G'day all.

I've just scored myself a Marconi BD851 B&W broadcast monitor, won it on an Ebay auction http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/380466376856 for $36!:D The seller was the same person who I bought that ultra rare Concord NEI-17 vidicon camera from not too long ago http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=255074 .

This monitor I believe was made to suit with the Marconi MKIV camera chains as according to http://www.tvcameramuseum.org/marconi/marconi_list.htm these monitors were first manufactured around 1958 . This monitor would obviously be backward compatible with my Marconi MKIII camera chain too and pretty much with any video source as it had composite video inputs. I have no idea which TV station used this monitor, am guessing it could be one of the Sydney stations like ATN-7, ABN-2 or TEN-10 as they all used Marconi cameras in the B&W era.

Looking at the monitor inside and out, it is in great shape, there is not much dust in it and there is no physical signs of blown components so I believe it will likely to not take too much to restore this monitor to working condition, it probably already works even! I am eager to just plug it into power and let it rip but knowing that old electrolytic caps go dry, I think I will reform them first before doing that, plus the old paper caps would obviously need replacing!

Anyways will keep you's updated on the restoration work on this monitor. In the meantime here's some photos:

I've been intrigued by the Marconi monitor ever since an ex ABQ man
I worked with used to rave about them saying "Their picture was so linear,
you could put a ruler on the screen"! Great to see detailed pic's of one of these.

Looks like it has old style focus magnets on CRT - these give razor sharp focus!

If you have a Variac, you might try bringin' it up on that to see if she works...

Yep I do have a variac. I was initially going to reform the electrolytic capacitors before powering it up slowly but I decided to risk it as I was eager to see if it works and so I powered slowly up to 240VAC with my variac. Valves lit up and CRT filaments lit up so all good and good there :).

Then there was the typical CRT TV high pitch frequency squeal which sounded normal to that of an old TV. I didn't see any illumination on the picture tube so adjusted the brightness and contrast of the tube but nothing comes up so that and the high pitch squeal makes I guess there's no horizontal scan thinking back to what I leaned doing television repair course in college in the early 2000s.

While switched on, a distinct vintage electronics odor was evident and after a few minutes I heard the sound of simmering oil in a frying pan and so I switched the set off and as I expected, a big fat paper capacitor has boiled and leaked its PCB infested oil. So obviously I will go through the process of replacing all paper capacitors and reform the electrolytic capacitors before powering it up again.

Anyhow despite those complications, the monitor is semi-working and all visible valves light up A-OK and nothing went "KABOOM!" so that alone makes me happy!:D

Anyways will keep you's updated with my restoration progress on this monitor.

Here is a a couple of cell phone videos I made on my BD851:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYjw8zTxX6g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbqKAVXFtoA

The wax in vid from Flyback Xformer ? - either way, approach restoration
in a safe, systematic manner (all Paper Caps replaced first)

I like the width & height front panel controls
A sophisticated product. I wish I had one of these