TV Aerials through the years.

[Jamiel]

Here is my attempt at a H and ITV aerial, just loosely in position as the chimney needs properly painting and so does the aerial. Dark grey should also tone down the aerial make it fit in better. Not sure I can do anything about the lump of solder on the mount as despite using high and low temperature solder, it is so small it can heat and de-solder very quickly. I will also need a cable to go down the chimney and roof.



Jamie

 

[jcredfer]

The aerial looks really good, just a small point, but the signal was very weak back then and the aerial needs to be well above the chimney, so none of the signal can be interfered with.

 

Regards

 

Julian

 

[Suzie]

If the signal was weak a bigger aerial would have been purchased - unlike today the aerial was a lot cheaper than the television set then!

 

That said it was normal to mount the aerial at a height to have good line of sight to the transmitter. A bit of 2" pole was not a big cost in the scheme of things.

 

On the 'H' aerial the element nearest the transmitter is slightly shorter. 

 

Unlike nowadays when the aerials are made from pure aluminium and remain relatively shiny until they fall apart, in those days a stronger alloy called Duralamin was used which weathers to a darker grey. Smoke would often make them completely black.

[Jamiel]

Thanks for that.

I will try it a bit higher, but to keep it from being damaged I will just mount it higher on the chimney, if it extends too much it will get broken when the layout is moved, which will happen over the next few months.

Jamie

[melmerby]

14 hours ago, Jamiel said:

Thanks for that.

I will try it a bit higher, but to keep it from being damaged I will just mount it higher on the chimney, if it extends too much it will get broken when the layout is moved, which will happen over the next few months.

Jamie

It doesn't need to be way above the chimney.

Many were mounted lower down on a cranked mast

As long as it isn't right up against the brickwork it should look OK.

[spikey]

Just noticed this topic and am well impressed with the OP's modelling, but I have to ask ...

 

The window displays are very well done indeed, but to what are the 1/6 and 1/3 price tickets referring?  If the OP is taking pains to get the right aerial(s) for his period, wouldn't it make sense to have appropriate prices on the tellies?

[dhjgreen]

15 minutes ago, spikey said:

Just noticed this topic and am well impressed with the OP's modelling, but I have to ask ...

 

The window displays are very well done indeed, but to what are the 1/6 and 1/3 price tickets referring?  If the OP is taking pains to get the right aerial(s) for his period, wouldn't it make sense to have appropriate prices on the tellies?

Weekly rental?  Only the posh could buy.

[Jamiel]

Simple answer, I have no idea what a Television would have cost in those days and in pre decimal money.

If it is too little then perhaps it is an instalments price? It is also sealed in the window now so it is too late to change it. EDIT - thanks Djhgreen.
 

I did some research as part of my masters a couple of years ago regarding representing the past in film and the conclusion I came to was that unless you are documenting something very specific then there is no way you can reproduce something completely accurately and even doing so can be counterproductive to creating the correct atmosphere.
 

The more detail you put in (film or modelling), the more there is for someone to point out inaccuracies it seems. If I had to research every price label in the shop window I would not have got as far as stating the model. How much would the cans of Everyready Prestone have cost? How much for Hammonds boxes of whatever it is? How much for each cotton dress? How much for boxes of Omo?
 

There is a television show on one of the channels that does nothing but point out inaccuracies in films, having worked on many films I know what is important to the story and what is not. Needless to say I don’t like that show.
 

I suspect that answer at the end of the day this is one of the inspirations to make models as you want them. There are things that I dislike in modelling and my modelling avoids those, there are things that do not bother me but that others are concerned about. Such is life.

Jamie

Edited April 28, 2019 by Jamiel

[spikey]

1 hour ago, dhjgreen said:

Weekly rental?  Only the posh could buy.

 

Ahah!  I'd completely forgotten about renting, despite that being what I did with the first television I had!

 

1 hour ago, Jamiel said:

There are things that I dislike in modelling and my modelling avoids those, there are things that do not bother me but that others are concerned about. Such is life.

 

So true, Jamie, so true.  I was actually more intrigued by the prices than anything but whatever, I really do admire that window display.  It's way better than anything I could do.

[dhjgreen]

A google search said £11ish per annum for rental so in right area (nearly said ball park l

[PatB]

2 hours ago, dhjgreen said:

Weekly rental?  Only the posh could buy.

 

My family were renting our TV at least until I left home for good in 1988. First colour set was a Baird, which arrived c1972-73 and was finally declared beyond economic repair in 1983. That was replaced with a Mitsubishi which had an unusual (to me, at the time) pink tube. My mother still had the same set when she died in 2005, so it was a bit more reliable than the Baird. I assume it was still rented. Mind you, it was so old that maybe Radio Rentals had forgotten about it. 

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, dhjgreen said:

Weekly rental?  Only the posh could buy.

Rental was pretty common at the start (1950s) hence the proliferation of stores such as DER or Radio Rentals (both owned by Thorn)

Thorn brands such as Baird/Marconi were the usual fare for rental against Ferguson/HMV in the sales market.

Rental would be diminishing by the time Colour TV arrived (1967) giving the rental business a well needed boost as would the advent of VHS recorders in 1976 when the majority of rented VCRs would also come  from the Thorn rental stable which badged licensed JVC VHS models, hence their market dominance.

I rented a (dual standard based) UHF only valve/transistor hybrid colour TV in 1969 (the only rental I have ever done) as the reliability was still suspect on early models.

Once the solid state all UHF ones had been established, the rental went back to the shop and I bought the next TV.

Edited April 28, 2019 by melmerby
updated TV data

[melmerby]

6 minutes ago, PatB said:

My mother still had the same set when she died in 2005, so it was a bit more reliable than the Baird. I assume it was still rented. Mind you, it was so old that maybe Radio Rentals had forgotten about it. 

IIRC you could buy the TVs you had rented for a very long time for a nominal figure.

I assume it got them off their books for repairs!

[TheQ]

On 25/04/2019 at 14:00, Ian Morgan said:

 

 

I spent some time in the mid-1970's in Applecross, near Kyle of Lochalsch. The hotel TV only received BBC1 in black and white.

 

 

That would be from the same transmitter on Skye that we received the signal from on Benbecula. so the hotel wouldn't get colour TV until the early 80s..

[Bill_J]

I recall our first tv in the late fifties very early sixties, and when we returned from 2 years in Aden (no tv there) my dad would use the brass curtain rails as aerials. In married quarters at the time, you weren't allowed to fit tv aerials to the house. Later, with the advent of uhf, we used loft aerials.

 

Bill

[Jamiel]

A couple of photos of the aerials, higher up the chimney but still I hope in a fairly safe place. Not convinced how ling these will last though, a slight knock and the H aerial may break. I will post on their longevity at some point. The cable down to where it contacts the chimney is brass wire that threads into the chimney to hold it, below that it is plastic sprue drawn out over a candle.

 

Thank you to everyone who has posted in the thread.

Jamie

Edited May 6, 2019 by Jamiel

[ianmacc]

Auhagen do a nice pack of 24 aerials in various styles for about a fiver. Just need painting and look good. Make the Bachmann product extortionate in comparison! 

[dhjgreen]

27 minutes ago, ianmacc said:

Auhagen do a nice pack of 24 aerials in various styles for about a fiver. Just need painting and look good. Make the Bachmann product extortionate in comparison! 

Not best practice to have the aerial going over a chmney like that, should be on a staggered pole

[jonny777]

I have just come across a photo of a locomotive shunting a goods yard at Cambridge in September 1953, and one of the terraced houses adjacent to the railway has a large H aerial affixed to the chimney stack. 

 

I suspect it was put in place for the Coronation of the Queen, but does show that even an early 50s layout could have an isolated TV aerial. 

 

I would have posted the photo here, but the background is so poorly defined that the slightest image manipulation to brighten the picture and the aerial becomes impossible to see against the sky. 

[Jamiel]

I love the bird, pigeon I presume?

The aerial is on the chimney as a compromise as I am sure being on a pole it would be broken very soon.

Jamie

[ianmacc]

27 minutes ago, dhjgreen said:

Not best practice to have the aerial going over a chmney like that, should be on a staggered pole

 I said that to him when fitting but Mr. Fourmil said it’s fine he took the coal fire out years ago. 

[ianmacc]

2 minutes ago, Jamiel said:

I love the bird, pigeon I presume?

The aerial is on the chimney as a compromise as I am sure being on a pole it would be broken very soon.

Jamie

Yes indeed if I faced it outwards it would snag on the sleeve in the sky very quickly. The bird is one of a pack of Chinese ones that were insanely cheap at about two or three pounds including postage!

[Il Grifone]

A TV set (London only) cost about £100 before the war (the cost of a car!), but had reduced to about £50 by the fifties. (De-luxe floor standing models could still be £100 or more.) By the sixties a set cost around £60 (405 line only of course and took a leap up again with the introduction of dual standard sets for BBC2. At the start of the service, a colour set was around £250 for a 19" and £350 for a 25" with only BBC2 in colour and then only part of the time. It took the advent of BBC1and ITV in colour in 1969 for colour to catch on. (Prices quoted are very approximate and varied with screen size, make and model - multiply by about 75-100 pre-war and 25 post-war).

 

The big push for TV came with the Coronation in 1953. There were two reasons for the popularity of rental - the cost of a set and their unreliability. Valves are not the most reliable electronic component and the heat generated didn't help the other components. I won't comment on the design and construction.... Aerials were initially the big band I Xs and Hs (aerial dimensions depend on the channel number/frequency) and usually vertical. With ITV (again starting in London) came the smaller band III aerials again usually vertical but sometimes horizontal. (The higher frequency reduced coverage and  more repeaters were needed.) The affluent (and/or Hi-Fi fans) might have a Band II aerial (usually horizontal) for FM radio (or should that be wireless?).

 

The long wire aerials had more or less disappeared during the fifties. Dad put one up for me when we moved to the Birmingham area and gave me a crystal set. This would get the 3 BBC radio stations (Home, Light and Third). Selectivity was such that it received the Home and Third together. No trace of anything else beyond once receiving  Radio Moscow late at night (Something about Soviet tractor production IIRC).

 

VHF and UHF aerials have a dipole which is the actual aerial and often folded into a loop. Behind this (i.e. away from the transmitter is a reflector (the longer element of the H) and in front there may be one or more directors. The actual dimensions depend on the frequency of the transmitter.

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by Il Grifone