Europlus PAL card questions

[Linards Ticmanis <ticmanis@coli.uni-sb.de>]

I received a PAL card through eBay today. It's a clone I assume, the PCB 
is marked "PAL[encoder]", it has the little modulator box with the 
output marked "UHF" and another output marked "Video O P". Otherwise 
there is only a handwritten "OK 27.9.83". The PCB is blue in color. 
There are four ICs, a TCA650, a 74LS175, a 74LS164 and a 74LS74.

The thing is thus from late 1983 and is originally from the UK as far as 
I know. Can somebody identify what exactly I've got there? Am I right 
that it's supposed to go into slot 7 of an Europlus?

The problem is, it doesn't seem to work. I've only tried an amber 
monitor so far (kind of defeats the purpose...) The picture I get has 
extremely low contrast - so low that you can just sort of guess that 
there's something on the screen amid the snow that appears when I turn 
the monitor to full brightness. Text mode is even worse snow-wise than 
Hires or Lores Graphics. In Graphics mode lines drawn with HPLOT can be 
seen if you look closely, in text mode the snow is so strong that even 
the blinking cursor can just be noticed, while NORMAL text isn't visible 
at all. I've only tried the Video Out, maybe the TV Out will work 
better, I'll have to try though I doubt it.

The guy who sold it said it had been stored away for many years, but had 
worked before that. Are there any electronic components except EPROMS 
(which the card doesn't have) that get bad with age when not in use? 
There are a few small electrolytical caps (100�F 16V), would it make 
sense to replace those? What about quartzes? There is one, unfortunately 
the markings aren't readable any more.

Also, does anybody have documentation, schematics or troubleshooting 
hints for those beasts??

Thanks a lot in advance,
--

Linards Ticmanis

 The Master said, "The business of laying on the colors follows the
preparation of the plain ground."