Why did 405 look so good?

[Terry]

 I'm wondering if people went across the border to buy cheap 405 lines TV's? Did the Irish government try (or even succeed) to stop import's?

I doubt it!

I don't even know if they would have been cheaper, anyway, as they wouldn't be subject to UK Purchase Tax but I've no idea what the local taxation system was like.

I was working for a Bush dealer when I visited Eire in 1961 and the Bush dealer in Drogheda (on the Boyne) had a window full of fringe versions of the same Bush sets that were in our window!

In any case, all those Band I & Band III aerial arrays pointing north (in a country which, at that time, had no indigenous TV service of its own) would have been a bit of a dead give away!