CTV 1985 21″ Ferguson 51A2 FST TX100

I think that there are some on here who would steer you away from the ICC5! I desperately tried to keep my collection to when Bush was Bush (i.e. <1962) but failed.

That telly is the same age as me!! It looks to have aged better than me though… quite a nice set, I bet it’s not too dissimilar to the stereo Ferguson that my Nan and grandad used to have. I notice the tube is a self converging one, as I can’t see any ring magnets round the neck! Probably more upmarket than our old Toshiba FST set, which also still works!! That was used daily from 1987 until Christmas 2006, and the tube still looks ok!

You might want to shift that backup battery asap, it looks like it’s starting to leak into the PCB, and it will cause havoc!

Regards,

Lloyd

Posted by: @lloyd

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I bet it’s not too dissimilar to the stereo Ferguson that my Nan and grandad used to have

One of these by chance? Left 22" TX9 version or right 20" TX10 version

Posted by: @lloyd

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You might want to shift that backup battery asap, it looks like it’s starting to leak into the PCB, and it will cause havoc

Job scheduled for tomorrow. 👍 

Posted by: @crustytv

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I wanted to extend my Thorn range to include the TX100, I have even considered going as far as the ICC5, but for now this is as far as my Thorn collection goes.

You have first refusal of a 59P7 is you really want an ICC5.

To be honest once you got to know it the ICC5 it wasn't the total horror it was made out to be. They were not easy to service due to the small chassis dimensions, it looked lost in a 28". Add NICAM and Super Planar CRTs requiring much more complex raster correction and it made it even trickier to work on.  For horror stories that dubious honour goes to the ICC9 and later Thomson crap.

@crustytv

No, it was an all black cabinet with FST tube that had a plate glass contrast screen over it, I’d know it if I saw it again, but I haven’t seen one for years!

Regards,

 Lloyd 

@lloyd Have a look here, scroll down to monitor style FST.

Hmm, I must be wrong about it, none of those look like it at all! Maybe it was one of the ICC5’s..

Ferguson were quite late using woodgrain on their sets, though the similarly aged Pye badge Philips I got from my Aunt & Uncle also had it.

By the late 1980s almost all large sets seemed to have matt black or metallic charcoal cases.

New rechargeable battery installed

I remember my Mother getting a loaner set that was one of these when the 1988 Goldstar that was badged with the company's own brand developed a random standby fault. She'd taken out extra cover on it and they kept trying (and failing) to repair it as according to the manager of the place "They aanly knaa how ta fix forrgusons!" one "repair" involved bypassing the standby function 🙄 I ended up repairing it myself and getting my Mother to cancel the extra cover. I was 13 years old at the time...

(Company name deliberately left out as I think there's one or two ex-employees of said company here)

This afternoon followed the service adjustments as detailed in the TX100 service manual, particular attention to the video output gain presets to get the grey-scaling acceptable. Now things are vastly improved, the quality of the picture is superb, I'm very impressed with the TX100, though I'm not sure if I like the smoked glass in front of the screen. It can be removed by 4 little lugs, however, as an example of a complete 51A2, it shall remain.

Very nice, the TX100 gave a very good picture especially with a 24" Mullard FST CRT. The tinted glass was a dubious addition, it caused problems with vibration with some audio. We used to fit so called "anti tizz" felt pads to stop the problem.

Some Toshiba 21" FST sets also suffered from this "Tizzing" but with them it was the plastic manual channel selector buttons not the glass which was the cause. No issue with remote sets.

Our Toshiba didn’t have a big enough speaker to make any part of the set vibrate!! The sound was the worst thing about it, if you thought the sound from a modern day flat panel set was rubbish, you’d change your mind after enduring anything on that TV! I should really look into why it’s so bad..

Regards,

 Lloyd 

Quite a few sets in the mid 1980s had anti-glare filters.  My Toshiba 10" set has one, luckily held in play by a rubber strip.

Just stumbled across this, a bit of 80s nostalgia,I think that's my (well, not the actual one) TX100 in the thumbnail and at the end.

I was about to ask what the deflection angle was, given the excellent geometry.

Then I looked at the pictures. Ah, yes, a 90 degree CRT! That makes it easier.

Marvellous!  The TX 22" range was available for a while in the early '80s as a 90 degree TX9 or a 30AX TX10. The TX9 version had a little box on the back to accommodate the longer tube neck. The TX9 version being cheaper.  Strange that Ferguson would make two sets the same screen size ?  We bought the 90 degree version to use as rentals, they went on for years, the PIL tube outlasted the 30AX generally... 

The portable in the advert was the 37140 (141 remote control) they were produced to compete with the Japanese imports retailing for £169/£199 respectively. They probably weren't quite as reliable as the imported sets but they performed well. Then Thorn put the TX90 chassis into larger sets, badged them as Logik and sold them to Dixon's, upsetting most of the independent dealers. The resulting decline of margins meant many smaller dealers closed their accounts. Ferguson then shut door on the TX range and started selling Thompson sets. 

I signed a deal with Toshiba and boy did I dodge a bullet! Some of my friends in the trade had terrible reliability trouble with the Thompson crap and rental sets were disposed of prematurely, customers who had bought one were never going to buy another Ferguson so it didn't take too long for the whole thing to grind to a halt.  A sad end to a (previously) good company...

The Toshiba sets were brilliant often going for 10 years without a breakdown. There was one common fault I can remember, a little blue disc capacitor would fail with a loud crack on the large screen models. Common faults on the ICC series? "In the beginning..."    🙄 

I've still got a 22" TX9 set if anyone would like it 😀.

Cheers

Neil.

@crustytv great sets, the TX100 always produced a good picture. Aside from the couple of line output transformers I’ve had to change it’s a reliable chassis