TV in an Advert

No, much later - if I'm right, it was Thorn's last large-screen mono set; 1615B chassis? One of my great-aunts had one - I remember buying it for her around 1983.

https://www.radios-tv.co.uk/brc-thorn-chassis-guide/

Posted by: Cathovisor

No, much later - if I'm right, it was Thorn's last large-screen mono set; 1615B chassis? 

Very close but as it's a 20" it will be the 1615A. I'm pretty sure it's a Ferguson 3850, there was also an Ultra 6850 with similar styling but I think they were white. We acquired a number of these when DER took over another small rental company but they withdrawn on sight because of it's bad habit of catching fire caused by arcing due to dry joints on the line linearity coil. A shame really as the performance was not too bad as I remember.

Just found this over on UKVRR 

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?t=35692&highlight=1615

1983, I was fixing mini computers then, last Thorn BW set I saw was a 1500, the cabinet style is definitely Thorn, so a 1615B, Thanks for the correction.

I will have a look in the data library for a circuit.

Posted by: Jayceebee
I'm pretty sure it's a Ferguson 3850

It is and its here (bottom of page)

Its actually 1982, the photo of the 3850 was taken from the 1982 Ferguson brochure.

Yes there it is. Lots of expertise on the forum, thanks.

Posted by: Jayceebee

Posted by: Cathovisor

No, much later - if I'm right, it was Thorn's last large-screen mono set; 1615B chassis? 

Very close but as it's a 20" it will be the 1615A. I'm pretty sure it's a Ferguson 3850, there was also an Ultra 6850 with similar styling but I think they were white. We acquired a number of these when DER took over another small rental company but they withdrawn on sight because of it's bad habit of catching fire caused by arcing due to dry joints on the line linearity coil. A shame really as the performance was not too bad as I remember.

Oh, tell me about it!!

Said Great-Aunt summoned me down to her house one day as indeed, a lot of magic smoke had escaped from her set. Upon taking the back off I saw the massive hole in the printed circuit board caused by the very fault you described.

Now, said G-A was monumentally tight-fisted and would NOT buy a colour set (she did eventually, shortly before her death) so I left her a suitable black and white replacement (think it was my 12" Decca Gypsy) and brought the set home. Much to the disgust of Mrs. Cathovisor, I set about repairing the hole in the PCB with Araldite and with the aid of the circuit and PCB layout (photocopied from the local library) I refitted the components and joined them with tinned copper wire.

It worked!

By the time said G-A relented, the tube was so flat it could barely produce a picture in a darkened room and the press-button assembly had been replaced with a rotary switch and some pots! I did source a tube for it but Mrs. Cathovisor was of the opinion that she should be forced to spend some of her accumulated fortune...

1982 would fit: the 24" had recently been dropped from the range leaving just the 20", and Pye had just ceased selling large-screen mono sets altogether. I remember this as she had always had Pye sets and wanted a 24" one... and I remember it fitting neatly in the boot of my Renault 16 🙂

In the early 80's DER were still supplying brand new mono sets badged as PYE but fitted with the Philips L7 chassis. When they dried up the die hards only had the option of a CTV with the subcarrier crystal shorted out.

Recently I was asking at Vintage Radio about how late large screen monochrome TVs were sold in the UK after remembering seeing one in Stockport's Cash Converters 20 years ago & thinking how rare one was even then.

I got some good responses, & a link to a previous thread, where some of the above was mentioned, especially the Thorn 1600 chassis having a habit of catching fire.

Also mentioned were Spanish & Portuguese made Philips 24" sets, which were also sold in the UK with Pye badging in the early-mid 1980s.

Some later offerings from the Far East included the interestingly named Cap-10 & some from eastern Europe examples just after the Cold War begin to warm up.

I've heard of some rental companies turning the colour circuits off in old colour sets for customers who only wanted had a B&W TV licence, often older people with sight problems.

Richard,

You registered here at Radios-TV as RichardFromMarple (the link takes you to your account) and at UKVRR as Richard_FM.

You had been logging on here and posting comments in the blogs (seven thus far) then for some reason a couple of weeks ago you tried logging in here as "Richard_FM". I know this due to the firewall e-mailing me the log entries. When it failed on the third attempt which it would as no such account exists here called Richard_FM, the firewall blocked you. However I cleared the block within 10 mins of being notified by the firewall but you have never tried to login again since.

A bit of friendly advice, as you are already a member here (RichardFromMarple) you should login to post on the blogs and forum as a that member and not as a guest, guest posting is reserved for guests. There would be chaos if members started posting as gusts and as members as the posts would be assigned of many accounts.

As such no futher posts will be approved if you make them as a guest and that applies to any member, I hope you understand. If members have forgotten their username or password they should follow the advice given on the login page. 

If you would like me to change your username from "RichardFromMarple" to "Richard_FM" to make life easier, I can do that, we just need to agree a time so as to not get you confused and get blocked by the firewall again.

Hope you take this advice in the spirit it was intended, that being friendly advice.  ? 

Regards
Chris

Note: Guest posting was covered in an FAQ here I will amend the rules to reflect this. The FAQ section is very useful and I urge folk to always consult it when faced with problems as most are covered.

p.s.
Apologies for taking the thread off-topic

I can only speak of up to around 1980, by that time I don’t think we had any large screen BW sets in the showroom. We were still repairing them but not that many, most of our customers had a CTV. I think the last we had were a few Thorn 1500 and Pye 169 chassis both hybrids but the East European CRT’s did not do the chassis justice. 

I don’t remember having seen a large screen Pye set in the second half of the 70’s with anything other than a 169 chassis.

I never saw the Thorn 1615 chassis.

What was the advert Frank. Does anyone else is think that there is something wrong with the aspect ratio? It looks like the picture being displayed is 16:9 on an obviously 4:3 set.

No idea what the advert was for, very good advert then. ? 

The TV was on and I was doing something else and when I looked at the TV the there was the Thorn set. Managed to rewind, take a photo then ignored the rest of the advert.

Its possible that the picture as been superimposed on the screen and the TV was a non worker, from the reports of the model there can be only a few if any working and with a decent CRT.

I have to say it looks genuine to me especially as the aspect ratio is wrong. Notice the brightness is at max and the volume minimum.

Sorry I was having some cookie problems not helped by a problematic broadband connection.

Posted By: RichardFromMarple

Sorry I was having some cookie problems not helped by a problematic broadband connection.

No problem Richard and no need to apologise, just glad you're now sorted.   ? 

I had not heard about disabling the colour circuits to give some one a BW set. There were still large screen BW sets easily available  even if second hand in the 70’s so it was a problem I didn’t have to deal with.

Posted by: Nuvistor

I had not heard about disabling the colour circuits to give some one a BW set. There were still large screen BW sets easily available  even if second hand in the 70’s so it was a problem I didn’t have to deal with.

 

We did this into the 2000's for rental clients... out with the crystal. One client did ring to complain the teletext was in colour, and she didn't want to get into trouble!

Posted by: Nuvistor

No idea what the advert was for, very good advert then. ? 

Hi Frank,
The advert was for Vision Express. it has Julie Walters in it.
I think whoever fed the signal into that TV should have gone to Specsavers!
Sorry about that... It's the best attempt at humour I can manage at this time of night 😉
By the way, to the keen eye there's another telly about 9 seconds into the advert.... Anyone know what it is?
URL is below

All the best,
Tony

Ferguson 941T - the little 9" set? Also, is the colour set a bit later just that 1615A with a bit of overlay?