was causing funny shading on the picture. The Philips G25K500 (Dual standard G6) has started making nasty sizzling noises accompanied by loss of focus. I suspect the line output transformer, but I might be lucky and find that it's a clogged spark-gap or similar... :-\

26th May 2000: Drove up to East Anglia to pick up a Bush CTV25 (a set I have been after for years.) :-) It took 5 and a half hours to get up there, and 10 hours to get back from East Anglia to Bristol (Gordano) services (Nearly 6 Hours on the M25 alone!) By 1:00AM, I was falling asleep so I slept in the car at the service station. Thats the last time I ever drive across country on the eve of a bank holiday weekend.

27th May 2000: Nearly broke my back heaving a Bush CTV25 and 25" Thorn 2000 console out of my car and into my house. Both sets look in reasonable condition. They are both absolutely filthy but should come up nicely with a bit of soap and water and some elbow grease.

28th May 2000: Updated "Mikey's Cheesy Personal Section" (Not for those with weak stomach's) :-) and the Colour TV Gallery (Now has piccies of the Bush CTV25 and Thorn 2000 Tele's.) Also fixed a bug with the "http://www.oldtechnology.net" link.

2nd June 2000: I'd Pinched the colour decoder panel out of my 26 inch Pye CT203 to put in another Pye hybrid set some while back, so today I dug out another decoder panel from the garage to replace it. Unfortunately the set now has no colour. Ah well, maybe I'll try and fix it tomorrow. These Pye decoders seem very unreliable, but are quite easy to fix and give an extremely good picture when they're working and set up correctly.

3rd June 2000: Thought I'd have a quick look at the no-colour fault on the decoder from the Pye CT203. When the colour-killer was over-ridden, there was very faint incorrect and rolling colour. Hmmm. After some head scratching and scope-prodding, I discovered that although the burst gate was operating correctly, there was no 4.43MHz getting back to the phase detector from the crystal oscillator, causing the PLL to over bias the varicap diode and increase the frequency that was fed to the R-Y and B-Y detectors. When checked with a scope, there was a 4.43ish MHz signal coming out of the crystal and through the buffer / amp transistor VT16, but there was no signal on VT17 although all DC conditions were correct. The fault turned out to be C113, a 150pF capacitor coupling the first and second stages of amplification which had gone O/C. With the capacitor replaced, colour returned to the set, but the Red and Green content was intermittently incorrect and led to some peculiar coloured faces. This fault is indicative of a faulty PAL bi-stable switch which inverts the phase of the R-Y signal on alternate lines. The bistable was obviously running, but was not being phase-corrected. The normal cause of this fault is diode D20 going O/C, but this was not the case in this instance. The DC conditions around VT18, the 7.8KHz ident amp transistor were incorrect; in fact there was no voltage on the collector. This led to the replacement of L27 which had gone O/C. Replacement made no difference however, and there was still no voltage on the collector of VT18. Removing the coil again and checking it's DC resistance revealed that both the old and new coils were both O/C. Doh! Reconnecting the coil leads at their bases made things a lot better, and after tuning the coil as per the manual, correct colour was restored to the dear old set. That'll teach me to check replacement components before installing them!

7th June 2000: Had a go at a Nice 1963 Murphy V689 405 line set belonging to Mat North. (See "Links" page.) The set had sound and lots of smoke but no picture. There was no l0KHz line whistle either. There were some nice healthy line pulses on the grid of the 30P19 line output valve, but no AC on the Anode. A new 30P19 valve cured matters and brought up a very unlinear picture. The usual wholesale replacement of wax capacitors in the frame stage straightened up the picture nicely. The tube is a bit soft, but quite watchable.

2nd July 2000: Drove up to Lancashire to collect a couple of old tellies, some old TV panels, a big pile of wooden legs and a pair of 25 inch colour tubes from a very nice bloke called Bernard. The panels will hopefully help to resurrect a few sets that I have and the tubes can go into storage until they are needed. Among the collection of legs are 4 Bush legs for my CTV25. :-) After Lancashire, my next stop was Suffolk on the opposite side of the country to pick up a new wing for the old Austin 3-Litre. I eventually arrived back in Exmouth at 4:00AM after an hours sleep at a service station on the A303.

11th July 2000: Updated the "Old VTR" section. Now has separate menus for the various formats (Although only the Philips "VCR" format section and the new "Reel-Reel" section are working at the moment.) Also added 2 new section icons for "Telephones" and "Test Equipment". I really ought to do something about making these new sections work instead of just putting the little pictures up. :-)

13th July 2000: I have finally got round to registering a new email address. It is a redirected address, so I can take it wherever I go. Fantastic. The pictures on the left hand side have now been changed from JPG's to GIF's. For this type of picture, GIF's seem to be much better suited than JPG's. The pictures only take a 5th of the size, and the compression used is lossless so no nasty artifacts.

14th July 2000: The "Mechanical" section is now up and working. There are only a few odds and ends on this page. Hardly worth bothering with really. :-)

16th July 2000: Matt North brought round a 19" Philips dual standard set for me to have a look at. It came into the workshop with low frame amplitude only, but left with no frame amplitude, no sound, and a burnt out line-output transformer. I got a shock from my tube booster, and I snapped part of the system switch off whilst man-handling a dual standard Bush mono set. Doh! Not really a very good day for me. Maybe I should pack it all in. ;-\

17th July 2000: Slightly rearranged the layout of the "Old TV" section. Also changed some references from my old email address to the new address.

19th July 2000: New "Components" page on the "Old TV" section. Also fixed a dodgy link in the VTR section.

22nd July 2000: Drove to Lewes (Near Brighton) in a hired Transit van to collect a pile of old tellies including an unusual Bang and Olufsen 2600 from a very good bloke called Ian. I was even given a pot of home made Marmalade by his mum which I have already started devouring. Many thanks Ian. (And Ian's mum...)

23rd July 2000: Steve Pendlebury has provided another article for the "TV Articles" section. This one is on the BRC3000 colour series. Thanks Steve. Always much appreciated.

24th July 2000: A new section called "Using 405 line TV's" is now appearing on the "Old TV" section.

28th July 2000: My VHF modulator came back from repair from Dave Grant today along with a second hand monochrome 625 / 405 test card generator which I have bought from Dave. Also "TV Articles" section expanded to include "Using 405 line TV's" and "Old TV components".

29th July 2000: The VHF modulator is now back in it's metal box and is working very well. For some reason, it doesn't seem to work quite so well on my little 9 inch Sony 9-90 TV on VHF and causes the picture to flutter wildly on high brightness scenes. Has anyone else had a problems using a modulator with this type of set? It doesn't appear to be a signal-strength problem, as the problem still occurs with loads of attenuators and lots of noise. Also the "Video 2000" page is now updated in the "Old VTR" section.

30th July 2000: The Test-Card generator that I bought from Dave Grant is now encased in a nice plastic box and is working extremely well. I think that the compatibility problem between the 9" Sony 9-90 and the VHF modulator may have something to do with the fact that the modulator is producing a Double-Side-Band signal, but the Sony may be expecting a Vestidual-Side-Band input. Many older 405 line TV's are designed to use Double-Side-Band on channel 1 as this was the type of signal that Alexandra Palace broadcast all those years ago.

31st July 2000: New links added to some good video sites.

3rd August 2000: I've started packing my house up ready for my big move to Birmingham. I've still got several weeks to go in Exmouth, but I suspect that not much more restoration work will happen now until I'm safely installed in my new house. :-(

5th August 2000: Lots of house-packing going on. All my TV's are being wrapped up in industrial cling-film to protect them from storage or the journey to Birmingham.

9th August 2000: Bought a pair of Bakelite Bush radios from "Adrian Hornsey Antiques" in Exeter for 35 pounds each. One is a DAC90 and the other is a DAC90A. They are both in lovely unrestored condition - unscratched brown bakelite complete with backs, knobs etc. I can't really afford them, but the credit card company doesn't seem to mind.

10th August 2000: Bad news: My Sanyo Digicam has been stolen. I lent it to a friend to take on holiday, but it was pinched from his bag. :-(Hopefully he has insurance, otherwise there'll be no more photos for the web page. (Until I can afford a new one.)

11th August 2000: Reorganised the "Old TV" section (again.) It's now more intuitive and easier to find things than it's previous messy incarnation.

16th August 2000: Added new "Portable TV gallery", Added 2 tellies to the "Mono TV Gallery" section, removed 2 boring sets and rearranged the layout and wording of all the "Gallery" pages slightly.

10th September 2000: A good friend of mine called Bob was having a bit of a clear out of his house and said that there was an old telly in a trunk in the hall which I could have if I fished it out. When the box was opened I could make out a fairly small wooden set wrapped in a blanket under some other old relics including a rather vicious looking sword and some copper plates etc. After these were removed, the TV was gently extricated and on inspection turned out to be a Bush TV24. Fantastic! This set is supposed to be pretty similar to the TV22, but has a larger (12") tube and a larger cabinet which is in wood as opposed to the TV22's moulded bakelite case. I would still love a TV22, but they are too expensive, and the TV24 is the next best thing. :-) Thanks Bob. You've made my day.

12th September 2000: A very brave bloke called Adrian came and took away an old Bush CTV25 that was a borderline case between scrapping and restoration. He also took a scrap Thorn 2000 for bits. Adrian says that he will rebuild the Bush. Blimey - I wish him the best of luck. :-)

17th September 2000: Went to the National Vintage Communication Fare at the NEC in Birmingham and had a chat with Andy Emmerson and Andy Henderson, the past and present editors respectively of "405 Alive." I purposely went in with very little money, but ended up finding a cash machine and spending loads on a Bush TV22 and a Grundig SVR4004 (Both of which I have been after for years.) I am absolutely over the moon with both of them. Neither of them work yet, but the Bush is complete with back cover and knobs and is in unscratched and un-got-at condition. The Grundig is in fair condition, but is dead; hopefully that will soon be rectified and then included in the VCR section. I seem to be having a good week - A Bush TV22, a Bush TV24 and a Grundig SVR4004 all in one week. Blimey. :-)

20th September 2000: Eclipse networking lost my web site last week, so apologies if you tried to visit and it wasn't here. Fortunately, they had a backup so the site was back and working within a week.

25th September: I can hardly believe it - Adrian, the chap who took the Bush CTV25 away has got the bloody thing working. He's had all the rusty metal trim sand blasted and repainted, he's rewound the lopty himself and has replaced loads and loads of corroded components. Apparently, the wooden cabinet is being sorted out now. I'm amazed and pleased that it's well on it's way to being first class again. :-) If the truth be known, I'm slightly jealous too - I definitely wouldn't have had the patience or the foresight to get the set going and I'm certainly not brave enough to try and rewind the lopty from scratch... Good on you Adrian. Send me some pictures and I'll put them on the site.

28th September 2000: I've been neglecting my site recently as I've been spending most of my time either in Birmingham, traveling between Birmingham and Exmouth or looking for a house to live in somewhere near Birmingham. It's all very depressing. :-( Anyway, I hope to update the site soon.

14th October 2000: I'm finding Birmingham extremely stressful, so I'm seriously considering not moving up there at all and finding another job in Exeter. Back in sunny Exmouth at the moment, so I've had a chance to update the web site a little bit. Some nice new "Working" pictures for the monochrome TV gallery page, and some modifications to the VCR and Austin 3-Litre pages. I still haven't had a chance to update the "TV Faults" and "TV Modifications" section - I must try and do that soon.

18th October 2000: Bought a new digital camera with the insurance money after my old camera was stolen. It's much nicer than the old one too. :-)

20th October 2000: Some bad news on the TV front - My next door neighbour's cat knocked a Philips N1700 off the top of a pile of other VTR's in my garage and it's taken a small chunk out the back of my pride and joy - the Philips 21KX102A television which was otherwise in pristine condition. :-( Damn cat!

1st November 2000: Staying in a nice hotel in Leamington at the moment. Very busy at work, so not much time or facility for TV fixing and too busy to be miserable about being away from home. :-)

6th November 2000: Found a nice big dry shed to keep my old tellys, videos and other junk in whilst I'm up in Brum. It's a big brick barn which has been plastered and is completely dry and safe from the weather. I shall have to start carting my junk up there soon.

18th November 2000: Drove up to Huntingdon via Northampton on Friday to visit Andy Emmerson and also to pick up an old 1964 Peto Scott reel-reel VTR. The VTR is really a rebadged Philips EL3400 with a few minor electronic and cosmetic differences and is in very nice condition apart from a cracked lid which isn't too noticeable. I'll put a picture of it on the VTR page soon.

19th November 2000: I'm not a happy person. Tragedy has struck - Whilst moving all the junk from my Garage into the car to go to the new shed, I have uncovered the true extent of the damage that the Philips N1700 caused when it fell on my 1964 Philips 21KX102A colour telly. Not content with taking a small chunk out of the top of the cabinet, it has taken the neck off the tube and smashed the cardboard back and tube base as well. Oh my god. Of all the sets that it could possibly happen to, it had to be my absolute favourite set and the one with the rarest tube too. (AX53-14) I am still seething - I don't know whether to blame the cat for knocking the VTR off, or myself for stacking the blasted things too high. Grrrr. :-( I do have spare tube that was given to me by Tony from Wolverhampton, the chap who also let me have the set in the first place, but I don't know what sort of condition it's in. Sorry Tony.

1st December 2000: My 2 absolute fave tellies (Philips K4 and Dual Standard Philips G6) are now both safely installed at my parents house - free from heavy objects ready to damage them. The Philips G6 has actually been pressed into service and is doing sterling work with a reasonably good picture too. There does seem to be an awful lot of herring-bone patterning though and the frame linearity and pincushion could do with tweaking, but not bad for a 33 year old telly. I think the tuner might need sending off to be fixed. Does anyone know whether CES are still in existence? The K4 is now awaiting it's new tube and lopty - I want to get that sorted out soonest and get a picture on the lovely old beast. I have sent off for a passport so that I can collect the spare tube from the Netherlands courtesy of Michael Van der Smeede. Thanks Michael.

3rd December 2000: Our email system is broken and emails have been disappearing down a black hole, so if you have sent me an email in the last week or so and were wondering why I haven't replied, please send another copy (temporarily) to: mikey_405@yahoo.co.uk where I will definately see it. Sorry about that. The double CD that I ordered from Amazon arrived yesterday and I can highly recommend it. It's called "The Great British Experience" and it has 50 tracks of real nostalgia. The best bit about it is that it has lots of old radio and television theme tunes such as "Devil's Galop", "In Party Mood" and "Girls in Grey" which will be instantly recognisable as the theme tunes from "Dick Barton", "Housewives Choice" and "BBC Television Newsreel." If you want the full-length digitally remastered versions, then you'll need to go to www.amazon.co.uk.

5th December 2000: I spent last night kipping in the first aid room at Wesleyan Assurance in Birmingham as the hotel I was supposed to be staying at, hadn't got my reservation and all the local hotels were full. Not very comfortable really. Hmmm.

6th December 2000: Email is all working again. After a week of head scratching and angry users, the problem turned out to be an obscure fault with the Netware NDS structure. A big thanks to the many people who have sprung to my rescue with ideas and advice about how and where to obtain another tube for my Philips K4 colour set. Special thanks to Michael Van Der Smeede in The Netharlands who actually found another tube for me, and to Tony Price who advised me of the condition of the spare tube that I had (The tube that he gave me in the first place in fact...) :-) Click here to view a picture of the Bush CTV25 that Adrian Fulton got working. The set still has a colour fault, but is pretty much fixed 100 percent. If you want to see a picture of the chassis (which was previously all rusty and horrible) then click here. How about an article for the site Adrian? :-)

7th December 2000: Some new reel-reel videos added to the VTR page and the old car section reorganised in readiness for a couple more pages of car stuff. Nothing much else to report. :-)

16th December 2000: Off work until the 27th December now. Woohoo. Spent a couple of hours last night replacing the cathode-ray-tube in the Philips K4. I placed the set on it's front before removing the old tube as it's far easier to man-handle when the tele is in that position. I used some "Windowlene" and newspaper to clean the tube surface and the inside of the separate implosion protection shield before fitting the tube into it's new home. Unfortunately, and unknown to me, a small piece of newspaper lodged itself in between the implosion shield and the tube, so I will have to remove the glass shield to get at the rogue paper. Refitting the scanning coils and convergence assembly was a real task as they were extremely tight at the first attempt. However, on examining the assembly, I realised that there was another section that had to be removed before the coil would slide over the neck easily. Not entirely sure exactly how far back the convergence coils need to be located, but I think they are in roughly the right position. If anyone knows, I would be very glad to hear from them.

17th December 2000: Spent a good couple of hours replacing the Philips K4 line-output transformer with the new one that I acquired from Michael Van Der Smeede. Once all plumbed in, and with all necessary modifications completed, the set was fired up, only to reveal the same fault as before. (Both PY88's lighting up like light bulbs.) Doh! Ah well - off home to pick up my ageing oscilloscope. Once back at my parents house, I connected the scope up, switched everything on and had a bit of a prod about. On examination, it was revealed that there were no line pulses on pin 2 of the PL500's (The set uses 2 PL500's and 2 PY88's in parallel in the line-output stage.) There were some nice meaty pulses coming out of the PCF80 in the line oscillator but for some reason they weren't reaching the PL500's. This was traced to an open-circuit coupling capacitor (Actually, when I say it was open-circuit, what I really mean is that it wasn't connected.) Somebody had obviously disconnected it whilst fault finding previously. Reconnecting the capacitor and switching on the set resulted in the line stage bursting into life but with a shower of sparks from the EHT rectifier valve and a lovely smell of Ozone. Hmmm. A partial success anyway. :-\

18th December 2000: Refitting the EHT lead to the rectifier valve base and filing off all sharp edged solder joints stopped the arcing and provided the 25KV EHT to the tube; still no picture however. Used my trusty AVO to check the voltages on the tube base, which were all within limits. How odd - if all the voltages are right, why wasn't there a picture? Turning off the light revealed all - although there was voltage on pins 1 and 14, the tube heaters were not alight. The reason for this turned out to be a dry-joint between the actual wires coming out of the tube and the tube base. Heating up the pins and feeding some fresh solder in cured the problem completely. The set was turned on again to reveal a very bright and out of focus horizontal line. Refixing a disconnected HT wire to the frame output valve quickly restored vertical scanning and resoldering all the leads on the end of the tube brought back correct focus too. Unfortunately, still no picture, only a blank raster and no sound to show for all the work so far.

19th December 2000: Spent the day trying to sort out the indicators on the Morris Minor. The previous owner had removed the semaphor indicators and fitted a flasher unit and later-type lamp clusters. These modifications have now been removed and the original type trafficators have been put back. The steering column (which had also been changed to a later type) has also been put back to original.

25th December 2000: Apart from drinking and eating, spent most of Christmas day watching films on the Dual Standard G6. Half way through the afternoon, I got fed up with the awful purity, so I set about fixing it. Unfortunately, I went too near the connectors on the convergence unit and got bitten, but it wasn't serious - just a reminder not to go messing with horribly complicated colour TV's whilst drunk. Hmm. I must say, this set has been giving sterling service since being pressed into use a few weeks ago. No sign of trouble of any kind. :-) (Oh - apart from a sticky on-off switch.)

26th December 2000: Ho Hum. There is no output from the Philips K4 tuner on VHF or UHF for some reason. New valves in the VHF tuner had no effect so it's out with the tuner - oh dear. On inspection, the UHF / VHF selection switch turned out to be misaligned - It might even be faulty as it seems very sensitive. After some adjustment, the tuner is now working (for the moment anyway.) An awful picture now, but at least it's a picture. Also the VHF knob seems to effect the UHF gain for some reason. Hmm. The sound is fantastic though, through the massive Philips speaker. The main problem that I am concerned about now is that the picture is shifted on the raster about 2 inches to the right (False line lock.) The line hold control seems to have some small effect, but it loses lock if adjusted too far. I'm pretty sure the fault is in the flywheel circuit, but I wonder if anyone has any ideas?

9th January 2001: No further work done on the Philips K4 yet. The On/Off switch on the Philips G6 is driving me mad - I have to crawl underneath the telly and switch it off at the socket to get it to go off now. A bit of attention required I think.

15th January 2001: Drove up to Bolton to see Steve Pendlebury and Dilys Taylor. Also picked up a few oddments from a house in Manchester including a big Decca projection telly, and couple of "Wax Cylinder" dictaphone machines. The Telly really needs the top re-veneering, but apart from that it looks complete and in reasonable condition. Steve and I also stopped off at an old Wireless shop in Sale (near Manchester) and had a good long chat with the bloke who runs the place. Steve bought an Elizabethan reel-reel tape recorder off him and I purchased a Bush BM60. (Looks like a TR82, but has valves.) There's a fantastic looking gramophone in the window which I would love but I can't afford. :-(

16th January 2001: My digital camera has gone wrong, so I've had to send it off to be mended under guarantee. Don't really know what's wrong with it, but after changing the batteries in it, the thing was completely dead. :-(

19th January 2001: In a fit of madness, I drove up to Sale and bought the HMV gramophone that I saw in the wireless shop. I really can't afford it, so now I'm completely skint. Hmmm. I'll put a picture of it on the "Mechanical" section when my camera comes back from the menders. I have promised the bloke in the shop a copy of the Hitachi CED disk player service manual, but I'm having trouble finding my copy. Does anyone else have a copy they could lend him?

21st January 2001: The "405chat" mailing list is going to have to be moved to a different server shortly, as the chap who is hosting it at the moment is having a reorganisation and can't put it on his new system. I might be able to wangle one of the unused "real-world" IP-addresses that we have at work and recompile the list-server program to work under Sun Solaris. Maybe.

24th January 2001: Have started work on a (1952) Ekco T267 15 inch console telly for a friend of mine. (Actually, that might be the wrong model number, but it's something like that anyway...) :-) After a few hours spent reforming the smoothing capacitors, the telly was fired up on full mains voltage. The speaker crackled and there was a nice loud 10.125KHz whistle but no picture. On investigation, it was discovered that there was no EHT at the CRT top cap, but a nice juicy spark could be drawn from the anode of the U25 EHT rectifier valve. There was no heater alight in the valve either, so it was replaced with a new one. The heater in the new valve could be seen quite clearly, but there was still no EHT on the top cap, and now there was a much reduced spark on the anode of the new U25. Disconnecting the Metrosil and Visconol brought back a nice healthy 15KV at the tube, but the dull horizontal line that now appeared on the screen revealed that the Mazda CRM152 tube is probably knackered and there is a frame fault. When the Visconol was checked, it had a 1M leakage, so a new one is now required, although I'll simply leave it disconnected whilst I sort out the rest of the problems.

10th February 2001: Not much activity in the TV world at the moment. Haven't done anything about the 15" Ekco console, the Philips K4 or the Philips G6 as it's extremely busy at work and no time for anything at home. :-( Please excuse me if I take a while to answer emails, I will get round to them. No really...

3rd March 2001: Took a train trip from Birmingham New Street to Llandrindod Wells in Wales to pick up an old Austin Champ army jeep. I set off in plenty of time, but unfortunately the train between Shrewsbury and Llandrindod Wells broke down. The brakes suddenly came on full and the whole train came to a shuddering halt. After half an hour, the engines stopped too and they couldn't get them going again. Another 2 hours passed before a train came from Shrewsbury and towed us back up the line where we were ushered onto a waiting bus and delivered to our destinations. After I had arrived at my destination and handed over the cash, I set off down the road in the Champ. Bearing in mind that the vehicle has no roof or doors to speak of, has a top speed of 50MPH and that it was the coldest March day in 30 years, the 6 and a half hours spent driving from Wales to Devon passed off quite quickly, although I did stop off at Michael Wood services for a bite to eat just as it was getting dark. I'll put a picture of the beast in the "Old Car" section soon.

10th March 2001: Took some pictures of the new Gramophone and the new Decca set for the site; I'll put those up soon. Had a good look at the Decca projection set that Steve Pendlebury and I collected from Manchester - Electrically it looks quite restorable, although the cabinet needs quite a bit of work to get it looking OK. Have had quite a bit of interest in my house, so hopefully that will be sold soon. I'm anxious to get the whole moving business over and done with. :-\

15th March 2001: Have had quite a few phone calls regarding my advert in "Television" magazine for Philips hybrid sets; mostly people offering parts and panels, but I spoke to one chap in Weston-Super-Mare who had a couple of single standard G6's and another chap in Cambridge about a Philips K70 hybrid colour TV that he was disposing of.

17th March 2001: Drove to Weston-Super-Mare and collected the two S/S Philips G6's. They are both model G22K510 sets. The cabinets are in fair condition, and one of the has a missing decoder and I.F. panel, although two panels were supplied.

10th April 2001: Excellent news - received an email from Andy Emmerson about some sets located in Stratford-on-Avon. One of them is a 19" Thorn 2000 set which I have been after for many years. I have spoken to the chap and arranged to pay 50 pounds for the set. I'm going to take the day off and pick the set up tomorrow; I am extremely excited about the prospect. (Have also arranged to go and see an excellent chap called Max in Cambridge to collect this K70 CTV.)

11th April 2001: Sod it! This chap in Stratford that I agreed to buy the 19" 2000 set from, has changed his mind and says that he might now stick it on an E-bay auction or find a different home for it in a museum. Unfortunately, I only found out after I had driven down there and turned up at the shop. I'm not very happy about that at all. Not all bad news though - I collected the hybrid Philips K70 set from Max in Cambridge. Unfortunately, Cambridge is an extremely awkward place to get to from Exmouth, so it took several hours to get back...

12th April 2001: Good news - The Philips K70 works extremely well and has a cracking tube. :-) It has a slight fault, which means that it loses line lock after an hour or so of it being on, but that shouldn't be too difficult to sort out. Thanks Max - Very much appreciated. I'll put a picture on the site soon. :-)

19th April 2001: Pictures of the Philips K70 TV and HMV gramophone now on the "Colour TV gallery" and "Mechanical" sections.

29th April 2001: Drove up to the NVCF in Birmingham to see what goodies I could find. There were loads more people there than the last one, because it was held previously in the middle of the fuel crisis. All the usual radio and TV nuts were there including Andy Emmerson, Steve Pendlebury etc. (I promise I’ll send the BVWS form back any day now Steve.J ) The BVWS put on an excellent display of old televisions including a 30-line Baird Televisor and a Dual Standard Bush colour set. I didn’t really buy much except a Bush VHF radio, a 1970’s Laser-Disc of “Airplane” and a 1950’s TV lens to increase the picture size of old sets. I did hand out some notices advertising for old Colour TV’s and had a few responses from people; hopefully something will come of those. J

1st May 2001: Registered www.tvmuseum.co.uk as a domain name. In the future, this site will be purely dedicated to old electronics, particularly TV related stuff and will give users a tour round a virtual museum. I have been playing with some simple Java-script to make the pages a little less boring than the oldtechnology.net pages.

19th May 2001: Had a visit from an excellent chap called James Blackwood, the lucky owner of a 1936 Baird TV.J James took away a Murphy dual-standard monochrome set and an early Decca Bradford, neither of which appeared to work, but did hold some promise of life. I hope you get those two going OK James.

21st May – 25th May 2001: Went on a Cisco Router course in London this week, so decided to use the opportunity to go and visit some old friends and pick up various bits and bobs that I had been promising to collect from people for months (For years in one case. J) On the Monday I went to see Andy Beer and saw some of his collection. I was most impressed with Andy’s restoration, particularly of James Blackwood’s pre-war Baird TV – You would be hard pressed to tell that anything had been done to the set, as all the replacement components have been expertly encased inside the old components. Most impressive. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I visited two very kind people. The first chap was called Len, who let me have a Grundig SVR and a pair of Hi-band Umatic video recorders and then a lady called Fiona who was disposing of an unusual ex-BBC Sony colour monitor based on the KV1330 chassis. Thanks Len and Fiona – It’s always very much appreciated. On Thursday I drove down to East Dulwich to help a couple of old friends (Sue and John) from Exeter move a giant wide screen TV from their old house into a sparkling new house. Apart from putting a dent in the speaker grill, it all went relatively smoothly. Hope your new house is all OK chaps. Friday was quite a busy day – I drove out of London to Abingdon to pick up an ITT CVC8 chassis TV from some excellent people called Peter and Mrs Harper. As I turned up mid-morning, they had left the set (and some other goodies) out under a piece of carpet in the car-port. Many thanks for the set Mr and Mrs H. It will be given a good home in sunny Exmouth. After Abingdon, the next stop was Selsey, near Chichester to drop off a very early example of a Decca Bradford to a good chap called Matt. The set had an absolutely cracking tube and a fantastic picture, but as he was doing a swap for a 19” Baird Colour console set, I thought it was worth letting go. J Unfortunately, the Decca set had suffered from a common problem with this model, which is “Brittle Power Supply Syndrome” where the HT dropper resistor heats up the PCB and makes it very brittle and liable to snap when removed from the cassis of the set. The Baird set needs a new line output transformer, so I will have to look out for one of those. Many thanks for the set though Matt, and I hope you get on OK with the Bradford.

27th May – 29th May 2001: On the Sunday, I drove over to the Netherlands to see Michael and Nathalie Van Der Smeede in Gorinchem. Took the Stena Line “Harwich to Hook Van Holland” high speed service which only took 3.5 hours. The boat was most impressive, with a 100,000 BHP engine, it could travel at over 40 knots. Wow. When we did arrive, It took a little time to get used to driving on the right hand side of the road, and I did manage to drive round a roundabout the wrong way once, but luckily no-one was coming and I wasn’t killed. J On Monday, we went off to Eindhoven and visited the Philips museum. It was absolutely superb, and we both took lots of pictures. They had a working Philips K4 colour set which had a superb picture, so I’m now very keen to get mine going too. J When we got back, we loaded up the car with some old videos etc. that I had bought off Michael earlier in the year, and also some videos that I bought off another Mike while I was over there. On Tuesday, I set off, laden down with old videos and caught the ferry back home to the UK. I did enjoy the trip, but it’s always nice to be back home. Many thanks for the great stay in Holland Michael and Nathalie.

7th June 2001: Picture of the Baird 718 now on the "Colour TV Gallery" section.

8th June - 14th August 2001: Incredibly busy at work and at home, so everything that's happened over the past couple of months is all a bit of a blur really. However, here's an overview of what's been happening over the period: June: Drove to London in a Transit van to see some extremely nice people called John and Mrs Hagger who had been very kindly saving me a really nice looking Invicta Radio / Television / Record Player. Not quite sure what the proper name for such a device is - A Wireless Tele-Gram perhaps? (That name thought up by Hi-Fi News's Tony Bolton. Te He...) Very many thanks for that John - it'll look fantastic in the East Devon Vintage Television Museum. I'll put a picture of the old beast on the TV section soonest... Also in June, spent a whole day heaving and lumping the pianola out of my house at Exmouth, into a Transit Van, driving it up to Solihull and heaving it out of the van again into the Pianola Workshop's storage place. July: Had my offer accepted on a house in Bentley Heath, near Solihull. It has no garage, but does have a store in the back garden which will doubtless be filled up with cack in no time at all. Spent three days humping all my junk out of my house into shipping crates for storage until my new house is ready for occupation. It was back breaking work - especially moving a big metal 19" rack mount cabinet down a steep flight of stairs, which nearly killed three people at once. We only just finished moving everything out before the new people moved in - it's amazing how much rubbish one accumulates without realising. August: Picked up a wonderful little 9" Sobell TV with a lovely curved speaker grill - unfortunately it has a bit of a woodworm problem, but I have doused it with woodworm killer which should stop it getting any worse. Again, I'll put a piccie of it in the TV section when I find a few moments. Had a bit of a TV clear out, and Matt North (See the Links page) came round and relieved me of several sets. Thanks Matt. Quite a few more modern colour sets went to the tip; nothing interesting really - mostly G11 era and newer. No doubt I'll regret it later, but I really need the space.

16th August 2001: Put some stuff up about the Austin Champ on the "Old Car" page.

22nd August 2001: Uploaded a picture of the Philips LDL1000 VTR and my new 1963 Sony PV120EU 2" reel-reel video to the "Old VTR" section. It's a real monster. :-)

11th September 2001: Made a bit of a spectacle of myself by carting a trolley on the train all the way up to Crewe to collect a 19" GEC 2028 Dual Standard colour TV from an excellent chap called Mike. However, the journey up wasn't as bad as the journey back, as I had to change railway stations at Birmingham New Street and drag the big TV across the city centre to Moor Street station where I caught another train back to Solihull. It was the only time that I've managed to walk across Brum without getting stopped and asked for money by beggars; in fact I saw one old lady looking sorry for me and reaching into her purse to find me some money, but I dashed off before she could say anything. Anyway, the set's safely installed in my landlady's garage ready for some restoration work when I move into my new house. Many thanks for the set Mike. It's great. :-) I'll put a picture of it on the "Colour TV gallery" section soon.

14th September 2001: Finally found all the documents for my Renault and managed to get it taxed, so I won't have to keep putting off collecting stuff or embarrassing myself by carting stuff about in trolleys on the train etc. :-)

19th September 2001: Drove to a small town near Stratford-upon-Avon to collect a 25" Baird 701 Dual Standard colour TV from a great chap called Dave who I met at April's NVCF meeting in Birmingham. I wasn't expecting the TV to work at all, but when it was powered up at Dave's house, it gave the most amazing bright clear picture with an absolutely cracking tube. :-) The set doesn't work on 405-lines, but apparently the only thing stopping it working is that someone has removed the fuse that protects the system switch solenoid. Included in the price was a brand-new Mullard A63-120X tube which will now go in the Philips G6 and a Lopty for my Baird 718 set. Fantastic. :-) Many thanks for the telly Dave. That'll take pride of place in the front room of my new house. A picture of this set, and the new GEC 2028 are now in the "Colour TV gallery" section.

21st September 2001: New Baird / GEC / Invicta pictures added in the Colour and Mono "TV Galleries."

23rd September 2001: Drove down to the National Vintage Communications Fair at the NEC in Solihull. As usual there were thousands of people jostling to find a bargain (including me.) Picked up a Colour Akai open-reel video recorder and some Practical Television magazines reasonably cheaply. Handed out lots of notices for Colour TV's - I'm not sure how successful these things are, but it's always worth a try...

25th October 2001: Moved into my new house in Solihull. Brought all the furniture, beds and the best TV's etc. up in a 7.5 ton Ford Cargo van. What a great fun vehicle to drive. Will collect all the other stuff over the next couple of months.

30th October 2001: Drove up to Bradford to collect an HMV Colourmaster TV with the Thorn 2000 chassis inside from an excellent chap called Keith. The set basically works, but the tube is very low emission and it looks like the tripler has exploded on the focus output. Thanks Keith. :-) The round trip from Birmingham took over 7 hours as the M1 and the M62 both had loads of road works. Hmmm.

5th November 2001: Very busy at work and home, so please excuse me if you send me an email and I take a while to reply - I will get around to it - honestly.

20th November 2001: A chap called Bruno from France mailed me some pictures of a Philips VCR that I've never seen before - the N1481. It is a SECAM-only recorder based on the N1500, but it has no tuner or timer so it is smaller. It is also made of plastic instead of wood. I'll put a picture of the machine up on the VCR gallery soon. Thanks Bruno.

22nd November 2001: Drove to Stourbridge to buy a Telefusion TV in a posh cabinet from a marvelous chap called Clive. I have yet to wind the set up yet, but maybe sometime soon I'll give it a go. It has the usual Korting chassis inside, but it is unusual to find one of these sets in a posh walnut cabinet. Many thanks Clive.

23rd November 2001: Put some new pictures up in the Colour TV gallery. The pictures are: Decca Prestomatic, Pye CT70 and HMV Colourmaster. Zzzzzz.

15th July 2002: Wow - what a big gap between diary entries. Many apologies for the lack of updates to any regular visitors to this site. Since moving to Solilhull, I've been unbelievably busy and haven't had much time for updating the site. Work has started, however, on the "New" old technology site and also on it's sister site the South West England Vintage Television Museum site. Hopefully in the future, I'll put a bit more time in to both sites. If anyone would like to help administer or develop this or the SWEVTM site, then please email me as I will be only too glad to hand over the reigns. Today I have added some more colour TV pictures to the CTV gallery and split the section into 2 parts as the page was getting too big. I have also some more black and white sets to add to the site, many of which have been very kindly donated to the museum, so watch this space. Oh yes - look out for the Austin 3-Litre in the August copy of "Classics" magazine. Unfortunately, they got my name wrong and called me "Neil Bennett." There were some nice pictures of the car, and some rubbish pictures of me looking like a fat French criminal... :-)

18th July 2002: Updated the Black and White television gallery section with some more sets and also added another section to the TV Museum site. Today I fired up the Korting CTV that I bought last year. The boost capacitor was short circuit, but I've run out of replacements, so I can't get the set going again until I've bought some more from RS components. Shame.

10th September 2002: Mike Barker and friend came round to pick up the remains of a Murphy RA80 remote control unit. Mike is the chairman of the British Vintage Wireless Society and is a superb restorer of such things. Not that I'm name-dropping or anything, but it's not often that anyone famous comes around my house. :-)

15th September 2002: I've decided that the Renault Saffrane is costing far too much to run and insure, so it's now going in for a major service before I put it up for sale. If anybody wants to buy it, it's an R-reg, it's got 80,000 miles on the clock and has a full service history. It has leather seats, cruise control and all the usual gadgets. A snip at £2,500. Phone me on 07796 930429 if you would like it. :-) Not sure what I can cart TV's around in now though. Maybe a cheap classic estate car would be nice.

18th September 2002: Went down to Wales on the train and bought a cheap new (old) car. So much for buying a nice classic estate car - it's an Austin Allegro 1500 estate. However, it only has 43,000 miles on the clock, it's fairly comfy and will allegedly do 35 miles to the gallon, which is much better than the Renault. It's also got a huge boot with the seats down and ideal for collecting TV's.

15th October 2002: Had a huge clear-out of old teles at the barn in Devon. Lots of people came round and took stuff away, and I also managed to fill 2 skips with the rest of the stuff. I was feeling a bit disheartened with the whole TV hobby, but the clear-out has made a world of difference and I'm now restored to my old enthusiastic self. :-)

18th October 2002: Still exceptionally busy at work and at home, so I haven't had much of a chance to do any telly-fixing or updating of the site. Only one new TV to speak of - and that's another HMV 2700 (Thorn 2000 chassis) from an excellent chap called Alan from Cheltenham. As if it wasn't amazing enough to discover the set was still working, even more amazing is that the set was still in use up till a few weeks previous. Many thanks for the set and the spare panels Alan - they're superb.

2nd November 2002: I've been offered a Bush CVB100 experimental colour set. I've put in a bid, but I'm fairly skint these days and I suspect it's probably less than the sets worth. This set has been appearing all over the place on the internet, so I think I'm going to be seriously out-bid. Ah-well never mind - there's a picture of the set and a short description on the Colour TV gallery page 2.

9th November 2002: Hmm. The exhaust fell off my Allegro this morning, so it's making a whole lot of noise and embarrassing me when people see it driving by. :-) Ho hum - the joys of owning an old car.

16th November 2002: Had a new exhaust section fitted to the Allegro at an exhaust place in Handsworth, Birmingham. All fairly painless although I'm sure the Kwik-Fit bloke and his engineers were sniggering as I handed over the 120 quid; the car is scarcely worth 120 quid on it's own. The old girl is much quieter now, although I can still hear a slight buzzing noise, so I'll leave it a week and take it back if it's still happening. Nothing happening on the TV front. As if it wasn't busy enough at work, the company has taken over another company with lots of small branch offices, so the communications and security have had to be sorted out on those and it's taking all my time at the moment.

23rd November 2002: Went back to Handsworth Kwik-Fit to find out why the car exhaust was still buzzing and they diagnosed a leaking "knuckle joint." Apparently, this is a flexible bit in the exhaust to allow for movement in the engine. Anyway, the bloody thing is going to cost another 80 quid to have fixed, so I have reluctantly booked it in to be sorted out.

30th November 2002: Came flying off a ladder whilst trying to paint coving in my house. I wasn't hurt badly, but unfortunately, the pot of paint I was holding went all over the floor, some bed-clothes that were in the room and also the clothes that I was wearing. After a lot of frantic scurrying around to clear up the mess and sticking all the clothes etc. in the bath to soak, I managed to finish the painting in my underwear as my other trousers were still wet in the laundry. Hmmm. Had another look at the circuit for the Philips K4 and decided in my mind what was the problem. When I opened the set up, I checked the component that I suspected (A coupling capacitor between the line output transformer and the phase discriminator in the line oscillator [also used as a feed to the EHT regulator]), but it was fine. However, I discovered that the connection between the transformer and this capacitor was shorted to the chassis. After following the wire from the transformer, I noticed 2 solder tags that were remarkably close together. Once separated, the short was gone, so hopefully this was the problem that caused the original fault (Picture shifted to the right on the raster, boost voltage and EHT way too high, eventually causing a shorted turn in the line output transformer.) We shall see. :-)

1st December 2002: Woohoo; the Prototype Bush CVB100 colour set is alive... After spending some time reforming capacitors etc., the set was finally switched on with full power. After a few minutes warming-up time, a raster appeared followed by much excited whooping noises from myself. Unfortunately, the tuner is very low-gain, although a new pair of tuner-valves will probably go some way to curing this problem. There is no B-Y signal from the output, although the R-Y and G-Y are OK, which would indicate a fault somewhere fairly late in the decoder, as the G-Y is derived from the Y, R-Y and B-Y signals. The colour is difficult to lock too, so there may be a bit of a problem there. The tube is fair, although not fantastic, but I'm not too worried about that. The Line Output shows no signs of any distress either, which I am extremely pleased about, as the set uses one of those horrible rank pitch-covered line-output (flyback) transformers. Phoned up Mike Barker (who is also the proud owner of one of these sets when it can be extricated from the BBC television centre) to tell him of the success with the telly. Mike said that he was going down to the BBC to try and remove the set at the weekend, and I embarrassed myself by asking to come along too. Unfortunately the security is tight at the BBC, and the visitors passes had already been arranged so there wasn't much chance of that happening. Never mind, maybe another day... :-(

5th December 2002: Came back from our Glasgow office after doing some work on the firewall to discover that my airport long-stay car parking ticket wouldn't work. I suspect the fact that it was screwed up to buggery (having been lying in the bottom of my laptop bag for the duration) didn't help matters. Got into an argument with the attendent who implied that I had done it on purpose. Eventually, I straightened it out enough to get it to go in the machine properly and managed to give the nice machine some money. After waiting half an hour for the every-10-minute courtesy bus service, I arrived at the car park to discover that the fluid had all leaked out from the Allegro suspension, and the car was rather more lop sided than I remember it when I left. I managed to drive it home at a fairly slow pace as the CV joint on the left hand drive-shaft was complaining about the peculiar angle. I don't think all the suspension fluid has gone, but I suspect that the valve on one of the hydragas pipes is leaking.

6th December 2002: Went to drive the Austin 3-Litre from my house in Solihull to an excellent car mechanic in Exmouth (Devon) to get the brakes fixed, but as I was driving the car out of the garage, I noticed it making a lot of noise from the rear of the exhaust which I put down to a dodgy joint between the front and back sections. After the 3-and-a-half hour drive down to Devon and an overnight stop at my parents' house, I took it in to an exhaust place in Exeter to have it assessed. The bloke had a bit of a prod around underneath with a screwdriver and made a small hole in the front box into a huge hole in the front box. After the bloke had lowered the ramp, he said the he could make up a whole new front and rear exhaust section for the car, but it would cost 250 quid including vat. Since, after matey's antics with a screwdriver, the car now sounded like a world war one tank, and given the fact that off-the-shelf exhausts are not available any more for the car, I reluctantly decided to have it fixed, and left the car with him. The car isn't due into the Exmouth garage until next week anyway, but by that time I suspect I won't be able to afford the bill for the brakes, so it'll have to wait for another month.

7th December 2002: It's been a bad week for me and old cars. After having taken the 3-Litre in to have the exhaust fixed, I borrowed my mum's Wolseley Hornet to visit some friends in Mid-Devon. The journey was going very smoothly, (The noise being made by the 850cc engine at 60mph was pretty deafening, but then that's pretty normal for these cars,) until I turned off the M5 at J31 on to the A30. As I was coming round the first sweeping right-hand-corner, the lights went very dim and I noticed a funny smell; a few minutes later and there was smoke. I quickly pulled off onto the side of the road and turned everything off; however, when I turned off the ignition the red light stayed on. From reading a car maintenance book when I was much younger, I remembered something to the effect that, if the ignition light stays on with the ignition turned off, disconnect the battery immediately, as the battery is discharging heavily through the dynamo. After panicking and fumbling clumsily with the keys to get to the battery in the boot, I managed to disconnect it and turned my attentions to the engine compartment. When I opened up the bonnet, a load of foul smelling smoke came out, and I could feel the heat coming from the (Cheap Chinese replacement) dynamo regulator box. Having taken the cover off, I discovered that one of the coils inside was completely blackened. I don't really know how these mechanical regulator boxes work, but I decided that I couldn't drive home with it connected, so I disconnected the dynamo cables and tentatively put the battery terminal back on. No big sparks - well that was a good sign; I started the engine and, seeing no smoke or anything else nasty, sped back home at top speed (about 60mph.) I think I will recommend my parents fitting an alternator instead of these nasty dynamo's and regulator boxes.

1st January 2003: Happy new year everyone. No fixing today; too much drinking and eating to be done. Mmmmm. Beer.

13th January 2003: Took the old Allegro into the Garage to get an MOT and have the suspension fixed. Have ordered a second-hand Hydragas displacer, so hopefully that should be here soon. In the mean time I am carless, so have temporarily borrowed A Volkswagen Sharran from work. It's fantastic - what an ideal car for carting TV's about in.

15th January 2003: Went on a MailSweeper course in Theale, near Reading. Afterwards, I took a trip round the M25 to pick up a brace of old tellies from Mr and Mrs S. from Rochester in Kent. There were 2 Ferguson 2000's and a Philips G6. The tellies model numbers were a 25" Ferguson 3700, a 19" Ferguson 3701 and a Philips G25K500. The Philips set was the late version of the dual-standard chassis which had the colour-off and tone controls removed and also didn't have a tuning indicator. I'll put some pictures of the sets up in the gallery soon. Thanks Mr and Mrs S. - they're great.

16th January 2003: Sorted out a video problem on the Philips LDL1200 - it's extremely well made but a bit of a sod to work on as all the panels are layered on top of each other. Eventually got to the bottom of the problem. There were two open circuit pots - one in the FM demodulator and one in one of the limiters. Both of them fell to pieces as I went to measure them. The reason for trying to fix the video is that I have a bunch of tapes which have old 405 line material recorded on them and the Peto-Scott that they were recorded on needs a new belt.

20th January 2003: Gasp - I got the bill for the Allegro MOT and body repairs - £666.76 including the displacer unit. Oh my god - I think I should perhaps have got a quote before hand. Utterly skint for the rest of the month now, so no more TV-buying for a while. :-(

22nd January 2003: New pictures of the Rochester tellies now up on the Colour TV gallery page 2.

23rd January 2003: Forgot to mention earlier that the Austin 3-Litre now has a shining new Stainless Steel exhaust. The garage made a very good job of it, however it does sound a little tinnier than it used to. Never mind. Having hassle trying to locate brake discs for the car now.

25th January 2003: Trying to fix a problem with a Philips N1700 at the moment. When the unit is turned on, the clock dims and a relay clatters underneath. Hmm. Obviously something is loading the power supply down. Have discovered that if the "Start" button is depressed while the set is switched on, the machine laces up normally until the button is released and then the clattering begins again. Hopefully this discovery should aid the fault-finding somewhat.

26th January 2003: The N1700 is now working - after adjusting one of the microswitches on the top deck and replacing the lacing motor transistor to fix another problem, the short circuit that was loading the power supply was traced to the signals panel. A resistor had obviously been disturbed sometime and one leg was touching the chassis. Once the resistor was straightened up, the machine sprang into life; the drum belt was then replaced and the servo's were adjusted up to reveal a very good picture. Marvellous.

2nd February 2003: Went round to friend of mine in Exmouth who I hadn't seen for ages. He has a Dynatron CTV5 console set with a duff tube - a freebie A63-120X from CPC. Many years ago CPC were trying to get rid of these tubes and were sending them out for the cost of postage only; unfortunately most of the tubes were dodgy. Took a photo of the set - I'll put it up on the gallery soon.

6th February 2003: Put the picture of the Dynatron up on the Colour TV Gallery.

8th February 2003: Decided to have a go at the Cossor 934 in my living room. Changed a handful of nasty wax capacitors with Vishay Roederstein MKT1813's from RS. Unfortunately, the tube seems to be on it's last legs and I don't have one. Does anyone have a 17" Cossor pentode tube to fit a Cossor 934?

9th February 2003: Picked up a nice little Sony 405-line monitor from e-bay. It's pretty battered; the top handle has snapped off and there are no knobs or mains lead, but other than that, it looks quite restorable. The model number is CVM-306BP. I'll put a picture of it up on the portable TV gallery soon. Having fun-and-games with the Marconiphone 4701 TV. It's Thorn 2000 chassis keeps blowing line output transistors for no apparent reason especially when changing from 625 to 405 and back, it has line jitter, and the frame has suddenly reduced.

11th February 2003: Drove down to High Wycombe with Tony Price (The excellent chap who let me have the Philips K4 some years ago,) to pick up several boxes of VCR-LP (N1700 etc.) tapes from an excellent chap called Graham. Graham also had an N1700 machines with Duff heads which he extremely kindly let us have. Many thanks Graham.

13th February 2003: Went down to Wales with Tony P. to see another friend, Rory Clark. Rory is a writer for the BBC but also collects and restores old TV company captions, startups, clocks etc. He has produced some very impressive results cleaning up ancient tape recordings etc. We went down to deliver the tapes that we picked up from High Wycombe. Rory has already ploughed through a previous batch of VCR (N1500 etc.) tapes and has recovered some interesting stuff.

14th February 2003: Had a look at the Marconiphone 4701 to try and sort out it's various problems (See 10th February 2003.) Having studied the circuit diagram, I've come to the conclusion that the 2N3055 transistors that I always recommended for the Line-Output in Thorn 2000's are absolutely no good for the job whatsoever. The voltage across each one is getting on for 300 volts and the maximum voltage rating for a '3055 is 100V. Doh! Anyway, replaced them with completely standard BU208A's from RS and that has cured the problem completely. The reduced frame problem turned out to be the 55V line which was low (even on the highest setting of the regulator pot.) The reason for the low voltage turned out to be a leaky regulator transistor; this was replaced by a 2N3055 (Which I checked was suitable this time - Te He) and, once replaced, the frame came back up again. I still have the line-jittering problem, which is almost certainly noise on the 53V(ish) supply to the line output circuit. I also have a mechanical tuner fault to contend with now, so I'll sort that out before investigating the line problem.

16th February 2003: The Mechanical tuner problem on the Marconiphone 4701 turned out to be nastier than first suspected. All but two of the little plastic wave-change lugs had snapped off and were jamming the tuner when the buttons are pressed in. I found another tuner in the loft, but this had a lot of patterning on the picture and also another nasty electrical problem, so I decided to swap over the mechanicals. On closer inspection, the tuners were different mechanically, although the individual spindles were OK on the new tuner, so, while watching The Simpsons on BBC2 and eating a bowl of soup, I stripped both tuners down and swapped the spindles over. Once the tuner was put back, the set was switched on to reveal a superb picture both on 625 and 405 lines. However, that's not the end of the story because, apart from the line jittering fault that I have still to fix, as I was tuning in my VHF modulator, the set kept switching back to 625-lines, and I think that the 405-line-activating-spring is screwing itself into the spindle hole as I am tuning it, so the tuner will have to come out again to fix that. Ho hum.

7th June 2003: Apologies for the lack of updates recently. I've been extremely busy with work so I'm not getting any time to update the site or do much in the way of telly repairing. I've also been very lax in answering emails - I do get quite a lot of emails and they seem to dash off the screen and get forgotten about very quickly; I do like to reply to them all, so if you send me one and don't get a reply - it's nothing personal, just send it again and I'll soon get the message. :-) Nothing much has turned up recently in the way of old tellies, so no news to report on that front. As for the site, Eclipse Networking have lost my web counter, so it's now reset to zero. Hmmm. I've updated a few of the photos on the Colour TV Gallery #1 and plan to stick a few more up there too when I get a moment. The Allegro estate is still doing sterling work, although the Austin 3-Litre is looking very sorry for itself stuck in a garage in Devon. It's waiting for a brake-overhaul. It needs 2 new brake disks which are no longer available, a brake servo overhaul which is very expensive and a set of new brake pipes. The bottoms of the doors need sorting out too as they are getting rusty. :-(

15th June 2003: Blimey - a pre-war HMV904 television has turned up in a pile of rubbish in Exeter. Unfortunately it wasn't me that found it and the bloke who did find it wouldn't accept my offer of 1200 quid. Apparently he's putting it in an Auction at Christies and expects to get up to 3000 quid. It's a shame really, as it'll probably end up leaving the country and going to a foreign collection. Oh well...

28th June 2003: Went up to see a good mate called Steve James in Nottingham. He's also a collector of old tellies and other electrical oddments. I delivered an old Parnall washing machine up there which had been sitting in my shed doing nothing for ages. Steve very kindly let me have some old tellies, one of which was a very nice little Sanyo portable CTV with a very thirsty valve chassis. Another set was a 19" GEC dual-standard CTV; it works very well on both standards although the system switch is very stiff so I will need to sort that out. The cabinet is a little bit battered, but I think that it adds to the charm of the set really so I probably won't do anything about that. Many thanks for the tellies Steve, they're fantastic. I'll put some pictures of the sets up on the gallery when I get a few minutes.

29th June 2003: Found some more info about a set that I've never come across before, the Philips G22K503. Apparently, it's a 22" version of the dual-standard G6 chassis. I've never seen one, although I photographed a picture off a Philips brochure belonging to Steve J. in Nottingham. The set is all but identical to the larger G25K500, but with a smaller tube and cabinet. Does anyone have one or know of the whereabouts of one?

4th July 2003: Fantastic - I may have the chance of buying a Philips G25K502 set off an excellent chap called Brian. It is very similar to the G25K500 set, using the same G6 chassis, except that the speaker and convergence panel are underneath the tube instead of to the right as in the 'K500. The 'K502 sets aren't quite as common as the 'K500's and I don't currently have one so it'll be an excellent set for the museum. Many thanks Brian - it'll be well looked after.

20th March 2004: Once again, many apologies for the long gap between entries; the usual excuses I'm afraid (work, no PC at home etc. etc.) Several things have happened since the last update. No real finds in the CTV department except for a Ferguson-badged Thorn 4000 which I think is quite rare. I have started building a big insulated barn at my parents' house to house all the museum's sets in; it's an awful lot of hard work digging out foundations etc. and it's taking up most of my weekends at the moment. Some more photo's of the museum's collection have been taken, so they should appear on the site in the next few weeks. I've started taking some tablets for my continually fuzzy head and absurd disorganization. I'll report on their effectiveness next time. The web site has appeared in a few magazines etc. recently - The Financial Times Sunday Supplement, (Practical) Television magazine, and another electronics trade magazine. After a catastrophic mobile-phone failure I seem to have lost various people's telephone numbers - Could anyone who knows me perhaps email me their telephone number please? :-) Hopefully the next update won't be so long in appearing, but I'm sure I said that last time...

27th March 2004: New photo of the Baird 8724 and Bush CVB100 added. (Click on the smaller photos for a bigger view.) Me and my mate Rob Ingleby had a go at an ex-BBC Sony 1330 Monitor. Not that it had much wrong with it - just a few adjustments here and there and it came up fine. The tube in it is superb, which is surprising for one of these sets. The cabinet is a bit ropey, but not beyond hope and there is a lot of glue along the bottom panel. I'll put a picture of it up on the site sometime soon. Had a wax-capacitor-blitz on a 1959 Ekco record player which would fade out after a few minutes of playing. The cabinet looked very dirty and the Collaro record deck looked very rusty. The cabinet seemed to respond well to fairy liquid and the yellow painted Collaro record deck came up like new with some MDB patent polishing paste for painted surfaces. Apparently you can use Swarfega on rexine - perhaps I'll try that next time. I'll see if I can find somewhere on the site to put a picture of the thing. Does anyone have the correct Collaro cartridge they would like to sell me? (The one with the yellow LP / 78 swivel on the end.) If you have one, please do email me on mdb@oldtechnology.net or mike@tvmuseum.co.uk.

3rd April 2004: Drove up to a place near Manchester to pick up a Baird 712 and a Ferguson 7C06 (Thorn 4000 chassis) from an excellent chap called Walther. I set off from Solihull at about 8 O'clock in the morning, zoomed up the superb M6 Toll road, and arrived at about 9:45, 3-quarters of an hour earlier than we had agreed. Had a long chat with Walther before loading up the car and setting off to my next destination in North Leeds. After spending an hour-and-a-half driving aimlessly round and round Leeds city centre, I arrived at my destination. I picked up a set I'd been promising to collect for over a year from another excellent chap called Roger. We managed to squeeze the set, a 26" Tandberg, into the back of the Allegro Estate along with the Baird Console set and the Ferguson. After setting off again, I managed to find the M1 relatively easily and got back at about 5:30PM. Thanks Walther and Roger - the sets are great. Not sure these fuzzy-head tablets are working all that well. Might see if I can change them for something else.

5th April 2004: Pictures of the Ferguson 7C06 now on the Colour TV gallery (Page 2). I'll put the pictures of the other sets up later.

7th April 2004: A few more pictures added to the black-and-white TV gallery; I've decided to get rid of the portable TV gallery and lump the portable TV's in with the other TV sections. The sections are getting a bit out of hand, so I'll have to think of something to stop them getting too huge and cumbersome. Nasty picture of myself added to the main page due to massive public demand - or not.

11th April 2004: Updated a few sections here and there; nothing major, just a bit of tidying up and a bit of a colour change - I'm not sure if it's better or worse than the previous scheme. Spent most of the bank-holiday weekend photographing TV's etc. and fixing the lights on my neighbour's Rover. I've started on a new colour TV gallery as the current one is a getting a bit clumsy and taking ages to load for anyone with a modem (including myself). Click here to have a sneaky-peak of the new page (None of the links work just yet.) I'm thinking of getting a DSL link into my house so I can host the web site locally and do some fancy stuff with active server pages etc. (If I can be arsed.) On the TV front, I'm having a go at a Pye LV20 at the moment - it's missing 2 valves (both EB41's) so I can't try it just yet - I'm just going through and replacing all the nasty wax capacitors first. My good friend Tony from Wombourne (Near Dudley) very kindly gave me a manual he had bought from a Radiophile sale in Shiffnel; it's for a Bush CTV174D which is the same as a Murphy CV2210D. Many thanks Tony - All I need now is the set itself. (Does anyone have one they would like to sell? It's the only dual-standard colour chassis missing from the museum's collection. My mate Dave Hazell from Swindon has one, but he won't sell it - shame.) :-)

12th April 2004: Have been fiddling with the car pages - I've added a section on the mighty Allegro (Click here to see it) and got rid of all the rubbish about the Austin Champ and Renault Safrane, which I sold years ago. Also got rid of a few icons which I'm never really going to do much with (Test equipment and Telephones - For that sort of thing, see Andy Beer's excellent web site - see the links page.) I've kept the reel-reel page which may end up being altered simply to "Audio" so that I can put some other bits and bobs up (Record players and the like.) Also removed is the "Mechanical" section which was a bit rubbish really.

12th April 2004 (Later on): "Audio" section is now up with one exhibit - an Ekco record player. Fantastic. Click on the "Audio" icon on the left to go to it.

17th April 2004: Drove to Milton Keynes to collect 2 TV's from an excellent chap called Geoff. One was an ITT CVC9 which was in very good condition other than the front panel which had fallen to bits behind and was being held in with bits of wood. The other set was an Ultra (950 chassis?) monochrome set. The veneer was a bit dodgy on the Ultra, but otherwise it seems very nice. Many thanks Geoff.

26th April 2004: Have put a picture of the new White Ibbotson on the Mono TV gallery.

28th April 2004: The old Pace satellite receiver went tits-up yesterday and it looked a bit complicated inside, so I pressed a Panasonic unit that I'd found in a scrap metal box in Exmouth recycling centre into action. After I'd got it registered it seemed to have some difficulty receiving BBC channels so I phoned my mate Alec (G8GON) from Exmouth up and he advised that I needed a kit to make the box work with my particular LNB. Have now ordered one, so it'll probably be sat for months at home before I can be arsed to fit it. Thanks Al.

30th April 2004: Bought an old Pye Wireless Intercom from e-bay the other day which arrived this morning. It's missing one of it's knobs and, as there's only one unit, I can't really test it. Does anyone have another one I could buy? Please email me at: mike@tvmuseum.co.uk. Many thanks.

1st May 2004: Managed to get a cover for the cartridge on my old Collaro record deck from a mate of mine called Steve from Sutton Coldfield. Cheers Steve - it's just what the doctor ordered. Also bought a Bush BAC31 radio and a Sony 1320 off Steve too.

2nd May 2004: Went to the NVCF (National Vintage Communications Fair) at the NEC today. Didn't buy anything much interesting - a TV circuit diagram CDROM, an old Trio audio amp to match one I already had and something else which I struggle to remember. In the evening I built a little AM radio transmitter into a box and attached a nice long wire as an aerial. It's absolutely rubbish - It will just about transmit downstairs, but the signal is so poor that it's totally unusable at night. It might be faulty or, more likely, I haven't attached a long enough wire to it and the SWR is astronomical. Does anyone have any experience of this kind of transmitter? It's a little tiny circuit board which I bought from the NEC last year - a mate of mine also has one and says his is fantastic so I'm sure it must be something I'm doing wrong. I would measure the power output, but that seems a bit technical so I probably won't.

5th May 2004: My old mate Tony Price let me have an EHT unit from a Decca set to put in the White Ibbotson. Soldered it in and powered the set up through a 40 watt bulb for an hour or so, then a 100 watt bulb and then a toaster. :-) Got the voltage up to 185 volts before the room filled up with smoke from the IF panel and I shut it all down again. There seemed to be some kind of life in the set however, and the EHT generator was whistling away nicely; no voltage out of the metal unit though. I might start replacing the old wax capacitors in the next day or so and check for anything obvious before I power it up again.

10th May 2004: Work continues on the new White Ibbotson set and I'm taking plenty of advice from my mate Tony Price who is an expert on projection tellies (and all other tellies for that matter.) There was hardly a single component that didn't need replacing in the EHT section; some components had previously been replaced with the wrong values, so obviously the correct values have been put back in. The usual Vishay-Roderstein and RS-branded capacitors replaced the original wax varieties, and several large resistors were also replaced with 1 and 2 watt CPC standard issue types. After replacing a .1uF HT filter capacitor on the IF board which was causing the previous smoke, the set was again fired up (in series with an old toaster.) Quite a bit of healthy sounding 2KHz EHT oscillator noise from the EHT generator was heard, but no EHT out of the can. Funny voltage readings around the 2 EHT generator valves made me think that one or both valves may be faulty - A quick scout around the valve box revealed 2 brand new PL81's which went in to replace 2 very dodgy looking mismatched valves (A PL820 and a PL81.) The EHT oscillator valve (ECL80) valve was also replaced with a brand new one for good measure. When powered up again I still had the same problem although the oscillator noise was louder this time and voltage readings were slightly nearer where they should've been in the first place. Just in case the EHT transformer was faulty, I replaced it with another one which I borrowed out of my other, smaller, White Ibbotson. This time the set almost burst into flames when powered up - the huge shower of sparks from the end of the EHT lead revealed that the set was working a bit better than it had been previously. Once the lead was plugged into the tube and the set was powered up (again via the toaster), a fairly dull, out of focus spot appeared on the screen and the set was powered off quickly lest the phosphor on the tube expired. A partial success I think. No Line, Frame, Sound, Focus control or tube spot suppression, but lots of EHT so it's a fairly good start I suppose. I now need another Mullard EHT can to put back in the other White Ibbotson. Does anyone have one? Please do email me if you have a spare you could sell me. (mike@tvmuseum.co.uk). Many thanks. On the car front, I think the front nearside wheel bearing on the Allegro has gone as it makes a nasty rumbling noise. I think I should get it fixed soon as I've heard tales of wheels falling off of Allegro's although I think they may be apocryphal.

22nd May 2004: Drove up to Liverpool to collect a Ferranti projection television from an excellent chap called Phil. When I arrived there were 2 more people, Edna and Georgia who had come up to see the same chap to buy papery things (Ephemera etc.) Anyway, we all bundled in to Edna's Citroen and had a guided tour around Liverpool. What a fantastic place - it's very impressive. Eventually, we turned up at Phil's storage facility - a very spooky 7 storey warehouse filled to the brim with antiques, junk, and masses of other stuff besides. We went up to the 5th floor where all the old radios and tellies were and found the Ferranti. Unfortunately it had an awful lot of woodworm and was quite damp so I decided not to buy it. I did buy another set though, a Bush TV62 with a duff (smashed) tube, a rusty chassis and no back panel. It did, however, have a very good bakelite cabinet, so it was worth the money. Cheers Phil - it's superb and looks nice next to the TV22. After Liverpool, I drove over to see my mate Walther from a place near Manchester. Walther kindly let me have some new colour CRT's and loads of manuals and panels etc. including a spare chassis for my Thorn 4000. Many thanks Walther - they're very much appreciated.

6th July 2004: The Behemoth lives. After much hard work and head scratching, the huge White Ibbotson projection set finally has a recognisable picture. Quite a large number of components have been replaced in the RF / IF / Frame / Line and Audio section (mostly nasty wax capacitors and quite a few wire wound resistors) and almost every single component in the EHT generator section (to finally cure a long standing problem with the EHT regulation.) Many thanks to Tony Price for his expertise in various sections including setting up the mechanical focus which looked a bit scary to start with, but which turned out to be quite easy. The picture is fairly dull and is best viewed in a darkened room; this is partly due to the fact that it is only a tiny 2.5 inch tube producing a picture on a 28 inch screen, but also because I am feeding the composite TV signal directly in to the video output valve and the level isn't quite right yet. (I'm building a little buffer to get the levels correct, which should sort the problem out.) The cabinet is the next thing that needs sorting out; does anyone know of a decent furniture restorer in Solihull or anywhere that I can get some of that brass-coloured metal speaker grille? Please do email me if you know of anyone. Thank you. Click here for a picture of the set working or here to see the (inverted) picture on the tiny MW6/2 CRT.

23rd July 2004: More fun and games (or not) with the White Ibbotson; this time with the front controls and grille. I removed the tuner with a view to converting the set back to single channel operation, but this left a big hole in the front of the metal grille, so I decided to remove it and get another section. This is where the trouble started. To remove the grille, first of all you have to remove the knobs; these had virtually welded themselves to the shafts. After a couple of hours tugging and heaving (and knuckle crunching on the sharp metal grille), we had managed to remove 2 knobs without damage. Eventually a 3rd knob came off with merely a splinter snapped off from the side (which can be repaired). The fourth knob wasn't so fortunate and the inside section snapped off completely, taking the centre right out of the front of the knob. This may be salvageable, but I suspect it will be noticeable. The last knob to come off has a little screw in it but, of course, it's also welded into the hole and no amount of soaking with penetrating oil seems to be shifting it and I think the screw will have to be drilled out. :-( Only after all this can I then remove the grille and get a new section. I have a perfect set of knobs on the other White Ibbotson which I may swap over (if I can get those off) until I can find some replacements. New tablets for the fuzzy brain seem to be working a bit and I feel much better for it, but still not 100%. Have had a referral from the doctor to see a neuro bloke in Birmingham, but have heard nothing yet. Had the wheel bearing fixed on the Allegro which has made it a lot quieter. I think the back one may be going now though...

25th August 2004: Crikey - more than a month since my last update. Anyway... In an attempt to save money, I have started moving various bits of the web site to an Apache web server running on a Sun Solaris box located here at my work in Birmingham (Hence the cheesy "Powered By Sun" logo above.) No doubt my mate Giles (who kindly supplies the 405-chat service) will be turning in his grave, er, if he was dead that is, which he isn't. Oh yes, getting back to the point, Giles is a big fan of Linux, which Solaris is a rival to. (More like friendly rivalry really.) My utter indolence has meant that the White Ibbotson is still in exactly the same state it was a month ago, although I have spoken to someone who can supply a front grille for the set so that should make it look respectable again. The RF stage still has some components missing including some pins that have been removed from the RF amp valve holder. Once again my mate Tony Price has managed to find me an identical valve base, so, once I can be arsed, I will take the pins out of that to save me from drilling the chassis to remove the old holder. Cheers Tone. A few new sets have arrived this month from another mate of mine, Rob Ingleby, including a Murphy V310, a funny looking KB, which I can't remember the model number of and a Murphy V939 which has an odd sound AGC fault. Thanks Rob mate. I also got back an old Murphy A823 that I'd given away some months ago which has a few simple frame faults. My laziness also means that I STILL haven't fitted the modification to the Panasonic Sky box and I keep having to pull out the LNB lead to get certain stations. The Allegro wheel bearing hasn't got any worse, so I think I'll leave that for now.

10th October 2004: I've decided to stop looking at e-Bay for TV stuff. Or anywhere else. The collection is getting completely out of hand and is going to have to be trimmed down substantially. I still have some outstanding collections of a few sets to make from some very kind people, but I think that will be the finish unless something really special comes along. The museum is still on track, and any sets that have been donated for the purposes of being displayed will NOT be disposed of and will still be displayed. This is purely a practical clear out rather than a depression-induced panic like the last time. I would like to try and keep about 40-or-so of the 300-odd televisions I have currently. Oh yes - I finally got around to installing the modification to my Panasonic digital sky box and the channels change like a dream now. Thanks Alec for that top tip. :-)

21st October 2004: Went in the Allegro to pick up an RCA 21" round colour tube from an excellent chap called Adrian in South London this week. The tube will be put in the Bush CVB100 when I can get around to it. While I was in London, I went to see Gerry Wells' museum in Dulwich with Adrian and my mate Tone. I've been before, but it was well worth another visit - it's absolutely superb. Gerry was just finishing re-roofing his sheds, having been helped along by a large donation from the members of the BVWS. I particularly enjoyed seeing the pre-war TV's that Gerry had in the front room. All working too - blimey - very impressive. The Allegro was driving me mad with it's dodgey juddering clutch on the journey. In fact I'm surprised that we actually made it there at all, as, on the short journey between the M25 and the south circular, I managed to dramatically swerve in front of, or otherwise "cut up", at least half a dozen cars. Trying to squeeze the whole juggling act of navigating the complicated streets of London, fighting the Allegro clutch, looking at the map, listening to Garrison Keillor on the radio and trying to hear what Tony, my co-pilot was saying above the noise of traffic into a brain which was already jam-packed to bursting point with fuzz, was pretty much beyond me, and the fact that nobody was killed could possibly be counted as a miracle. But ho hum, no damage was done, except, perhaps, to my brain. On that subject, I finally had my appointment to see the neuro consultant psychiatrist man about my fuzzy head. After much consultation, questionnaires, letters to my parents and GP, scrutiny of school reports etc., he diagnosed Asperger's Syndrome which, once he'd explained what it was, was a bit of a shock. I'm not quite sure what to make of it really, although on the positive side, I am extremely pleased that I now have answers to a lot of previously unanswered questions.

25th October 2004: Took the Allegro to pick up a lovely Pye VT17 from an excellent couple from Rhyll. This was kindly donated to the museum in loving memory of a late relative. After that, I drove the 25 miles-or-so and picked up a late 1950's 21" KB with some very nice legs from another excellent chap from Chester. Next the Allegro and I went to see Steve Pendlebury in Hospital in Manchester. (Actually the Allegro stayed in the car park and I went in to the hospital alone, but the car sent it's regards.) Steve has just had a Kidney transplant with a spare one kindly donated by his dad. Apparently they don't remove the old kidneys, so Steve now has 3. Blimey. Steve's wife Dilys and the rest of the family were all there too so it got quite crowded. Get well soon Steve and Steve's dad. After that, my car and I set off back down to Solihull and I unloaded all the junk out of the back and into the house. All very exciting. Or not.

3rd November 2004: Good news everyone. The Austin 3-Litre is back from it's stint in a Devon Garage; the old thing is now feeling a lot better in my drive in Solihull with a fresh MOT (The car that is, not the drive.) The bodywork is looking tattier than ever, but at least it's rusty in all the right places and shouldn't be too bad to put back together again. It still needs a few mechanical bits-and-bobs sorting out too. The prop-shaft UJ's need replacing as they rattle above 50MPH, the brake disks need skimming or replacing because they don't really stop the car, and the dim/dip switch has melted where the previous owner (an excellent chap called Neil Kidby) had installed some larger halogen lamps. The extra current was a bit too much for the poor old switch to take and it expired one dark night last December. This came as a bit of surprise when everything went pitch black as I was driving through the Warwickshire countryside at 60MPH. Luckily for me I had a birthday-cake candle in the glove compartment otherwise I wouldn't have been able to see to drive home. Anyway, I now have a set of finest Halfords' relays to power the lights after I replace the switch.

10th May 2005: Good grief. What a long time between entries again. As usual, work and general can't-be-arsed'ness has meant that I haven't updated the site as much as I would have liked. Or at all in fact. Anyway, lots of things have happened since November 2004. I had an email in March from an excellent chap from Cheshire who said he had a spare Philips N1520 VCR and would I like it. Obviously I jumped at the chance and set off up the M6 with my mate Tone reading the map in the passenger seat. Actually, I remember now, it wasn't the M6, but some cross-country route which only took twice as long as the M6 and didn't use much more than 60 percent more fuel. But at least it was more direct. And that's the main thing. The chap also let me have a Decca 1000 projection set; it wasn't in the best of condition so I blackmailed Tone into having it for leading me on such a long route. I have some new tablets for the dodgey brain which kind-of work, but I'm still deciding whether I like them or not as they make me feel "Buzzy". (Methylphenidate Hydrochloride for those who are interested.) On the old-TV front, I also had a wonderful Bush from a young lady with nice mahogany legs from Staffordshire last week. Thanks Maude - it made my day - I'll put the pictures up soon. Went to the National Vintage Communications Fair at the NEC a couple of weeks ago and had a chat to some old mates. And some younger ones too. I actually went up to "help" a good chap called Steve Farley look after his stall, so I dumped a barrow load of my own junk on his table before leaving him to it and wandering off round the place for an hour-and-a-half. I ended up having to give one of my larger items, a big 405-Line Bush console set, away free of charge, lest I had to bring it back home with me, store it for 2 years and then take it to the dump. The bloke who took it away had the cheek to moan that it didn't have a lead with it and could we help him carry it to his Nissan Micra. As I didn't think it would even fit into a Nissan Micra, I suddenly remembered that Steve hadn't gone around the hall yet and that I had to stay and watch the stand. It wasn't true, but I didn't fancy wheeling it to his car and then finding out that it didn't fit and having to wheel it all the way back again. It's probably still in the car park if anyone wants it. I still haven't done much with the big old White Ibbotson other than removing an open-circuit I.F. coil and putting it in a drawer. The Austin 3-Litre is back down in Devon - Doh - but this time for a refit and a general overhaul. It's having 2 new wings, 4 new doors and some welding done to a hole in the floor. I almost passed out on the drive from Solihull to Devon, as the blowing exhaust combined with the hole in the floor meant that the whole car filled with noxious gasses. I thought at first that it was misty outside, but when I opened the window I realised, in my delirious state, that it was nice and clear and that the mist was on the inside of the car. I stopped the car on the side of the North Devon Link Road to let the smoke out of the sunroof - and my lungs - and a breakdown truck stopped behind me to see whether he could be of assistance putting the fire out. Mercifully, the rest of the journey was trouble free, although I turned up at my parents' house with a nervous twitch, incontinent and paralysed down one side. They pretended not to be in, so I recovered on their lawn in the pouring rain for an hour before using the spare key and going straight to bed. Ho Hum. I have a few dual-standard colour TV's for sale if anyone is interested (A kind-of-working 25" Thorn 2000, a pair of slightly-dodgey Pye sets and a single-standard G6) and a few other misc 405-line sets. The dual-standard colours will set you back 150 quid for the 2000, and 150 quid for the pair of Pye's. (Actually, one is an Ekco and one a Ferranti.) That's all I can remember for now. I'll try and put some more rubbish up here soon. Oh yes, my sister, Annmarie is having a baby, a brother to my young nephew Owen, and a sister to Owen's brother Susan. Best of luck Siss - I hope everything goes extremely well. And just remember, take as many drugs as they offer; they're great, and you have the rest of your life to try and remember the birth. Bye everyone. Mike.

2nd June 2005: Normally, I shamble through life unconvincingly contriving an air of mediocrity, but every now and then my crass incompetence is obvious for all to see. Last week, for instance, Steve Farley, a wealthy friend who owns a chain of TV shops across Birmingham and 2 posh cars, asked me to look at Toshiba TV with a convergence problem as his engineers couldn’t get it going. I'm not sure why he thought that I could fix it when his engineers had given up. “A nice simple job” Steve said; he thought it was probably the picture valve. I wasn’t convinced but humoured him anyway, “Yes, Yes, that’s probably it.” I said. “The picture valve.” Anyway, being the cowardly type and never liking to say no to anyone, I reluctantly (and foolishly as it turns out) agreed to have a look at it. On arrival at Steve’s shop in Kingstanding and, after a fair amount of procrastination, drinking coffee, admiring the stock, and drooling over a picture of a woman with huge breasts and not a hair out of place expertly soldering (or possibly desoldering) a surface mount IC with the latest Antex desoldering station, I was dragged into the workshop to see the poorly TV. After tripping over the door threshold into the workshop and splashing cheap coffee on a brand new Loewe Opta wide screen TV, I beheld the Toshiba right there in front of me. It was huge - a behemoth among TV’s. A 60-inch projection TV of the 3-tube variety. I noticed that the set had already been partially dismantled, a bad start in my book, but at least I didn’t have to get involved with the logistics of stripping it down I told myself. The service manual was two sides of A4 paper, but they included all the bits I wanted to see and were a handy size so things were looking brighter already. On connecting the aging Decca cross-hatch generator and powering the set up, it was obvious that something was amiss - there was a huge “S” shape in the red horizontals whilst the blue and green looked relatively normal. In the middle of the PCB was a very large surface mount IC, which dealt with all that kind of stuff. Not having any data on the chip, I started ham-fistedly prodding about with the scope probe a bit further down the line. The chip uses some kind of pulse-width-modulation to drive the convergence and looking at the waveform coming straight from the chip proved useless. The PWM demodulation circuit involved a pair of op-amps built into one package DC coupled to the big nasty-looking chip, and some sundry components. The op-amps were obviously designed for audio, as they were labelled “L/R input” and “L/R output”. The waveform for the red horizontal convergence on the output of the op-amp looked terrible compared with the blue and green and, as everything else round the op-amps seemed OK, I swapped the chip with the equivalent one for the Blue convergence. Actually, Steve swapped it over, as I am extremely clumsy with anything smaller than valve sockets. I switched the TV on expecting great things – The same problem. Hmmm. After much faffing about cutting tracks, swapping convergence connections about and changing components, I came to the conclusion that the PWM output from the big nasty-looking IC must be faulty. By this time, I was getting pretty cheesed off and my brain was g