English TV

[polaraman]

Came across a different Tv this past week end. It was a Kolster-Brandes LTD model KV-50. Said it was made in Footsgray, Kent England. Was complete but the CRT was busted. Channels started out with 1 and it ran off 220 volts. Not a real interesting looking set but an English tv set though. Were these sets common?


polaraman

[Steve K]

Hi Polaraman:

Could you post a picture of that set? I believe that the models starting with a K were from 1955 but I could be way off. I have a collection of British made radios and one British TV. It is a Bush from 1953. It too has channel 1 and runs on 220 (actually 240). I have several step-up transformers that I use to run my foreign sets. I got my TV working, at least I think. It has 405 scanning lines and uses all different frequencies than American TVs so I don't know how well it really works. I do get snow on the screen and noise from the speaker!

Again I could be wrong but I think you can get an American picture tube to sub for the broken one. Let's us know if you get the set.

Steve

[polaraman]

I was not able to take a picture of it. It is in an Antique mall. Been there for over a year. Guess folks are turned off by the broken CRT. It is a small table top set. The top has a lot of water damage from people sitting drinks on it. The CRT was not broke when I first saw it. The price did not go dawn when the CRT was broke!! I do not know what happened. Felt it was really strange to see a British set at an antique mall. Felt that if people would know the set it would be here.

[Chad Hauris]

I think you can get a British TV to work on American standards by increasing the horizontal and vertical frequencies with the hold controls (called line hold and frame hold on British sets). The black and white signal is the same (or similar enough to work) in the British and American standards, only the scanning frequency is different. It is the British color signal (PAL) which cannot be picked up on American color TV's, it is too different.

I don't know about the RF frequencies of British TV channels...I know that the 405-line standard was VHF and all of the modern 625 line color transmissions are UHF. You may be able to inject video from a VCR with an alligator clip lead to the video detector to try the set out. You may need to use an isolation xfmr to power the set if it a "hot chassis".

[Steve McVoy]

Some 405 line sets will work on NTSC, but usually they don't have sufficient width, since the horizontal scan rate for 405 is 10125 Hz and NTSC is 15750. The scan circuits in 405 sets don't work very efficiently at NTSC rates.

405 had 3.5 mHz spacing between video and audio, and the audio carrier was below the video, so if you operate a 405 line set on NTSC, you won't get the audio.