Albert's Attic Gallery

Because there wasn't really room in the UHF TV band for a fifth analogue channel, Channel 5 had to be transmitted on channel 37 in many areas. This channel had previously been used for VCR outputs only. This meant that millions of VCRs had to have their output channel retuned.

Oh dear, what fun was had by all! I think everyone who was in the trade at the time has a string of hilarious Channel 5 Retuner stories. All through 1996 a significant part of our workload consisted of sorting out the chaos. We used to say that we were the 'Post-Channel 5 Retuner's Visit Rectification Corporation'. You couldn't blame the retuners, for the most part. They had very little training and no proper test equipment. Some of them just ripped Channel 5 off, though, working their way down the street collecting signatures and doing little or no actual retuning. They were probably the ones who did the least harm!

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