SPECIALIST MUSEUMS AND PLACES TO VISIT

• AMBERLEY CHALK PITS MUSEUM, Amberley, Arundel, Sussex, BN18 9LT (01798-831370, fax 01798-831831). Opposite Amberley station, easy road access. Opening hours vary according to time of year, daily in high season. Comprehensive industrial archaeology museum, with a superb selection of old television sets in a reconstructed radio and television showroom of the 1950s.
• DESIGN MUSEUM, Butler's Wharf, Shad Thames, London, SE1 2YD (020-7403 6933). A small number of design classic sets are on show.
• MONTACUTE RADIO & TELEVISION MUSEUM, behind the post office, South Street, Montacute, near Yeovil, Somerset. This contains literally hundreds of interesting items dating back over sixty years. Shop-window layouts are used for some of the small items. The upstairs room houses mainly older radios, a PA system used in 1945, at least one radiogram pre-dating LPs and one TV. The long downstairs section has rooms full of radios and radiograms, many of them dated and marked with the original purchase price. One section is completely filled with TV sets, bearing such names as Bush, Ferguson, Ekco and Defiant, all of them 405-line only. Perched high up in this room is a 625-line Ultra portable. One of the shop-windows has a Decca dual standard 24" set behind it, and another has a Sony colour portable. At the front end among war-time radios, a sound system plays recordings of historic broadcasts [Philip M Reynolds].
• MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (MOMI), South Bank, London SE1 (020-7928 3535 switchboard or 020-7401 2636 recorded information line). Closed for rebuilding; exhibits include old TV cameras, fifties living room with period set playing old programmes.
• NATIONAL MEDIA MUSEUM, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD1 1NQ. Tel. 0870 7010200 (8:30am - 8:30pm) Formerly known as the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television. Open Tuesday to Sundays 10.00-18.00. Good displays of old TV cameras and receivers. A new Television Gallery has recently been opened. Click HERE for the web site.
• VINTAGE WIRELESS MUSEUM, 23 Rosendale Road, West Dulwich, London, SE21 8DS (020-8670 3667). Delightful museum with working pre-war television sets and ex-BBC standards converters. Often featured on television, but not always open; visitors must telephone first for an appointment.
• YORK CASTLE MUSEUM, The Eye of York, York, YO1 1RY (01904-653611). Open daily from 09.30. Exhibits include 1950s living room and a Bush TV22 set on which you can watch Hancock's Half Hour.

There are also plans for a museum of television at the historic Alexandra Palace site in north London.