In this week of Teletext's 50th Birthday, I thought we'd take another look at a few Teletext Adaptor's. First up will be the Radofin TAD 110, followed by the AYR 8020HT both these were available in the early 80s (1981). Finally up will be the first available for 1976, the Labgear 7026 which retailed at £399!!
I have two AYR boxes, one is badged GEC- AYR, the other just AYR. I wish I could find more examples for the Teletext section of the museum, but in the 12+ years I've been looking, they just never turn up. Were there any other manufacturers boxes, I'm sure there must have been.
The set-top boxes and some period advertising
Radofin TAD110
Made by Radofin Electronics (UK) Ltd. Radofin are better known for their early ‘Telly Tennis’ type domestic TV games units. The unit has a 4 channel RF tuner, so could also could act as a remote control unit for TVs that didn’t have that functionality. However, it is a wired remote still in the 70s this would have been a great much appreciated. I have briefly covered this many years ago, but never opened it up, and certainly not the high-res photos we can get now.
The box
The Internals
Some selected pages received from IMOGen
Advert 1981
The AYR-GEC 8020HT
External
Internals
Receiving teletext
The manual and manufacturer location
At £200 a pop I wonder how well these things sold? I can't say I ever saw an adapter of any type 'back in the day'. £200 would have been a fair wedge back then...
Very interesting I don't think these were very common.
The final day of teletext week at Vrat and the last of the three teletext set-top boxes. This I believe was the first that was available to the public around 1976, and at the time a shocking price of £399. It's also the largest of all the boxes, but does look rather nice in its teak and leatherette/brushed aluminium styled cabinet.
This particular model has been through the mill and prior to me obtaining it had been stored in less than ideal conditions. Also, some toad in the past had snipped the long wire to the remote in half. About 10-years ago, I spliced it back together, but went no further once I had been told that it was not going to work due to a Ceefax/Teletext standards change. Since then, it has spent the last decade in a heated workshop.
Yesterday I powered it up with the intention of finding out if this is true, however one of the function switches at the back, that you use to select TV or teletext failed, and the other is intermittent too. This switch is essential as you need to manually switch the unit into "Text" mode, then tune your TV to the blank page, then switch back to "tuning/picture", and manually tune the labgear to the source signal, which should then appear on the TV that is tuned to the box.
Checking I have a couple of new in stock, so will drill out the rivets and fit them, then see if I can get this to do anything. As promised, some photos of the final set-top box. Right at the end is a BBC archive film of Pebble mill, showing the 7026.
External
Internal
Failed switches
Pebble Mill
