Hi, from RR. Does anyone here know anything about a 12" B&W portable made by Harvard Isherwood and labelled as "Harwood" HAR12, also labelled on the front as "solid state". It has a rotary mechanical UHF tuner and almost all discrete circuitry except for one chip I've seen during a quick look inside which appears to be somewhere in the signals department. It has a 12" 90 degree tube and while the label says it's made in the UK it's obviously all far eastern components inside, so it must be assembled in the UK from an imported kit. I don't know how old it is but it looks like an early 70's job, although the LOPT looks like an 80's one. It's working fine with what looks like everything still original and I think I'm possibly the first to open it since it was new, just like with a little Panasonic colour portable I've also got from about 1981. RR.
Hi If it's the set I think it is Woolworths and Freemans sold them in the mid 1970's. I used to repair Woolworths under guarantee stuff for a local shop when I was still at school. Mostly small radio's but every now and again these portables and offerings from Rigonda were sent.
If I remember rightly the circuit board is quite crowded especially around the line stage. I can't remember any of the faults they suffered from but ISTR the service sheet was an almost unreadable bad copy with a very small circuit diagram.
luckily any transit damaged sets were written off and I was allowed to scrap them for spares so any that baffled me got a replacement panel from one with a broken tube. 
Any chance of a picture?
Rich.
Hi, from RR. I got the name wrong, it's Hardman Isherwood, The whole board in this little set is very crowded, the main transistors are all in TO220 type packages, no nice big TO3's which I prefer like those in the Panasonic TC-800xx portables. Unfortunately I can't provide any pictures as my scanner still won't work. The casing on this set is a creamy kind of colour with very curved corners and edges and looks very slim for a 90 degree job. I got it from ebay as it was local and the seller didn't say what size screen it was and there was only one picture and I got it hoping it would be an 11" screen so I could use the tube for my Philips T-Vette but needless to say it was a 12" so I think I'll clean it inside and out and possibly stick it back on ebay when I eventually get an account. It was cheap enough at only a fiver so I thought it was worth the risk. I don't think I'll get any more unless I can tell for sure it's an 11" one. I don't want an attic full of cheap tatty little plastic portables. RR.
Was it this one?
Back in the 1980s I saw that TV branded as "Network" as well as Harwood . It claimed to be made in the UK, though it looks very Far-Eastern. I reckon it was assembled in the UK from a kit of parts produced in Taiwan or Korea.
Also in the 80s, I owned another Harwood 12" monochrome portable with a push-button tuner. It was also marketed under the Network brand and sold by Fine Fare supermarkets. I'm sure there was a connection between the two names, Network and Harwood, however both have disappeared without much trace. Network were based in Bradford, I think, but I know very little about who actually made these sets.
One thing I've noticed is that the Far-Eastern 12" B/W portables usually had 90 degree tubes, whereas the European (Thorn, Philips) ones usually had 110 degree tubes such as A31-120W
Unfortunately the 11" tube used in the Philips TVette is a bit of a rarity. I have a large collection of monochrome portables in various sizes from 4.5", 5", 7", 9", 10", 12", 14" and even a mains-battery 17" set, but nothing exactly matching the Philips TVette tube size.
Hi, all, RR here, yes, that's the one, the very same. I know Sanyo made one with an 11" tube and I missed one on ebay which was local because I got confused about the deflection angles, it was only later I found out from info in the tech library that the T-Vette tube is indeed a 90 degree one. I too thought all the UK and European battery/mains portables were 110 degree, wasn't the Thorn 1590/91 series 110 degree, I can't remember now, as well as the Bush ranger and the Decca gypsy, etc.? RR.
I'm going back more than thirty years. Was is it that the Bush and Alba brand names were acquired by a firm called Harvard International? After the collapse of Rank Radio International in 1980 the Bush brand name was sold off to the Harvard firm and the Murphy name was acquired by J J Silber. The Murphy name appeared on rebadged Rediffusion Mark 4 TV sets.
Harwood could be a brand name used by Harvard.
Many will remember the first Vestel Bush TV set which appeared in 1984, the set with the 11AK01 chassis developed by Thorn engineers.
Till Eulenspiegel.
I'm going back more than thirty years. Was is it that the Bush and Alba brand names were acquired by a firm called Harvard International?
They certainly were, Till.
About this point Harvard changed its trading name to Alba plc and the Bush name carried on, along with numerous others acquired by them (Goodmans and Grundig being but two).
In a reorganisation in 2008, Alba plc sold the Bush and Alba names and their IP to Home Retail Group and reverted to being Harvard International, but retained the right to sell products under the Bush (and Grundig) name in Australia.
