Low band TV in Britain.

[Dave A]

The BBC did try color on 405 but mostly experimental. Sets were produced for demonstration but not sold to the public.

A great collector, David Boynes in England, restored what I think from the notes is a Pye 405 color set (mostly RCA tube imports and Pye designs from there) and from that modified a B&K generator to produce 405 color. I can only find his notes on the ETF site and they mostly document the B&K mods...not the set.

http://www.earlytelevision.org/pye_c...storation.html

More from David (FERNSEH)

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...t=68780&page=2

And a BBC doc that shows color at the very end. Not a kine but a film shot on set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K37...ature=youtu.be

The notes have an interesting entry of finding a Mullard (Holland) version of the 21CYP22. Perhaps there were other 21's made under license by Mullard or others and can be searched in Europe. Jerome H...any help on this thought?

Mods...if this is drifting too far afield please restart as you wish with a new topic.

[ppppenguin]

In the 1950s the BBC produced experimental colour transmissions on both 405 and 625 lines. All using NTSC adapted to suit the different systems. Several manufacturers made experimental colour sets using American CRTs and largely American technology. Marconi built cameras, nicknamed coffin cameras on account of their size and shape, using 3x image orthicon tubes.

Apparently it all worked pretty well and a lot of experience was gained. I think the decision not to start a colour service was largely financial and political rather than technical.

By 1967 when the UK colour service started there were plumbicon cameras and a well developed set of European valves and components, largely due to work by Philips.

Early sets were expensive, several thousand pounds in todays values. Roughly equivalent to the cost of 42" plasma flat screens when they first were sold.

[nasadowsk]

Originally Posted by Dave A

The notes have an interesting entry of finding a Mullard (Holland) version of the 21CYP22. Perhaps there were other 21's made under license by Mullard or others and can be searched in Europe. Jerome H...any help on this thought?

This is interesting:
1) That anyone outside of RCA had the resources at the time to build the CY.

And:

2) That there was enough demand to actually bother, given color was barely selling in the US, and PAL was still over the horizon.

In the US, wasn't Zenith the second one to build color tubes?

(Ok, this starting to become serious drift, I guess...)

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by nasadowsk

This is interesting:
1) That anyone outside of RCA had the resources at the time to build the CY.

And:

2) That there was enough demand to actually bother, given color was barely selling in the US, and PAL was still over the horizon.

In the US, wasn't Zenith the second one to build color tubes?

(Ok, this starting to become serious drift, I guess...)

When you say maker of color CRTs you fail to differentiate whether the CRT was prototype or production...RCA, Zenith, Dumont, CBS, and Philco (I'm probably forgetting others) all had prototypes that were revolutionary in some way or another but when color was standardized LATE in 1953 only 2 OEMs actually made CRTs for production TV as far as I know. They were RCA and CBS.
CBS developed and sold the 15HP22 (basically a 15GP22 with phosphor directly deposited onto the inside of the envelope instead of using a separate phosphor dot plate (RCA later bought the patent from CBS). They also made a 19" version of the 15HP22 for a few months before the 21AXP22 from RCA obsoleted it.
In 1958 when nearly every maker except Motorola had given up on making color sets and simply rebadged RCAs Westinghouse briefly made and recalled a 23" rectangular color with a CBS CRT. That CRT had both purity and convergence design flaws that led to the recall (2 examples are known to survive).

Zenith did not make a consumer market color TV until 1961 and though they had color CRT prototypes in 1954 they didn't gear up to make consumer CRTs until after they entered the consumer market....I have owned early Zenith branded 21FJP22s with an EIA code that indicated that they had been manufactured by RCA.

It would be interesting to know which OEMs produced color CRTs besides RCA in the years 1954-1964... If that data exists and is compiled it would tell you who started when and if any of the original OEMs took a break in the leanest years of color sales.

It is known that Japan had adopted NTSC color by 1960 and made roundy color TV for both their domestic market and export. I wonder if RCA exported enough to supply them or if they made their own plant.

Long before PAL Brittan and parts of europe were experimenting with color after NTSC came into existence. I could see a large tube and set OEM like philips making their own color CRTs on an experimental basis. Philips actually produced a roundy color for both Canada NTSC and european PAL markets, but I believe it used a 21FJP22....It would be interesting to know if they made their own CRT or bought American.

[marcel]

Long before PAL Brittan and parts of europe were experimenting with color after NTSC came into existence. I could see a large tube and set OEM like philips making their own color CRTs on an experimental basis. Philips actually produced a roundy color for both Canada NTSC and european PAL markets, but I believe it used a 21FJP22....It would be interesting to know if they made their own CRT or bought American


I have two Philips TVs with a round color picture tube.
The Philips 21KX100A has a RCA 21FBP22.
The Philips EL-5793 has no numbers on the picture tube. This has a brown connection to the picture tube. According to Philips an AX53-14. I don't know if Philips made this picture tube itself, but someone might recognize this picture tube.


Also two photos of a new RCA 21FBP22, bought in the Netherlands.

The Philips EL5793 http://www.marcelstvmuseum.com/photoalbum85.html
The Philips 21KX100A http://www.marcelstvmuseum.com/photoalbum30.html