I think this has been discussed before but I was in the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh this morning and came across this General Electric set. As with many of the technology exhibits in this museum it is situated in a gallery without any relevance and with next to no description. The best thing you could say about its presentation is that there is sufficient light to see it, which is more that can be said for some of their other televisions in the gallery next door.
In sharp contrast to the Museum of Scotland, ETF has excellent coverage of the set including schematic and circuit description. http://www.earlytelevision.org/ge_1946_prototype.html
Apologies for the phone camera photo.
Peter
I find it very disturbing that these museums can own some really interesting and rare, historic TV sets yet have no compunction about relegating them to either very poor display areas with virtually no description or even in store rooms, never to see the light of day again. I was quite disappointed when I visited the Bradford museum. There was not a lot to be seen and what there was, was behind a glass wall. The local store room was more interesting but I can imagine what the "off site" store was like. John Trenouth was very helpful with the information he had on many of the exhibits but he can't be there all the time - and he's not even the curator!!
The ETF website is incredibly useful. It is one of my toolbar icons as I use it quite a lot. Steve is also very helpful with scans and other information. I would suggest that anybody with pre-war T^Vs to let him have details of them to add to his very extensive database.
Hi Brian,
Yes, these modern museums are more about display than education. My reference to other sets includes my pet hate. Their HMV901, which when I was a boy was displayed with its back and side panels removed and it was in an island glass case so you could see all round it. It now resides back to a wall in a case with other stuff in front of it and with insufficient lighting for my phone camera to see it without flash. (With flash it just blinds itself with reflection on the glass.)
It lived in their store for many years whilst they "improved" the galleries and I got my last sight of it then, having requested a special visit.
Peter
There is a museum of communication in burntisland high street which covers all forms of communication including tv and radio and am sure it has tv cameras etc on display
here is a link to the site http://mocft.co.uk/collection/television somewhere to take the kids during the school holidays just a short train ride from edinburgh or alternatively take the car.
Yes, it's a good museum with an enormous collection. Even has a load of junk that I donated many years ago. (although I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't still have it.)
Its founder Harry Mathews was an astonishing guy. He was small and lightly built but used to work his passage stoking the boilers in steam cargo ships before the war. He didn't have a passport. Apparently you didn't really need one back then. He also told me that he had a three wheeler (BSA perhaps??) that he drove across Russia
and he used to win races with it.
Peter
I think there was an Ariel three wheeler motorbike availble at one time perhaps it was one of them?
