Museum of the Broadcast Television Camera

Pye Mk4 Television Camera in operation

Pye Mk4 Television Camera in operation

Nigel writes:-
I'm pleased to report that we now have pictures from the Pye Mk4 2042.
It's been a long but rewarding journey fault-finding my way through all the circuit diagrams,
with only a couple of spectacular bangs! I had to substitute some of the oil-filled Visconol caps in the PSU as well as most of the SenterCel rectifier diodes, and many other capacitors in CCU and camera. Hardly any valves were found to be faulty and thank goodness all the transformers were ok. Once pictures were obtained, a number of malfunctions became apparent, but one by one they were sorted, including a repair to a servo follower pot that controls the wedge filter.

Picture quality overall is very good, though drift is something of a problem. The HT rails appear stable but small variations in beam focus and horizontal scan amplitude are occurring intermittently. Not bad though - built in 1962, still whirring away and producing television pictures!