BATC Forum

I found this whilst trawling the boot sales for vintage items - I have no clue what this is, but it looks interesting (and cheap) so I got it.
The foam padding on the wooden box had already turned to sticky gunk so cleaned it up.
I am not sure if this is related to TV broadcasting and Google searches on whatever I can read off the equipment turned up nothing as well -
except for the fact that the company who made it (Grafikon) had already gone bust ages ago but was a manufacturer of TV and broadcast equipment.
The original power cord had a strange four-prong plug in it so I replaced it with the standard UK plug just so I can see how it lights up.
The torch (I'll call it that for the mean time) has some sort of an aperture at the handle that you can turn to control the intensity of the light.
There is also a removable filter at the mid section of the torch.
I have also removed the top housing so the inner bits can be seen (please see the photos).
May I ask if any of you knows what this is please? Any reply is appreciated.

Hi,

It is for adjusting/measuring the colour temperature of a broadcast colour picture monitor. You held it to a white patch on the monitor screen and compared it with the Graphicons internal patch. By changing the filter near the handle you could adjust the monitor for different colour temperatures.

The 4 pin plug (EP4) was widely used as a mains plug in the 1960-1970s

Thanks Brian, Much appreciated

The EP4 was used well into the 80s at ITN. It had to be bodged so the metal shell could be earthed.

It did have its uses though. The screws used in the cord grip were just the right size for waveguide flanges

I wonder if you could use that equipment nowadays to measure and adjust the colour temperature and profile that a computer would use to send video to the measured display.

It might come in handy for burning in a new monitor, or an older one for which its colour temperature profile is unknown to the device sending the video signal.

I don't see why not, a gray scale from what ever device is the same to the human eye.

In a TV monitor you would adjust the monitor RGB gains & blacks and in a computer profile you adjust the signals sent to the monitor to achieve the same result.