What the Ferguson 65 Mk2 Actually Was
The Ferguson 65 was a British television test signal generator made by Ferguson (which became part of Thorn EMI) from the mid-1970s into the 1980s. It producedPAL colour bars, grey scales, and grayscale stepping wedges that engineers used to align broadcast equipment and monitor studio cameras. The Mk2 improved on the original with better stability and a few extra outputs. Most of them ended up in university labs, engineering colleges, or small production houses that couldn't justify a full broadcast-grade generator. They still turn up on eBay now and then. If you're looking for the manual, the best versions floating around are scanned from the original Thorn EMI documentation. Search for "Ferguson 65 manual pdf" on sites like ClassicAudioEquipment.com or the Broadcast Engineering archive forums. The PDF is usually around 4-6 MB and covers block diagrams, alignment procedures, and parts lists. There's no single authoritative hosted version, so you'll be digging through forum threads and old collector sites. If I had to pick one reliable source, it's the UK Vintage Radio and Test Equipment Facebook group - someone posted a high-res scan there a while back and it's been mirrored a few times since. I spent a few weeks tracking one down myself because I needed the alignment procedure for the colour bar section. The version on eManualOnline is decent but missing the last three pages. The Thorn EMI internal document number is something like TEPD-142 or thereabouts - if you quote that when emailing technical archives, people tend to take it more seriously than just asking for "the manual."
Getting It Running
These units are decades old. The capacitors dry out. The resistors drift. If you're pulling one out of storage after ten years, don't just plug it in. The power supply has filter capacitors that were likely electrolytic, and even if the unit looks fine externally they'll degrade. I'd recommend a slow-variable transformer through a variac for the first power-up and watch the B+ rails with a multimeter before committing. The Ferguson 65 Mk2 runs on mains voltage, typically 220-240V 50Hz for the UK market. Some were converted for other regions. Check the label on the back before doing anything. If it's a 110V unit and you plug it into British mains without a transformer, you'll destroy the power supply instantly. I've seen this happen more than once with people buying them from American sellers who didn't realize the voltage mismatch. Warm-up time is roughly 15-20 minutes for the CRT and oscillator circuits to stabilize. The colour bar output won't be accurate before then. Don't bother aligning it cold.
Common Problems and What Actually Works
The most frequent issue is a weak or missing colour bar output. Usually this comes down to either the chrominance oscillator not running or the RGB amplifiers being misbiased. Check the oscillators first - there's a trimmer on the colour subcarrier crystal oscillator that shifts over time. I found a unit where the colour bars were there but the greens were dead. Turned out the green amplifier transistor (marked on the board, usually something like BC108 or similar NPN - check your specific revision) had developed a high leakage path between collector and base. Replacement fixed it immediately. Another thing that goes wrong is the CRT filament. These units use a specific picture tube, often a 5AP4 or similar. If the screen is dim or won't light at all, check the filament voltage first. A common mistake is assuming the tube is dead when it's actually the filament transformer or a blown fuse on the heater circuit. I had a unit where the blue bar worked but everything else was black. The issue traced to a cracked solder joint on the CRT socket pin 3 (the red anode connection). Touching it up with fresh solder solved it. You'd think the manual would mention this but it doesn't cover board-level faults in detail. The sync separator and timing circuits are generally robust. Once aligned, they stay aligned for years unless something physically changes. The vertical hold circuit can be finicky on some revisions - if the image rolls, check the integrator capacitor first. Usually a 47µF or 100µF electrolytic that's gone dry.
Get the Full Details
Alignment Procedure Overview
The manual walks through alignment in this order: power supply rails, oscillator frequencies, RGB balance, colour saturation, and finally geometry. Don't skip steps. The colour bar output depends on the subcarrier frequency being correct, so if you haven't verified the oscillator trimmer before adjusting the RGB levels, you'll waste time chasing ghosts. I learned that the hard way. For colour bar alignment you need a properly calibrated CRT monitor or a waveform monitor if you have access to one. A scope with a 10:1 probe works fine for checking amplitude and timing. The manual specifies a 75-ohm load for the video output - don't leave it unterminated. The output stage expects that load and the amplitudes will be wrong without it. The grey scale stepping wedge output is useful for checking gamma and contrast ratio. Adjust the display's contrast and brightness controls to match the manual's specified luminance values. It typically calls for white at around 100 IRE and black at 7.5 IRE with the blanking level set correctly.
Limitations You Should Know About
This was designed for PAL B/G systems. It won't produce NTSC signals natively. If you're working in a PAL-only environment it's fine, but don't expect it to do anything useful for American broadcast standards. The colour subcarrier is fixed at 4.43 MHz. The output bandwidth is adequate for standard definition but not great for modern digital workflows. If you need to feed this into a digitizer, expect some high-frequency rolloff. It's not a precision instrument by today's standards - tolerances are in the range of plus or minus a few percent on amplitudes, which was acceptable for broadcast monitoring in the 1970s but looks sloppy now. Spares are not readily available. Transistors can be substituted with modern equivalents but you need to check the pinouts carefully - some of the originals were TO-5 metal cans or older plastic packages that don't map directly to current stock. Integrated circuits, if any are used in later revisions, are likely obsolete. I've found that some of the custom Thorn EMI ICs don't have direct replacements and require circuit modification to work around them.
If you need a reliable test signal generator for current work, a used Tektronix VSG or even a Raspberry Pi running open-source test pattern software will outperform this unit in most practical scenarios. The Ferguson 65 Mk2 is more of a museum piece now than a working tool. But if you're restoring vintage broadcast equipment or teaching the history of television engineering, it's genuinely useful and the manual is worth having.
Where to Find Support
The usual places are the UK Vintage Radio and Test Equipment forum (ukvr.net), the Antique Wireless Association forums, and various YouTube channels that focus on retro broadcast gear. Someone recently did a complete restoration of a Ferguson 65 on video and the comments section has useful tips. Search for "Ferguson 65 restoration" and you'll find it. The practical knowledge in those comments is worth more than most of the documentation available online. There's also a small community around Thorn EMI broadcast equipment on Reddit, though activity is sporadic. Still, posting a photo of your unit's fault usually gets a response within a day or two from people who've worked on the same equipment.
