OT: Lurking in the gents

[tony sayer]

In article , Ian Jackson scribeth thus

Yes they were around 2 inches long by about 1/2 ".

We used them in this area when the Sandy Heath channel 6 transmitter came online as very few sets were fitted with the lower channels as there weren't that many VHF band 3 'mitters around that channel number.

Sometimes you could stretch or rather compress a channel 8 coil down enough to make it work, or rewind it if you had the time and or patience.

The word turret came into being as the coil sections were in a cylinder arrangement which rotated to get the coils needed "connected" the valves doing the RF and mixing local oscillator functions by a number of spring contacts.

A real PITA they were, usually drifted badly but most tuners has a fine tune adjust and the coil contacts needed frequent cleaning.

Made by Clydon IIRC?......

[charles]

The baker sells excellent mutton pies.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Graham. escribió:

I loved those, downloaded them all. It was sad the way he described the deterioration of his business as we moved toward the disposable society and his eventual retirement.

Loved the way he described some of the characters that called into this shop.

[James H]

Excellent often hilarious reading;

[Phi]

You have no view on the subject.

[Graham.]

In Salford where I worked it was the channel 8 biscuit that was particularly sought after. Anyone like to hazard a guess why?

The slug in the coil was often brass, and you had to remember that, unlike ferrite, screwing it into the winding tuned it to a higher frequency.

Some engineers believed if you smothered the contacts with Radiospairs silicone grease they lasted longer between servicing.

The Fireball tuner had all 13 channels on a disk, you couldn't pinch a channel.

[Graham.]

Oh dear, you might have to hurry:

I have family in Edinburgh, and stopping at Biggar is almost a tradition for us, to use the toilets and buy gifts before hitting the city traffic.

[Lobster]

On 19 Aug 2015, Graham. grunted:

+1 ! Or at least, we used to until about 10 years ago - I thought it was just us who were fans. SWMBO always reckoned the Biggar toilets were the best anywhere; apparently there was even usually a vase of fresh flowers in the ladies.

IIRC there was a brilliant ice-cream shop on the high street as well, which was of more interest than the loos to our kids

[tony sayer]

Can only suppose someone wanted to watch ATV or whatever it was in those days from Lichfield?. Locals (Winter hill) weren't on that channel..

Yep, remember that well:)..

I STR that they had a bit of grease on them anyway..

Didn't see that many of those ones, we used mainly Philips sets...

[Graham.]

It wasn't just Salford, it was anywhere around Manchester with high-rise blocks of council flats.

When BBC2 arrived the existing distribution systems were too lossy for UHF so they mixed BBC2 down to VHF. Obviously wider than a System A channel, but the Channel 8 coil was the one that was invariably needed You needed to remove a mechanical linkage so the VHF tuner was active all the time and the system switch was allowed to switch everything else normally.

[tony sayer]

Yes!, We had one like that here, sheltered accommodation BBC 2 was down converted to something like channel 12 IIRC and you could arrange for that Philips set to do 625 lines VHF!..

Did you have any problems with breakthrough from Winter Hill CH 9 at all?..

[Graham.]

Not many as I recall. Looking at this, (scroll over to the right)

The centre of our System A Ch 8 corresponds roughly with the boundary between the European Ch6 and Ch7. E7 would have been clobbered from our Ch9, so I am guessing it was E6 that was used giving over 30MHz guard-band.

[Bill Wright]

It was very difficult to receive channels adjacent to strong local ones. The tellys of the time weren't up to it.

Bill

[Ashley Booth]

In 1977 Windsor Castle was like that! They had Labgear Televerters behind every set.

[Graham.]

I've still got a Televerta in the garage that I used to use for Band I sporadic-E. Digital DX doesn't have the same romance.