Granada Television Brochure, 1970s
Long Gone UK TV Shops
Memories of a Derwent Field Service Engineer
PYE Australia Circa 1971
Radios-TV VRAT
Fabulous Fablon
Thorn TX10 Chassis
Crusty-TV Museum, Analogue TV Network
Philips N1500 Warning!
Rumbelows
Thorn EMI Advertising
Thorn’s Guide to Servicing a VCR
Ferguson 3V24 De-Robed
Want to tell us a story?
Video Circuits V15 – Tripler Tester
Thorn Chassis Guide
Remove Teletext Lines & VCR Problems
Ceefax (Teletext)
Suggestions
Website Refresh
Colour TV Brochures
1970s Lounge Recreation
CrustyTV Vintage Television Museum
Linda Lovelace Experience
Humbars on a Sony KV2702
1972 Ultra 6713
D|E|R Service “The Best”
The one that got away
Technical information
The Line Output Stage
The map
Tales of a newly qualified young engineer.
Tales of a Radio Rentals Van Boy
Sanyo SMD
Disastrous Company Rebranding
1969 Philips G22K511
Memories Of The TV Trade
Crazy house
Dirty TV screens
Dual Standard and Single Standard CTV’s
Radios-TV on YouTube
The Winter of 62/63
A domestic audio installation
1979 Ferguson Videostar Deluxe 3V16
Music centre modifications
Unusual record player modification
B&K 467 Adapters
Mishaps In The Trade
1971 Beovision 3200
1971 Bush CTV1120
Granada Television Brochure, 1970s
Long Gone UK TV Shops
Memories of a Derwent Field Service Engineer
PYE Australia Circa 1971
Radios-TV VRAT
Fabulous Fablon
Thorn TX10 Chassis
Crusty-TV Museum, Analogue TV Network
Philips N1500 Warning!
Rumbelows
Thorn EMI Advertising
Thorn’s Guide to Servicing a VCR
Ferguson 3V24 De-Robed
Want to tell us a story?
Video Circuits V15 – Tripler Tester
Thorn Chassis Guide
Remove Teletext Lines & VCR Problems
Ceefax (Teletext)
Suggestions
Website Refresh
Colour TV Brochures
1970s Lounge Recreation
CrustyTV Vintage Television Museum
Linda Lovelace Experience
Humbars on a Sony KV2702
1972 Ultra 6713
D|E|R Service “The Best”
The one that got away
Technical information
The Line Output Stage
The map
Tales of a newly qualified young engineer.
Tales of a Radio Rentals Van Boy
Sanyo SMD
Disastrous Company Rebranding
1969 Philips G22K511
Memories Of The TV Trade
Crazy house
Dirty TV screens
Dual Standard and Single Standard CTV’s
Radios-TV on YouTube
The Winter of 62/63
A domestic audio installation
1979 Ferguson Videostar Deluxe 3V16
Music centre modifications
Unusual record player modification
B&K 467 Adapters
Mishaps In The Trade
1971 Beovision 3200
1971 Bush CTV1120
B&W TV Need a new CRT? Oh to be back in '63!
I found this in the February 1963 issue of Radio Television and Hobbies.
I used to buy tubes from this company (they had moved by then) to fix up old TVs and sell them, while I was at school. Bought my first car (a Thames 100E van) this way. What a piece of junk that was!
I wonder what happened to the plant and equipment from this and many other similar operations? Now that we NEED it!!
Maybe the clue is here - same company, December that year. The price has dropped!
I remember getting re-gun tubes from Dunelm Tubes at Billy Row, near Crook 2 miles from me. £5 for mono, only £3 if no g/tee. A56-120X £25. £15 with no g/tee or slight seconds. I fitted a A63-120X in my early Rediffusion RT514/25 (BRC 3000) in 1979 and it still produces a good pic today, Malc.
We used to use Suffolk Tubes in Purley Way Croydon. You could whip a tube out of a set and run it down to them. If they had the same or equivalent in stock, you came out moments later with a guaranteed regun. If they didn't have it in stock, you could go back in a couple of days and collect the one you took in, regunned, guaranteed and looking like new. Those were the days! They could sort out screen burns as well.
Posted by: @irob2345I found this in the February 1963 issue of Radio Television and Hobbies.
Eight Australian Pounds = Six British Pounds and eight shillings.
(16 UK shillings to the Australian Pound)
Posted by: @sidebandWe used to use Suffolk Tubes in Purley Way Croydon.
That'd put it right on Philips's doorstep, wouldn't it?
Yes it would but Philips didn't use Suffolk! That was when I was at my first job in Thornton Heath just up the road from Philips. One of my jobs was to drive the Morris Minor van down to Suffolk, unload half a dozen tubes at Suffolk and go back a couple of days later and collect them. Did a lot of business with them between 1970 and 1973.
Philips only used reguns for colour TV's as a cheaper option for the customer. I think they were Mullard Colourex rebuilt at Blackburn and shipped down to Croydon.
I remember Suffolk tubes, they were better than some but worse than most - what a recommendation!
In 1969 - I remember the date because the moon landings happened at the time, I was working evenings and some weekends for extra cash in a seriously crappy TV shop that rented second hand TVs. The only thing remarkable about the shop was that there was CRT re-gunning happening in the basement by a quite skilled engineer on an as-needed basis.
It was really quite interesting. From my memory this is what happened:
The CRT would be mounted in a cradle and gas jets applied to the neck until the glass started to collapse around the gun. The glass would have also "gassed out" thus softening the vacuum. Then the neck could be cut off and a new piece of glass tubing would be welded on with the gas jets.
As the cradle was slowly rotated, the new gun assembly (bought from Mullard) would then be elevated up the glass tube to the correct point and the gas jets used to fuse the gun base to the tube; the excess tube falling away.
Next was pumping. The gun had a vacuum tube protruding from the base. This was connected to the pumping station. Pumping happened in 2 stages, soft and hard. The soft pump took the vacuum so far, then an oven was lowered over the CRT for the hard pump, presumably to de-gas the glass a bit and relieve stresses in the glass*.
Once pumping was finished, the gun's vacuum tube was briefly heated and fell away.
Next was getter firing. The getter in the Mullard guns of the time was placed against the side of the neck. A carefully wound inductor coil of hollow copper pipe was pressed against the neck, a button pushed, and a big flash happened, leaving a reflective coating inside the neck for oxygen absorption. The coil was fed by a high power RF generator with pretty big Valves showing through the caging. At the same time water was forced through the coil to cool it.
After this the CRT would be tested. Very often the picture centring would be close to the limit, but as long as the phosphor was good, the CRT would give good pictures and have a reasonable life.
*The engineer who worked on these was profoundly deaf. Nevertheless he could repair sound faults by feel, just needing to ask a hearing person whether distortion was present. One evening there was an enormous whomf and the floor seemed to lift. Moment later he arrived at the top of the stairs saying "did you hear anything?". A CRT had imploded in the oven but he had only felt the breeze.
These were mostly large and small neck monochrome CRTs. The next generation of direct view CRTs with rim band implosion protection created a big problem with baking.
John
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