Why did 405 look so good?

[Terry]

Enjoy your trip to Ireland....  Also states in that report that RTE used crystal controlled sync (unlike BBC/ITV who synced the to the mains back then) ...

Possibly. Synchronous transmission is essential for colour TV and the BBC, at least, went from asynchronous to synchronous working very early in the 60s.

Telefis Eireannn started its official transmissions in January 1962

[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!

[Terry]

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.

[pwdrive]

There weren't many motorbikes fitted with car radios on our estate.....

Lawrence.

[Terry]

I've heard the Forsythe Saga caused a spike in the amount to people either getting their sets converts or getting a dual standard one.

I always thought it was Match of the Day!

Thanks to the dual standard sets being compromised when in UHF 625 line mode it seems that it took until single standard sets were common before BBC2 viewing figures took off.

The BBC announcing that the new BBC2 would carry programmes catering for minority interests killed it at birth. I know, because the the day after, I couldn't get through our shop to the service department in the morning because it was filled by a large crowd of customers queuing up to cancel their dual standard conversions!

Consequently, even if they later bought a new fully dual standard set, unless they were football mad, they didn't bother having a UHF aerial fitted.

Once they bought a single standard set, they had to have a UHF aerial, so BBC2 was there, whether they wanted it or not. So, if they weren't interested in the offerings of BBC1 or ITV, they'd probably look at BBC2 out of desperation and, sometimes, they'd find something they liked!

[Terry]

Telefis Eireannn started its official transmissions in January 1962

I may have told this story before, but here goes anyway.

I was with the scouts camping in the village of Mornington on the mouth of the Boyne - with its empty golden beaches that go on for miles! - in August 1961 and had occasion to use the village Post Office a number of times.

I was in there the afternoon before we broke camp and headed for the ferry home. It was run by what the Irish often refer to as 'a little old widder woman', although whether she was or not, I've no idea!

"Could I be after asking you something?" she said. "Certainly", said I.

"How much do you pay for the television licence in England?"

"Four pounds, and a pound for the wireless licence."

"Oh! We don't have the television licence and we're only after paying the seventeen shillings and sixpence for the wireless licence!"

Did she look happy, as I walked out of the door!

Waling back to the camp, I thought about. She paid nothing for no television service and 17/6 for one radio service that even closed down between lunch and tea time! On the other hand, we paid 20/- for four radio programmes so that's five bob each.

Perhaps 17/6 wasn't such a bargain after all ...

The following afternoon we stopped off in Dublin before catching the ferry back to Holyhead and I took a stroll in the sunshine.

The evening papers were hitting the streets with a bold headline:

£4 TV LICENCE FROM JANUARY
WIRELESS LICENCE UP TO £1

Oh how I wished I could have been 28 miles back up the coast to see the look on that woman's face!

[Richard_FM]

I've heard the Forsythe Saga caused a spike in the amount to people either getting their sets converts or getting a dual standard one.

I always thought it was Match of the Day!

Thanks to the dual standard sets being compromised when in UHF 625 line mode it seems that it took until single standard sets were common before BBC2 viewing figures took off.

The BBC announcing that the new BBC2 would carry programmes catering for minority interests killed it at birth. I know, because the the day after, I couldn't get through our shop to the service department in the morning because it was filled by a large crowd of customers queuing up to cancel their dual standard conversions!

Consequently, even if they later bought a new fully dual standard set, unless they were football mad, they didn't bother having a UHF aerial fitted.

Once they bought a single standard set, they had to have a UHF aerial, so BBC2 was there, whether they wanted it or not. So, if they weren't interested in the offerings of BBC1 or ITV, they'd probably look at BBC2 out of desperation and, sometimes, they'd find something they liked!

That's interesting to know, BBC2 had a lot of highbrow programming on in it's early days but seemed to expand it's scope over time.

LWT also struggled early on by making too many niche programmes for the average ITV viewer, but soon learnt their lesson.

[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

[Terry]

My biggest concern over 405 was the prevalent line whistle which I found really irritating.

Interesting. My experience is that, because of the frequency accuracy of the 10,125Hz timebase frequency, the brain develops a mental notch filter which is quite effective.

I remember returning home after a fortnight's holiday in which I didn't see a single TV and being greeted by a very loud timebase whistle the moment I entered the living room. My brain had obviously 'forgotten' about the timebase whistle during the break but rebuilt the notch filter very quickly, after which I could ignore it as usual.

Perhaps your brain wasn't so good in the notch filter department or you had exceptionally good hearing?

To add to the notch filter theory, if the timebase frequency varied, it became instantly audible.

I'm sure we have members who have no experience of the heyday of 405-line TV, so I'll explain the next bit in detail.

We didn't have any lightweight portable broadcast quality TV cameras back in 405 days, so external sequences were filmed and telecine machines used to generate the TV signal for insertion into the main programme. The chances were that the telecine room would be on a different mains phase to the studio, even if they were both in the same building, so there could be a considerable difference in the field sync timing between the local and remote signals. To avoid a visually annoying sync switch, the practice was to switch the studio sync reference from the mains to the incoming video in preparation for the playout of the film clip which could cause a sudden change in line frequency until the two signals were in sync.

Hum in receivers could cause a number of invisible problems - invisible, that is, until the field sync timing changed. This could be just a rolling hum bar, an S ripple running through the line sync, making even static people look as if there doing a hula-hula dance or a very strange effect if the ripple caused a change in the field linearity!

One night I was engriossed in a book while mum was watching something on the TV, which was behind and to one side of me, when one of these re-syncing events occurred. As soon as the line frequency started to change, it 'jumped out' of the notch and instantly became subjectively much louder.

Although I knew exactly what was going on, I intinctively glanced over my shoulder at the ripple running up the screen.  "How did you know that was going to happen?" asked mum.

Mum never could hear the timebase whistle!

[Richard_FM]

I'm too young to remember the 405 line whistle, but I've have the chance to hear it at Golbourne last November. It didn't deem to be too obtrusive, but I could definitely hear it.