Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Hi,
Every so often I have a need to find out which chassis is fitted to a certain model number of Thorn group TV sets.

There has always been a readily accessible cross reference that I find by typing "Thorn tv guide" into Google. It's always first on the list. I think it's something to do with the Vrat site but I can't find it on there either. It listed every model of colour & B/W set from all the different Thorn brands and showed which chassis was fitted.

I've searched in lots of different ways but can find no trace of it! Does anyone know where it's gone, or even better have a link to it?

Cheers
Nick

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Is this what you're looking for?

https://www.radios-tv.co.uk/brc-thorn-chassis-guide/

Cheers

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Brilliant, that's exactly the one. I still can't find any reference to it on Google, no matter what I search for! I wonder why? Always used to be there:)

Many thanks
Nick

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Might be worth a quick malware scan (www.malwarebytes.com enter the address direct in the address bar not via a search) as you may have had your search engine hi-jacked, see it all the time on customers pc's search for something that should be there and it misdirects you to something else whilst doing a good impression of the google search page.

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Maybe they've done something (presumably inadvertently) to get themselves knocked off Google's radar.

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

I only found it on Google indirectly, more by luck. I searched:

thorn tv chassis guide -bird (to remove all the "thorn bird" results...)

- and the first hit was a post on this forum where I just happened to notice the link appearing within the text snippet!

Cheers

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Some info about the problem with Google from Chris the Vrat owner here

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Personally I couldn't care less whether Google finds my site or not. It's enough of a niche interest that probably almost anyone who is interested in it knows it's there anyway. More problematic is finding content within the site once you're there. If you host your own site there are indexing utilities you can use. Probably you can use them on a hosted site providing the hosting is the right sort and you pay enough. Personally I find www.master.com very useful. Up to a certain limit they will provide you with an index free of charge.

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Now that's interesting! I did wonder if it was due to some change that Google had made and it seems that it is.

If I need to go to the Vrat site, I always just type 'Vrat' into Google and it's the second in the list. Now there is no mention of it at all!

I can understand why Chris is annoyed.

It seems that with the ever increasing use of mobile devices, decent website design has been sacrificed to make sites work on mobile & desktop. I truly hate how many modern sites behave and look. One of the many things I love about this site is it's really old fashioned look and ease of use. I really hope we can keep it that way for as long as possible!

Cheers
Nick

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

I would like to second that!:clap: I'm not sure if this site is old fashioned but it is easy to navigate and very well run.
When the VRAT forum changed to the latest version I found it awkward to navigate. I quickly lost interest and very rarely visit.

I too hope this forum stays the same as it is "if it ain't broke...…"
:thumbsup:
P.S. sorry if this is off topic!

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Chris is actually one of the good guys, he puts a lot of time and effort into resources not available elsewhere, same as Golbourne too, just a shame we are all scattered across three forums now due to historical and political reasons :-/

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Don't get me wrong I am not criticising in any way. I have spoken to Chris on the old forum on many occasions. I sent him some Marconi Brochures, a 3500 service manual and bought his "Naked" Barrel Murphy which he had restored.
I'm Just saying I found the latest incarnation of his website difficult to use. That's me, I'm a real Luddite!
It is a shame that we are all fragmented into three forums I agree, but I don't want to get into that!
I will have another look at VRAT.. Must try harder! ;D
Rich.

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

No Rich, I seriously don't want to ever get into that again 8-o
The less said the better :thumbsup:
Best leave it where it is :thumbsup:

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Vrat has lots of data, some requires the member to be active to access but there is a great deal that is open access and all free.
The navigation is different to UKVRRR and Goborne but just different and not difficult to find your way around, just a matter of getting used to it.
Chris as done a lot of work to make it more accessible, very worthwhile trying it out and use the three sites to complement each other.

Access outside the UK is very limited due to the amount of DOS attacks it fends off. I raised the question of the Netherlands having problems and the quote from his email. I did have permission from Chris to post this.
Quote "Unfortunately the Netherlands currently generates between 8,000 – 10,000 denial of service and SQL injection attack per day. Yes 8-10K !!!

This has been going on since summer 2018. "

Give it a try if you are in the UK, the three forums are as I said complement they do not compete.

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Yes Frank, I do concur :):thumbsup:

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Google's "intelligent" search algorithms analyse your searches over a period of time and cherry picks what it thinks you want to see.

You can test this by using a different search engine that is not piped through Google to see the difference.

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

Unfortunately, I can't read the linked information. I succeeded exactly once tonight in visiting his site, after clearing cookies but that won't work now either. It seems to redirect to google.com. It might be misconfigured in one way or the other, I'll try to find out what, how and why. Possibly related to gdpr conscent? If Google crawlers get accidentaly redirected as well, it would make sense the site is dropped from the index.

EDIT: radios-tv.co.uk seems to serve me a 302 temporary redirect to google.com. I seem to remember that 302 redirects are deadly for SEO, so if the Google crawler is served that too, especially if it points to google itself, this would sufficiently explain the trouble.

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

I get exactly the same redirection to Google from the vrat site and I'm in Portugal.

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

It's known as living in a filter bubble. I prefer to use Duckduckgo which gives you what you asked for instead of what it thinks you ought to want.
duckduckgo
I typed "vrat forum" into Duckduckgo and the first three links were all Vrat. Of course if Vrat itself won't let you in that won't help. You could try using the TOR browser which will make you appear to come from somewhere else.

Re: Where has the Thorn TV chassis guide gone?
 

By the way, the VRAT link from the BVWS site says "server not found".