31-07-2016, 10:41 AM
We didn't have TV at home when I was at school - mum said she didn't want one but this really mean't that she couldn't afford one on a widowed mother's pension and, therefore, she didn't need one. It was a different story after I introduced the first TV into the house when I started work!
This attitude obviously rubbed off on me so, as a result, although I knew a lot about radio by the time I left school, I knew nothing about TV. So, when the Pye VT4 lost line sync while we were watching it one evening, I was thrown in at the deep end.
I tried everything I could over the succeeding days and weeks to no avail.
I even replaced the original flywheel sync by a new line oscillator/direct sync affair built on a 2oz tobacco tin as the chassis which I mounted on the side of the cabinet! Still nothing.
My desperation ended when someone gave me a Bush TV24 and the Pye was quietly forgotten ...
Several months later, my colleague, Ray, 2 years older than me, was struggling with a VT4 on the bench which was driving him mad, although I've no idea what the fault was. "Have you still got your old PYE?", he asked. When I said I had he asked me if I would bring in the chassis, which I duly did.
After Ray had disentangled my ad hoc modifications and put things back as they should have been he was left with the familiar lack of line sync.
A while later he announced that he'd found the fault and there he was with a perfectly locked picture!
So, what was this fault that had beaten me? The main smoothing capacitor!
Of course, there was no sign of hum with the faulty one and this was a couple of decades before Cyril Bateman started banging on about ESR in his excellent series of articles in Wireless World, but it taught me a lesson I will never forget ...
This attitude obviously rubbed off on me so, as a result, although I knew a lot about radio by the time I left school, I knew nothing about TV. So, when the Pye VT4 lost line sync while we were watching it one evening, I was thrown in at the deep end.
I tried everything I could over the succeeding days and weeks to no avail.
I even replaced the original flywheel sync by a new line oscillator/direct sync affair built on a 2oz tobacco tin as the chassis which I mounted on the side of the cabinet! Still nothing.
My desperation ended when someone gave me a Bush TV24 and the Pye was quietly forgotten ...
Several months later, my colleague, Ray, 2 years older than me, was struggling with a VT4 on the bench which was driving him mad, although I've no idea what the fault was. "Have you still got your old PYE?", he asked. When I said I had he asked me if I would bring in the chassis, which I duly did.
After Ray had disentangled my ad hoc modifications and put things back as they should have been he was left with the familiar lack of line sync.
A while later he announced that he'd found the fault and there he was with a perfectly locked picture!
So, what was this fault that had beaten me? The main smoothing capacitor!
Of course, there was no sign of hum with the faulty one and this was a couple of decades before Cyril Bateman started banging on about ESR in his excellent series of articles in Wireless World, but it taught me a lesson I will never forget ...
