This came from a transmitter site and I have no idea of its age or manufacturer.
The tube seems to have some sort of safety glass attached although I'm unsure if this is to protect the screen from accidental damage (it's supposed to be portable but weighs an absolute tonne) or if it has no implosion protection. Has a modern MK mains plug fitted and a PAT test label from 2004.
I have reason to believe this started life at Tyne Tees Television but was later used for monitoring the feed at the transmitter site
Looks a bit like a Melford, but can't see any names on it. Looks like musa for the input and output so designed for broadcast use I'd guess especially as it has a 4.43Mhz switchable filter. Perhaps a standard monitor spec'd by the IBA, perhaps 16A means something ? Nice find, does it work ?
That's got either Post Office or the Services all over it - designations like "Fuse No. 48" and "Picture Monitor No. 16A" reek of it, and I know of no commercially-made monitor that ever used MUSA connections - F&E yes, BNC yes, but a MUSA? Don't forget that the MUSA was also a GPO connector. (MUSA is an acronym for Multiple Unit Steerable Array)
What's particularly interesting is that it has retained the large Bulgin mains connector at the back. Most broadcasters would have modded that out.
@mfd70 haven't tried it yet. Currently doing 12 hour shifts at work so won't get a chance until Monday at the earliest. There's no manufacturer name anywhere on the outside.
@cathovisor aha! Yes, I've covered the stickers on the back just in case there was any information that shouldn't be shown. It seems to have been used for the link between studio and transmitter site.
Comparing it with PO/BT equipment of the 1970s/early 80s I wonder if CER 82/2 means it was made as "recently" as 1982? Alas, I can't find CER as a manufacturer code on any of the lists collated by those who collect old telecoms equipment, but it seems to be in the right format for something PO/BT would have built to a certain specification, but perhaps made by more than one manufacturer (the 700 series telephones being a similar example)
Thanks!- I couldn't for the life of me remember the name, but the house style was very familiar, i.e. the black panels with dome-head Posidriv screws, the small black collet knobs on slim-shaft pots, the pressed louvres, even the type of neon indicator. The cottage-industry metalwork typical of the small-scale outfits that made small-run, even bespoke stuff for professional users back in the day. We had a lot of Cotron monochrome monitors at work, some 10" narrow-angle deflection in a long case, many of them having a very square-edged and flat-faced 7" tube and sized so that two fitted side-by-side in a 19" rack. They were of pretty conventional, application-note type design and reliable, I don't recall any stock faults, just the scatter of things associated with stuff crammed together, like weary electrolytics. The tube in the 7" types had a typical bluish consumer tint to the phosphor, the front panel had a slide runner either side of the tube to accomodate an amber-tint rectangle of acrylic to at least get it a little closer to Illuminant D-ish.
@wayned I thought it might be Cotron. They used to supply monitors to the railway in BR days - primarily for CCTV surveillance of remote level crossings.
Looks the same as a Cotron monitor in my loft, the one I have is in really bad condition, never tested it, perhaps one day.
Yes its a fenbridge cap, the CRT will be an unprotected screen, the snag with them is they are not 100% transparent so slightly degrade the picture, not good for a studio monitor.
This is a very unusual tube, I'd expect mono tubes of this era to have much thinner necks and a smaller yoke, but then again this isn't a consumer set.
I suppose the fenbridge cap might've still been a thing on specialist equipment.
The usual thing with professional picture monitors is that unlike domestic sets, they're not designed to hide signal imperfections but to show them in great detail, usually to some detriment of the displayed picture.
I'm pleased my hunch was right in thinking it was ex-Post Office 🙂
The oldest sticker was 2001 and the most recent was 2004. Was this just a way of ensuring that it gets tested I wonder?
It is completely dead though, putting a really low watt bulb in series didn't show much. I think the only draw was the neon light on the front. No obvious fuses blown either.
The oldest sticker was 2001 and the most recent was 2004. Was this just a way of ensuring that it gets tested I wonder?
Just the usual statutory testing of equipment as required by the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989. It probably got stuck on a shelf when it died and never fixed.
