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VINTAGE RADIO
By RODNEY CHAMPNESS, VK3UG
The case of the disappearing TV sets
Vintage black and white TV receivers from 1956
onwards are now almost impossible to find. If
we don’t start saving the remaining examples
now, these sets may well go the way of the
Tasmanian Tiger and the Moa.
Valved black and white TV sets
are now quite rare animals. Is black
and white valved television a part of
our electronics heritage? You bet it
is and the time to start collecting is
now, otherwise the sets will be gone
for good.
Back in the March issue of “Silicon
Chip”, in the Publisher’s Letter, Leo
Simpson suggested that it was time
to save those old black and white TV
sets. Leo and I have discussed this
subject on a number of occasions and
this article will be followed by others
later on. I would like to dedicate this
68 Silicon Chip
particular article to the late Rex Wales
of the Historical Radio Society of Australia (HRSA) who was encouraging
members to get into vintage television
restoration. Sadly, he died before
much work could be done to find and
restore these old sets.
Why write about vintage television!
And what has television got to do
with vintage radio anyway? Directly,
probably very little. However some
members of the Historical Radio Society of Australia (HRSA) and the New
Zealand Vintage Radio Society (NZVRS) have started to show an interest
in preserving another aspect of our
electronic entertainment medium.
Therefore, an article on vintage tele
vision sets is very appropriate at this
time.
Unfortunately, most black and
white valve TV sets have been consigned to the rubbish heap. In the
process, quite a few were scavenged
for parts, power transformers, valves
and other odd bits and pieces. If
you don’t have a 6BX6 or a 6BL8 in
your radio junk box, you have never
wrecked a B & W TV set.
Have you considered how rare early
black and white television sets really
are? Could you lay your hands on one
of the original 17-inch Astor, Philips
or AWA TV sets, for example? Very
Below: these four sets are all AWA P1s
and have yet to be restored. Often, it’s
necessary to strip parts from one set
to get the others going.
few of us could. Fortunately, some
sets been stored in garages (or even
under the house), so there are still a
few sets around.
Most vintage radio collectors have
probably shunned col
lecting black
and white TV sets for several reasons:
(1) the sets are usually bulky (there
aren’t any mantle set size B & W TVs!);
(2) they haven’t considered B & W
TVs as being “vintage” sets. We didn’t
think of old radios as vintage until
about 15 years ago and we are now
waking up (almost too late) that B &
W TV sets are vintage as well.
(3) B & W TV sets are perceived as
being complex – which they are
compared to an AM radio receivers.
However, this and the following articles may help to dispel some of the
mystery.
(4) Replacement parts such as picture
tubes, line output transformers and
deflection yokes can be difficult to
obtain.
However, even if specialised parts
are hard to get, it doesn’t mean that
sets shouldn’t be collected – after all,
static displays of our early TV heritage
are much better than no displays at
all. For this reason, I hope that this
article and later ones will help readers
to get into this exciting “new” aspect
of vintage radio/television collecting
and restoration.
This photo shows an AWA P1 with the cabinet removed. This set is compact, has
an 11-inch picture tube and uses 13 valves.
A concise history
Television in its various forms has
been around for quite a long time.
However, like wireless (radio), it has
taken quite a few decades to evolve
into the sophisticated communications medium that it is today.
When the question is asked as to
who invented television, the usual
answer is John Logie Baird in the
1920s. But although he was at the forefront in developing the mechanical
television system, there were many
others who had also experimented
with mechanical systems, including
here in Australia.
Baird pushed for his system to be
accepted by the relevant authorities
but it was never going to be suitable
for domestic use for many reasons
– the prime one being that it was a
mechanical nightmare. But although
the mechanical system was unsuitable for use by the general public, it
did show that moving pictures could
be sent by radio waves. This opened
the way for a fully electronic method
The AWA P1 set is quite easy to service, as the PC board swings out to give
access to all the parts. The picture tube can be replaced in around 15 minutes.
to take over a decade later.
As a matter of interest, the mechanical scanning type of TV system only
had 30-60 lines to convey the picture.
By contrast, a modern PAL TV system
has 625 lines and between 150 and
600 times the definition of the mechanical systems. The early pictures
were sent on the AM broadcast band
and on nearby frequencies and only
required 10-40kHz of bandwidth, depending on the number of lines used
in the particular system.
Television became practical only
when a fully electronic system was
developed in the mid 1930s. In fact,
Britain had a working electronic tele
vision system by 1936, using a 405
November 1999 69
The AWA 242 was an up-market 21-inch set that was made during the mid
1960s. It had 21 valves and was fitted with a rotary VHF tuner.
line system. Of course, a number of
quite complex problems had to be
overcome before this became a reality,
including the development of the first
practical cathode ray tube (picture
tube) by V. K. Zworykin in 1929.
Note that, in those early days, the
pictures were rather small, being only
a few inches across.
Australian & NZ television
Television for the masses came
to Australia in 1956, in time for the
Melbourne Olympic Games. So,
we’ve had TV in Australia for over
40 years! Who’d have thought that it
was as long ago as that? Before that,
there were some early experiments
following the 1920s with mechanical
low-definition systems which were
transmitted mostly on the broadcast
band.
New Zealand had experimental TV
transmissions in Auckland from 1957
onwards and television for the masses
by 1960. Much earlier experiments
probably took place there as well but
I have no information on that subject.
It’s interesting to note that “Radio
70 Silicon Chip
& Hobbies” ran a television course in
instalments during the early 1950s.
This would have helped many servicemen later in the decade, when it
came to servicing the new technology.
Before the introduction of TV, servicemen were used to the 4/5-valve
mantle AM receiver and the occasional 8 or 9-valve multiband receiver
which had a few extra bells and whistles on it. What a shock TV was! Sets
typically had up to 25 valves (eg, the
STC 730-SU1), with several of these
valves having at least two functioning
sections (eg, the 6BL8). Some later
sets used as few as nine valves but
many of these were multifunction
“compactrons”.
In short, the circuitry and its functions were a whole new ballgame for
many servicemen of the era. Some
older servicemen hastily decided to
retire but many others went back to
school and learnt all about the new
marvel.
Early TV sets
In most cases, the black and white
valve TV sets were consoles, as were
the more elaborate radio sets of the
late 1920s through to the late 1940s.
The average wage in the early 1960s
was around 20 pounds a week and I
remember large console sets costing
up to 300 pounds at that time, or about
12 weeks pay. Today a colour TV
set can be purchased for one week’s
average pay.
In this first article, I have no intention of describing the restoration
of any particular set. Instead, the
accompanying photos are intended
to show readers what some of the sets
looked like from the outside and to
give a few glimpses of the internal
circuitry. Note that the sets shown
here have yet to be restored.
The AWA 242 console in the
photographs was one of the more
up-market sets during the mid 1960s.
It had 21 valves and the picture tube
was nominally a 21-inch unit. It was
fitted with a VHF tuner as only VHF
stations were available in Australia
until the advent of colour TV.
The AWA P1 is my favourite valve
black and white portable TV set. It
is compact, has an 11-inch picture
tube and has a total of 13 valves. The
set is quite easily serviced, as the PC
board swings out as shown in the
photographs.
In fact, it is so easy to service that
a picture tube can be replaced in
around 15 minutes.
I have a total of five P1 sets, which
means that I will be able to get at least
one operational using one or more of
the others for spare parts. I suspect
that this is the approach most vintage
TV restorers will have to adopt when
it comes to restoring sets to working
condition.
Another very interesting set shown
in the photos is the Healing. This is a
solid state receiver made towards the
end of the black and white era.
Technical details
TV receivers are very different from
AM radio receivers, although there
are a few similarities between them.
For example, TV sets are superhets as
are most vintage radios from around
1935 onwards. TV sets use much higher operating frequencies, however.
During the black and white era in
both Australia and New Zealand,
the frequency range tuned by the
sets was in the very high frequency
(VHF) band, from around 44MHz to
225MHz. This is considerably higher
than the highest frequency tuned on
most dual-wave AM receivers, which
usually don’t go past 18MHz.
As in AM broadcast receivers,
the local oscillator operates higher
than the frequency to which the set
is tuned by a fixed amount. This is
known as the intermediate frequency,
or IF. The IF for the picture carrier
was 36MHz, and the sound carrier
IF is 30.5MHz. These frequencies are
slightly different today.
In some early TV sets, two separate
IF amplifier stages were used for these
two separate parts of the TV signal.
However, apart from some rare exceptions, all the sets made in Australia
(and, I imagine, New Zealand) used
only one IF channel for both sound
and vision.
In a normal AM broadcast receiver, the IF bandwidth re
quired for
high-quality music reproduction is
around 20kHz. However, a vision
signal requires a very much wider IF
bandwidth for quality pictures to be
reproduced – around 7MHz in fact,
for both the sound and picture.
We’ll explain why this much bandwidth is required in a later article.
The signals are usually detected by
a germanium diode, after which the
audio and picture signals are separately processed. The audio is fed to
an IF amplifier stage on 5.5MHz and
thence to an FM detector and audio
amplifier. At the same time, the video
(picture) information is amplified by
a video amplifier which usually has
a response from DC to about 5.5MHz.
A number of other important components also appear at the detector.
These include the vertical and horizontal synchronising (or sync) pulses. These pulses are processed and
ensure that the picture is “locked”
vertically and horizontally into position on the screen. The horizontal
sync pulse peak level is also used to
provide automatic gain control.
As an aside, most people will have
seen pictures that roll vertically or
tear horizontally. This is usually
caused by a fault in the vertical or
horizontal sync circuitry.
The other two important components are the vertical and horizontal
blanking pulses. These pulses are
necessary to blank the screen at set
intervals, so that retrace lines aren’t
visible when the electron beam jumps
to the start of a new line or to the top
of the screen.
This view shows the chassis layout of the AWA 242 TV receiver. The set is fairly
easy to work on, with good access to most of the major parts.
This portable b&w TV set carries the Healing brand name. It was made towards
the end of the B&W era and uses solid state (transistorised) circuitry.
As can be appreciated from this,
quite a bit of circuitry is required to
process a “composite” video signal
to achieve the quality of picture and
sound that we have become accustomed to.
In later articles, simplified descriptions of how the sets work will be
presented, to assist restorers in the
task of restoring their black and white
TV receivers. As Leo pointed out in
his Publisher’s Letter, these sets are
worth restoring and are part of our
history, so start collecting even if a
complete restoration is beyond you
at this stage.
Finally, a few words of caution – be
very careful how you treat the picture
tube. A leather apron and protective
glasses should always be worn when
working with a picture tube, to give
protection if the tube implodes. SC
November 1999 71
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