Korting and Decca

The Korting Colour TV (Bottom) and Decca 2230 (top)

Never thought I would see these again.

When I first started work at Telefusion the Korting was the only TV sold or rented. It was made in Germany and at the time (1970) was state of the art colour TV technology. It actually had 6 buttons on the tuner and a tint control (bottom left) They were very reliable, but a sod to repair if they did go wrong apart from the valves.

Neil (G3ZPL) bought one of these, but the screening was awful, TVI (Television Interference) was there all time when Neil was on air. Lots of memories about these wonderful machines, they were later replaced with the Decca 'Bradford' Chassis - Decca 2230.

The Decca 2230 was build in modules (panels) which would allow you to replace or repair faulty panels. Originally it was built in 1973. The chassis dropped down for easy access, I can still remember the layout of the panels and the huge smoothing block that I replaced many times, not to mention the CRT's and LOPTX's. The Decca used the Decca 30 hybrid chassis which combined valves and semiconductor technology.

Both of these Televisions had beautiful wooden cabinets, real piece of furniture!

The Keracolour

These sets use the DECCA 'BRADFORD' chassis.

The chassis sits on a wooden shelf at the bottom of the globe, the only thing that stops the chassis moving about are stikkle bricks!!, which are riveted to the chassis and screwed to the wooden shelf. I fixed one of these for a collectables dealer, it took me a long time as it was in a bad state. I found the set almost impossable to carry through doorways without crushing my fingers on the door posts, it was 27" wide in all directions!. The dealer sold it for £600.

I remember installing one one of these in Bromley Cross, Bolton. It weighed a ton and it's awkward shape made it difficult to carry, but the size was the biggest problem!

It would not go through the doors of the house, so we ended up taking the internal doors off it's hinges and the back panel of the TV. It was a real 'Heath Robinson' of a TV, but when it was set up in the front room it looked fantastic!

When I first saw it in the 'Trident' Showroom, it was the future, everyone would want one these. It never really happened, but what an innovation at the time!