Yep apparently true, this was found in a skip
I bought it via e-bay from the chap who was lucky to stumble upon it, phew! This TV was a whisker away.
The set is a Bush TV125CU and was released in August 1963. It's dual standard (I must be mad) and the U denotes it has the UHF tuner fitted.
Spooky thing is I didn't know the model or year until it was delivered 10 mins ago. I have been looking for a set from my birth year for over four years and wanted something we were quite likely to have. I've got sets each side year wise and a 1963 Perdio portable, but was having great difficulty getting something suitable that might have been in the lounge.
It's in superb condition, and I'm looking forward to restoring this. As you may know I have a complete empty cabinet for one of these too
Finally, Shipley... Superb, picked up Monday evening from down south and delivered today.
Now that is a beauty! Haven't seen one of those since the early 70's...they were getting on a bit by then but were still in use. Great rescue!
Rich
As part of the usual precautionary inspection, etc, check to see if the thermistor mod has been carried out. As originally designed, the DC through it has a habit of snapping it in two!
First light. Set to 405, oh deep Joy these push button tuners. Selected BBC1 and it sort of located, well did it, it's not a very positive lock. If you push and hold the button in a test tone can be heard, let go the pressure and it goes ( been here before) I've not figured how you fine tune this one as when you depress the button and are lucky enough for it to locate, it's so far in that you can hardly grab it to rotate. When you do it feels like it just goes around and around. I wonder if once locked you push in further and rotate. It seems you can pull the out a bit and twist it them seems to lock so cannot be pushed in. I will do some research and see if I have the manual. Give me turret tuners any day compared to these new fangled push button tuners. I wonder if the old TV techs once said that too these push button tuners seem like trouble.
EDIT: Precautionary...... Oh Well! I will check now though
Looks like something has been changed so possibly the mod you mention.
Found the tuner functionality, so you do push to lock then withdraw to fine tune, which is different to the Philips push button tuner.
Your buttons are almost certainly worn out!
This was a common problem - usually as a result of a dirty tuner not being attended to, so the customer would need to fine tune at every channel change!
Also, if there was a tendency not to pull the button far enough out to engage fully with the splines on the spindle, a small part of the plastic would take all the wear at first, and so on and so on ...
Some sets had a light coil spring pressing agains the button to make them easier to grasp but I can't remember if this started with the TV125 series or its successor, the TV135 ...
I drew this ages ago but I don't think I ever posted it.
I thought that if someone could make these up out of thin sheet metal, and bend the tabs down to leave the cross in the middle with reinforced sides, it could be placed on a worn out button with the tabs pointing in and melted into place by application of a hot soldering iron.
As identical buttons were used on the TV105/115/125 and 135 series, there must be a lot of worn out buttons out there ...!
Any takers?
Terry were you a Bush man? you seem to know your Bush's... That sounds a tad dodgy but you know what I mean.
Terry were you a Bush man?
Funny you should say that ...!
Yes, I worked for a Bush dealer for 9 years - although we dropped Bush towards the end because of reliability issues ...
The current range when I started work was the TV95 series - which I wasn't allowed near, at first ...!
The first set I worked on was a TV24 - I was just told to change the LOPT and got on with it ...
There was egg on the face of my mentor when it didn't work and the fault turned out to be the boost capacitor! So then I replaced the LOPT with the original one ...
What a shame but as you correctly stated all the tuner buttons fail to locate and tune, I guess they have all broken as you describe. Unless they are fixed there will be no signal received or tuned
Chris I have looked back to what you said about your first attempt at tuning the set.
If pulling the button causes it to lock would this not be dried up grease in the tuning spindle?
The same problem is common on record changers.
VHF tuner removed.
Will have to see if I can figure a way to get this to work, as I've no way of making what Terry suggested. Why oh why did someone decide and they still do it now, that plastic and metal meeting with force was a good idea. It always ends in tears.
What a shame but as you correctly stated all the tuner buttons fail to locate and tune, I guess they have all broken as you describe.
What state are the UHF buttons in? They should be interchangeable. Otherwise, find some thin brass sheet, tin snips ... I've never tried this - we always had plenty of new buttons in stock, so didn't need to - but I wonder it it would be possible to heat the button slightly so that the plastic is just workable and squash the end in both directions at once, or push into a suitable tapered square hole, to produce a rough square shape ...?
Whaddya fink?
Whaddya fink?
I fink you funk it frew! Me executing it is another matter but it has to be my best shot
I'm going knob diving in my knob draw Ooo Err Misses .... settle down... I might have seen some of these a while back but I guess they are all in the same state. I will also check the UHF tuner ones too.
A further thought on the crushing idea ...
Find or make a former with a similar profile to the tuner spindle - any material would do, even wood, so long as it doesn't melt!
Then crush the button as I suggested but with sufficient force to make it reform itself to the former.
I would suggest using one of the tuner spindles as the former but they look a bit too close together to give enough access. Might be worth a try, though ...
What state are the UHF buttons in? They should be interchangeable.
Unfortunately they are not interchangeable, they use a different set up.
After a dive in my knob box I found some similar, not perfect but it might work as a temporary measure allowing me to tune and progress prior to the more permanent solution.
Ah now that's what I like a good old mechanical system switch no bloomin solenoid.
Also hats off to Bush they certainly had the service engineer in mind when it comes to gaining access to everything unlike Philips!!. Tuners come out easy, system switch has good access to service also the main deck and IF strip, a service engineers dream.
OK OK, rose tinted spec's, I'm sure Terry will no doubt have a Bushman tale or two of woes, but that can be another thread.
... I'm sure Terry will no doubt have a Bushman tale or two of woes ...
Actually, I don't think I can!
Incidentally, this is the set I've mentioned elsewhere that we used to use the two screwdriver trick on to watch continental 625-line TV on VHF during bursts of Sporadic E propagation - stable high pressure conditions as frequently found in July and November when the E layer in the atmosphere becomes reflective to VHF signals, particularly in Band I.
If you look at the bottom two switches of the IF system switch at the rear you will see that they switch power and IF between the tuners. So, unplug the UHF IF input (if fitted) and poke two screwdrivers into the switch to short the contacts together. The weight of the handle of a small screwdriver holds the blade in place.
We would sometimes run a set for 2 or 3 days like this without any problems and, of course, it only took a couple of seconds to put the set back to normal!
System switch serviced.
