Skip find Ultra

[Colourstar]

Oh dear! I found this face down on top of a large skip not more than a couple of yards from my front door this morning. Sad case that I am, I recognised it as an Ultra 17-70 even from the side view before I got up close.

What a state it's in! Mazda CME1703 CRT necked- although not recently I suspect. As the for rest of the internals... Surprisingly the glossy cabinet its pretty much OK, just the odd ding. It's a very compact set and light to carry.

Amazing that a 1959 television can still turn up in a skip!

CRT aside, it's probably in no worse condition than the Pilot Spacemaker that Nick (1100 Man) is currently working on. Indeed isn't this more or less the same chassis?

Steve

[Colourstar]

The back cover, which fortunately was elsewhere in the skip, has a card listing an address at Burr Lane, Ilkeston. This is a winding road of terraced housing not far from here, half of which was bulldozed in the early 1990s for a by-pass. I shall have to check if No. 8 Burr Lane is one of the houses left standing.

[Cobaltblue]

Nice Rescue Steve!

Always nice to have something to link to previous owners

Cheers

Mike T

[bobskie]

Good save! Looks like it needs a lot of work though. It's amazing what turns up in a skip always worth a look. Are you going to restore it?

[Refugee]

Same here but in my case it was a 1950s tape recorder out of a street bin a couple of months ago.
Is that a mouse nest I see in the turret tuner?

[MonochromeMarc]

Nice one Steve and to find it almost on your own doorstep is amazing !

Condition wise it looks about the same inside as my Pilot PT650 did when I got that.
So what's the plan, a quick clean up, bang a tube in and watching Corrie on it by Monday evening ?

Marc.

[Colourstar]

Well it does seem to be the year for basket case restorations, what with David's HMV 1804, Mick's orange Murphy A640 and Nick's Pilot Spacemaker...

I wonder what the chances are of finding a crt? Nothing to lose by sticking a wanted message under the appropriate section I guess.

Steve

[Freya]

I think a Mullard AW43-88 would go in without any modifications, should one of those be available instead.

[Colourstar]

Thanks Stephen, I thought there would be a Mullard equivalent. Indeed the data book confirms this.

Steve

[AidanLunn]

I have two AW43-88s, one may be going spare as I have a necked GEC BT302 coming up which will require one of them but I also have a Dynatron TV47 with an original CME1703 inside. And we all know how long they usually last, don't we? So I might be OK to offer you that spare one if the 1703 in the Dynatron is OK.

As an aside I used to have an Ultra 17-70 I restored, that too had a 1703 and the emission on that was excellent!

[Philips210]

Hi.

Well done for saving it but as others have said it's going to take quite a lot of work getting running again. I have the very same set which has been on my garage bench for the last 6 years as I've not been able to start it. I think I read somewhere on the forum that the vision IF alignment can drift due to problems with the IF transformers. That slightly put me off starting my set but I will eventually get around to it hopefully this year. Best of luck with your set.

Regards
Symon.

[Colourstar]

Hi Aidan

Thanks for the (potential) offer. If you do end up with a surplus crt I'd certainly be interested.

Hi Symon

Having read some previous opinions on these sets, I should probably put it back in the skip! They don't seem to have been particularly liked by the trade and there are several not-very-good aspects to the design, both electronically and physically. It's worth a try though and we'll see how viable it looks when all the grot and grime (and mouse nest) is removed.

Steve

[Philips210]

Hi Steve.

I think these challenging sets are the best to restore, there's a huge amount of satisfaction when it all goes right. Seeing your set, it has given me more encouragement to start mine.
With all the recent damp air we've had then I think the LOPT ought to be first removed and thoroughly dried out. That's something I could get on with first.

Regards
Symon.

[Philips210]

Hi.

I think these sets would be just before the Ultra, HMV, Marconi and Ferguson merger ie British Radio Corporation (BRC). Once Ultra became part of BRC then things improved somewhat.

Regards
Symon.

[Restoration73]

HMV/Marconiphone was merely a badge acquisition. It is Ferguson (Thorn) that acquired
the new Ultra TV factory.

[Grubhead]

I'm amazed that anyone would bother trying to fix that. It probably would be cheaper to build the entire thing from the start, brand new. From what I can see there will little left of the original that would still work.

There's a modern LCD TV dumped into the local stream near Constable Road (Sheffield) near me. But you wouldn't see me going down the bank's steep sides to fetch it out. Even though there will be some good boards on it probably.

[Refugee]

I walked past two flat screen TVs that were in the bushes with a liberal layer of wet leaves on top of them.
It was not worth dragging them home for spares with all those silly little screws you have to take out to get inside.

[Philips210]

Hi.

I couldn't resist having a quick look at my set. I noticed that the line output stage screening can is missing and it is also fitted with a different tuner to that in Steve's set. A regun tube has been fitted at some stage. It doesn't look too bad for servicing, the IF panel conveniently swings out for good access. There are a number of Hunts caps that will obviously need hurling out together with some waxies and the usual out of tolerance carbon composition resistors.

It looks to be a interesting project.
A few pics attached.

Regards
Symon.

[Philips210]

Hi

A few more pics of the chassis.

Regards
Symon.

[Colourstar]

Thanks for the photos Symon, at least I know what I'm looking at through the debris! Interesting to see that yours appears to have a fireball tuner fitted like that in the Pilot Spacemaker sets that use this chassis.

Steve