Dual Standard TV set

[tiv48]

I may be wrong but i think the stella dual std sets were made by philips so a google image search for philips dual standard television may help
Rob T

[ed731pdh]

I'll try my luck, thanks.

[Terry]

Philips sets were only available to their accredited dealers. However, the same sets, bearing the Stella trademark, could be bought from wholesalers by anybody. Apart from cosmetic differences, the two sets were identical.

In the late 50s, Philips acquired the Cossor trademark and I definitely remember a dual standard Philips set with the Cossor trademark, so you might find one of those, although they weren't common.

[ed731pdh]

Hm, interesting, I wouldn't have known about Cossor at all. Not having the best of luck so far on t'net, as the google search engine has trouble interpreting a basic search command like "Stella 1960s dual standards television".

Oh well, keep trying.

[ed731pdh]

As to the original set, it was retired because the tube went soft to the point the contrast was so flat it was like looking at telly in a fog bank.

A little side story and one that many could relate to. At the time of me being a spotty herbert in shorts, the family home was in London on the Norwood Road, directly opposite Brockwell Park.  The majority of houses along the road had the standard H section VHF aerial lashed to the stack but under it we also had the UHF for the 625, pointing at Crystal Palace and picking up the IBA tower a mile away from palace on South Norwood Hill as a single point source.  Marked us out as being a bit ahead of the times I suppose, even though the telly itself was a black & white model, complete with two aerial cables down the front of the building.  

All was well and good until the early 70s when the Peoples Republic Of Lambeth decided to put up two tower blocks in Hurst Street just off of Railton Road.  Then we started getting major ghosting issues on UHF as the signal from the palace bounced off the two blocks and just out of phase to cause issues.  The eventual solution was to move the UHF off of the main roof and onto the side wall at the rear of the house, using the house as a shield.  This arrangement lasted until the early 80s when along with one of the family who worked in the trade, erected a rotor mounted aerial on the roof that could pick up television from Emily Moor on a good day.  Fun times.

But the real ball breaker?  Anybody who lived in Westow Street, alongside the pirate radio stations, they didn't need an aerial for their sets, the signal from the palace just drowned everything out.

[Terry]

Round about 1965, one of our customers bought a Bush TV125U for an elderly relative and we were asked to deliver it and do whatever was necessary to the aerial system.

Why he didn't choose a dealer closer to his relative, I don't know, because we were in Grays, just down the road from Tilbury Docks while the relative lived in Anerley Park, on the south-eastern boundary of Crystal Palace Park!

I was dispatched - in case there were any unexpected problems -  along with our aerial rigger to deliver the set.

The existing aerial we found there was a simple set-top Vee type but the signal strength was so high - as you might expect - that there was no problem with BBC1 or ITV and certainly no justification for a permanent installation of any kind but UHF was a completely different matter!

The only solution was a UHF aerial, which was erected in the loft. Normally, this was a no-no - we'd warned against it in the run up to the launch of BBC2, but some customers insisted.

Initially, everything was fine - until the first time it rained! Those early valved UHF tuners just couldn't cope with the reduced signal level and all those new loft aerials were re-sited outside!

However, once up in the loft in this case there was lashings of signal when the aerial was correctly oriented which, in this case, meant being angled upward to point to the top of the mast on the other side of the park!

   

[ed731pdh]

Westow Street, and the area around the palace, and IBA, was a bit like standing under ground zero. Even your fillings were capable of getting a signal.

Also local and previously mentioned, that of the matter of the pirate radio. Stations like Horizon and JFM were quite popular around the mid to late 80s and Westow Street was the centre of the den of iniquity. Not that I'm knocking them, the output was not mainstream but more leaning towards jazz funk and similar and I often had a lot of time for the output. Rivalry was intense to the point that rivals would often cut the feed cables to the aerials stuck on the roof and would sometimes come to blows in the process. All water under the bridge when the then Conservative government done the dirty to get them off air by promising so much and delivering so little.