21-12-2016, 11:59 AM
Round about 1965, one of our customers bought a Bush TV125U for an elderly relative and we were asked to deliver it and do whatever was necessary to the aerial system.
Why he didn't choose a dealer closer to his relative, I don't know, because we were in Grays, just down the road from Tilbury Docks while the relative lived in Anerley Park, on the south-eastern boundary of Crystal Palace Park!
I was dispatched - in case there were any unexpected problems - along with our aerial rigger to deliver the set.
The existing aerial we found there was a simple set-top Vee type but the signal strength was so high - as you might expect - that there was no problem with BBC1 or ITV and certainly no justification for a permanent installation of any kind but UHF was a completely different matter!
The only solution was a UHF aerial, which was erected in the loft. Normally, this was a no-no - we'd warned against it in the run up to the launch of BBC2, but some customers insisted.
Initially, everything was fine - until the first time it rained! Those early valved UHF tuners just couldn't cope with the reduced signal level and all those new loft aerials were re-sited outside!
However, once up in the loft in this case there was lashings of signal when the aerial was correctly oriented which, in this case, meant being angled upward to point to the top of the mast on the other side of the park!
Why he didn't choose a dealer closer to his relative, I don't know, because we were in Grays, just down the road from Tilbury Docks while the relative lived in Anerley Park, on the south-eastern boundary of Crystal Palace Park!
I was dispatched - in case there were any unexpected problems - along with our aerial rigger to deliver the set.
The existing aerial we found there was a simple set-top Vee type but the signal strength was so high - as you might expect - that there was no problem with BBC1 or ITV and certainly no justification for a permanent installation of any kind but UHF was a completely different matter!
The only solution was a UHF aerial, which was erected in the loft. Normally, this was a no-no - we'd warned against it in the run up to the launch of BBC2, but some customers insisted.
Initially, everything was fine - until the first time it rained! Those early valved UHF tuners just couldn't cope with the reduced signal level and all those new loft aerials were re-sited outside!
However, once up in the loft in this case there was lashings of signal when the aerial was correctly oriented which, in this case, meant being angled upward to point to the top of the mast on the other side of the park!
