Philips Colour Television Receivers 1967
to 1983
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Nostalgia
Graham Gosling
My name is Graham
Gosling and although now semi-retired, I have spent a lifetime as a
television engineer within the TV/radio trade.
A bit of history!
As a keen young TV engineer (we are talking 1960s here!) I eagerly
awaited the arrival of colour TV and to us young men, progress seemed
painfully slow. The BBC transmitted the first compatible type of colour
television signal from Alexandra Palace on the 7th. October 1954, using
a 405 line version of the N.T.S.C. system, which had been adopted as the
standard for colour TV in the U.S.A. in December 1953. Tests
continued during the 1950s and by 1960 it was clear to the BBC that not
only was a colour television service possible, but that it was also
possible to manufacture the receivers for it. Most of the major British
manufacturers had colour research labs and had contributed sets for
these tests. The BBC therefore approached the Government for permission
to start a service but was told that a Committee was to be formed to
consider the matter. The Pilkington Committee decided in 1962 that
colour would be on 625 lines. The actual system was not decided at this
time. Because Band 1 and 3 were carrying the 405 line service, this
meant that the 625 line BBC2 would have to be on UHF. The BBC2 service
was launched in 1964 to a somewhat indifferent public.
The BBC then carried out high powered tests using NTSC, PAL and SECAM
systems. The PAL system was chosen and it was finally announced in March
1967 that BBC2 would begin the first European colour service later in
the year.
So began the long process of building new masts and transmitters for the
new service. The plan was to roll out the duplication of the BBC 1 and
ITV channels on 625 line UHF. This took a few years, but by 69/70 it was
well into its stride.
Getting started
Of course, I had seen the odd tantalizing glimpses of colour TV at the
annual Trade Shows in London and on one of my visits to the Ekco
television factory at Southend was privileged to be given a
demonstration of some colour slides in their colour laboratory. Like
many other engineers I collected and read all that was available on
colour TV, much of it from the U.S.A. However, getting hold of a
colour TV in 1967 was quite difficult. In fact by the end of that year
only 32,000 sets had been produced. It was new technology for all of us
and I guess that the manufacturers were reluctant to release models
which had not been fully proved.
Now if, as a Television dealer, you had a presence at your local
Agricultural Show (County Show now!) it was possible, by much
arm-twisting and pleading with your manufacturer’s rep. to borrow a
colour TV for demonstration purposes at the event. This itself was
fraught with risk as it had to be returned immediately the show was over
(in good order) and it was made abundantly clear that if anyone
attempted to retain or sell it, not only did one risk losing one’s
dealership, but various painful procedures about one’s nether regions
would be actioned into the bargain. Needless to say, I never heard of
anyone attempting to make off with their loaned CTV!

Plate 1 - Above shows a G6 running in Graham's parent's home in
Framlingham, Suffolk at Christmas 1967 - BBC2 only in colour then of
course! Click image for a much lager detail.
Our first Colour TV – a G6 of course
Our own firm
belonged to a buying group and it was through this that our first colour
TV arrived: the Philips G6. I think it was around the autumn of 1967 and
the boss was dispatched one morning to collect the receiver. He had a
fair distance to travel so when there was no sign of him by lunch time I
left for my lunch break.
On my return, there on the floor in front of my bench stood a gigantic,
stupendous box. At each end was a robust rope handle, a suitable length
of which would have easily moored a sizeable ship! Also at each end was
a large label displaying an impressive firework display and proudly
proclaiming to all and sundry the Complete Colour Capability of the
contents therein. I waited for another member of staff to arrive back at
the workshop and we lifted the beast from its carton.
Incidentally, some changes were required to the service department in
order to handle these large sets. You couldn’t really place them on your
normal bench as they were a two-man lift, so if there was no-one else in
the service department they would be stuck on your bench. A trolley
constructed from that good old standby, Dexion, and fitted with wheels
(sturdy) enabled us to move the sets around. We then changed the height
of all our input, dispatch and soak benches so that the sets could be
slid from trolley to bench and vice versa. This made things a good deal
easier.
We got the set on the trolley (I didn’t plug it in of course, I wanted
to see what was inside!) Now I can tell you, after working for many
years with the modest insides of monochrome TVs, taking the back off any
colour TV for the first time was an awesome sight, particularly with the
Philips G6, which had a very high component count.
As our eyes took in this visual electronic feast, our gaze strayed to
the CRT base, upon which, quite apart from the usual items, a relay was
seen. What in earth could this be for? We soon found out that this
relay shifted the grey scale from the required illuminant D on colour to
a slightly colder grey scale for monochrome. Remember that
initially this set would spend more of its time providing black and
white images on 405 line than it would in colour from BBC2. The
sound of this little relay clicking over on receipt of the colour burst
signal became a familiar and welcome sound.

Plate 2 - Above shows Graham as a young engineer during a pre-delivery
check/set up in the workshop prior to delivery to the customer, a two
man job then of course. Everything looks pristine and new, as indeed it
was. As you can see, by this time we are equipped with a Philips 405/625
Cross Hatch generator.
Adventures in the early days
At first only a few programmes on BBC 2 were in colour. No colour burst
was transmitted at all during monochrome transmissions but in later
years the burst was present at all times, which caused problems with
some makes of colour TV – showing spurious colour effects during black
and white films etc. The KB/ITT CVC5 chassis had this problem, however,
a maker’s mod. soon cleared this! Our G6 came on and produced a fine
picture and after a few days in the workshop I removed it to my parent’s
home to begin to learn the black art of converging a colour TV. As a
keen young engineer, I was convinced that I could improve on the
convergence. After 3 days of intensive knob twiddling and magnet
rotating it was nearly as good as when I removed it from the stupendous
carton! To be fair though, we had no cross hatch generator in those
early days so convergence had to be carried out with test card F, which
just as you had almost completed a series of adjustments, would be
interrupted by a Trade Test film. Very frustrating!
As the public interest in Colour Television started to increase our firm
decided to stage some colour demonstrations. Invitation/reply cards were
sent out to all our likely customers, who replied in such large numbers
that the demos lasted for more than a week and my parent’s lounge was
packed every evening with prospective purchasers eager to see the new
miracle for themselves. For me it was rather a nail-biting time as
we still only had the one G6. What if it should fail in front of a
roomful of people? Happily the G6 gave an impeccably faultless display.
A small party trick I used was to have the set already running when
everyone arrived, but with the Colour-off button pressed while they
settled into their seats.

Plate 2a - The Queen on Grahams G6 - from Christmas Day 1967
Then with the sense of expectancy growing in the room and with a
flourish which would not have disgraced a professional magician, I would
press the colour button and the screen would fill with breathtaking
colour, accompanied by appreciative Oohs and Aahs. After giving a brief
history of colour, some sales patter and plenty of tea, coffee and
biscuits the evening ended and many orders were taken both during and
after these sessions.
Shortly after this
our first G6 was installed with its new owner. This customer had two G6s
from us: For the second one a colleague and I went down all the way to
Hertfordshire to install it! I did make it clear to him that we could
not offer in guarantee service unless he returned the set to us, however
he shortly moved back to our area so a few months later we re-installed
it in his new home. Unlike today, when the CTV can be bought from the
supermarket along with the shopping, in 1967 your colour set would have
been bought from an established TV dealer and installed by the engineer.
It was an exciting time and we all worked very hard to provide the very
best colour pictures the system could achieve and felt we were part of a
large team. The BBC, from camera to transmitter, were doing their best
to provide the highest quality service and we were told, on training
courses, that poor installation or poorly adjusted TVs could hinder the
progress of Colour TV, as it had in the U.S.A. at the start of their
transmissions.

Plate 3 - Photograph of a shiny new G6 Click image for a much lager
detail.
Customer’s remembered
The second Colour TV
we put out, although it wasn’t a Philips, is worth telling you about as
it demonstrates some of the common installation problems (and their
solutions) which could abound in those early days. Our business was
located in a small East Anglian market town which, certainly in the 60s,
had a strong dependence on agriculture and there were several
‘characters’ in our little town. Where have they all gone? Dumbed down
and suppressed by education and very possibly by television itself I
suppose. Those people had to make their own way in life in the days
before Family Allowance, Tax Credits and Unemployment and Housing
Benefits etc. You had to make a go of it or go under and it seemed to
create independent individuals with great character. Our two
customers in this story were of this breed and I will call them John and
Brian, although both have passed on to Celestial viewing quite a few
years ago now. John was a builder and undertaker, Brian was an
agricultural worker and although they were lifelong friends, there
existed between them an intense rivalry about who had what etc. John and
Brian would be seen every night in the local hostelries scoring off each
other. John, for instance, had a car. Brian did not drive, however
he did possess two bicycles! One which he used for work, the other,
sparkling clean and spanking new, was for Saturday afternoon and Sunday
use, thus the status quo was satisfied!

Plate 3a Graham with his Batmobile (Marina van?) in the Golden days!
Both ordered a Colour TV from us. At the same time. Due to the way sets
were only trickling through I could foresee a problem. Sure enough, only
one CTV was delivered; an offering from the Pye stables in the shape of
an Invicta CT7050 (a Pye CT70 with a different cabinet). Who was the set
to go to? I couldn’t even hold it until another one arrived as one of
them had seen the Maker’s lorry arrive and the set unloaded. Yes, it is
absolutely true! Customers would keep an eye out for the TV delivery
lorries and the word would spread like wildfire, followed by calls from
people to see if their particular set had arrived. Anyway, luckily for
me, but not so fortunate for him, John had to endure a longish stay in
hospital and so the set went to Brian.
In those days it was
quite normal for me to make a pre-delivery visit to decide where the TV
should be placed in the room to ensure a mains supply, aerial and cable
routing. I would also check the UHF signal with a field strength meter
to ensure adequate signal was present. A signal just good enough for
monochrome would not suit a colour TV.
Now Brian and his wife lived in a diminutive cottage, even for those
days and the 25” set was of course, far too large for their very small
living room. However, there was no choice because this was the only size
available: smaller sets didn’t appear until later. The Invicta was to be
positioned, minus its legs, on the large sideboard. Brian removed the
decorative rail at it’s rear so that the set would straddle the top
safely (those sets were DEEP) but even then, because the tube projection
at the back added a few more inches, the sideboard would have to be
moved away from the wall a little. As I departed, plans complete, I
casually and jokingly suggested that a hole in the wall would have been
useful.
On delivering the
set the following morning I was amazed and amused to find that he had
taken my remark to heart and there was indeed now a neat hole in the
wall exactly where the tube would be, through which could be seen the
contents of the larder. He had framed it with wood too, and it proved
very useful during subsequent service calls for placing the back screws
and other items temporarily removed during servicing.
It did enable the Invicta to be pushed further back, leaving just enough
room to walk between the large table in the centre of the room and the
sideboard. As can be seen, Brian’s small house in no way constrained him
in the size of its contents! What with the Invicta chucking out a couple
of hundred watts of heat, a roaring coal fire and Brian’s ever-present
shag tobacco smoke, the atmosphere had to be sampled to be believed!
The finale to this
visit and future service calls would be a large steaming mug of tea and
a plate of freshly baked buttered scones with lashings of home made
strawberry jam, prepared by Brian’s wife. This dear quiet little lady
was a wonderful cook and seemed to do little else but cook and clean for
Brian, who had a prodigious appetite, especially after a hard day on the
land. He really loved his grub and to see him eat and drink is another
story in itself.
As I write this, sad thoughts come into my mind. After several Colour
TVs had been worn out in Brian’s fug-filled living room, his wife became
unwell and was removed to a nursing home some distance away. Brian
soldiered on for a while, although the cottage was not the same and
strawberry scones were no more. Eventually Brian became unable to look
after himself and was also taken into a home, so after perhaps 60 years
of married life and never having been apart, they both died without ever
seeing each other again. Rest in peace you two and happy viewing.
Yes, as you have guessed, we did get quite attached to our customers and
of course, some of them were good friends. We supplied many of them with
their first Colour TVs and after that their children as well since we
spanned more than 30 years.

Plate 4 - Photograph of a shiny new G6 Click image for a much lager
detail.
Technical magic
An average installation time would have been around 2 hours, sometimes a
bit more. The G6 would be placed in the agreed position and manually
degaussed. This often included nearby radiators, sleeping cats etc! I
initially used to degauss with the set switched off, however with it
switched on and running on 405 lines, the resulting swirls of intense
colours while degaussing certainly impressed the customers. Especially
the children, as my degaussing coil at that time was in the form of a
wand! I may even have appeared to be a time traveller from Star Wars if
they had known about it then. The convergence, both dynamic and static
would also be checked and corrected on both line standards as
necessary.
Warnings were given
by the manufacturers not to move the set while dusting (unlikely as it
weighed a ton), not to switch the vacuum cleaner on or off close to the
TV, no speakers near the set and children were to be discouraged from
running toys containing small electric motors over the screen. Any of
these misdemeanours could leave interesting but disturbing patches of
false colour where the CRT’s shadow mask had been magnetized beyond the
capability of the G6’s auto degauss system.
The customer would then be given an intensive lesson on operating the
receiver and after the necessary tea and biscuits we would be back to
the workshop to load up with another set. Our dear little Morris van
could really only accommodate one CTV plus all our tools and gear.

Plate 5 - Photograph of a shiny new G6 Click image for a much bigger
detail.
Always look confident
All this demonstrating and installing was fun but nagging at the back of
my mind was what happens when the first breakdown comes in. Would my
skills as a TV engineer be good enough? Remember, these sets were big
money – around 350 pounds. Just think – for a bit over 400 pounds you
could buy a brand new mini van in which to deliver them! How values have
changed. Plus we did not have any spare sets to loan either. Many late
hours were spent sitting up in a bed covered with service manuals and
technical reports trying to assimilate every likely scenario.
When the first breakdown call came in I loaded the van with what seemed
like half the contents of the workshop and set off. At this time,
Mullard had some valve cartons printed with the familiar slogan –
Complete Colour Capability. I wasn’t entirely confident that this could
be applied, as yet, to the engineer.
Test equipment? What test equipment?
Thankfully most
breakdowns were concerned with the usual stages, which although beefier,
followed monochrome practice: power, sound. line and field time base
etc. This was just as well as actual colour faults were definitely quite
a challenge. We had a suitable ‘scope but no colour bar generator. These
items were expensive and a lot of persuasion was required for the boss
to shell out. The television trade traditionally has always been poorly
equipped. I know of places which had to manage on a single Avo!
I worked long hours in those days and sometimes if you had traced a
colour fault and replaced whatever was faulty, because the station was
now probably off the air or radiating in monochrome, you would have to
wait until the morning to check if your repair was successful. Remember
we had no Colour Bar generators, no alternative 24 hour channels to
switch to and VCRs and DVDs were just a dream in some far away Japanese
laboratory.
A 625 line version
of test card C appeared at 9 o’clock although annoying for engineers in
a busy workshop was the fact that often the UHF carrier would be up with
engineering signals – sawtooth etc. – long before we saw the Test Card,
but I guess the station engineers needed their time as well!
Just think now about the transmitter maintenance times. The darn things
are never switched off. Just before 10 o’clock, test card C would be
faded down and after a moment or two of blank screen the BBC would
switch on the colour burst. Our little relay on the G6 would click over
and up would come test card F and the moment of truth. Would our repair
have been successful? On most occasions I am happy to report that
colour filled the centre area of test card F and Carol seemed to be
smiling again.
However, as the sets aged, many very time consuming colour faults were
sent to challenge us. One common fault on the G6 occurred when the
bistable in the decoder stuck and all the faces took on a lurid green
Martian appearance. I believe I must have been one of the first
engineers in the UK to change the colour tube in a G6. Certainly when I
‘phoned Philips at the time, they had little knowledge of possible tube
faults and were unable to advise me whether the tube itself was at
fault. In the event, my diagnosis was correct and the tube was changed
without too much trouble.

Plate 6 - Photograph of a shiny new G6 Click image for a much lager
detail.
A warning!
On training courses we were given dire warnings about our inability to
father any children should we be tempted to observe the workings of the
EHT rectifier and Shunt Stabiliser assembly at close range with the set
running and the covers removed. As I was soon to marry a beautiful young
lady I was not too keen on this and vowed to protect my private
equipment by keeping the covers on the smoke stacks as we called them,
firmly in place. It must have worked as I have at least 3 grown up
children!
Seriously though, if any of you are reviving old colour TVs with EHT
rectifiers and shunt stabilizers, a very real danger of x-ray damage
does exist and I have heard of engineers suffering from the big C which
may be contributable to this.
On reflection.
So on reflection, just how good were those first dual standard sets,
which I now realize are 40 odd years old? Well, I saw and worked on all
of them. There were no strange brands from beyond these shores in those
days.
All, when correctly set up, were capable of excellent colour. Getting
the grey scale correct was really important and any engineer who has had
to set up a number of colour TVs for simultaneous display will be able
to tell you just how difficult this could be.
Pye sets, with their colour decoders straight out of the Mullard design
book gave superb colour fidelity, although some other areas of the set
were not quite so exacting.
The Thorn 2000 in my opinion gave the poorest actual colour fidelity
although we sold them and never had any complaints from customers.
Taking the back off a Thorn 2000 for the first time was a bit of a
culture shock. It had no glass ‘thingys’ at all and as the World’s first
all transistor colour TV, all credit must be given to those Thorn design
engineers.
In praise of the
Philips G6
I do believe
however, that the Philips G6 gave the best pictures of all. Even at the
time, the circuit design seemed strangely old-fashioned and it was
probably unique in using valves in the chroma amp stages. I seem to
remember that all the other designs were solid state with thermionics
for output and clamping, and how quaint it seemed to find the venerable
little EY51 valve, which had been present in so many TVs from the 50s,
still doing duty as a focus rectifier!
Of course, Philips had already been making sets for North America and
Canada and on speaking to Philips’ staff at Trade Shows they always told
us this was the reason for some slightly dated design features as some
of the engineering was carried forward from the NTSC market. Whether
this was true or not I couldn’t say. Perhaps somebody who was at the
Croydon factory will enlighten us.
Reliability.
It would be foolish to say that the G6 was reliable when compared to
later designs. On average, at least 1 service call per year would be
needed but there was a lot going on in a G6 and a lot of it valve driven
with all the attendant heat. All through the 60s and 70s the line output
transformer was not Philips’ strongest point.
The style 70 and later 210 monochrome designs suffered from frequent
failure of the LOPT. I know, I was there! We had literally hundreds out
on rental and we certainly had more failures of the LOPT on the G6 than
any other set, although the numbers were not large.
The G8 LOPT reached new heights of failure rates and a number were
killed by the tripler shorting, but they were what we liked to call a
good money spinner. The G11 design with its diode split transformers was
vastly more reliable and I can only remember changing a couple on these,
although I serviced hundreds of the sets.
Where have all the engineers gone?
So, at the age of
62, what am I doing now? Well, I closed my modern Service Centre down in
early 2001. I had worked for myself since 1978 but even long before 2001
it was obvious from our diminishing work load that my job as a
television engineer, and that of the many others like me, was coming to
an end.
Long gone were the days in the 70s when I would start off in the morning
with 12 jobs on my pad, only to return at lunch time to watch Andy Pandy
or Postman Pat with the above mentioned children and find another day’s
work had come in. There were days when I would arrive home with 300
pounds or more in my pocket from changing G8 line output transformers
and triplers! (OK- I know the parts had to be paid for out of that but
you get the picture!).
So, I closed down before I was forced to, sold the big new house we
built in the 80s and moved to Norfolk, at which time the house prices
were lower. Not any more though.
Now I sit at my bench all day and repair and restore vintage TVs and
radios for other enthusiasts all over the UK. It doesn’t make much money
but oh, the quality of life is so much better.
Well it’s time to go
and heat up the cocoa now. I hope you have enjoyed these ramblings and
maybe for you older readers, stirred some memories that you can add to
mine.
Graham B Gosling
East Coast Wireless

Plate 7 - Above one of the colour test slides radiated by Dutch
Television during the 70s. A very similar picture is used in the
instruction book for the G6. Graham was very keen on DX TV and he has
many coloured slides from this period from Holland, Germany, Sweden etc.
Note the very clever use of the tennis net for a convergence check!
The webmaster would like to sincerely thank Graham for providing this
wonderful 'slice of history' and the permission to use his original
images.
Brian Renforth
The next set to get the nostalgia treatment is Brian's G25K502. Many
thanks to Brian for this fascinating account.
MEMORIES OF A G6
RESTORATION (1992)
I was in contact
with a man from North Wales who had previously been in touch about off
loading sets as he was planning to emigrate to France. He had relatives
in the North East so he asked it he could pop over. On a later phone
call I asked what he had to dispose of as space was limited. "I have a
G6", he said!
Could I reveal an ambition to own one of these sets, having been
fascinated by an article in a 1967 "Practical Television" magazine about
the 21 valved monster?
In due course he landed. Out came a very tatty G25K502 model in kit form
and two chassis with broken valves and in a right mess generally. "Oh my
God!", was my first reaction, not helped by Ben's comments that both the
LOPT and CRT were u/s as well! On closer examination the convergence
box, located at the bottom and accessible by a drawer in this model,
looked to be in sound condition which was a start. It was when viewing
"TV Heaven 1968" I decided to restore the set, sellotaping pages of the
circuit from the photocopied manual. On examining the chassis I noticed
that the focus diode had been replaced by an EY86 with valve-holder. I
was far from happy about the DC choke being mounted directly above the
PL509 and PY500A valves, so I tidied up this modification, mounting the
DC choke vertically as far from the valves as possible.

Brian's 502
Ben told me the set was last used in 1975 and put out of service when
the LOPT failed. I noticed that the system switch was intact but the
catch at the top had been removed. This had caused the sliders to short
out over a period, causing a burn-up, destroying the sliders at this
point. I later discovered this could cause the boost voltage to shoot
upto over 800V so no wonder the LOPT packed in! Thankfully the spare
chassis had an intact slider, so this was transplanted with the burn on
the line output tx panel cut away and repaired with wire. The rest of
the set was cleaned and tidied up, replacing burnt components on site,
double checking wiring and the likes. Between this and the scrap chassis
some of the wiring to the LOPT differed, so this was put right. Having
done this and acquired all the valves I realised I was in the position
to test the set!
The supply to the frame and LTB was disconnected as an initial
precaution. Switching on didn't cause any explosions, but it was obvious
there were no signals, just hum and crackle on sound. Switching to
405-lines surprisingly resulted in line whistle which proved the
oscillator was functioning ok.
Checking LT voltages
to the IF stages proved they were getting through ok. The one in the
1968 scrap chassis looked to he in good order so I decided to fit this
in place. This is a time consuming job as all wiring has to be
transplanted over with the risk of wrong connections, not helped by
nothing identified on the panels as an aid, (the later single standard
version had a plug in IF panel-phew! What a relief!). This was done,
checked and double checked before testing the set again.
The tuning meter now
worked and they were signals, a dramatic improvement! I then connected
the frame and line timebases to see what would happen. I had a meter
across the boost capacitor to check boost voltage. In minus figures at
first, it rose upto 100V before dropping to 30V as the PL519 glowed
bright orange. Without making further tests I switched off, replaced the
LOPT from the scrap chassis, unknown if it was working or not. Things
were different and dramatic next time I switched on!
The boost voltage rose to 570V with flashes and spitting. The PL519 then
glowed bright blue before I switched off! Hmmm.... The PL519 was brand
new, but I did have another to try. So it went in and the set switched
on again.

Brian's 502
This time the boost voltage rose to over 600V, re-adjusted quickly! The
EY86 was then seen to light up and before I knew it a very bright raster
appeared on the screen! Switching to a 405-line channel gave a dimmer
green tinted raster with the all familiar line whistle. I switched off,
I'll never forget that feeling!
So the no picture/blank raster problem..... I noticed that the switch on
the luminance panel was pressed in, depressing it gave a ghastly
over-bright raster with a clear B&W picture on it. Switching off the Al
controls which should completely blank out the raster gave an acceptable
picture, which would increase in brightness again with the signals
fading out as the beam limiter did its work. First suspect was the diode
next to the PFL200, a 5W replacement failed to cure the problem. Contact
Ben who sent a 10V 5.2V zener diode in the post (should be 4.7V but the
nearest he had). This was fitted with little optimism, but thankfully
cured the excessive brightness problem. I was then able to set up the
beam limiter and focus, grey scale and converge on both 405 and
625-lines. On 405 however the blue lines were very bent. I eventually
realised the plug to the solenoid was reversed giving 625 convergence on
405 and vice versa! Reversing the plug allowed very good convergence on
both systems. This gave a very good black and white only picture showing
the CRT to be in excellent order. Ben was surprised I was able to get
the set going quickly, let alone at all! Sadly we lost touch when he
emigrated.
Now to the no colour problem- voltages around the valves were haywire.
Cutting a long story short I was able to make adjustments, without a
scope, which eventually gave correct volts but still no colour. Hmmm
..... I tried a new PFL200 luminance/sync separator valve which oddly
enough gave unlocked red and green bars over the black and white test
card! How a new PFL200 co-incidentally fitted achieved this I'll never
know! Sorting out the reference oscillator gave locked green/red
pictures which alternated until I sorted out the bistable and APC loop
adjustments. The pictures were now R-Y colour only with no blue at all.

Brian's 502
On closer
examination the decoder panel was the original type, minus components
for the deleted tint control. The modification resulted in the R-Y and
B-Y clamp resistors changed to 82ohms then taken to chassis. The B-Y
PCF200 ran cooler than the other two. Closer examination and continuity
testing showed the B-Y 82ohm resistor was open circuit to chassis. A
small piece of wire resulted in a superb full colour picture when the
set was next tested!
This left me with a very good working set with excellent pictures. The
sound quality is disappointing however, plenty of bass with very little
treble. Actually the sound quality is much better on 405-lines.
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© 2008 Robert L Grimley
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