Pam 822F 405 line console

[Hunts smoothing bomb]

Hi All,

Several weeks ago I was lucky enough to go down to Devon with Tazman1966 and meet up with Mikey405. (Mike Bennett) Mike let me take home an old Pam 822F (F denotes fringe model I have been told by Tas) and a Philips T-vette

The set was shrink wrapped by Mike for storage and on getting the set home and unwrapping it was found that cosmetically the set was in good condition. On removing the back I was amazed at the amount of crud in there! All the top surfaces of everything were covered in an alarming amount of cooked on and settled dust, in a way this was good because it showed no sign of the phantom twiddler being in there!
I also noticed that the only sign of repair was a circular RS dropper section had been bridged across a failed section of the original dropper and that the selenium rectifier had been removed and replaced by a metal cased diode and an RS circular power resistor which gives me a hunch that this was done some time ago.

Right, first steps that were taken were to remove the chassis and give it a damn good blast with the air gun and feather out all the crud from the crevasses with a small paint brush. Then it was up onto the bench where all the waxies were replaced on sight, including the two hidden on the back of the LOPT (cheers Tas, I wouldn’t have spotted them if you hadn’t said.) There were several resistors in the frame stage too that were out of spec so these were also changed with high voltage RS 1watt types, mainly because they look similar to the originals in size and colour. There were also a couple of failed resistors in the PSU stage dropping the voltage to relevant stages. The smoother had dried up and measured 1400pF!! I swapped that out for a replacement too!

I putt in a replacement 12AX7 for the one that had lost its vacuum and set about returning the chassis to its cabinet.

I applied power through the variac and slowly wound it up to full, after a little time a line whistle burst into life, Hooray! Shortly after I was rewarded with testcard C from the Aurora, the tube is nice and bright but there was far too much contrast, Right power down and time to take the chassis out again. With the chassis back on the bench and a thorough re-examination I found a wax cap on the tuner and controls assembly that had previously avoided my eye! On replacing this and getting the chassis returned once again to its rightful place I was rewarded with a decent picture, I had to tweak linearity and height but that is about it.

All that remains now is to sort out the remaining cosmetics of the set. The feet of the set have unfortunately lost their veneer so all I am thinking of doing is painting them in a dark gloss brown, I think this will be acceptable. The brass trim has tarnished so I will polish this up and re-lacquer it.

I would lastly like to say a big thank you to Mikey Bennett for letting me take this set away, I’m over the moon with it.

Cheers
Lee

[Hunts smoothing bomb]

And the rest!

Cheers
Lee

[Steve_P]

Looks lovely does that. Well done that man!

Cheers,

Steve P.

[Tazman1966]

Hi Lee.

It looks just as good in real life too doesn't it? What a corker. I look forward to seeing it having pride of place indoors.

Cheers fella,

[stuie319]

Hi there,

Thats a belter looks superb well done

Stu

[Hunts smoothing bomb]

Thanks for the replies chaps,
The set was actually quite a straight forward enjoyable restoration, I guess from start to finish it took a couple of weeks. (Real work unfortunately gets in the way!)

Cheers
Lee

[newlite4]

Very interesting 'baffle' type design Lee, chassis looks similar to that in the Pye V310s. I am sure that it has many years life ahead of it now that it has been brought back, nice job.
Neil

[BGmidsUK]

What an unusual (and nice) looking set! It does look very top heavy though .. hope we don't get any more earth tremors



BG

[chipp1968]

Yes an interesting looking set , Good one for a collection . Very nice

[Mikey405]

That looks like an excellent job there Lee - Well done on getting it going old mate. I'm glad it went to a good home.

[howard]

Hello Lee,

I know very little about old tellies but I have to say that that one is a good looking set

Howard