A bit of trivia, and a couple of oddities to ponder.
Hilda's new colour TV looks like a GEC 2028 but those controls! Certainly not the usual GEC 2028 control set up. I wonder, being the street was from Granada Television, was there a Granada rental version of the 2028 that had a different user control setup?
Another oddity, Test Card F at the bottom states Granada Television, but TCF was BBC not ITV. It was certainly receiving it as a little into the episode Mrs Walker arrives to give her grief about being late for work, Hilda turns the off control at the top left, and the TV goes off.
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It looks like a GEC Chris, Maybe a cable version or monitor version? I can't see any tuner buttons? Maybe they had to use a monitor to sync to the camera or there would be black bars? I don't know , just a guess... Maybe Mike would know?
I remember the episode though, ISTR Hilda had send it back or got it repossessed as she couldn't afford the rental!
There was an earlier episode where Stan rented a black and white set and again fell into arrears he took it outside and burnt it! Then tried to claim from the rental company! His plan fell apart when they saw the completely burnt set with no damage to the house! I can't remember when that episode was but we had a black and white set back then.
Test Card F was Transmitted by the ITA / IBA Initially from Crystal Palace, Sutton Coldfield Winter Hill and Emley Moor from 1st October 1969 in preparation for the start of ITA Colour Transmissions on 15th November 1969. Test Card F , Colour Bars, a Selection of Pictorial Colour Slides and 2 Hours of taped Classical Music became the Norm until the 15 Colour Control Rooms were replaced by the 4 Regional Operation Centres in the late 1970's. Test Card F was then replaced by the unloved Electronic ETP1 Test Card. I have actually watched the the 4th August 1971 Coronation St Episode where the Scene of Hilda showing off her Colour Telly displaying the ITA Granada Television version of Test Card F was shown on You Tube. On Normal Volume Setting You Could just hear Classical Music Playing in the Background. I turned the Volume up to Maximum and Identified the Piece as Beethoven Piano Concerto No 3 in C Minor. The Strange thing about this was the first time the IBA used this piece of Music Officially as part of the Trade Test Schedule was 21st October 1974.
I remember this classical piece being used in my region too (HTV) when I was growing up along with the other track being used on rotation which was Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No1 in B flat minor Op 23 played by the New Philharmonia Orchestra. It was often used with Test Card F or more often plain colour bars - at least that was the case on HTV Wales and HTV West.
@tazman1966 The ITA/IBA used a lot of EMI recordings of Classical Pieces with the Philharmonia / New Philharmonia Orchestra on their Trade Test Pierces and the Majority were conducted by Otto Klemperer. Other Conductors were John Pritchard , Robert Irving Charles Munch, Sir Malcolm Sargent ,Henry Krips, Efrem Kurtz , Andre Vandernoot, Lovro Von Matacic, Rudolf Schwarz , Herbert Von Karajan , and Sir John Barbirolli.
I don't remember IBA Test Card F being transmitted from Winter Hill after the Summer of 1976. Only Colour Bars and 400 Hz Tone were the normal Trade Test Schedule as the Rank Cintel Slide Scanner began to Suffer from frame jitter and the audio output quality from the 2 EMI Tape decks was intermittent.
ETP1 looked a bit like the Philips electronic testcards but with no circular elements.
I don't remember IBA Test Card F being transmitted from Winter Hill after the Summer of 1976. Only Colour Bars and 400 Hz Tone were the normal Trade Test Schedule as the Rank Cintel Slide Scanner began to Suffer from frame jitter and the audio output quality from the 2 EMI Tape decks was intermittent.
Thank you for the inside information regarding the Trade Tests. As an aside, I always thought it was a shame that the Philips PM5544 wasn't adopted by the IBA as I thought it was much better than the IBA's ETP1. Ah well, both have pretty much been consigned to history.
The PM5544 was transmitted for a month by the ITA during February 1972 on an Experimental basis from Crystal Palace and later in 1972 from the IBA's Northern Ireland Transmitters on a Permanent Basis. The IBA also transmitted the PM5544 from The Dover Transmitter from around 1975. I agree with you that the PM5544 was a better Test Pattern than ETP1. For one thing , it had a circle that ETP1 didn't have which was the main complaint at he time by TV repair engineers. It probably would have cost too much money for the IBA to install a PM5544 in every transmitter that was a Program Insertion Point ( PIP ) so ETP1 was a low cost Home Made solution .
In Oz, the first ABC TV PM5544 was installed at the Gore Hill site in Sydney NSW.
The ID boxes in the test pattern were an optional extra that of course was ordered by all TV networks.
They were implemented by a fuse prom - remember those?
To program them, I'm told, you had a box with a toggle switch, a pushbutton and two 7 segment displays.
Starting on the top line, the toggle switch determined whether the bit was blown (white) or not (black).
The pushbutton blew the fuse and incremented the address. The aim was to create your text as a bitmap.
The poor soul who was tasked with doing the first one goofed for the first 7 or 8 bits and left the switch on.
No spare prom, and of course you can't erase a fuse prom, so the PM5544 went to air with a short white line in the top left hand side of the box where it said "ABN 2"
It stayed that way for about 10 years!
How times have changed! This is my $AU30 PM5544 test pattern generator!
