Why did 405 look so good?

[BusyBee]

From what I can remember 405 lines TV always looked good; bright, sharp & with good contrast.

Did they? Maybe when the tube was new, but the 405 TV's I remember were hopeless in daylight and if the contrast and brightness was turned up they normally went out of focus and were always picking up interference when a car went by..

I'm wondering how far back your memory goes, Mike!

No TV can survive in direct sunlight (it is impossible to produce black light!) but, so long as the screen is relatively shaded from direct light, as aluminised tubes, with their much brighter pictures, became the norm, I doubt that daylight bothered most people.

I don't ever remember being troubled much by ignition interference at home or at work (which was on a busy road in town) but, must admit that the signal path was along, rather than across, the road (in both cases).

A healthy demand for retro fitted car radios plus many people using portable transistor radios in their cars meant that the number of even old cars on the road without suppression fitted nosedived.

I remember well our first single standard 625 set. It seemed a great advance. The set we got had far better contrast and sharpness than any 405 set I had seen. I must admit that we had had the previous (rental) 405 set for some years and it had gone downhill somewhat. I do remember interference from motor vehicles as well as ghosting everytime a Vulcan flew over which was often, not being far from and RAF base at the time. My biggest concern over 405 was the prevalent line whistle which I found really irritating. With 625, being much higher, it was less so. My take is that there were good and bad sets of either, but the step to 625 was, in general, good.

Tracy