Sorry, just one worth a look to share.

[danechip]

 

[ericmark]

1928 Hull got cable radio services, and Barbados in 1934 was first cable TV. However still interesting to see how it worked as where I lived cable was non existent.

TV or at least the ability to send pictures over telephone wires was invented by Alexander Bain 1810 - 1877, Abbé Giovanni Caselli's got it all working and so first cable TV around 1867, although this was slow scan TV not how we know it today. It really took off in USA to send the morning news paper, if printed on paper is was called a fax, but if on a cathode ray tube slow scan TV, but were really the same thing.

Morse code was around the same time as fax, there is some debate at which was invented first, but both send digital information. This makes it hard to say when digital TV arrived as it was to start with digital.

I remember receiving and sending pictures to my son back in around 1993 we both had I suppose email addresses and used 7 plus and packet radio to send them, Suffolk to North Wales. He got his licence at 16 year old I think, well at least before he left school. We used Amiga A1200 to send to each other so know they had only just been released so that's how I know date. We used a program called Amicom. Packet radio started 1978 I did not have a licence then, but remember on the Falklands a school teacher showing me it working so around 1985, not sure if packet or slow scan TV, or RTTY or Amtor.

Seems unbelievable it was so slow, send a message to USA and you could get up and make a cup of tea while waiting for the reply. There was a system called Clive which was like the internet having loads of useful info stored.

But that film with turret tuners really takes me back, not sure when we got first TV, remember two channels so must have been after 1955, I remember BBC 2 starting so that was 1964, 1982 was channel 4, and in 1997 they came around retuning TV's to squeeze in Channel 5. By that time we had Sky, think that was 1990 remember the square aerial?

 

[mattylad]

The Squarial

 

[ericmark]

Yes, I was lucky it failed before we go around to getting satellite. Or I would have likely got one.

I remember my dad with back off TV. With mail order he bought one of each valve used, if TV stopped working, he removed back, and changed one valve at a time until it worked again, then sent for replacement for his stock, not a clue how TV worked, but always got it going again.

In the end the volt dropper went, it was just a big resistor, TV given to me, found resistance same as smoothing iron, so fitted 13A socket where resistor was, and plugged in the iron as a volt dropper, needed to be turned to max heat, if wife used iron and did not put it back to max, TV would switch off as iron heated up.

When TV went from 405 lines to 625 the hams got the old frequancy, so still see the old H aerial on some houses, although normally some rotator attached.

 

[Mottie]

Pretty sure I remember my dad swapping valves around in the telly. Seem to remember him saying that if they didn’t glow, they weren’t working?

 

[pete50]

I was a telly valve man back in the day after I came out of the army (I was a valve man in the forces as well although I had trained on transistors as well. No such thing as intergrated circuits back then). It was mostly true that if a valve wasn't glowing it was knackered. But then you got the ones that had got so blackened that you couldn't see any glow anyway. I also had a squarial when British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) started. The content was junk then but it gave us a few more channels. When Murdoch got his hands on it and it became British Sky Broadcasting (BSB) Sky gave me a free dish and box and a reasonably cheap subscription. The content was still junk and not a lot has changed with Sky apart from the price. I gave up on Sky round about when Freeserve and Freesat came into being. At least that is free even though the content is still, mostly junk. Apart from, of course, the scamming BBC licence fee

 

[ericmark]

Today we have a dish and aerial but I think broad band brings most of the entertainment into the house. Mainly listen rather than watch, and radio is near non existent so use thanks to this forum google mini's so suppose today our entertainment is mainly using that, even when watching TV catch up and u-tube is used a lot so maybe the dish gets 10% of what we listen and watch.