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What was the last programme you saw on 405-lines?

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Focus Diode
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Spurred on from a recent post on the UKVRR Skip Find Ultra thread where there was mention of "Panorama" being the last programme viewed on 405 in late 1977.

This thread obviously relates to programmes viewed when 405-lines was still transmitting.

The last I remember viewing in its entirety was the Top of the Pops 20th Anniversary special in January 1984 on a 19" ITT KB VC52 model on ch2 from North Hessary Tor. The picture quality was superb.

Sadly that programme will never be repeated for obvious reasons. Men at Work's "Down Under" was No.1 at the time.

Would be interesting to hear other recollections of your last programme viewed from a 405-line transmitter.

Brian

 
Posted : 22/07/2017 9:09 am
ntscuser
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I've no idea what it was other than the TV was taken away for a repair and when it returned the wafers for the BBC1 and ITV pushbuttons had been switched from VHF to UHF. We had no warning this would be done so did not make a note of what we had watched the night before. This would have been 1975 or 76.

Classic TV Theme Tunes

 
Posted : 22/07/2017 3:57 pm
Nuvistor
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Sorry no idea, it would be 1970 the last time I watched a program on 405 but I would have seen 405 transmissions while at work, I don't count though.

Frank

 
Posted : 22/07/2017 5:30 pm
peterscott
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The last one I have any record of watching was the Queen's Christmas message in 1984. It was received from Kirk O' Shotts using a very simple dipole that is just visible behind the set.

Peter

hmv901.JPG

www.nostalgiatech.co.uk

 
Posted : 22/07/2017 5:39 pm
PYE625
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It would have been 1981 and likely a kids program on my Bush tv24 with a di-pole in my bedroom.

Have a feeling it got swapped for a scrap A823 and colour was then all the rage for me, but I certainly remember seeing 405 broadcast's in 1984 whilst on work experience at Visionhire in Peterborough. Teletext pages used to be transmitted at times instead of the test card, but not sure if I ever saw them on BBC1 405 though.

Speaking of work experience at Visionhire, I can remember an engineer by the name of "Pet", he was an Asian chap and I sometimes went with him out on field calls. He had a brown estate car and it was great fun for me back then. Video recording was a great fascination and Philips 2000 was common. Sets on rental were a mix of colour and mono and valves were still stocked. British Relay was still going.

Oh the memories of that summer three-week glimpse into Visionhire....Unit 10 Brassey Close Peterborough. How I still remember the address, I don't know !!

Sorry for the drifting off down memory lane..... grin_gif

PS, I can even remember what they had hanging on the inside toilet door, but that is not for here !!  embarassed

To understand the black art of electronics is to understand witchcraft. Andrew.

 
Posted : 22/07/2017 7:38 pm
Cathovisor
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From memory, it was Top Of The Pops. The song I clearly recall was Never Say Die by Black Sabbath, and the set was a cast-off from our neighbour - a Pye V530 with FM radio. It sat in the bay window of the front parlour at home, as a second set. So that record would place it to 1978 - IIRC as part of upgrading the local FM TX from mono to stereo and raising the power to 50kW from 20kW, the 405 TV transmitter bit the dust. That would also coincide with my great-aunts giving me their now-useless RGD 519 TVs 'for bits'.

All sets in that list are wanted by me, by the way!

 
Posted : 22/07/2017 8:24 pm
Focus Diode
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That's a good point about Teletext pages shown on 405-lines. I don't recall seeing, "Pages from Ceefax" on 405 at all.

As well as Test Card "F" and "G" (PM5544) I once saw an unusual test card which rather looked like the FuBK but wasn't with BBC 1 ID in 1978 on ch5 Wenvoe. Wenvoe ch13 showed the BBC Wales PM5544 of course.

Once During "House party" on Southern Chillerton Down ch11 they had a checkerboard pattern in place of a picture with normal sound. Quickly switching over to UHF Hannington gave normal vision,showing the checkerboard was shown on VHF only.

 
Posted : 22/07/2017 8:30 pm
PYE625
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Focusdiode said
That's a good point about Teletext pages shown on 405-lines. I don't recall seeing, "Pages from Ceefax" on 405 at all.

I'm assuming that the teletext print would have been too small to read easily on 405.

To understand the black art of electronics is to understand witchcraft. Andrew.

 
Posted : 22/07/2017 10:59 pm
Cathovisor
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PYE625 said
I'm assuming that the teletext print would have been too small to read easily on 405.  

Errrrr..... what are you on about?

 
Posted : 22/07/2017 11:43 pm
Focus Diode
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Good point about the size of the text. I remember watching That's Life on ch5 Wenvoe. The programme often showed letters they'd received which were often difficult to read on 405, yet clear on 625.

Having said that, the Freeview guide is as clear as a bell when seen on 405.

"Never Say Die" by Black Sabbath. Not a fan of them by any means but that's a great record. I remember seeing Motorhead perform "Overkill" on ch5 Wenvoe which must've been in 1979 on the GEC 2017 model I had.

 
Posted : 23/07/2017 7:39 am
peterscott
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So many of these references are to last viewings in the late 70s. 405 transmissions continued well into the early 80s. Did you guys not witness the last broadcasts in your areas?

Peter

www.nostalgiatech.co.uk

 
Posted : 23/07/2017 9:23 am
PYE625
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Cathovisor said

Errrrr..... what are you on about?  

Small on-screen print is harder to read on VHF 405 than it is on UHF 625. Both horizontal and vertical definition are reduced. Even when teletext pages were transmitted in place of the test card on 625, you could clearly see a reduced definition as compared to the actual teletext as seen on a teletext capable set. Not only that, the teletext page when broadcast appeared smaller in size as compared to real teletext.

To understand the black art of electronics is to understand witchcraft. Andrew.

 
Posted : 23/07/2017 9:34 am
PYE625
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peterscott said
So many of these references are to last viewings in the late 70s. 405 transmissions continued well into the early 80s. Did you guys not witness the last broadcasts in your areas?

Peter  

Hi Peter,

At the time, I didn't have a 405 set so unfortunately missed it.

PS, Have just been taking the time to look at your excellent website. Very interesting indeed  thumb_gif

To understand the black art of electronics is to understand witchcraft. Andrew.

 
Posted : 23/07/2017 9:40 am
peterscott
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Thanks Andrew. 🙂

www.nostalgiatech.co.uk

 
Posted : 23/07/2017 10:24 am
Till Eulenspiegel
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I do remember watching the actual switch-off of the Pontop Pike transmitter on the North East of England "Look North" news program.   The presenter told us that if you were watching your TV programs on a TV set like this then the service will be closed down in a matters of a few minutes time, which it was, the screen on a Bush TV22 just went blank. I did record the event on a Video 2000 machine, the tape might be still in existence but where it is I do not know.

In the autumn of 1984 I set about recording 405 line material on VHS machines, realising this would not be entirely satisfactory in the long term I set about designing a standards converter, the plan was to have such a device ready for the switch off. It wasn't to be because my health crashed out and wasn't until late 1985 the standards converter was made ready for demonstration. That converter is still in existence and is looked after by another Forum member.

Till Eulenspiegel.

 
Posted : 23/07/2017 11:29 am
Focus Diode
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peterscott said
So many of these references are to last viewings in the late 70s. 405 transmissions continued well into the early 80s. Did you guys not witness the last broadcasts in your areas?

Peter  

Yes, good point. Personally I was referring to the last actual full programme I viewed on 405 in my first post. I moved soon after that but got to see Pontop Pike ch5 and Burnhope ch8 a few times before the end in January 1985. I even received Emley Moor on a tropo lift on ch10.

The day we left Chippenham in mid 1982 Membury ch12 was due to close at anytime. I remember seeing the Central "Good Morning" opening slide. It could well have been the Llast day of transmission for all we knew so guess that qualifies!

 
Posted : 23/07/2017 12:21 pm
acj1980
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It´s very interesting reading for me, because we only from the beginning have 1 system pal or what it was before the colour system, but same system as the rest of Europe.

How does it works on the screen, and was there some difference between 625 and 405 lines, my last question for now, was it able to record anything from the 405 system on a vcr? (i mean home videosystem), i hope my questions is okay and not too off-topic, 

 

Alex 😉

 
Posted : 23/07/2017 7:06 pm
peterscott
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One on the nice things about many of the earlier VHS recorders was that you could record 405 line broadcasts without any modification. The bandwidth was better (proportionally) than that of 625 line recordings. The only slight negative was that the drop-out compensator didn't work. So there is quite a lot of period media recorded from 405 line broadcasts. 

Peter

www.nostalgiatech.co.uk

 
Posted : 23/07/2017 7:38 pm
ntscuser
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acj1980 said
How does it works on the screen, and was there some difference between 625 and 405 lines

It was transmitted completely different from 625-lines by having positive vision modulation and AM audio. There was no easy way of converting a 405-line TV to display 625-line pictures and sound, it usually meant buying a new TV and aerial. Sets which ran on both systems were generally complicated, expensive and unreliable. There was no obvious improvement in picture or sound quality either as performance was a compromise between the two systems.

Classic TV Theme Tunes

 
Posted : 23/07/2017 8:11 pm
Till Eulenspiegel
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Found this:     https://www.transdiffusion.org/2017/04/24/the-plain-mans-guide-to-the-changeover-to-625-line-tv

 

Till Eulenspiegel.

 
Posted : 23/07/2017 11:21 pm
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