Trade Chat [Sticky] City & Guilds Radio & Television Servicing; Inc Colour Exam Papers.

Thanks to Rich (Marconi_MPT4), the City & Guilds exam paper for Video Recording & Playback, has now been added to the other exam papers. Also uploaded to the City & Guild section of the data library. There now 9 exam papers and the course syllabus manual I managed to buy a couple of years ago.

I've also now organised the papers into date order, from 1969 - 1983.

This as far as I know, is pretty much an exclusive to Radios-TV Vrat, these documents not to be found anywhere else online. Again thanks to Jim & Rich for helping ? 

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

@crustytv

Thanks, I have another three Video Recording and Playback papers to scan and upload. Looking through the questions quite a few are obviously related to Philips N1500/N1700 and a nod to V2000 including DTF.  I have more papers on other co-related subjects to dig through.

I have also discovered a few mid 1970's issues of SERT,  The Journal of The Society of Electronic and Radio Technicians. In two issues there is a section on C&G colour TV exam questions with answers provided by SERT, something I understand did not go down too well with C&G. If these are of interest I will scan relevant pages. SERT eventually became part of the IEE now IET.

Rich

Uploaded 1982 Video Recording and Playback paper.

Whilst tidying up the scan I noticed a faux-pas in one of the questions! It was quite common to find odd errors (of all things in an exam paper!).

See if you can spot the error.

Rich

No chance of me spotting any mistakes, I was only fixing them for a couple of years and there were few faulty with the machines being new. I did do home study on how they worked so I could fix them but all forgotten now.

i didn’t know C&G did video recorder exams.

I've moved the latest file supplied by Rich from the temporary library services upload area, thanks for the upload Rich. ?

I've now relocated the document into the City & Guilds section of the Data Library and have updated the City & Guilds blog article with a copy.

Quite amazing, I've been trying to find all these for at least 10 years and now we've got 10 exam papers and the course syllabus. Just shows, given time, anything and everything can be found.

On a very much related note, this is likely hens teeth.  Did anyone sit Part IV Teletext course and retain the exam paper? 

I've not got the teletext one but have found a couple more colour tv ones which I can scan and upload but the circuit diagrams associated with them are not A4 size and will be disjointed. 

Posted by: @nuvistor

i didn’t know C&G did video recorder exams.

By the early 1980's, City and Guilds had changed the course structure to 224 (no longer 222/224) due to a rapid decline in students studying radio and colour TV.  Many companies had stopped providing five year apprenticeships and instead those entering the trade 'learnt by experience' which amounted to just changing boards.  Additional units were provided in 224 including microprocessor fault finding, VCR, and there might have been industrial electronics. Those that had already passed their colour TV finals could add these to their CV.

Uploaded 1981 Video Recording and Playback paper which I believe was the first examination year (complete with a howler).  Specimen exam paper is work in progress.

Rich

@marconi_mpt4

Thanks for the information, I left the trade 1980/81 so lost touch with what was going on. My C&G courses were in the 1960’s, course 48 I think it was and the colour endorsement. I know the course structure was changed in the 70’s to new ones, 222 or 224 seems to be in my mind but I didn’t take those.

We did try and gave jobs to two teenagers in the early 70’s, not at the same time. One left because he didn’t like college, the other said it wasn’t the job he wanted to do. In some ways perhaps they made the right decision, I got out by 1980/81. 
They were not being used as board changers, they were supervised, in fact board swops were very rarely done.

Long time ago.

It was known as course numbers 47 and 48, one was more general electronics and the other was Radio and tv based. Not sure when they became the 222 and 224. 

Hi.

I'll need to dig out my C&Gs. I got a distinction in part 1 in 1971 and credits on all the rest including the Video course. Quite rusty now by the looks of it. Very much lost interested in VCRs over the years and was glad to see the back of them. Even now DVD is a thing of the past and what happened to Blu-ray? 

I'll stick with 405 line monochrome sets, unfortunately I accidentally sold both my SCRF 405 line NTSC Aurora converters, I should have kept at least one and sold the mono one, trouble is I don't even know who I sold them too. I would have had a go again at making a 405 line NTSC decoder using discreet components, I did a chip one some years ago, no idea where is it now though. I was going through hell in the early part of 2019 and was way off course after the loss of Anne.

Some examples of City & Guilds Technicians (Course 272) exam papers from 1977. Ones I actually sat. Don't fancy my chances these days!

Mod Edit:

I've moved the 1977 papers from here to the central knowledge base and also a placed copy in the C&G section of the data library. They now centrally reside with all the other C&G papers. 1977, that's filled one of the gaps, wonderful. 👍 

...Discovered a few more papers, 224 Electronics Servicing part III, Television and Information Reception 1st and 2nd  Written,  both documents contain specimen questions. Have scanned first one to upload. The second paper is mainly centered on the Philips G11 chassis.

From the same 224 Electronics Servicing part III series, a paper relating to Micro Processor Computer Systems, June 81 which might also be of interest. 😉 

Rich

@crustytv this is excellent to see again. But it’s made me realise how much I’ve forgotten!

@stevesje71 

Oh yes, lots forgotten. My exam was the older course 48 taken in 1968 and in 1969 the colour supplement, I would probably fail those now if I attempted them.

From what I can remember, 1971 must have been the last or penultimate year the old 47/48 courses were run as when I applied for a City & Guilds course in August 1973, only the 222 (Radio & TV Mechanics) and Radio & TV Technician courses (sorry, don't know the Technicians course number) were available. The 222 course was a 4 year day release course, split into 3 parts:

Part 1: First year followed by C&G Part 1 exam.

Part 2: Second & third years followed by C&G Part 2 exam.

Part 3: Fourth year (TV servicing, colour & monochrome), and I took it with the extra module Addiitonal TV, Colour & Monochrome.

I THINK the Technicians course was five years day release and had considerably more additional, optional modules (2 being audio & comms techniques & principles) available alongside the basic Technicians course.

I was able to attend Garratts Green college near Sheldon in Birmingham for Parts 1 & 2, but had to go to Matthew Boulton college in central Birmingham for Part 3. That was a bleak, freezing cold place close to Birmingham's old Red Light district of St Luke's Rd & Varna Rd. I was always relieved to get away from that area at the end of the day!

As for the 48-03-05 course paper, there's one question I can answer - question 1b:

An advantage of using a shunt stabiliser in a colour TV to stabilise the EHT is that it greatly helps preserve picture size as the scene brightness changes because the EHT overwind and EHT rectifier valve (usually a GY501) have quite high internal resistance, causing the EHT to fluctuate quite markedly between dark & bright scenes and thus the picture size will vary considerably.

A disadvantage is that the shunt stabiliser valve (usually a PD500) requires X-ray shielding as it emits soft X-rays in normal operation (particularly during dark scenes).

That would probably be one of the few questions I would get right now!

@captain-peacock That’s probably one I could have answered aswell. You will be correct on the dates, it wasn’t long after I completed my courses that they were replaced.