[colin4014]

Europe standardised on a 625 line UHF / VHF system in the early 60s for colour broadcasts, and that particular Kuba portable was a UK model introduced before full colour switchover in 1969. Before that UK colour and mono sets had to be able to pick up the national channels on VHF at 405 lines. The Kuba was a German set and as in the rest of europe Colour was broadcast at 625 lines on UHF and VHF. The early UK Kuba had a VHF and a UHF tuner and a complicated switch to go between! that also had to change the scan from 625 to 405 lines The UK Kuba was rather funny as in 1969, the UK supplier the rental company, Granada just set the switch to UHF, pulled off the knob and the VHF tuning dial and covered the holes after the switchover!! (that switching was a source of many problems!). That set has a tint control because it used a simplified PAL S decoder where the colour would drift (as in NTSC), From my experience with the Hibrid Kuba it drifted a lot! All larger sets had full PAL decoders and had no colour drift so it really was not acceptable to keep having to operate a tint control!

VHF tuners in the UK also used all 13 channels! London BBC was always on channel 1!

I know all this because my brother was an engineer for Granada! He Hated the Kubas ( as did most of the people who rented them!).