GEC BT-304 Television

This set was rescued from a garage clearout back in 2008 when it was otherwise going to end up in a skip.  Which having managed to survive since 1953 would have been a crying shame.

I've not had a chance to get to it yet, but hopefully it will have its turns on the restoration workbench at some point.  It's stored in a safe, dry location in the meantime.

Below are just a few photos from when I first brought it home.

This was how it arrived - it had to be carefully attacked with the vacuum cleaner and a damp cloth before we would even allow it in the house.

You can see with the doors that cover the screen when not in use closed where the heat from the dropper resistor has over the years discoloured one of the doors.

Some damage to the top of the case sadly from where it was very nearly dropped from the ladder when being retrieved from the garage loft.  Still, I guess better to have a bit of veneer to need to repair than having had the whole thing clatter to the concrete floor below.

It's grubby in the extreme, but at least seems complete.

Evidence of prior repairs judging from the "Polo mint" style replacement resistor bridging an open circuit bit of the dropper resistor.

Looking at the signal side of things, it's again absolutely filthy but seems to be complete.

The heater in the tube at least has continuity...though whether it will have any emission shown when put back into service will remain to be seen.  I'm not holding my breath too much given it's obviously seen quite a number of hours of use...Though being a 405-line only set it quite possibly was put away simply when the 405-line service ceased transmitting, rather than having been retired due to a fault.  Though I imagine there are a few faults present now!

Page Updates:

28th April 2023: Revised Statcounter code to allow for HTTPS operation.

16th March 2023: Page formatting changes to improve readability on mobile devices.