Fun days of yore
 

I can remember I started work soon after the start of bbc 2 in 1966. Back
then my employer had to hastily make old chunky 405 line wired sets work
on bbc 2, so cludged on extra pcbs and switches etc. Then came colour, but
this cocked up the black and white with patterns, so yet another cludge for
the filtering. Guess who had to test this crap, and align the filters.. Oh
yes, the young lad.



No health and safety, you could still switch on the juice with no board in
the test jig, and when it was in with real valves and all that stuff, you
really only had the isolating transformer to protect you.
Strangely, nobody seemed to die.

Those were the days.
Brian

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Fun days of yore
 

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
I can remember I started work soon after the start of bbc 2 in 1966. Back
then my employer had to hastily make old chunky 405 line wired sets
work on bbc 2, so cludged on extra pcbs and switches etc. Then came
colour, but this cocked up the black and white with patterns, so yet
another cludge for the filtering. Guess who had to test this crap, and
align the filters.. Oh yes, the young lad.



No health and safety, you could still switch on the juice with no board
in the test jig, and when it was in with real valves and all that stuff,
you really only had the isolating transformer to protect you.
Strangely, nobody seemed to die.

Those were the days.
Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!


I built my first TV when I was 14 in 1964 - I don't think my parents had any
idea exactly what I was doing. Always one hand in the pocket to avoid a
cross-chest shock. But my medium wave transmitter was something else - RF
discharges all over the place - very Spielberg.

Fun days of yore
 

On Fri, 6 Apr 2012 10:39:27 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

No health and safety, you could still switch on the juice with no board in
the test jig, and when it was in with real valves and all that stuff, you
really only had the isolating transformer to protect you.
Strangely, nobody seemed to die.

That sounds like the place I worked. Isolation transformer or not it
was still possible to get a good shock. One day the chap on the next
bench was soldering a component on a set that had been wired
incorrectly. He finished up with his hand contracted around the hot
end of the earthed soldering iron.

Steve

--
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JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com

Fun days of yore
 

Yes, I had a nice burn on my palm from grabbing at thearial without thinking
when the thing was transmitting.

Actually bbc 2 came on in 63, but was mostly just short transmissions, and
arty farty stuff. When they started testing colour or course we got those
films made by BP etc.


How did we ever watch those owful ac coupled pictures back then?

Brian

--
From the Bed of Brian Gaff.
The email is valid as
Blind user.
"Geoff Pearson" wrote in message
...

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
I can remember I started work soon after the start of bbc 2 in 1966.
Back then my employer had to hastily make old chunky 405 line wired
sets work on bbc 2, so cludged on extra pcbs and switches etc. Then came
colour, but this cocked up the black and white with patterns, so yet
another cludge for the filtering. Guess who had to test this crap, and
align the filters.. Oh yes, the young lad.



No health and safety, you could still switch on the juice with no board
in the test jig, and when it was in with real valves and all that stuff,
you really only had the isolating transformer to protect you.
Strangely, nobody seemed to die.

Those were the days.
Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!


I built my first TV when I was 14 in 1964 - I don't think my parents had
any idea exactly what I was doing. Always one hand in the pocket to avoid
a cross-chest shock. But my medium wave transmitter was something else -
RF discharges all over the place - very Spielberg.

Fun days of yore
 

One fun thing of course was the charged up capacitor, or condenser as we
called them then. The best joke was to place it on the nice young ladys
workbench and wait for the scream of course.
Brian

--
From the Bed of Brian Gaff.
The email is valid as
Blind user.
"Stephen Wolstenholme" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 6 Apr 2012 10:39:27 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

No health and safety, you could still switch on the juice with no board
in
the test jig, and when it was in with real valves and all that stuff, you
really only had the isolating transformer to protect you.
Strangely, nobody seemed to die.

That sounds like the place I worked. Isolation transformer or not it
was still possible to get a good shock. One day the chap on the next
bench was soldering a component on a set that had been wired
incorrectly. He finished up with his hand contracted around the hot
end of the earthed soldering iron.

Steve

--
Neural Network Software. http://www.npsl1.com
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. http://www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. http://www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com

Fun days of yore
 

In article ,
Brian Gaff wrote:
I can remember I started work soon after the start of bbc 2 in 1966.

Were you very late for work, Brian? It started in 1964 here. I was there
for the power cut. ;-)

--
*Never test the depth of the water with both feet.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Fun days of yore
 

In message , Brian Gaff
writes
Yes, I had a nice burn on my palm from grabbing at thearial without thinking
when the thing was transmitting.

Actually bbc 2 came on in 63, but was mostly just short transmissions, and
arty farty stuff. When they started testing colour or course we got those
films made by BP etc.


How did we ever watch those owful ac coupled pictures back then?

Were colour pictures ever AC coupled? Shirley not.

But of course, very few black and white sets were DC coupled (or had any
real form of black level stabilization). It makes you weep to think of
all the care the broadcasters took to deliver high-quality pictures to
the furthest and darkest corners of the UK (and, indeed, of the world),
only to have them wrecked when they were only inches away from the CRT
screen.
--
Ian

Fun days of yore
 

On Fri, 6 Apr 2012 16:48:08 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

One fun thing of course was the charged up capacitor, or condenser as we
called them then. The best joke was to place it on the nice young ladys
workbench and wait for the scream of course.
Brian

We had some polythene capacitors used for lightning protection. They
were tested for leakage with a very high voltage. They should all have
been discharged before assembly but some always got through as they
could hold a charge for days. The women on the production line didn't
scream but they had a phrase for us testers that often stated with
f.......

Steve

Fun days of yore
 

On Fri, 6 Apr 2012 12:10:54 +0100, "Geoff Pearson"
wrote:

I built my first TV when I was 14 in 1964 - I don't think my parents had any
idea exactly what I was doing. Always one hand in the pocket to avoid a
cross-chest shock.

Didn't that make soldering bloody awkward?

Fun days of yore
 

On Fri, 6 Apr 2012 16:48:08 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:

One fun thing of course was the charged up capacitor, or condenser as we
called them then. The best joke was to place it on the nice young ladys
workbench and wait for the scream of course.

Or toss one to the lad as he came in the door. Intuitively he'd catch
it...