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Old 6th Oct 2018, 10:34 pm   #21
Duke_Nukem
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

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Originally Posted by Heatercathodeshort View Post
The 17" Ferranti may seem a modest receiver for a posh hotel but it was a 17" model, the largest commonly available screen size in 1954. It would only be a year before the 21" tube was introduced in a number of top line models.
Its just odd for a hotel to have a set that had been released three years earlier, surely Ferrantl couldn't still be selling such a model brand new?

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Old 7th Oct 2018, 8:41 am   #22
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

They probably bought it brand new in 1954 and no doubt replaced it in the later 50's with maybe a 21" bow front Ekco. The post card dates from 1957. The 17T4 would have still been up to date having been designed for B3 reception.

It may have replaced a 12"or 15" console from the 1948 period such as the HMV 1806.
We will never know. John.
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Old 7th Oct 2018, 6:04 pm   #23
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

For some reason, I now have two mental images that I just can't shake .....

One is of a young couple booking a night in a hotel just so they could watch some programmes in the TV lounge! Did people ever actually do that sort of thing in real life?

The other is of a "posh" customer telephoning the hotel to make a booking, then changing their mind at the last minute upon learning that the hotel had anything as vulgar as a television set .....
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Old 7th Oct 2018, 6:27 pm   #24
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

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For some reason, I now have two mental images that I just can't shake .....

One is of a young couple booking a night in a hotel just so they could watch some programmes in the TV lounge! Did people ever actually do that sort of thing in real life?

The other is of a "posh" customer telephoning the hotel to make a booking, then changing their mind at the last minute upon learning that the hotel had anything as vulgar as a television set .....
I would have thought the last thing a young couple would wish for when staying for a single night at a hotel would be a television lounge.

Most hotels would have such a lounge back then as did posh gentlemen's clubs, golf clubs etc. Being a separate TV lounge you were not forced to watch it. Yes, things are a lot different now. J.

Just a thought. The channel 3 Kirk O Shotts transmitter would only have been on air for less than 2 years when they bought the Ferranti.
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Old 7th Oct 2018, 7:11 pm   #25
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

Well spotted John I did think that the TV would not have been that old. Was it installed for the coronation. I remember watching it outside with dozens of other people a mile out of our town as due to hills and the fact we were 50+ miles from Kirk o shotts reception was very poor in our area. We did do a communal system in 1958.
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Old 7th Oct 2018, 7:17 pm   #26
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

The Ferranti had vision AGC and loads of gain. With a pre amplifier I expect it produced a picture of good entertainment value.

Thinking about it. The Coronation broadcast would have been for many people the first time they viewed television. J.
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Old 7th Oct 2018, 7:31 pm   #27
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

Two improved pictures, one of the tuner unit showing the B3 channel numbers and an off screen shot taken under better lighting conditions. The tube is a non aluminised Mullard MW43-64 adjusted slightly below normal levels of brightness.
The super bright picture can easily overload the camera exposure.

The B3 section of the tuner would not have been used for a number of years due to it's location. J.
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Old 7th Oct 2018, 7:57 pm   #28
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

I remember staying at a hotel in Edinburgh with my parents in 1969.
The TV lounge had a colour set (sorry,can't recall the hotel or make of set). Only thing I
recall was the terrible convergence on 405 line BBC1!
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Old 7th Oct 2018, 8:12 pm   #29
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

I remember a hotel in the 1970s having a television lounge off the bar. We had bar lunches in there (because children weren't allowed in the bar). IIRC it was something like a lecture theatre with banquettes in rows!

To further confuse the dating slightly, the photo on the postcard may have been taken at a different time from the other photos, or the postcard being printed or used.
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Old 8th Oct 2018, 1:50 pm   #30
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

These days, my advice is to avoid those hotels which still advertise colour TV as a selling point!
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Old 8th Oct 2018, 3:30 pm   #31
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

...or running water and gas fires in every room
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Old 8th Oct 2018, 4:01 pm   #32
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

The television lounge is really a thing of the past now, as customers expect TV in every room. And not just a portable, either - recently had to replace all the 24" sets in a hotel with 32". And also have a 37" in from another hotel from a relatively small bedroom. The latter hotel has a nice lounge, wood burning stove, well stocked bar...and NO TV!
Gets my vote...
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Old 8th Oct 2018, 7:39 pm   #33
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

Quote:
Originally Posted by julie_m View Post
For some reason, I now have two mental images that I just can't shake .....

One is of a young couple booking a night in a hotel just so they could watch some programmes in the TV lounge! Did people ever actually do that sort of thing in real life?

The other is of a "posh" customer telephoning the hotel to make a booking, then changing their mind at the last minute upon learning that the hotel had anything as vulgar as a television set .....
Agatha Christie described the viewing room in "At Bertram's Hotel" set in 1955. thus.

"There was also, tucked down a passage, in a secretive way, a television room for those who asked for it."

I can certainly remember such television lounges in hotels before it became "compulsory" to have one per bedroom.

What I don't quite remember is the protocol for changing the channel when there were others in the the room.
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Old 8th Oct 2018, 8:22 pm   #34
OscarFoxtrot
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

We had two TV rooms per hall at university, 1980s. Channel choice was a show of hands (there were only four channels anyway) and sometimes a mad dash between halls trying to find somewhere that wasn't showing Eastenders ...
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Old 8th Oct 2018, 11:28 pm   #35
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

Indeed the BBC's Miss Marple version of At Bertrams shows their 50's TV lounge a few times. They're watching what looks to me like another Ferranti, looks like a T1205 or similar. Quite difficult to tell.
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Old 9th Oct 2018, 10:37 pm   #36
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

I remember a friend telling me of their first experience of their university's TV room. He was surprised to find everyone going in to watch Basil Brush which was surely too juvenile to attract 18-21 year olds. Then he realised that it was the only way to get a good seat for Dr Who which followed.
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Old 10th Oct 2018, 12:15 am   #37
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

When I was at Aston University in the early 1990s, there were three separate communal TV rooms in the off-campus Halls of Residence at Handsworth; one nominally for BBC1, one for ITV and one for either BBC2 or Channel 4.

Nowadays there probably are more channels on air than there were chairs in all those rooms ..... A lot of people had their own sets, even back then. If only I had not been afraid of working on TVs ..... but I had heard far too many horror stories of people resting in pieces after accidents with pre-war, mains-transformer-derived EHT circuits
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Old 10th Oct 2018, 12:25 am   #38
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

Call me daft but what seems to have been missed, in all the talk about a Ferranti TV being watched, is that the post card is showing the guests watching BBC Test Card C. You can see the castellations and circle etc.

Perhaps the young couple were interested in the soothing, almost romantic music played during those Trade Transmissions but then it would have been during the morning to say until 4pm.

Even if I had been a little shy, I am not sure I could have sat through too much of a Trade Transmission before suggesting........... I'll stop there.
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Old 10th Oct 2018, 1:12 am   #39
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

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Originally Posted by simpsons View Post
Call me daft but what seems to have been missed, in all the talk about a Ferranti TV being watched, is that the post card is showing the guests watching BBC Test Card C. You can see the castellations and circle etc.

Perhaps the young couple were interested in the soothing, almost romantic music played during those Trade Transmissions but then it would have been during the morning to say until 4pm.

Even if I had been a little shy, I am not sure I could have sat through too much of a Trade Transmission before suggesting...........
...that he should adjust her horizontal hold?

Quote:
Originally Posted by simpsons View Post
I'll stop there.
I think I'd better.
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Old 10th Oct 2018, 8:00 am   #40
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Default Re: Grosvenor Hotel, Edinburgh. - TV Room

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Call me daft but what seems to have been missed, in all the talk about a Ferranti TV being watched, is that the post card is showing the guests watching BBC Test Card C. You can see the castellations and circle etc.
This is not anything new.

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