My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Good evening,
Time for a little story :D
When I was a kid of 10 years old, I met another lad called Mark at our local Cub pack. I soon found he had similar interests to me and we spent all our spare time scavenging for old junk- TV's, record players, radio grams, electrical switch gear, fluorescent light fittings etc. TV's were always my main passion, and colour ones were the holy grail! They were not that easy to come by in the early '80's, at least, they didn't come our way very often :(
At some point, a Marconiphone 19" set fitted with the BRC 2000 chassis appeared: I would have been about 16 by this time. I remember getting it to work pretty well and Mark used it in his bedroom for a while. At some point when it was no longer required, it was shoved into an outbuilding and forgotten about.
I still see Mark form time to time, and he told me that the buildings were being cleared and that the TV still existed!
Anyway, this afternoon, he appeared with it in the back of his van, so now, at the age of 50, I've got a TV back that I last saw when I was 16 8-) How cool is that!!
It's suffered a few knocks and the tuning buttons have been bashed in, but inside it's in remarkably good condition. Ever efficient, there is a label inside with my name on which says 'repaired 15 August 1983' which would have been just after my 16th birthday.
It appears I must have had problems with the UHF tuner as the original tuner board is missing and there is a Philips ELC1043 on a pcb which looks like it's come from a PYE TV. It's hanging on a nail banged into the inside of the cabinet ;D What a bodger!!
All the PCB's are liberally sprinkled with Callins capacitors, and just the sheer amount of components is amazing so getting this working well is going to be a real challenge!!
I assume this would date to about 1969/70? Does anyone know what the purchase price would have been then?
Also some internal pictures showing the missing tuner board would be really useful so I can start my search for one.
I'm really chuffed to have this item from my past back again, but it will have to wait it's turn in the queue- a certain Pilot 'spacemaker tv' is still taking my odd moments of spare time.
Cheers Nick

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

That's fantastic that it's survived all these years, and it's come back to you! The tuner on it's own PCB is rather interesting. It'll be great to see it come back to life.

Regards,
Lloyd.

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Marconi 4701 was £309 in 1968. Not a cheap set, the GEC 2028 was £259.
Are you going to keep the varicap tuner or try and find the original six button multi-band tuner?

DFWB.

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Top marks to Mr. Fernseh for knowing that this was indeed model 4701! I've just been to check and that's exactly what it says on the plate.
£309 was a fair whack in 1968 (I was only 1 year old!) A new Morris 1100 was about £700- Amazing that a colour tv was nearly half the price of a car :o
Mind you, when you look at how much stuff is in there, its no wonder it was expensive!
I've been thinking about the tuner mod and I reckon the board is from a Pye CT205. I had one at about that time given to me by a friend's parents. I removed the chassis (and scrapped it) and fitted a G8 chassis from a set with a knackered tube. This worked really well and was the main set in my bedroom for some years.
I would like to get the correct tuner as it would be great to have the set working in 405 as well. In 1983 there was little point in getting the 405 to work and in fact, I noticed the internals from the system solenoid on the line scan panel is missing.
I need to find out what the panel looked like and what tuner was fitted to it. I did smile when I saw my lashed in tuner board hanging on a nail ;D
Cheers Nick

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Hello Nick
Please find attached the first five parts of the 2000 service manual.
Regards Stan.

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Hello Nick
Please find attached the next five parts.
Regards Stan.

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Hello Nick
Please find attached the last two parts and a copy of the Television magazine March 1973 on the 2000 chassis.
Regards Stan.

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Hi Stan,
That's absolutely fantastic and really is most appreciated- loads of bedtime reading there!!
Many thanks
Nick

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Hi, I had that very same set for many years, my first colour receiver. I bought it around 1978 from the second hand ads in the local paper for £75. When my mate who worked for a local TV rental company saw it he said I was mad to buy that, I should have got a 3000. However the next week he came round with a complete chassis from a scrap set at work. He said I would need it for spares. The 405 section was disabled but I got working again. I think I used that set for about 8 years during which time I replaced the tube with a regun and did various other things to it, before getting a Thorn 9500. After that it got retired to a dry corner of the garage.
At some stage I saw a wanted ad for a 2000 so I contacted the guy and agreed to let him have it for £75, so I got my money back. I also gave him all the spares I had collected (including a tuner) and a complete workshop manual.

Sadly I have nothing left to offer you apart from memories.

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Memories are great but a nice new tuner unit would be better ;D (only joking!) 1978, I was just starting secondary school and I think I'd only seen colour TV once or twice- we still had B&W until 1981! £75 was a lot of cash to spend on a second hand tv then- amazing the value things had then!
Strangely, I had a particular affinity for the 9000 series- I used to recondition ex DER rentals and sell them for £50 with 3 month guarantee when I was a student :-) Gave great pictures with a careful set up and the heater resistor shorted out to get a bit more emission- seem to remember that those PIL tubes didn't boost very well.
Cheers Nick

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

A postman earned £15 per week.
The stodgy take up of CTV had been partially caused by ...in rental agreements you would have to put a year's rent down, in 1971 this was repealed by the government and you could then hire one on just three months down payment.

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

We had a Marconi 4701 bought just before Christmas 1968. It was the 1st all transistor TV on the market and although it promised reliability it had some weaknesses. The service person on the phone at Thorns was excellent at pointing you to the faulty part. We had it for several years before giving it to my parents. It was finally put in the cupboard under the stairs at my house for safe storage. Eventually it went to Andy Emerson (405 alive) for their use. I had collected several spare chassis over the years but gave away or scrapped the remaining bits when I moved 7 years ago. I'm sure I have a page or two of notes about this set somewhere - my task for today is to try and find them.

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

That is odd as I never remember Andy E having a 2000 in all the many years I have known him.

Must ask next time I ring.

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

It probably went to someone else but went via 405 alive

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

I thought you might like to see this sales "flyer" (one of many), for the Marconiphone 4701 colour TV, picked up by me from Russell Acott, an Oxford High Street music, radio and TV shop (long gone), in my secondary school years.

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Hi Stan

Thank you for making the 2000 manual avalable, it must have taken you hours to scan. The last 2000 that I serviced was in 1976 at a hotel now gone in East Preston, Rustington trying to sort the psu at 6pm on christmas eve..

Bob.

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

After 50 years like the set you get scratches so I thought I would clean it up!

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Good job!

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Oh this is so naughty! When this set came back to me a couple of years ago, I knew it was going to be a major restoration project, so I decided to be strict and hide it away until some of the current projects (especially those for other people) had been finished.

The only thing I was planning to do was to keep a look out for a complete multiband tuner assembly.

Then, recently, Greg Simons acquired a basket case 2000 from member Welsh Anorak.

Interest rekindled.

He then very kindly sent me the entire tuner assembly (complete with a good coating of Welsh mud- courtesy of Glyn!)

Oh so tempting, but must resist the urge...

He then wanted photographs of the Chroma board, so that meant digging the TV out and taking the back off.

Aah Just replace the back and pretend it's not there....

And then, a couple of nights ago, desire got the better of me, the workbench was cleared (sorry Jon, your radio has got relegated again), and the 2000 was lugged in from the other room.

It's very big and exceedingly heavy, so it's not going to be moved again, so I'm just going to have to 'set to' and renovate it!

Don't forget I last worked on this very set when I was a lad of 16. I'm now 52 so a good few years have passed!

The first thing that strikes me is just the insane amount of stuff that there is in there- this was, after all, a domestic TV receiver, and to release something this complex to the general public was either very brave or very foolish! ;D

I had a quick scan through the service manual and totted up the component numbers. There are:

551 resistors,
400 capacitors (and a whole bunch of Callins electrolytics),
91 transistors and
86 diodes,
not to mention the three line output transformers! Not a single IC though, so every single thing is done discretely by transistors!

So endless hours of fun await....

All the best
Nick

Re: My Thorn 2000 back after 34 years!
 

Guilty as charged I'm afraid, I've rekindled your interest in the mighty beast, there's no letting go now!.
Yes indeed, the sheer amount of stuff in there is staggering for a domestic TV, some of which parts were being pressed to the limits of their specification, many thank for those pics, they told me what I needed to know, best of luck with yours.
Greg.