Trade Chat City & Guilds Radio & Television Engineering

I did C&G 48 starting in the 1960/61 year. In the practical exam after 3 years you were required to diagnose - but not repair - 5 faults on a Philips AM radio. For this you just moved from bench to bench as the exam progressed. I can remember 3 of the 5 faults. The first was no local oscillator due to a short circuit capacitor. This was a long tubular ceramic type and, when you found it, if you looked carefully, you could see the sneaky bit of fine wire that ran down the inside of the ceramic tube and was neatly soldered at each end!

Another fault was an oddball one - a short across the volume control! Looking carefully you could see the link across the outside tags in the gap between the control and the chassis. The last fault I had was an open circuit cathode bias resistor on the output valve. There was no bypass capacitor to suffer the consequences. I'm not sure if I worked out how this particular stunt had been pulled but I know that one of the lab stewards was a dab hand at repainting resistor colour bands so, on closer examination, it could well have been a million times higher than marked!

As I said, we only diagnosed the faults, not repaired them but I couldn't resist briefly sticking the Avo across the resistor on the 10 amp range! As I spun the tuning knob there was an outbreak of surprised looks and smirks from the other candidates as a sudden burst of music filled the room for about a second before I removed the AVO probe!

For the Final practical exam at the end of the 5th year we again had five faults to diagnose but this time we also had to repair them and end up with a fully working set. This time the set was a PYE 11U - but I can't remember what a single one of the faults was!

The following year I did the colour course but that was just a theory exam.

When I first started my courses, the college was colloquially referred to as 'Dagenham Tech' but by about the 5th year it has transformed into Barking Regional College - it later became the North East London Polytechnic and later still the University of East London - so the C&G courses were being run down. When my brother - four years younger  than me - started his C&G courses, he had to go to a college in Romford as the Dagenham college no longer did the first two or three years of the courses.

Finally after countless years searching, I have managed to obtain a very rare original course-book from the 1971/72/73 for the City & Guilds Radio, Television and Electronics Servicing course.

Once arrived I will scan and make available via the data library. Hopefully this is the start of finding the course material that seems to have all but disappeared.

Now that’s interesting, I don’t recall any books for the C&G course 48 and Colour endorsement.

We had text books but none from C&G, they brought new courses out in the early 70’s with some full time for the first 2 or 3 years, not sure which. Perhaps they decided to produce these books for those courses.

This will be very interesting reading. I don't remember having any books at all during my course, we worked with photocopied work sheets or had to copy stuff by hand off the blackboard.

Well done Chris, excellent find !  ? 

Posted by: Chris

Finally after countless years searching, I have managed to obtain a very rare original course-book from the 1971/72/73 for the City & Guilds Radio, Television and Electronics Servicing course.

In my previous post, I only concentrated on the exams - not the coursework itself.

We had no printed documentation, simply copying anything we needed from the blackboard. One lecturer recommended we buy Scroggie's Foundations of Wireless, but it wasn't compulsory and nothing else was suggested.

We normally had Theory in the mornings and Practical in the afternoon but for one term these were swapped around which caused problems. A group of us used to visit a local pub at lunchtime for a Pie and a Pint (or two) and a game of bar billiards.

There was a lot of yawning went on during those afternoon practical periods!

I started college in September 1960, so the Final year ended in July 1966. The colour course that started in the September of that year was the very first and we completed it in July 1967 before the first colour sets became available!

We did have two RCA NTSC sets at college but, of course, by this time all BBC experimental broadcasts were in PAL However, the college were lucky enough to have bought a  'fire damaged' NTSC slide scanner from STC at Footscray - which occupied a row of 19" cabinets down the centre of the room!

We also had an Ekco NTSC set which I was asked to convert to Simple PAL, following notes provided by Ekco so, towards the end of the course we could take advantage of the experimental broadcasts.

Posted by: Chris

Once arrived I will scan and make available via the data library.

I have scanned and uploaded to the data library the 1970 City & Guilds "837" Radio, Television and Electronics servicing book.

A very interesting read, this book seems to set out in some detail the syllabus, demonstration work, treatments, lab work and other such requirements culminating in examination.

I suspect its aimed at colleges and lecturers who were responsible for the formulation of a course that would meet 837 criteria, its content and reference materials to aid the student. This supports the varied accounts here from engineers that no physical C&G course-book or material was supplied, just references to recommended reading such as Spreadbury, Patchett and Hutson.

Still as I say, makes for interesting reading and is the first piece of C&G material I've come across in 9 years of looking, that's related to the C&G Radio & TV course.

Those with library access can find it with other TV reference books, under Television/Books  ? 

I have just downloaded the book, a quick glance shows it designed for full time, block release or a sandwich course of 850 hours, unlike the earlier Course 48 which was day release or evening classes.

The time split between 375 hours Trade studies, 375 hours Practical and 100 hours General studies and English.

I was on course 222 starting in 71 receiving my final colour endorsement in 76, later it became course 224.

General studies! how I hated that, totally pointless to me. The lads from large companies that were attending used to skip it and head home early. I tried that once but my boss, the owner of the small company pulled me into the office and told me in no uncertain terms that he was paying good money and I was to attend all parts of the course.

Don't remember any English but there was supposed to a mathematics part starting in the second year and remember being told that we would be taught calculus which horrified me as my maths was only average, didn't happen.

I think I was on 222 as well. Didn't have any general studies....seems a bit pointless. Monday was practical which I thoroughly enjoyed Wednesday and Friday were theory.

How many of you who did the course, took the exam, still have your certificate? I wonder who holds the earliest and who holds one of the last issued, it  would be interesting to find out.

I did the exams for Intermediate and Final in 1966 and 1968, should have the certs, have to dig them out when I am back home. I will post them if I can.

There should be members with earlier ones on the forum.

Posted by: Nuvistor

[..]  should have the certs, have to dig them out when I am back home. I will post them if I can.

There should be members with earlier ones on the forum.

You already did Frank earlier in the thread.  ? 

I think it would be nice to have a trade members certificate gallery available up top. After all these were significant qualifications and part of the trade history, it would be nice to have them documented so as not lost or forever forgotten.

see here  https://www.radios-tv.co.uk/city-guilds-radio-television/

Unless of course anyone objects to them being public, in which case I can make them members only to view. If that is the choice you can all upload them via the private members upload service available via "My Profile"

I took the C&G Radio and TV exams and passed but it would be hard to find my certificates after so many decades. The only one I kept handy was the old RAE exam certificate which was also run by City and Guilds years ago.

It seems City and Guilds have a search for certificate page so maybe you could find you old passes on there. There is a fee for a replacement so as I am retired now I doubt I will need one!. Not that there are any jobs for radio and TV servicing now anyway!

https://archiveservices.cityandguilds.com/CreateOrder?displayLearnerFileDialog=False&displayQualificationFileDialog=False

John

I found my C&G RAE certwhen looking for the other certificates, for whatever reason I have  all the certs for any exams I took, don’t really need any of them. No doubt they will be binned when I have gone.

Just looked at the C&G link, there is a fee for the search whether or not it’s successful, did not go any further but not sure if it’s succeful if the search fee includes replacement certs.

Posted by: Nuvistor

Just looked at the C&G link, there is a fee for the search whether or not it’s successful.

Yes I contacted C&G about 6 years ago, I told them I ran a web site dedicated to preserving Radio & Television and would dearly like to feature anything relating to the now defunct Radio & Television Servicing course. Asking if they had any old course material, books, exam papers, practical exercises etc that I could have access to.

They were in my opinion very unhelpful, the returned message was short and sweet. They did not know if they had anything in archives and wanted a non refundable fee to perform a search even if nothing was found. No comment or interest in my attempt to document and educate folk about the significance of their role in the service industry of radio & TV.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, the only thing I've turned up in all the years I've been looking, is the book I've recently scanned and added to the data library.  https://www.radios-tv.co.uk/community/television-broadcast-equipment/city-guilds-radio-television-engineering/paged/2/#post-17506

Managed to find all but one of my certificates (1973) but unfortunately I can't find the pass slips which gave the grades. My distinctions were both grade 1 and I received a letter from the D.E.R. congratulating me but that appears lost also. Apologies but some are a bit faded and grubby as they were displayed in the customer reception area for many years.

I've just realised my 1976 colour endorsement is missing also. Only a grade 3 pass with credit for that which I blame on the lack of exposure to hybrids, well that's my excuse  ? 

If amyone's interested after all these years, I'll post about my own experiences with C&G 224.

I've some (apparently-unusual, but totally genuine) claims to fame in connection with the course...

Hi and welcome to the forum, indeed please post about your experiences of C&G 224  ?