Charging a car battery

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Why would anyone want such a low powered high quality power amp these days?

It was OK in the days of vast super efficient speakers.

[Terry Casey]

It was more common, I think you'll find, to buy two accumulators so that while one was in use, the spare was at the cycle/radio shop or garage being recharged. Whether you always got your own accumulator back I don't know!

[Terry Casey]

PYE introduced a fully transistorised TV quite early on in the

60s but I was quite surprised to find this:

or

"RCA was second only to Bell Labs in the number of patents related to transistor inventions in the early 1950s. The above photo (from the 1953 RCA publication ?Transistors?) shows a number of historic transistorized devices developed at the RCA Labs and demonstrated at an RCA licensee transistor symposium in 1952 in Princeton, NJ. Of particular note is the first completely transistorized television receiver, shown on the left side of the above photo ..."

This would have been a laboratory prototype rather than a production set but Philco put a portable set on the market in the states in 1959. I can't find a reference to the CRT size but the cabinet was only 8" wide so no more than 6" or possibly 7".

Sony introduced an 8" set in 1960 (again, not in the UK).

There were two UK sets introduced the following year, though.

The Transvista 743T by Ferguson was another 7" portable but it was PYE who introduced the first 14" model - remember that in

1961, 14" sets were still very popular.

Note the number of valves/tubes is stated as two - one was the CRT but the other would have been the EHT rectifier.

The first UK set I am aware of with flywheel sync was the PYE V4, released in 1953.

The set is usually remembered these days for the use of gated AGC, primarily because it was heavily promoted in all PYE's publicity as 'Automatic Picture Control'

However, a brief mention on this page:

suggests that it had been used earlier on fringe sets.

[The Other John]

You may be right - I was only about 4 at the time and my memory ain't that good! :)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Think it would depend on the size of the place. In the rural Scottish area an aunt lived in they re-charged your own one. I'd guess an exchange system would cost more which would explain it.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

They may have still been on sale, but 17" was more common for new sales, with 21" being around too.

IIRC, colour was the real problem. With the first colour sets still having valve LOP.

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Thorn 2000, can't even recollect whether it was single or dual standard, but at every Thorn training course I went on they reminded us of the fact, they also stated that there was one in the science museum.

Cant remember the Pye though, I certaily would appreciate a link if anyone knows of one. The first transistorised portable I remember was the Thorn 1590 although there was a Rigonda TV out at around the same time. I seem to remember the Rigonda was sold via furniture stores and through Kelloggs. How many bowls of Frosties needed to be consumed to get one, God knows :-)

AB

[Bob Eager]

My speakers are 4 cu ft. bass reflexes.

[The Natural Philosopher]

3W->100W is only 15dB

[Terry Casey]

Yes. Funnily enough, I was just thinking this through.

I'm thinking more about the sets I was reparing in early 1961 rather than what thery were selling downstairs in the shop!

We were Bush dealers and the TV95 was introduced round about the time I started work in Septemner 1960. The TV95 was 17" as were most of the other sets in the range be it fringe sets or sets with FM radio.

There was also the 21" TV99 and console models T98C and T99C but very few 21" sets passed through my hands so the 17" sets were obviously much more popular.

The last 14" set was the TV63 and, as Bush model numbers went up by 10 every year, that dates it to 1957.

The 19" sets ousted the 17" ones in 1961 as the smallest screen size generally available with the advent of the TV105.