[iangrad]

Originally Posted by Orbitalzone

And as I recall Andre Previn didn't actually own a Ferguson as the one of the papers (sun I think) did a story about him owning a Hitachi at the time he did those ads!

Yes you are right it was the Sun and it also got into the other Nationals , he was advertising Ferguson and watching a Hitachi . I think the adds stopped just after this !

[Orbitalzone]

It's a shame I remember stuff like this but can't remember why I went into the kitchen just now!

[Sibeber]

Originally Posted by Orbitalzone

It's a shame I remember stuff like this but can't remember why I went into the kitchen just now!

My fave tv was a 28" Panasonic Quintrix I think would have been mid 90's .It had it's own cabinet that contained a centre speaker plus the tv had side speakers and rears .It was dolby prologic .Think I paid £700 for it and flogged it for £25 when I got my 1st plasma .It had stunnign picture

[leslie123]

Did anyone ever own a Sony KV1320 from 1972 and what were their recollections. Sadly a set that I would have very much like to own but never had the opportunity. With its wooden cabinet and rotary tuner and five control knobs including tint control plus two earphone sockets on the front and optional parabolic aerial, its seems a set that was very much ahead of its time. Also a set that was no where near as good from the same period was the Teleton VX 1110 colour portable. One thing I do recall about this set was that it did not have a tradional Belling Lee aerial socket. Instead it had two aerial terminals for a loop aerial to be connected although I think a Belling Lee aerial adapter socket was available to be connected to the aerial terninals. This set had a black metallic cabinet as I recall.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by leslie123

Did anyone ever own a Sony KV1320 from 1972 and what were their recollections. Sadly a set that I would have very much like to own but never had the opportunity. With its wooden cabinet and rotary tuner and five control knobs including tint control plus two earphone sockets on the front and optional parabolic aerial, its seems a set that was very much ahead of its time..

While they were reasonably decent sets I don't see any reason why they were 'ahead of their time'?.

If anything they were pretty backwards, rotary tuners had long since gone the way of the dinosaurs (so it was VERY old fashioned), wooden cabinets were common (but again 'old school' - modern sets of the time were moving to plastic). The silly parabolic aerial was a useless gimmick, which didn't work as well as even a simple loop aerial, and the tint control was required because it wasn't a PAL TV, so you needed to adjust the tint to get the colour as close to correct as you could.

It did have two earphone sockets - but I don't see how that was 'ahead of their time'?.

[leslie123]

Maybe not ahead of its time but considering the number of heavy weight, heat generating and generally unreliable sets that were around requiring the back cover to be removed by an engineer on installation even though the set was brand new in order to adjust the colour balance of the three guns to make a reasonable white, plus sometimes having to to demagnetise the tube and adjust convergence which could be a real pain and require two men to carry it up a flight of stairs then it is understandable to actually come accross a set where you can actually lift out of the box, plug it in and manually tune your three channels and have it show a nice picture without having to go through this long and drawn out procedure. Incidently at the time I personally prefered rotary tuners as I found that mechanical push button spring loaded tuners such as those used on Thorn sets could be very problematic.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by leslie123

Maybe not ahead of its time but considering the number of heavy weight, heat generating and generally unreliable sets that were around requiring the back cover to be removed by an engineer on installation even though the set was brand new in order to adjust the colour balance of the three guns to make a reasonable white, plus sometimes having to to demagnetise the tube and adjust convergence which could be a real pain and require two men to carry it up a flight of stairs then it is understandable to actually come accross a set where you can actually lift out of the box, plug it in and manually tune your three channels and have it show a nice picture without having to go through this long and drawn out procedure. Incidently at the time I personally prefered rotary tuners as I found that mechanical push button spring loaded tuners such as those used on Thorn sets could be very problematic.

So your entire premise for their advantage is that it's a small portable TV

Convergence/purity was just the same on the KV1320 as everything else, and required setting up if it wasn't correct.

They were no different to any other colour TV in that respect - although their small size meant they were less affected by external magnetic fields.

Push button tuners were no less reliable than the rotary ones, main problem with Thorn ones was the tuning 'bar' coming unsoldered in a few cases, easily resoldered with a decent size iron (we used to have a 65W Solon iron for that very purpose). The rotary tuners were prone to seizing up, and that's what scrapped most of the KV1320 and similar sets.

[Orbitalzone]

I think the best CRT portable I had was a Decca 'caravan' 14" model with a vertical chassis and quite slimline. it had 4 channel presets but the top preset also had a rotary tuning dial making it easy to tune when travelling although I don't actually recall it having a 12v connector!

It gave superb results and ran for about 20 years.... night have been a 90 series?

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Orbitalzone

I think the best CRT portable I had was a Decca 'caravan' 14" model with a vertical chassis and quite slimline. it had 4 channel presets but the top preset also had a rotary tuning dial making it easy to tune when travelling although I don't actually recall it having a 12v connector!

It gave superb results and ran for about 20 years.... night have been a 90 series?

The 80 and 90 series were great sets - I'm trying to remember the sets with the push button and rotary tuning - I can certainly remember them, we sold them and I've repaired plenty, but I haven't got a clue now what make or chassis they were

I don't think it would be a 90 series for only a 14 inch though, I think the smallest were 20 inch?.

If I get time on Monday I'll check our 'museum' it's the sort of set we've have kept one of, just as we've got at least one KV1320

[scruffpot]

wooden covered Baird with the Prestel service....ok it was my olds but was great.

other then that my tv now a B&O mx4000 but i bought it a year and a bit ago 5 hand or something but it was cheap, great sound half the size of a crt and picture..

my dad used to work for radio rentals in the early 1980's at muswell hill, we used to get everything on test.. found a video of him testing the latest video recording equipment around the family in 1982.. it was a huge camera and separate video cassette recorder you carried around you on a strap.. he took it to london zoo once I recall from the pictures

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by scruffpot

my dad used to work for radio rentals in the early 1980's at muswell hill, we used to get everything on test.. found a video of him testing the latest video recording equipment around the family in 1982.. it was a huge camera and separate video cassette recorder you carried around you on a strap.. he took it to london zoo once I recall from the pictures

That would have been the Ferguson/JVC setup - all Thorn VCR's were JVC.

For it's day it was amazing, and a fraction of the size for anything comparable

I 'think' the recorder part was the Ferguson 3V24? (the 3V23 was the large 'top of the range' front loader).

[jjne]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

Push button tuners were no less reliable than the rotary ones, main problem with Thorn ones was the tuning 'bar' coming unsoldered in a few cases, easily resoldered with a decent size iron (we used to have a 65W Solon iron for that very purpose). The rotary tuners were prone to seizing up, and that's what scrapped most of the KV1320 and similar sets.

We had a 1970s Ferguson when I was a young'un, and the thing I remember about it was the push-buttons which, although I don't remember them going wrong as such, the '1' and '3' buttons (the most used of course) used to fly out of their holes if you changed channel without holding them in

Originally Posted by Orbitalzone

I think the best CRT portable I had was a Decca 'caravan' 14" model with a vertical chassis and quite slimline. it had 4 channel presets but the top preset also had a rotary tuning dial making it easy to tune when travelling although I don't actually recall it having a 12v connector!

It gave superb results and ran for about 20 years.... night have been a 90 series?

These were Tatung sets weren't they? ISTR that they were very cheap, yet gave surprisingly good service, and had good picture quality. Very basic in relation to the competition though.

Whatever happened to Tatung? They were doing really well, had good presence in the market, then they just seemed to disappear.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by jjne

We had a 1970s Ferguson when I was a young'un, and the thing I remember about it was the push-buttons which, although I don't remember them going wrong as such, the '1' and '3' buttons (the most used of course) used to fly out of their holes if you changed channel without holding them in

Only possible on a very models - it sounds like the buttons had broken, or the metal spring clips that held them firmly in place were missing.

Most of the sets had 'long top hat' shaped buttons, so even if the clips broke they couldn't come out the front of the set.

These were Tatung sets weren't they? ISTR that they were very cheap, yet gave surprisingly good service, and had good picture quality. Very basic in relation to the competition though.

No, it was pre-Tatung, they were Decca sets - Tatung of course took over Decca and continued to make excellent Decca designed TV's for a number of years.

They were no more basic to any of the competition of the time, and were some of the best designed sets made, (FAR better designed than any of the Japanese sets). I've actually shown Decca/Tatung sets to Japanese 'high ups' from both Sony and Sharp, the much better design skills were evident, as were the obvious cost savings during manufacture.

Whatever happened to Tatung? They were doing really well, had good presence in the market, then they just seemed to disappear.

Tatung were designed and built in Telford (by the old Decca staff - you could easily tell by the designs), and they were the two things that Decca/Tatung excelled in - and of course they gave a free four year warranty. But the changes in the costs of making TV's, plus Mr. Blairs weird decision to tax all UK manufacturing till they moved away meant that Tatung started selling inferior sets designed and built elsewhere.

The quality and reliability plummeted, and as a result dealers stopped selling them - and Tatung went bust.

It didn't help that the husband and wife who ran Tatung UK split up, with one going back to Korea, and (I think?) Mrs. Linn running the UK operation on her own towards the end.

[Orbitalzone]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

The 80 and 90 series were great sets - I'm trying to remember the sets with the push button and rotary tuning - I can certainly remember them, we sold them and I've repaired plenty, but I haven't got a clue now what make or chassis they were

I don't think it would be a 90 series for only a 14 inch though, I think the smallest were 20 inch?.

If I get time on Monday I'll check our 'museum' it's the sort of set we've have kept one of, just as we've got at least one KV1320

You could be right.... sadly I can't find a picture of it.... It's the only Decca I recall that had 4 push button presets but the top one (or was it the bottom one?) had a rotary dial for quick tuning.... probably was the botton preset as back then CH4 didn't exist when it was sold probably.

[Orbitalzone]

Shame about Tatung, their TV's were pretty good and excellent for rentals (that 4 year guarantee made it ideal) and their circuit designs didn't require microscopes to read unlike the clever Japanese designs.

Despite Tatung being in the UK since 1981 after buying Decca our shop still had to encourage buyers that they eseentially buying a Decca and it was a UK made TV (something people used to care about!)

I think my dad still has a Tatung Einstein computer in his loft, boxed and almost unused!

[iangrad]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

The 80 and 90 series were great sets - I'm trying to remember the sets with the push button and rotary tuning - I can certainly remember them, we sold them and I've repaired plenty, but I haven't got a clue now what make or chassis they were

I don't think it would be a 90 series for only a 14 inch though, I think the smallest were 20 inch?.

If I get time on Monday I'll check our 'museum' it's the sort of set we've have kept one of, just as we've got at least one KV1320

Decca 70 14" , White ( went beige fast ) cabinet , 4 presets , top one was a rotatory , press top 2 in and the set compensated for that new fangled VCR playpack . Ultra reliable !!!

[Orbitalzone]

Originally Posted by iangrad

Decca 70 14" , White ( went beige fast ) cabinet , 4 presets , top one was a rotatory , press top 2 in and the set compensated for that new fangled VCR playpack . Ultra reliable !!!

that's the one!

You did press top two presets for vcr mode, the only issue was the volume pot going wrong (it was on-off and volume all in one) and I'm sure it used a logarythmic pot value that become hard to source and so the replacements meant the volume lept up with the tiniest of adjustment.

[deg625]

Originally Posted by Sibeber

My fave tv was a 28" Panasonic Quintrix I think would have been mid 90's .It had it's own cabinet that contained a centre speaker plus the tv had side speakers and rears .It was dolby prologic .Think I paid £700 for it and flogged it for £25 when I got my 1st plasma .It had stunnign picture

I still use my TX-282D2P Quintrix panasonic c.r.t. wouldnt part with it ..its used in bedroom ....100hz ..great sound ...my mate bought the 32" version and its still going strong.
My first tv was ..a National panasonic (as it was known then).
wooden cabinet pedestal stand and the vertical green bar (that when a button on front of set was pressed) it appeared down the centre of screen and was used for fine tuning . .the thinner u could get the bar the better.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

Tatung were designed and built in Telford (by the old Decca staff - you could easily tell by the designs), and they were the two things that Decca/Tatung excelled in - and of course they gave a free four year warranty. But the changes in the costs of making TV's, plus Mr. Blairs weird decision to tax all UK manufacturing till they moved away meant that Tatung started selling inferior sets designed and built elsewhere.

The quality and reliability plummeted, and as a result dealers stopped selling them - and Tatung went bust.

It didn't help that the husband and wife who ran Tatung UK split up, with one going back to Korea, and (I think?) Mrs. Linn running the UK operation on her own towards the end.

To add to this:
When Racal purchased Decca it sold off the parts it didn't want. The TV business fell into this category and it sold the business to Tatung, a long-established Taiwanese company, in 1980 for £1m. Tatung bought the factory as it gave it access to the PAL licence which

[leslie123]

Thanks for the info Nigel. I did not realise having never owned a Sony 1320 that these sets brought similar kind of problems. I did not realise that the tuners were prone to seizing up and that the parabolic aerial was merely a gimmick. One Sony that I did own was a Sony 1810UB which I bought in 1976. This set as I recall had six push buttons or eight, two slider fader controls for picture and volume and other picture controls behind a flap. I did not have a happy time with this set. Whilst the set did show an excellant picture when removed from the box without technical adjustments, the reliability of this set took much to be desired. The set was prone to mains spikes resulting in a couple of transitors or other componants failing when you went to switch on or off another appliance such as a table lamp.Obvously one might say that the state of the mains wiring in the property might be questionable but nevertheless I had to get the same repair carried out three times. In addition I had problems with pin bias and pin cushion resulting in curving and bowing of the picture and finally drop out of both red and green guns. I kept this set until 1983 when I bought my first Ferguson and to be honest I was glad to see it go. Now whether it was the case that I was unlucky with my set or whether these problems were common to this model I don't know but I am sure Nigel and others will have some interesting comments.

[1andrew1]

To add to this:
When Racal purchased Decca it sold off the parts it didn't want. The TV business fell into this category and it sold the business to Tatung, a long-established Taiwanese company, in 1980 for £1m. Tatung bought the factory, then in Bridgnorth, as it gave it access to the PAL licence which PAL's owners (Thorn EMI & Telefunken) had refused to licence to lower-cost Taiwanese, Portugese and Korean companies.
In the 1980s Tatung relocated the factory to Telford Development Corporation's Stafford Park Development. This location was in an enterpise zone meaning 10 years were rate-free.
The Tatung Einstein home computer was launched in 1984. Whilst it did not prove successful, it brought Tatung a higher profile.

According to Wikipedia, Tatung's European TV production reloacted first to the Netherlands in the 1990s and then to the Czech Republic in 2006. I'm not sure what taxes the sentence "plus Mr. Blairs weird decision to tax all UK manufacturing till they moved away" refers to but pretty much all TV assembly has moved from Western Europe to Central Eastern Europe for cost reasons, it's not been just the UK that has lost these manufacturers.
In 2001, Tatung UK employed 122 staff, with £60m sales.
By 2006 this was down to fewer than 40 staff and just £3m turnover.
The Telford factory is now currently warehousing http://www.geolocation.ws/v/W/File:W...26952.jpg/-/en

Tatung's subsidiary company Chungwa Picture Tubes also opened a UK factory which was in Holywell, Scotland in 1996. This controversially closed six years later as it focused on CRT technology. It was not upgraded to make LCD screens despite requests from Scottish Enterprise - who had given the company £20m grants - for it to do so.

[Richard_Wright]

So far my favourite is LG 3D tv (LM760T), never had problem about flickerings, picture quality and sounds. It worked very good when I watched 3D movies and didn't cause any headache which is my main problem of considering 3D tv. I became a LG fan then. Once you have had experienced on 3D tv, you would never forget it till you own one!

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by leslie123

One Sony that I did own was a Sony 1810UB which I bought in 1976. This set as I recall had six push buttons or eight, two slider fader controls for picture and volume and other picture controls behind a flap. I did not have a happy time with this set. Whilst the set did show an excellant picture when removed from the box without technical adjustments, the reliability of this set took much to be desired. The set was prone to mains spikes resulting in a couple of transitors or other componants failing when you went to switch on or off another appliance such as a table lamp.

The 1810 was probably the worst ever Sony TV - they used some exclusive Sony devices called Silicon Gate Switches, numbered SG613 - these died reqularly, and were VERY expensive.

I'm quite interested to hear that yours used to fail when you turned other appliances ON and OFF.

The replacement set (the KV1820) used just one of them (in the line output), had no such reliability problems, and was areally great set.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by iangrad

Decca 70 14" , White ( went beige fast ) cabinet , 4 presets , top one was a rotatory , press top 2 in and the set compensated for that new fangled VCR playpack . Ultra reliable !!!

Yep 70 series - I've just been and checked, we do have one in our 'museum' - in fact it's been there since 2001, as I repaired it at that time, and happened to stick a label on it

[daveyfs]

Don't remember the model number, but it was a Sony 14" portable I bought new in Novermber 1989 - absolutely superb picture and really stylish for the time - you really did feel you were getting something a cut above!

I remember there were three models: standard; standard with remote control; remote control and telextext. I got the remote control and teletext model and was thrilled with it. I remember being quite intrigued that it had a three core mains lead - hadn't seen that on a tv set before.

It got stolen in 1996