Why did 405 look so good?

[Hartley118]

Nowadays even the deafest old UHF tuners can be given enough signal for them to perform well. Unlike the old days where you relied on whatver came down the aerial lead.

My recollection of our first dual standard set around 1965 was that it struggled to produce enough video level on 625, so it compared badly with 405. It was a decent 23-inch Murphy, but it's valve UHF tuner was short of gain.  I recall dodging up a little grounded base transistor UHF preamp which certainly helped contrast considerably, suggesting that the problem was simply front end gain.

I had the impression that it wasn't until the UHF-only sets of the late 1960s that designs were properly sorted.

Martin

Martin.